A political thought

The last thing Democrats need to do is to turn the 2020 presidential election into a battle between oldsters. Such a battle will do little to spark voter interest and much to spark parody. Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren: no.

What the Democratic Party needs is a candidate who offers a sharp contrast to Donald Trump not only in policy but in affect. Sherrod Brown, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke: yes.

A Mongol sighting

[Robert Bice as a police dispatcher. From The Racket (dir. John Cromwell, 1951). Click for a larger view.]

It looks like — is it? Hard to tell. Hit Pause. Look closely. Yes, it’s a Mongol pencil. The ferrule is the giveaway: dark, shiny, dark. Click for a larger view and you, too, can be sure.

I rediscovered the Eberhard Faber Mongol, the pencil of my childhood, in the early 1990s, after I stopped smoking cigarettes and became an ever more dedicated stationery fiend. I like Mongols, on my desk or in the movies. And yes, I also noticed the cigarette in the dispatcher’s hand.

Related reading
All OCA Mongol posts (Pinboard)

Resolution 2019

[Reposted, with the year changed, from January 1, 2018.]

I’m thinking about resolution, as a frame of mind, as “determination; firmness or steadfastness of purpose; the possession of a resolute or unyielding cast of mind.”

Not “Drink more water,” though that’s probably always a good idea. Not “Binge more,” as heard on a T-Mobile commercial yesterday morning.

I’m determined to be resolute in 2019, to not yield to cultural or political despair, to maintain a sense of humor and irreverence as appropriate, to maintain a sense of reverence as appropriate, to speak up and out when the occasion calls for it, and to do what I can in my very limited sphere of influence to make a better world. How about you?

And with regard to American democracy, I’m thinking about another kind of resolution:

the subsiding or cessation of a pathological process, disease, symptom, etc.; spec . the termination of inflammation, esp. without suppuration or permanent damage to tissue.

See? Still a sense of humor and irreverence. Happy New Year.

[Definitions from the Oxford English Dictionary.]

A 2019 calendar

[Peanuts, January 1, 1972.]

Here is one last pitch for a free, ultra-dowdy calendar, three months to a page, made by me, available from my Dropbox. Print, staple, and navigate a year's worth of time. In Gill Sans Bold, licorice and cayenne (black and dark red), with a few holidays and one mystery birthday marked in pleasing colors. Works on bulletin boards, refrigerators, and other solid surfaces. Visible across a crowded or sparsely populated room. While supplies last!

A Robinson New Year’s Eve

I love this description of the Robinson family’s New Year’s Eve. “She” is Marian Robinson, Michelle Obama’s mother:

On New Year’s Eve, as a matter of tradition, she’d buy a special hors d’oeuvre basket, the kind that came filled with blocks of cheese, smoked oysters in a tin, and different kinds of salami. She’d invite my dad’s sister Francesca over to play board games. We’d order a pizza for dinner and then snack our way elegantly through the rest of the evening, my mom passing around trays of pigs in a blanket, fried shrimp, and a special cheese spread baked on Ritz crackers. As midnight drew closer, we’d each have a tiny glass of champagne.

Michelle Obama, Becoming (New York: Crown, 2018).

I thought about this passage (from a book I’ve just started) after reading a Gothamist report on people spending the day and night standing and waiting in Times Square while wearing Depends — or while not wearing Depends. Good luck with that. I vote for spending the night in a warm house with those you love.

New Year’s Eve 1918

New Year’s Eve in 1916 and 1917: pretty quiet in New York City. I would have imagined that the first New Year’s Eve to follow the end of the Great War was noisy. No:


[“Just Enough Noise to Wake Baby Year: Outdoor Celebration Pales by Comparison with Times Sq. on Armistice Night.” The New York Times, January 1, 1919.]

How to clear your place

Alert facilitator that you are done with your meal: “Go.” Wait for assistance.

Once free and standing, take plate from facilitator. Grasp plate in both hands. Make sure that facilitator has taken wastebasket out from under-sink cabinet. Walk toward wastebasket.

Hold plate high. High, high, high. All the way up. That’s it. All the way up. Yay!

Tip plate to drop food into wastebasket, or onto floor. Uh-oh!

Wait for assistance. A piece of bagel on floor? Pick up! Enjoy! Facilitator will place any other floor food in basket before returning basket to cabinet.

Push cabinet door shut. Yay! Good job! Wait for applause.

Smile.

[That’s how our granddaughter Talia, fourteen months old, does it. YMMV. Thanks to Rachel for reminding me about the bagel.]

MSNBC, sheesh

A chyron: “Mueller subpoena’s unknown corporation owned by unknown country.”

Related reading
All OCA sheesh posts (Pinboard)

[Subpoena’s may be a genuine possessive and not an ill-formed verb (“The corporation named in Mueller’s subpoena is owned by,” &c.). That aside, the corporation and country are not unknown. They are as yet unidentified.]

Out of copyright

From The New York Times:

This coming year marks the first time in two decades that a large body of copyrighted works will lose their protected status — a shift that will have profound consequences for publishers and literary estates, which stand to lose both money and creative control.

But it will also be a boon for readers, who will have more editions to choose from, and for writers and other artists who can create new works based on classic stories without getting hit with an intellectual property lawsuit.

Works by Willa Cather, Robert Frost, Marcel Proust, and Wallace Stevens are among those falling out of copyright. The challenge for many readers will be to find trustworthy non-sketchy editions. Amazon makes that task more difficult than it should be. A bookstore might be a better place to look.

A related post
Mount Proust (Shaped by copyright law)

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Andrew Bell Lewis, is a true Saturday. Not especially tricky, but difficult, for sure. A fine value in puzzling.

Three clues that I especially liked for their novelty: 1-Across, nine letters, “Felonious pier group.” 5-Down, eleven letters, “Timberlake wore them as a teen.” And 13-Down, ten letters, “Start of many a mechanical invention.”

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.