No rocks

[Mark Trail, March 19, 2019.]

Doc Davis, Cherry Davis Trail’s father, Mark Trail’s father-in-law, is telling a between-Mark-Trail-adventures story. I believe it’s what they call an interpolated tale. Or is it interminable?

Doc, if you were hoping to find some rocks, you’re in the wrong comic strip.



Related reading
All OCA Mark Trail posts (Pinboard) : “Some rocks” posts

D. Bill, “Folk Art”

[D. Bill, “Folk Art.” Wood poles. 1997–1998. As seen at Meadowbrook Park, Urbana, Illinois. “Folk Art,” with quotation marks, is the title. Click for a larger view.]

I like the way the U mirrors the mouth.

In 1993 D. Bill, Darwin Bill (1922–2012), was the subject of a Chicago Tribune story. Here’s a public Facebook page for D. Bill’s art. And here’s an account, with photographs, from someone who went to see him.

Thanks for that

Something I’m thankful for: having taught at a regional state university (as they’re called), I never taught children of high privilege, the kind with parents who buy or cheat their offspring’s way in.

The closest I ever came to such stuff: a telephone call from the parent of a flagrant plagiarizer. I’ve put a lot of money into my kid’s education, and I’m not going to let someone, &c. Yes, but I’m sorry: FERPA prohibits me from talking with you about a student’s work without that student’s permission. And that was that.

A text for the day

It’s fitting that ad canvasser Leopold Bloom, who goes to sleep thinking of “one sole unique advertisement to cause passers to stop in wonder,” should see Saint Patrick as an ad man who came up with a smart way to capture the public’s attention. From “The Lotus Eaters” episode of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922):



Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to all.

[Saint Patrick is said to have used the shamrock to explain the Trinity to the Irish.]

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper is by one Garrett Estrada. I can’t recall seeing that name before, and searching for garrett estrada crossword turns up nothing. Debut? Pseudonym? Will the real Garrett Estrada please stand up? I hope so, because this constructor has created an exceptionally challenging Saturday Stumper. (Fifty-eight minutes of challenge for me.)

I made an educated guess for 1-Down, five letters, “Bass in Berlioz’s ‘Les Troyens’” (gotta be, right?). Then I saw 4-Down, four letters, “Cousins of mandos,” and thought I was on my way. 32-Across, six letters, “Bayard who organized the March on Washington (1963),” was a giveaway, and 33-Down, four letters, “Titular Morrison nonconformist,” fooled me into thinking that the puzzle was going to fall into place. Uh-uh. Not for some time.

Clues that I greatly admired: 1-Across, six letters, “Fake to the left.” 24-Across, five letters, “Piece of high fashion?” 35-Down, nine letters, “They may scrutinize shelters.”

Grudging admiration goes to 2-Down, nine letters, “Reds coach.” Coach? Well, sort of. But “Reds manager” would be better.

Most fiendish clue of all: 43-Across, four letters, “As in C.”

I hope to see more puzzles from Garrett Estrada, especially on Saturdays. No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

W.S. Merwin (1927–2019)

W.S. Merwin, from “For the Anniversary of My Death” (1967).

The poet W.S. Merwin has died at the age of ninety-one. The New York Times has an obituary.

Two responses

My warmest sympathy and best wishes goes out to the people of New Zealand after the horrible massacre in the Mosques. 49 innocent people have so senselessly died, with so many more seriously injured. The U.S. stands by New Zealand for anything we can do. God bless all!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 15, 2019

Michelle and I send our condolences to the people of New Zealand. We grieve with you and the Muslim community. All of us must stand against hatred in all its forms.

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) March 15, 2019

These contrasting responses speak for themselves.

Ron Padgett on comparisons

Re: “the greatest photo in jazz”: here is the poet Ron Padgett commenting on greatness and comparisons. From an interview with Edward Foster, Talisman 7 (Fall 1991):

I think a book like The Sonnets by Ted Berrigan is still really an extraordinary book. Is it better than Lunch Poems? I think that kind of comparison is unproductive and invidious. Tennis commentators are always asking, Do you think Ivan Lendl could have beaten Bill Tilden? Is Homer greater than Dante? What kind of question is that?

Related reading
All OCA Ron Padgett posts (Pinboard)

[Lunch Poems: by Frank O’Hara.]

“The greatest photo in jazz”?

The New York Times has a story by Peter Facini about Bob Parent’s 1953 photograph of Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, and Roy Haynes: ”Is This the Greatest Photo in Jazz History?” Facini asserts that this photo has “has been called by many ‘the greatest photo in jazz.’”

I know this photo well, having first seen it in a Parker biography many years ago. It’s a wonderful photo, but I’m not sure there’s any evidence that “many” have called it “the greatest photo in jazz.” I’ve never heard of the photo being described in that way; who the “many” might be, I don’t know. Try searching for greatest photo and bob parent and you’ll turn up this Times article and a 2018 article in which Facini makes the same claim: “widely considered the greatest photograph in Jazz.”

The idea of a work of art being “greatest” is foreign to me. But if there must be a greatest photo in jazz, the obvious contender is the 1958 Art Kane photo that has become known as A Great Day in Harlem, a photo that Facini doesn’t mention, a photo that’s spawned a documentary, a poster, a hip-hop homage, and at least two books. Kane’s photo is an extraordinary human-interest story in which every face is distinctive. As is the case with Parent’s photo. But it’s Kane’s photo that is known as immortal, legendary, the greatest, &c.

[Of the four musicians in Bob Parent’s photograph, only Roy Haynes is living. Of the fifty-seven musicians in A Great Day in Harlem, only Benny Golson and Sonny Rollins are living.]

Not from The Onion

From the New York Post: “Son defends parents caught in college admissions scandal while smoking blunt.” Says the son: “I believe everyone has a right to go to college, man.” But it’s his sister who pursued higher education.

While he pursued “higher” education? Now I’m thinking like the Post.

But I’d revise the headline: “Blunt-smoking son defends parents caught in college admissions scandal.” Or more Post-like: “Higher education? Son offers ‘blunt’ defense of parents caught in college admissions scandal.”