More rocks

[Nancy, April 1, 2019. Click for a much larger view.]

Today’s Nancy, by Olivia Jaimes, has 1. truth (the “some rocks” trope), 2. fantasy (an origin story and squelched experimentation), 3. an image that has become a meme, and 45. rocks. Count ’em.

But what I like most about today’s strip is the care with which Jaimes has created a faux-Bushmiller panel. Notice the off-white background.

Here’s a 1961 Bushmiller panel with eight rocks.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)
All “some rocks” posts

Track

On the route that Elaine and I walk in the morning is a street about a third-of-a-mile long, running straight and curving sharply to the left at one end. Cars slow down — a lot — as they near that end and go into the curve. Watching that happen from the other end of the street always fascinates me. And I finally realized why: it’s like watching the enormous HO track in the hobby shop of my youth, a controller in my hand, my little car in the distance slowing down to take a curve.

[Yes, involuntary memory meets the slot-car craze. And now I finally know what “HO scale” means.]

Today’s Saturday Stumper

First there was Garrett Estrada. Now, with today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, Ernesto G. Prada: another name with no crossword history — another pseudonym, no doubt, for one or more terrific constructors. The same ones? After all, Estrada and Prada rhyme.

Like the Estrada puzzle, the Prada puzzle feels difficult, though it took me only half as long to solve. I saw 3-Down, seven letters, “Old school setting,” right away. I saw 5-Across, ten letters, “Literally, ‘nose-horned,’” right away. And then 6-Down, five letters, “Southeast Asian people.” But I could never say, with 13-Down, seven letters, that I was “Crushing it.” I wandered about, here and there, and likely spent as much time on the southeast corner as on the rest of the puzzle. But “‘Why not?’, these days.” That’s 42-Across, four letters.

Clues that let me say, Man, is this clever: 16-Across, ten letters, “Semi-pro.” 24-Across, four letters, “Jam ingredient from India.” 66-Across, ten letters, “Perches on the edge.” A clue whose answer I still don’t understand: 44-Down, seven letters, “Ball part.” I see what it’s about, but I don’t get it.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

[Twitter says that Garrett Estrada is a clever pseudonym for Brad Wilber and Erik Argard. I finally get it: Garrett, as in Brad Garrett; Estrada, as in Erik Estrada. But why Ernesto G. Prada? Grandpa Stereo?]

“Noisy and shiny”

Euphemia describes her aunt Beryl:


Alice Munro, “The Progress of Love.” In The Progress of Love (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986).

Also from Alice Munro
“Rusted seams” : “That is what happens” : “Henry Ford?” : “A private queer feeling” : “A radiance behind it” : Opinions : At the Manor

“Twelve chatty letters”

[Zippy, March 29, 2019.]

In today’s Zippy, an outage of cellphone service has left most Dingburgers struggling to read newspapers: “I’m swiping, but th’ page doesn’t change!” Zippy, though, is quite at home with the printed (or handwritten) page. There’s nothing like a chatty letter.

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)

[Outage in? Outage of? Of, I think.]

My uncle Perry

L—d! The Perry Mason episode “The Case of the Bogus Books” (first aired September 27, 1962) centers on a spurious first edition of Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. And who reveals that he’s a Sterne fan? Mason himself.

Related reading
All OCA Sterne posts (Pinboard)

Poverty and college applications

In The New York Times, Enoch Jemmett, a senior at Queens College, writes about the difficulties of applying to college as a student living in poverty. An excerpt:

We all knew of the SAT, for instance, but had no concrete idea of how to prepare for it. We knew that you had to apply to college, and for financial aid, but didn’t know the necessary or “smart” steps. When you’re 17, and pretty much doing it all on your own, the sight of all the hurdles you have to jump can be demoralizing, even paralyzing.

Jemmett is one of three students profiled in a forthcoming documentary about students in poverty navigating college admissions, Personal Statement.

Brunswick Sardines

From the CBC series We Are the Best, the story of Brunswick Sardines. The French and the Portuguese might have something to say about the assertion that Canadian sardines are the best. But I have no skin (or skinless and boneless) in this game: the sardines I buy hail from Morocco.

Thanks to Martha, The Crow, fellow sardinista, for sharing this link.

Related reading All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)

Ranking Roger (1963–2019)

Ranking Roger, Roger Charlery, singer with The Beat (aka The English Beat) and related groups, has died at the age of fifty-six. The New York Times has an obituary.

I was a big fan of The Beat in my youth. I swear — this past Tuesday, I wondered, out of nowhere, Whatever became of Ranking Roger? His death is a shock.

Three of my favorite Beat recordings: “Jackpot”, “The Limits We Set,” and “Whine & Grine / Stand Down Margaret.” And here’s a short set from the Beat in concert, September 26, 1980 at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey.

[I saw the Mahavishnu Orchestra at the Capitol Theatre in — 1974? Time blurs. Still the loudest music I’ve ever heard.]

Punctuation in the news

The Blast (whatever that is) reports that Olivia Jade Giannulli risks having her trademark applications rejected because of poor punctuation. “Proper punctuation in identifications is necessary to delineate explicitly each product or service within a list and to avoid ambiguity,” says the United States Patent and Trademark Office. And: “Commas, semicolons, and apostrophes are the only punctuation that should be used.”

But look at this sentence from The Blast itself:

Officials from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office claim Olivia Jade’s applications for “make up kits” with “moisturizer” and “concealer” is too broad and needs to be specified.

Agr, I would have to scrawl in the margin. Or, if I were in a more expansive mood, s-v agr.

March 28: People has the problem-punctuation passage:

make up kits comprised of moisturizer, primer, concealer, foundation, make-up powder, make-up pencils, eye make-up, eyeshadow, eye liner, mascara, blush, highlighter, bronzer, make-up setting spray lipstick lip gloss, lip stains, make-up remover.

[Olivia Jade Giannulli: daughter of Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli, sister of Isabella Giannulli, all caught in the recent college-admissions scandal.]