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From “Stalin as Linguist — II” The Barrett Watten story has made it to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

“Normal” in Gmail

A new development in e-mail: Gmail lets you know when you don’t sound “normal” in an e-mail:

As soon as you make a misstep like starting an email to your coworker with “Dear” like you’re a lunatic who’s writing them a love letter instead of just writing “Hello” like a normal person, a popup will appear, stating, “Are you sure about that? That sounds pretty weird.”

I like the premise that “Dear” is not an appropriate way to begin. In my post How to e-mail a professor, I caution against it:

“Hi/Hello Professor [Blank]” is always appropriate. Substitute “Dear” and you've ended up writing a letter; leave out “Hi” and your tone is too brusque.

Says the ClickHole report on this (okay, imaginary) new Gmail feature: “Awesome! This is definitely going to come in handy.”

America, if you’re listening

“I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected.” Russia helped him. He just said so.

And now I think of what Robert Durst said: “There it is. You’re caught.” But Durst had no handlers to step in: “The president’s meaning could not be clearer. He had nothing to do with any effort by anyone,” &c. I’m not quoting handlers, just imagining what they’ll say.

*

8:39 a.m.: CNN reports that Trump reversed himself while speaking to reporters: “You know who got me elected? I got me elected. Russia didn’t help me at all. Russia, if anything, I think, helped the other side.”

Streetside supplies

In The Guardian: “Public furniture inspired by office equipment.” Found via Lexikaliker. Thanks, Gunther.

VLC track synchronization

Say that you’ve downloaded an old television clip from YouTube and found that the audio and video are out of sync. In VLC, go to Window and click on Track Synchronization. You can advance or delay the audio track so that things line up — not permanently, but while the clip plays. A difference of two-tenths of a second might be all that you need.

I found this nifty option by searching the VLC Help file for sync.

[To download from YouTube: >4K Video Downloader.]

Mueller speaks!

My translation: I'm done. Congress, it's up to you. Read the report, everyone. Oh, and also: we weren’t allowed to charge him with a crime.

Separated at birth

 
[Claude Akins and Simon Oakland.]

Slywy suggested a separated-at-birth pairing of the actors Claude Akins and Simon Oakland. There’s a strong resemblance, made stronger still by search engines that return pictures of the one in a search for the other. The above pairing is the best I could do. I turned the Akins photo to black and white and cropped an Oakland photo to match.

Also separated at birth
Nicholson Baker and Lawrence Ferlinghetti : Bérénice Bejo and Paula Beer : Ted Berrigan and C. Everett Koop : David Bowie and Karl Held : Victor Buono and Dan Seymour : Ernie Bushmiller and Red Rodney : John Davis Chandler and Steve Buscemi : Ray Collins and Mississippi John Hurt : Broderick Crawford and Vladimir Nabokov : Ted Cruz and Joe McCarthy : Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Gough : Henry Daniell and Anthony Wiener : Jacques Derrida, Peter Falk, and William Hopper : Charles Grassley and Abraham Jebediah Simpson II : Elaine Hansen (of Davey and Goliath) and Blanche Lincoln : Barbara Hale and Vivien Leigh : Harriet Sansom Harris and Phoebe Nicholls : Steven Isserlis and Pat Metheny : Colonel Wilhelm Klink and Rudy Giuliani : Ton Koopman and Oliver Sacks : Steve Lacy and Myron McCormick : Don Lake and Andrew Tombes : William H. Macy and Michael A. Monahan : Fredric March and Tobey Maguire : Jean Renoir and Steve Wozniak : Molly Ringwald and Victoria Zinny

NYT on Peter Max

Speaking of “the transformation of art into dollars,” The New York Times report on the artist Peter Max is appalling. Dementia and cruise-ship auctions.

Wallace Stevens and beer

Do you have a six-pack of Lagunitas CitruSinensis Pale Ale around the house? Look at the bottom of the carton: the Wallace Stevens poem “The Man with the Blue Guitar” makes an appearance there. Best to remove the bottles before turning the carton over. Or look at this page from the company website.

[CitruSinensis, made with blood-orange juice, tastes mighty good. But a little thin. Not as good as Lagunitas IPA or “The Man with the Blue Guitar.”]

New directions in movie-rental signage

The local Family Video, which now sells CBD, is pushing harder. On the signboard today:

HAVE YOU TRIED
       + CBD?
 IT’S THE BALM!

That green cross makes a vaguely medical promise — and reminds me that I live in a place where too many people lack adequate access to affordable health care. It’s not a good thing for a movie-rental outlet to be encouraging self-medication with an unregulated and relatively untested substance.

And where did the local Family Video get a green plus-sign? Is this slogan in national use?