“Laurie, powl ’em”

Sundry stories:

A many Idle tales are told of Sterne in the Country. Once it is said that as he was going over the Fields on a sunday to preach at Stillington it happened that his Pointer Dog sprung a Covey of Partridges, when he went directly home for his Gun and left his Flock that was waiting for him in the Church, in the lurch.

Another time when he was skaiting on the Car at Stillington, the Ice broke in with him in the middle of the Pond, and none of the Parishioners wou’d assist to extricate him, as they were at variance. Another time a Flock of Geese assembled in the Church Yard at Sutton, when his Wife bawl’d out, “Laurie, powl ’em,” i.e. pluck the quills, on which they were ready to riot and mob Laurie.

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Sterne’e Popularity at one time arose to that pitch, that on a Wager laid in London that a Letter addressed to Tristram Shandy in Europe shou’d reach him when luckily the Letter came down into Yorkshire and the Post Boy meeting Sterne on the road to Sutton pulled off his hatt and gave it him.

From “Yorkshire Anecdotes,” in The Complete Works and Life of Laurence Sterne (1904).

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“Political Teamsmanship”

“Even if we were all, as Americans, very, very similar people, which we’re not — but even if were, it would be possible for us to see a lot of hatred and animosity between our political teams, simply because they’re teams.” A dispiriting story from WGBH’s Innovation Hub: “Political Teamsmanship.”

Concentration camps

At The New Yorker, Masha Gessen writes about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s characterization of detention facilities for migrants as concentration camps:

It is the choice between thinking that whatever is happening in reality is, by definition, acceptable, and thinking that some actual events in our current reality are fundamentally incompatible with our concept of ourselves — not just as Americans but as human beings — and therefore unimaginable. The latter position is immeasurably more difficult to hold — not so much because it is contentious and politically risky, as attacks on Ocasio-Cortez continue to demonstrate, but because it is cognitively strenuous. It makes one’s brain implode. It will always be a minority position.

As I read only yesterday in The Washington Post, detained migrant children are being held without soap, without toothbrushes, without adequate food, in conditions that make sleep impossible. Those conditions should make sleep impossible for all Americans.

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Later the same day: The New Yorker has an interview with Warren Binford, a lawyer and law professor who has interviewed children at a Border Patrol “facility” in Texas. An excerpt:

“They told us that they were hungry. They told us that some of them had not showered or had not showered until the day or two days before we arrived. Many of them described that they only brushed their teeth once. This facility knew last week that we were coming. The government knew three weeks ago that we were coming.”

Today’s Saturday Stumper

If I were using the Romper Room magic mirror with today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, I’d say “I see Walt” (16-A, five letters, “Whitman's Civil War job”). And “I see Edie” (40-A, five letters, “Birth name of Mrs. Soprano’s portrayer”). And then I’d have to ask, “Can I say ‘Mister’ on Romper Room”? That’d be 25-A, five letters, “Sotomayor’s TV inspiration.” I guess I just did.

I liked this puzzle, a lot. Short on names, short on trivia, big on words. Clue and answer pairs I especially liked:

The dowdy 21-D, ten letters, “Campfire entertainment.”

The I-never-heard-of-it 28-D, ten letters, “Encouragement for a homer hitter.”

The homey 36-A, ten letters, “Caruso, by birth.”

The very clever 51-A, five letters, “Totally blocked?”

The clever 52-A, five letters, “Two-way address.”

And the kind of obvious but still clever 56-A, three letters, “Size or three sizes, briefly.”

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

“As if a person had suddenly materialized”

Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities. 1930–1943. Trans. Sophie Wilkins (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995).

Musil’s understanding of contingency and the formation of an adult identity is eerily similar to Willa Cather’s: see The Professor’s House. The difference is that Cather’s protagonist, Godfrey St. Peter, notices — and in so doing, undoes his life.

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Fluke life (My story of contingency)

50 Things: “Pencil”

From the BBC: the latest episode of Tim Harford’s podcast 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy: “Pencil.” Nothing here that a pencil-lover won’t already know. And the episode treats the pencil not as something that helped make the economy but as something made. But still worth a listen.

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“Scientifically” vs. “just words”

Donald Trump, yesterday: “It’s documented scientifically, not just words.” An odd sentence, in several ways:

It misunderstands science: “knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method.” Answers supported by evidence are not necessarily answers to scientific questions.

It bespeaks extraordinary hypocrisy, because Trump so often dismisses science, as in his statements about global warming and vaccinations.

It reduces language to a medium in which anyone can say anything, without evidence, free of any obligation to truth. “Just words”: language as a medium not of inquiry and knowledge but of lies. Of course, that’s the way Donald Trump has treated language for many years.

Moleskine sandwich

Re: ice-cream sandwiches: it occurred to me this afternoon, and not for the first time, that the Moleskine twelve-month hardcover pocket Daily Planner is the ice-cream sandwich of planners.

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“Constellations, bacteria, Balzac, and Nietzsche”

Ulrich, lovesick lieutenant, explains the world to the major’s wife:


Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities. 1930–1943. Trans. Sophie Wilkins (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995).

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Carvel apostrophe

[“Lost in the Stars.” Zippy, June 20, 2019.]

Indeed, it’s Carvel, not Dairy Queen, who can claim the Flying Saucer. So it must have been a Carvel stand that we walked to sometimes in summer. (Yes, it was.) I remember the Saucer’s cookie: like Masonite, without the cakey softness of the typical ice-cream sandwich cookie. Maybe the Flying Saucer cookie kept better in outer space.

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