Victor Blackwell says what must be said

Today’s Saturday Stumper

I’m tiring of the word difficult as a descriptor of the Saturday Stumper. So I’ll say that today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, was difficile — at least for me. How do you say “at least for me” in Italian?

I began in the midwest with 29-D, ten letters, “Here’s something to think about,” not sure about the answer, obviously, but pretty sure that it might be right. (It was, mostly.) That answer gave me 45-A, seven letters, “Major influence on Matisse.” Then I saw 38-A, seven letters, “Scholar who debated Luther.” Ah, a random obvious answer that took me back to college reading. But then things became more difficile.

Choice quality: 6-D, four letters, “Servers with squad goals.” 7-D, five letters, “Spirit of fulfillment.” 51-D, five letters, “Rolls at the ballpark.” 52-A, five letters, “Hash tag.” And my favorite: 30-A, seven letters, “Come to question?” How might those clues might be translated into Italian? I lift my hands and shoulders and shrug.

No spoilers: the answers, in English, are in the comments.

Robert Musil in the Times

“No culture can rest on a crooked relationship to truth”: Robert Musil, quoted by Roger Cohen in a New York Times column. Cohen quoted a longer version in a 2018 column:

That which we call culture presumably does not directly have the concept of truth as a criterion, but no culture can rest on a crooked relationship to truth.

The source for this passage (translator uncredited) is not easy to find. Cohen references printed matter accompanying a 2018 art exhibition, Before the Fall: German and Austrian Art of the 1930s. Searching for the longer or shorter passage or any assortment of key words yields Cohen’s columns and little more. I decided to search for musil and kultur and wahrheit in Google Books, and that’s where I found the source. The passage is part of a much longer sentence:

was wir Kultur nennen, wohl nicht unmittelbar den Begriff der Wahrheit zum Kriterium hat, doch aber keine Kultur auf einem schiefen Verhältnis zur Wahrheit ruhen kann.

This passage appears in notes for a talk Musil gave in Paris, in July 1935, to the First International Congress of Writers for the Defense of Culture. The words bear repeating in translation:

That which we call culture presumably does not directly have the concept of truth as a criterion, but no culture can rest on a crooked relationship to truth.

*

I found another translation, by Burton Pike and David S. Luft, Precision and Soul: Essays and Addresses (1995), a gathering of Musil’s non-fiction. This volume makes clear that the passage comes from Musil’s notes, not from the talk itself:

what we call culture is not directly subservient to the criterion of truth; but no great culture can rest on a distorted relationship to truth.

Related reading
All OCA Robert Musil posts (Pinboard)

Hi-tems in a series

[Hi and Lois, July 27, 2019.]

Looks like Hi has been reading Bruce Ross-Larson’s Edit Yourself: A Manual for Everyone Who Works with Words (1982). See this post for an explanation.

Related reading
All OCA Hi and Lois posts (Pinboard)

About retronyms

“An unexpected delight of summer”: Caren Lissner writes about retronyms.

As an acoustic guitarist, I like retronyms. Thanks, Murray.

Related posts
Old-Fashioned : “Snail Mail,” 1968

“Buddha, Gautama”

General Stumm von Bordwehr has been attending meetings of the Parallel Campaign and is trying to instill order into the discussion of great ideas. He’s outlined the main ones:


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

Related reading
All OCA Musil posts (Pinboard)

Ben Leddy hosts The Rewind

Here’s “Relax and Enjoy Your Garden,” the latest installment of WGBH’s The Rewind, hosted by our son Ben. Bonus: puns.

Hi and Lois negation watch

[Hi and Lois, July 25, 2019. Click for a larger view.]

Let’s overthink it a little, long enough to realize that Ditto’s “did” really means that he did not take the sunscreen:

“I told you not to drive without your license.”

“I did [drive without a license].”

So in the second panel, Ditto has to reply “I didn’t. I just forgot,” &c., which would turn today’s strip into a mess of negations: “I didn’t [not go out without sunscreen].” The problem can be avoided by assigning Lois a new line to read:


[Hi and Lois revised, July 25, 2019. Click for a larger view.]

Am I really overthinking it? I don’t think so. I think of Ernie Bushmiller laboring over every word.

Related reading
All OCA Hi and Lois posts (Pinboard)

Winehouse and McTell

Two especially affecting episodes of the BBC podcast Soul Music : Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black” and Ralph McTell’s “Streets of London.”

“By our people, through our franchise, and not by some hostile foreign power”

House Intelligence Committeee chair Adam Schiff (D, California-18), in his opening statement this afternoon, addressing Robert Mueller:

Your report laid out multiple offers of Russian help to the Trump campaign, the campaign’s acceptance of that help, and overt acts in furtherance of Russian help. To most Americans, that is the very definition of collusion, whether it is a crime or not.

They say your report found no evidence of obstruction, though you outline numerous actions by the President intended to obstruct the investigation.

They say the President has been fully exonerated, though you specifically declare you could not exonerate him.

In fact, they say your whole investigation was nothing more than a witch hunt, that the Russians didn’t interfere in our election, that it’s all a terrible hoax. The real crime, they say, is not that the Russians intervened to help Donald Trump, but that the FBI had the temerity to investigate it when they did.

But worst of all, worse than all the lies and the greed, is the disloyalty to country, for that too, continues. When asked, if the Russians intervene again, will you take their help, Mr. President? Why not, was the essence of his answer. Everyone does it.

No, Mr. President, they don’t. Not in the America envisioned by Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton. Not for those who believe in the idea that Lincoln labored until his dying day to preserve, the idea animating our great national experiment, so unique then, so precious still — that our government is chosen by our people, through our franchise, and not by some hostile foreign power.

This is what is at stake. Our next election, and the one after that, for generations to come. Our democracy.

This is why your work matters, Mr. Mueller. This is why our investigation matters. To bring these dangers to light.