“Getting real things done”

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

Related reading
All OCA Musil posts (Pinboard)

Needs studied

“A Downstate Illinois Dictionary” (Chicago). With fronted o, need + past participle, and positive anymore.

Related posts
Illinoism : “Need worked” : Positive anymore

[“Illinois”? “Ellinois?” I think either pronunciation is acceptable. But only Sufjan Stevens can get away with “Illinoise.”]

It Depends

“Pa-pa doesn’t wear diapers.”

Talia is right.

But you never know, Talia. If Pa-pa lives long enough, he might someday wear diapers. It Depends.

[Elaine is Gamma. I who was Ba-pa am now Pa-pa, still with equal stress on each syllable. Language evolves.]

Toni Morrison (1931–2019)

Toni Morrison, novelist, critic, Nobel laureate, has died at the age of eighty-eight. The New York Times has an obituary.

The final paragraphs of Morrison’s Jazz are one of my favorite things in all literature. Getting a kick from these paragraphs requires, really, reading all that precedes them. So I’ll share these paragraphs while preserving a mystery:


Toni Morrison, Jazz (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992).

Other Morrison posts
“Hi” vs. “hello” : Slow down and read : “Undercover whispers” : “Why not ghosts”

Dad, i.m.

My dad, James Leddy, died four years ago today. He’d have been ninety-one this year, climbing to ever higher and more dangerous altitudes.

In telephone conversations my dad used to bring up the names of old-time film stars and bit players for me to look into online. He’d always want to know if those under investigation were “still around.” Almost always, they were not.

In 2016, I encountered this passage, attributed to John Chrysostom, but easy enough for a non-believer to agree with: “Those whom we love and lose are no longer where they were before. They are now wherever we are.” Dad, you’re still around.

Here is what I wrote after my dad died.

What another president has to say

pic.twitter.com/nNOVtQ50O4

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 5, 2019

“Do something!”

Jennifer Rubin, writing in The Washington Post:

Trump is uniquely unsuited to the moment not only because he lacks empathy and decency. If we as a country truly want to speak with one voice and condemn hate, we must collectively throw him out of office. He’s the largest, loudest megaphone for white nationalism and for anti-immigrant fervor. He’s an implacable opponent of serious gun safety legislation. He is not merely in the way. He is the problem.

And if other politicians who hear the chant of “Do something!” respond by doing nothing, it’s up to voters to do something: to organize, donate, vote, and throw those politicians, too, out of office.

“The Case of the Purloined Prairie”

Here is a fifth (and almost certainly final) piece of Lassie fan-fiction. I’m thinking of it as distraction, diversion, respite. Click on each image for a slightly larger page. Enjoy.













All OCA Lassie posts (Pinboard)

Four more Lassie stories
“The ’Clipse” : “The Poet” (with Robert Frost) : “Bon Appétit!” (with Julia Child) : “On the Road” (with Tod and Buz from Route 66)

[The odd naming conventions for the Masonic characters — Mason, Paul Drake, Della — are my invention. “California”: wherever Calverton is, it’s not in California. “Statues of elimination”: not a typo. The “Juliett” of the NATO phonetic alphabet puzzles me too.]

On Louis Armstrong’s birthday

[“Musician Louis Armstrong with neighborhood kids.” Photograph by John Loengard. Queens, New York, 1965. From the Life Photo Archive.]

From “Our Neighborhood” (c. 1970):

When my wife Lucille + I moved into this neighborhood there were mostly white people. A few Colored families. Just think — through the (29) years that we′ve been living in this house′ we have seen just about (3) generations come up on this particular block — 107 Street between 34th + 37th Ave. Lots of them have grown up — Married′ had Children. Their Children + they still come and visit — Aunt Lucille + Uncle Louis.

Louis Armstrong, in His Own Words, ed. Thomas Brothers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).

Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901. Columbia University’s WKCR is playing Armstrong today.

In light of current events, I’ll borrow from something I said I said to my students when I played a recording in class not long after a 2013 mass killing: There are people whose work is to perpetrate suffering, and there are people whose work is to create joy. Musicians engage in that second endeavor.

Nobody more so than Louis Armstrong.

Related reading
All OCA Louis Armstrong posts (Pinboard)

[I’ve followed the editor’s use of the prime for the apostrophe, a mark Armstrong used to convey emphasis.]

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Lester Ruff, broke into four pieces for me: two easier (top-right and bottom-left), two more difficult. The easy pieces each had a fairly blatant giveaway: 17-A, nine letters, “World’s highest paid actress in 2017”; 59-A, eight letters, “Notable who cofounded Cynicism.” A more difficult name, which I’ve heard but don’t think I’ve ever seen in print: 27-D, seven letters, “Axel’s cousin.”

Clue and answer pairs that I especially liked: 32-D, nine letters, “Swell to the max.” 33-D, nine letters, “Mediterranean Diet fare.” 12-D, five letters, “p as in Portsmouth or Plymouth.” Especially nice, that last one.

A clue I consider ill-considered: 14-A, nine letters, “Minor bump in the road.” No, not necessarily, not at all.

And a clue that taught me something: 28-A, fourteen letters, “Billionaires, collectively.” I suppose that clue is a giveaway if you’re a billionaire. Not that billionaires need a giveaway.

No giveaways here for anyone: the answers are in the comments.