Zippy Psyche

[“Fairy Crossing.” Zippy, September 28, 2019.]

That’s Herman Sherman, “Dingburg’s ‘Skeptic-in-Chief,’” speaking with — who? A fairy, I guess, or a sprite — Herman warns her that it’s a “no-sprite zone.” Or should that be Sprite?

The fairy or sprite in today’s Zippy bears an unmistakable resemblance to Psyche, symbol of White Rock Beverages. Here’s an NPR story about Psyche and her soda company. (Soda: which is why I think there’s a pun in “no-sprite zone.”) And here’s a company page about Psyche.

I remember White Rock from my Brooklyn kidhood. I believe that Psyche was then known as “the White Rock maiden,” but I can’t find any evidence for my claim.

Here’s Psyche as herself:


[Life, December 29, 1947. Click for a larger view, and notice Psyche’s hands in the upper-right image.]

It’s worth taking the time to read the advertisement: “The drinks were tops last night — and I feel on top of the world this morning.” In other words, no hangover. Something to do with White Rock’s “alkaline effect.” Other advertisements of the period promise that White Rock keeps you “on the alkaline side.” Whatever.

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, was a pleasure to solve. I started with 6-D, six letters, “Stop making excuses,” filling in an answer that just seemed right. It gave me 23-A, four letters, “Highly quarrelsome,” which in turn gave me 24-D, eleven letters, “Flips,” and so on. I filled in a few unconnected answers here and there, but solving the puzzle hinged, for me, on 6-D. It’s always a good idea to stop making excuses.

Clues I especially liked: 2-D, seven letters, “Warm-up circuit.” (Nothing to do with old radios or televisions.) 53-A, seven letters, “Iniciador de conversación.” 58-A, eleven letters, “Austere calling.” 60-D, “Booker, for short.” And the aforementioned 24-D. And the strange-sounding 32-D, six letters, “What a rear window may go up with.” ALFRED, as in Hitchcock?

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

Some others

Other people are talking. In The Washington Post tonight:

President Trump told two senior Russian officials in a 2017 Oval Office meeting that he was unconcerned about Moscow’s interference in the U.S. election because the United States did the same in other countries, an assertion that prompted alarmed White House officials to limit access to the remarks to an unusually small number of people, according to three former officials with knowledge of the matter.

I’ve made this post to memorialize my amazement that things are much, much worse than I’ve imagined. Insert choice expression beginning with Holy here.

“The Whistleblower Complaint”

Elaine just wrote it, for solo flute: “The Whistleblower Complaint.” No hyphen in her whistleblower.

The piece is free to anyone to download and perform. The score is available from Dropbox and the IMSLP. Computer-generated audio is available from Dropbox.

Hyphens and mental health

To show you how dishonest the LameStream Media is, I used the word Liddle’, not Liddle, in discribing Corrupt Congressman Liddle’ Adam Schiff. Low ratings @CNN purposely took the hyphen out and said I spelled the word little wrong. A small but never ending situation with CNN!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 27, 2019

1. Liddle is a word. (But does Donald Trump know that?) From the Oxford English Dictionary:

In regional pronunciation, or representing the speech of non-English-speakers or children; = LITTLE adj.

The first citation (1906) is from Rudyard Kipling: “Come along o’ me while I lock up my liddle hen-house.” A later citation, from Arthur Kober (1945):

You wanna be a crook, be awready a big fella! . . . But a liddle fella, where he got the chutzpah to be a crook?

Mistah Trump, he’s a big fella.

2. Liddle’ is not a word. Perhaps the president is thinking of lil’, as in Lil’ Kim or li’l, as in Li’l Trumpy.

3. An apostrophe or accent is not a hyphen. Liddle’ reminds me of what people used to do trying to create an accented letter on a typewriter: cafe′.

4. Discribing is not an accepted variant.

5. “I spelled the word liddle wrong”: well, he did. But words used as words take italics or quotation marks: liddle, or “liddle.” See nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4 above.

6. Low ratings and never ending need hyphens. You — not CNN — left hyphens out, you dolt.

7. The president is not well.

[I suspect that the missing “hyphen” will be found with the missing strawberries.]

In a café

I was sitting in a far corner of a vast Old World café. A waiter came to my table to tell me that two men were waiting to see me. I walked to the front of the café and found them standing inside the entrance wearing overcoats and broad smiles. They told me that they wanted to participate in my oil business. I told them that I wasn’t taking in any new people. They persisted in asking, and I persisted in turning them down. Then I moved past them and walked down an interior stone staircase — to a basement?

I don’t think this dream took place in Ukraine, but I suspect it’s the product of current events.

The oldest working barber

Anthony Mancinelli, the world’s oldest working barber, has died at the age of 108. He retired just a few weeks ago. The New York Times has an obituary.

I liked this joke in a 2018 Times article about Mr. Mancinelli: “I eat thin spaghetti, so I don’t get fat.” The joke reappears in the obituary.

“In the old days”

Donald Trump spoke this morning at an event to honor the staff of the United States Mission to the United Nations:

Mr. Trump repeatedly referred to the whistle-blower and condemned the news media reporting on the complaint as “crooked.” He then said the whistle-blower never heard the call in question.

“I want to know who’s the person who gave the whistle-blower the information because that’s close to a spy,” Mr. Trump said. “You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart with spies and treason, right? We used to handle it a little differently than we do now. . . .”

Some in the crowd laughed, the person briefed on what took place said. The event was closed to reporters, and during his remarks, the president called the news media “scum” in addition to labeling them as crooked.

Projection, projection.

*

5:34 p.m.: Now there’s a partial transcript.

Others

What most strikes me in reading the whistle-blower’s complaint is how many other people were aware of the actions that the whistle-blower has reported to Congress. One person spoke out. May others follow.

[The complaint, by the way, is exceedingly well-written.]

Plaids and rainbows

Robert Kirk, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies (New York: New York Review Books, 2007).

Robert Kirk (1641?–1692) was a Scottish minister and folklorist. The manuscript of The Secret Commonwealth was left unpublished at the time of his death. Kirk goes to remarkable lengths to place brownies and fairies and the gift of second sight within a Christian worldview. Highly ecumenical.

This extraordinary passage makes me think of lines from Wallace Stevens’s poem “Sunday Morning,” as the poet imagines paradise: “Alas, that they should wear our colors there, / The silken weavings of our afternoons.” In other words, when we imagine an alternative reality, we cast it in terms of the world we know. Thus plaids and suanochs. But then again, there are those “curious cobwebs” and “impalpable rainbows.” How do those creatures make their clothes anyway?

Related posts, sort of
Is plaid really warmer? : Orange Crate tArtan

[Kirk’s appendix to his work, “An Exposition of the Difficult Words in the Foregoing Treatises,” defines suanoch as “mantle or cloak.”]