Harold Bloom (1930–2019)

The literary critic and teacher Harold Bloom has died at the age of eighty-nine. The New York Times has an obituary.

This post feels to me obligatory. I was never very much on the Bloom wavelength — partly because of my distrust of such schema as his six “revisionary ratios” of poetic influence, partly because of my distrust of his pronouncements of canonical value. I’m always suspicious of such authority.

Aaron Rupar’s Twitter

And speaking of you-know-who and his crowds: the journalist Aaron Rupar’s Twitter account is a great resource for choice bits of the Donald Trump Improv Tour. Contrast, say, this bland Associated Press sentence — “[Pastor Andrew] Brunson led Saturday’s audience in a prayer for the president” — with what was said. Don’t hide the madness.

[“Don’t hide the madness”: from Allen Ginsberg’s poem “On Burroughs’ Work.”]

Maupassant on crowds

Guy de Maupassant, Afloat, trans. Douglas Parmée (New York: New York Review Books, 2008).

I think of an explanation of riot logic I once heard: that one person will be willing to act alone, that another will need one other person to act first, that a third will need two other people, and so on. I think also of you-know-who’s crowds, reveling in crudity and cruelty that in other circumstances would leave at least some members of the crowd ashamed.

Also from Maupassant
“La belle nature” : “What was it around him” : “All that has been, is now, and ever will be done by painters until the day of doom” ; “Swept strangely clean” : “Like pasta in a soup”

No bottom

In The New York Times tonight:

A video depicting a macabre scene of a fake President Trump shooting, stabbing and brutally assaulting members of the news media and his political opponents was shown at a conference for his supporters at his Miami resort last week, according to footage obtained by The New York Times.

Several of Mr. Trump’s top surrogates — including his son Donald Trump Jr., his former spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis — were scheduled to speak at the three-day conference, which was held by a pro-Trump group, American Priority, at Trump National Doral Miami. Ms. Sanders and a person close Mr. Trump’s son said on Sunday that they did not see the video at the conference.

The video, which includes the logo for Mr. Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, comprises a series of internet memes. The most violent clip shows Mr. Trump’s head superimposed on the body of a man opening fire inside the “Church of Fake News” on parishioners who have the faces of his critics or the logos of media organizations superimposed on their bodies.

Among the “parishioners” in this video: Bill and Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Bernie Sanders. One the Times doesn’t mention: Barack Obama. Also: a figure with the Obama campaign logo for a face.

To adapt a possibly apocryphal Gertrude Stein: There ain’t no bottom. There ain’t gonna be any bottom.

Free Ruler 2.0

For years I’ve made occasional use of the Mac app Free Ruler. It’s a 32-bit app, which means that it will no longer work with the new Catalina operating system. But as of a few days ago, there’s a new version: Free Ruler 2.0, 64-bit, and spiffier in appearance. It’s available at GitHub, and, yes, it’s free. Thank you, Pascal.

No quid pro quo?

“It was a quid pro quo, but not a corrupt one”: spoken by someone familiar with the upcoming testimony of Gordon Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, as reported in The Washington Post. No pressure! Just a perfect quid pro quo!

Today’s Saturday Stumper

When I saw the credit for today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, I thought I’m in for it. Or uh-oh. Or other short words to that effect. Because today’s puzzle is by “Garrett Estrada,” Brad Wilber and Erik Agard. But I did solve it.

I began with a hilariously elaborate clue for an obvious answer: 19-A, three letters, “‘I pity the fool who don’t eat my cereal’ guy (c. 1985).” And then my pace slowed. Two clues that opened up the puzzle’s left: 23-D, four letters, “Siberian railway hub,” and 34-D, five letters, “Gershwin’s Blue Monday.” If I ever find myself in Siberia, I will ask how to get to 23-D, not only because it’s a railway hub but because it’s the only Siberian place name I know. To the right, far from Siberia, 18-A, six letters, “Sea monster of Norse sagas,” and 66-A, eight letters, “Brat’s cousin,” gave me places to start.

So many clever and tricky clues in this puzzle: 9-A, six letters, “Dinner-and-a-show platform.” 29-A, eight letters, “Synagogue props.” 33-D, five letters, “Motion capturer with cameras.” 55-A, eight letters, “Red (or brown or black) snapper.” And especially 45-A, six letters, “Mini bar fixture.” Notice that there’s no hyphen.

Do co-constructors split the payment? I think Messrs. Peterson and Agard should be paid double for this puzzle.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

A World Book cameo

[“As seen on TV.” Specifically, on MSNBC.]

I’m pretty certain the background is a picture. (Elaine says it is.) I’m absolutely certain that the green and white spines belong to volumes of that childhood standby, the World Book Encyclopedia.

Reader, I’d now like to refer you to Nicholson Baker’s essay “Books as Furniture,” but it’s behind the New Yorker paywall.

Other books in the background
T.S. Eliot’s Complete Poems and Plays: 1909–1950 on MSNBC : The World Book in Stranger Things

“Like pasta in a soup”

“Princes here, princes there, princes, princes, everywhere!” Maupassant calls Cannes “the city of titles”:


Guy de Maupassant, Afloat, trans. Douglas Parmée (New York: New York Review Books, 2008).

Afloat (first published in 1888 as Sur l’eau) is something of a daybook, eight long entries purportedly written in the course of a sailing trip along the French Mediterranean, one writer-passenger and a crew of two. Maupassant’s attention ranges everywhere: to social satire (as here), scenic description, writerly double consciousness (which turns the writer’s emotions into something to observe), crowds and mob mentality, a memory of a visit to a household wracked by diphtheria, a story about Paganini’s corpse. The reader’s work: to follow the writer’s attention as it moves from one possibility to another to another.

Also from Maupassant
“La belle nature” : “What was it around him” : “All that has been, is now, and ever will be done by painters until the day of doom” ; “Swept strangely clean”

Ben Leddy hosts The Rewind

Here’s the latest installment of WGBH’s The Rewind, “Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” hosted by our son Ben. You can find all episodes of The Rewind at YouTube.