Unhinged and wired

Donald Trump* is speaking and sniffing. He’s unhinged and wired, which might sound like a contradiction in terms. But he’s not wired together. Just wired.

Sniff. Sniff. Sniff.

Shredding

Nancy Pelosi, just now: “He has shredded the truth in his speech. He’s shredding the Constitution in his conduct. I shredded his State of His Mind address.”

You can watch the press conference at C-SPAN.

[My capitalization.]

Rituals and talismans

“Hairbrush, tackle box, tiny toy car”: The Washington Post reports on ballet rituals and talismans. The brush, box, and car belong to Rebekah Rimsay of the National Ballet of Canada:

The childhood brush she’s used throughout her 30-year career; the decades-old tackle box that holds her makeup, with every lipstick and eyeliner carefully sorted; and the wee plastic car she found in a candy Kinder Egg maybe 25 years ago — organizing these sentimental treasures is just the finishing touch to an hours-long pre-show routine.

“Down-to-earth food”

A good episode of WGBH’s Innovation Hub : “The American Achievement of Advertising Apollo,” with Kara Miller interviewing David Meerman Scott, co-author, with Richard Jurek, of Marketing the Moon: The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program. A reference to a Stouffer’s advertisement with an Apollo tie-in made me curious. So I found it, in the August 8, 1969 issue of Life:


[“Everybody Who’s Been to the Moon Is Eating Stouffer’s.” Food for “the critical postlunar quarantine period.” Click for a larger view.]

One tricky feature of Apollo-related advertising: companies could not depict an astronaut using a product or imply that a particular astronaut used a product. Here we must imagine the astronaut of our choice eating main dishes, side dishes, and meat pies.

I was surprised but not surprised to learn that NASA gave Life exclusive access to astronauts’ families. The money the families received in exchange for that access supplemented the astronauts’ modest salaries.

The August 8, 1969 issue of Life — “On the Moon” — is full of Apollo-related advertising. Here, look.

And here’s a 1969 non-Apollo-related TV spot with the slogan “Stouffer’s plays it straight.”

Kirk Douglas (1916–2020)

[Kirk Douglas as Ulysses, in Ulysses (dir. Mario Camerini, 1954). Image via Wikipedia. Click for a larger view.]

Kirk Douglas has died at the age of 103. The New York Times has an obituary.

Unplugged

A clue in today’s Los Angeles Times crossword, by MaryEllen Uthlaut, made me realize something about myself.

The clue was “Concert gear.” Before seeing the number of letters in the answer, I immediately thought TUXES. The correct answer, just four letters: AMPS. My first thought brought me face to face with my concert-going habits. These days TUXES are far more likely than AMPS.

[The link goes to the LAT puzzle as offered by The Washington Post — a much friendlier design.]

Reaching Q

Thought as an alphabet of progress. Mr. Ramsay, metaphysician, has reached Q:


Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (1927).

Much later in the novel: “But now, he felt, it didn’t matter a damn who reached Z (if thought ran like an alphabet from A to Z). Somebody would reach it — if not he, then another.”

Also from this novel
“A scrubbed kitchen table”

The Elements of Penguins

The BBC reports that “new research suggests” penguin speech follows rules of human language:

The animals follow two main laws – that more frequently used words are briefer (Zipf’s law of brevity), and longer words are composed of extra but briefer syllables (Menzerath-Altmann law). Scientists say this is the first instance of these laws observed outside primates, suggesting an ecological pressure of brevity and efficiency in animal vocalisations.

Omit needless sounds!

Related reading
All OCA Elements of Style posts (Pinboard)

[I know, of course, that the laws in play here describe the workings of language. They have nothing to do with William Strunk Jr.’s “Omit needless words,” which stresses concision in the sentence. I’m just having fun.]

George Steiner (1929–2020)

The (astonishingly erudite) literary critic George Steiner has died at the age of ninety. From the New York Times obituary:

“I’d love to be remembered as a good teacher of reading,” he told The Paris Review in 1994. Characteristically, he had a specific, lofty notion of reading as a moral calling. It should, he added, “commit us to a vision, should engage our humanity, should make us less capable of passing by.”

A related post
George Steiner on reading

Brian and Al in the news

Thank you, Brian Wilson and Al Jardine:

Beach Boys founding members Brian Wilson and Al Jardine alerted fans Monday that they have no part in an appearance later this week by a version of the group fronted by cofounder Mike Love at a trophy-hunting convention where Donald Trump Jr. will be the keynote speaker.

Love’s touring edition of the Beach Boys, for which he holds the legal rights to the name, also includes longtime band member Bruce Johnston. They are slated to play Wednesday, Feb. 5, at the Safari Club International Convention in Reno, where hunting enthusiasts can arrange trips to hunt exotic animals. Trump Jr. and his brother, Eric, are longtime trophy-hunting supporters.

“This organization supports trophy hunting, which both Al and I are emphatically opposed to,” Wilson tweeted on Monday. “There’s nothing we can do personally to stop the show, so please join us in signing the petition” protesting the private event at Change.org.

Here’s the petition, which won’t change a thing but will at least register public disapproval of Mike Love and company.

Related reading
All OCA Beach Boys and Brian Wilson posts (Pinboard)