Bam!

Elizabeth Warren, a few minutes ago: “I don’t care how much money Mayor Bloomberg has. The core of the Democratic Party will never trust him.”

“Catch” of a Lifetime

[Life, October 10, 1956. Click for a larger view.]

Pencils were serious business (and sometimes, as in this full-page advertisement, punny business). How serious? There’s even a 1 1/2® “Servisoft” Mirado, “smoother and blacker than a 2, stronger and longer lasting than a 1.” A gimmick, sure, but only possible when the average user took pencils seriously.

Related reading
All OCA pencil posts (Pinboard) : Farewell, Mirado

Farewell, Mirado

[An Eagle Mikado and Webster’s Second. Click for a larger pencil.]

Stephen at pencil talk has learned that Newell Brands Office Products has discontinued the Mirado pencil. The Mirado began life in the early twentieth century as the Mikado, manufactured by the Eagle Pencil Company. As Henry Petroski’s The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance notes, Eagle changed the pencil’s name from Mikado to Mirado on December 8, 1941.

I’ve written with many a Mirado, and especially liked Mirado Woodtones, in natural colors with a clear glossy coat. Recent Papermate Mirados were pretty mediocre. I found the Eagle Mikado in the photograph some years ago, probably at a flea market. It was, and is, still unsharpened.

Here’s some background on the Mikado/Mirado.

Related reading
All OCA pencil posts (Pinboard) : “Catch” of s lifetime : Jean Arthur holds what looks like a Mikado : The New Yorker visits the Eagle Pencil Company : “This is the Anatomy of an Eagle”

Weses

A Google Alert for stefan zweig brought this amusing item to my attention today. Amusing, at least, to me. The SCK is The Society of the Crossed Keys, a secret organization of hotel concierges:

The SCK is an off-beat plot concoction by director Wes Craven for his colourful Oscar-winning film, The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). In the movie Ralph Fiennes' meticulously slick concierge Monsieur Gustave of the titular hotel, calls on his secret society for help when he is falsely accused of the murder of a hotel guest. Black belt concierges from world renowned hotels swoop in to help save the day.

A screenshot in case the original disappears:



Related reading
All OCA Stefan Zweig posts (Pinboard)

“The 4d’s”

The Washington Post reports on Naomi Seibt, a conservative think tank’s answer to Greta Thunberg. The article quotes Graham Brookie of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, dedicating to exposing disinformation:

While the campaign “is not outright disinformation,” Brookie said in an email, it “does bear resemblance to a model we use called the 4d’s — dismiss the message, distort the facts, distract the audience, and express dismay at the whole thing.”

Brookie added: “The tactic is intended to create an equivalency in spokespeople and message. In this case, it is a false equivalency between a message based in climate science that went viral organically and a message based in climate skepticism trying to catch up using paid promotion.”

The 4d’s could be considered a playbook for the sitting president. But Donald Trump* has other tricks. Among them, the 4p’s: purges, pardons, the persecution of refugees, and the prosecution of political enemies.

“Visible branch establishments”

Dunstan (formerly Dunstable) Ramsay recalls the gravel pit in the village of Deptford:


Robertson Davies, Fifth Business (1970).

Also from this novel
“Fellows of the first importance”

Eyeshine

[Mark Trail, February 23, 2020.]

Last week I went out after dark to toss coffee grounds and vegetable peelings into the compost bin at the edge of our backyard. It’s a long walk. I stopped in my tracks when my flashlight showed me the yellow-green glow of five or six pairs of deer eyes.

Now I understand what I was seeing. Today’s Mark Trail gives a good explanation of eyeshine. Thanks, Mark.

Related reading
All OCA Mark Trail posts (Pinboard)

Back to the USSR canard

Hearing the assertion that Bernie and Jane Sanders honeymooned in the Soviet Union, I thought, What? And then I remembered writing a post about that canard in 2016. With links to a post by Daughter Number Three and to the best-documented account of the Sanderses’ Soviet trip I could find.

This 2020 post is meant to address the canard, not to imply that I’ve cast my vote. I’ve been leaning toward Warren, but the dismay among MSNBC talking heads over what’s happening in Nevada makes me think I might want to vote for Sanders. James Carville went so far as to suggest that MSNBC has a responsibility to “appraise” [sic ] viewers of why it’s a mistake to vote for Sanders. You’ve got some nerve, mister.

*

February 24: I still loathe James Carville, but the enthusiasm for Sanders that I voiced in the previous paragraph has waned.

Today’s Saturday Stumper

I had considerable difficulty getting started with today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper — a word here, a word there. But Matthew Sewell wasn’t crewell after all. The pieces of this puzzle ended up falling into place fairly easily, even with a clue I still don’t understand: 18-A, three letters, “#2s.”

Lots of long, lively answers in today’s puzzle. For instance:

1-A, ten letters, “Little Havana dance style.” Partly a giveaway.

17-A, eleven letters, “Turn biomass to fuel, e.g.” Huh?

31-D, nine letters, “Uneasy feeling.” I like the colloquiality of the answer. Yes, colloquiality is a word, and not at all colloquial.

32-D, nine letters, “Certain sausage purveyor.” I had never heard of the answer.

33-A, eleven letters, “Wicca category.” I can’t imagine that the answer has a long crossword history.

39-A, eleven letters, “Corkscrew-shaped Aquarius formation.” See 17-A. (I.e., Huh?)

56-A, eleven letters, “Parting phrase.” I thought of my sardine spammer.

My favorite clue in today’s puzzle: 25-D, six letters, “Boast after a casting session.” A neat bit of misdirection.

No spoilers: I direct you to the comments for the answers.

Hat and gloves

It is cold or colder these days. Having just come in from a walk, I want to express my gratitude to my hat and gloves.

My Carhartt Acrylic Watch Hat is the warmest such hat I have worn. Dark Brown/Sandstone for me.

My Caiman 2395 Heatrac gloves are the warmest gloves I have worn. I bought them for $15 in what might be described as an Amish version of Wal-Mart (groceries and everything else). I figured that the Amish must know what’s good for working outdoors in the cold. These gloves look and feel like everyday work gloves, lightweight, not massive on the hands. But they’re very warm. Indeed, they’re warmer than another pair of gloves I have that cost three times as much and make my hands look like monster-robot hands.

Caiman’s 2395 model has been superseded by 2396, with “touch-screen capability.” I take my gloves off anyway to use the phone — better aim.

[I know the “watch cap” as a “ski cap,” or, from childhood, an “Eski cap.” Was “Eski” (as in “Eskimo,” someone living in a cold climate) a kids’ misunderstanding of “ski”? I might have to try to figure it out.]