“Go and buy. Enjoy it. Have a nice dinner. Relax”: Donald Trump*, a few minutes ago.
Sunday, March 15, 2020
Store talk
By Michael Leddy at 4:25 PM comments: 0
“Not a snow day”
Asaf Bitton, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, offers recommendations for social distancing. “This is not,” he says, “a snow day”:
the only strategies that can get us off this concerning trajectory are those that enable us to work together as a community to maintain public health by staying apart.*
March 16: The Boston Globe has an updated, expanded version of this piece.
By Michael Leddy at 9:39 AM comments: 2
Today’s Zippy
[Zippy, March 15, 2020. Click for a larger view.]
Today’s Zippy feels like a cross between Bill Griffith and Roz Chast. How many boxes can you check? (Me, eight.)
Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)
By Michael Leddy at 8:57 AM comments: 0
Saturday, March 14, 2020
Flattening the curve
From The Washington Post: “Why outbreaks like coronavirus spread exponentially, and how to ‘flatten the curve.’”
The graphics make the point: “If people are less mobile and interact with each other less, the virus has fewer opportunities to spread.”
Elaine and I stayed inside today, with short trips to the garage to use the elliptical machine. If the weather is better tomorrow, we’ll go for a walk in the open air. And that’ll be it.
Thanks, Rachel.
By Michael Leddy at 9:19 PM comments: 0
“Nancy?” “Sluggo!”
[“Dueling Dualities.” Zippy, March 14, 2020.]
Today’s Zippy is a flurry of choices: column A/column B, blue state/red state, iPhone/Android, Nancy/Sluggo.
Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts : Nancy and Zippy posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)
By Michael Leddy at 9:54 AM comments: 0
Andreas Brown (1933–2020)
“A bibliophile since childhood who bought the revered Gotham Book Mart in Midtown Manhattan from its idiosyncratic founder, Frances Steloff, and kept it alive as a frowzy literary shrine for four more decades”: from the New York Times obituary.
I’m pretty sure I saw Andreas Brown on one of my trips to the Gotham. He might have been the guy showing me the rare Ted Berrigan stuff — I just don’t know. I know that I saw Frances Steloff at least once, sitting in an alcove back near the tables of little magazines.
By Michael Leddy at 9:54 AM comments: 2
Today’s Saturday Stumper
Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Brad Wilber, was surprisingly easy, aside from the southeast corner. But man oh man that southeast corner. It had arcana: 60-D, three letters, “Onetime North Island herbivore.” It had a tricky spelling: 48-D, six letters, “Trifling.” It had general weirdness: 59-A, eight letters, “Verdict of disapproval”; 64-A, six letters, “Creatively turbulent.” And it had a clue that reminded me of what must be my considerable distance from current trends in entertaining (62-A, eight letters, “Cutlery carrier”). I’m glad that those clues were not the whole puzzle.
Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:
11-D, seven letters, “Boston Public Library muralist.” Because Boston.
16-A, eight letters, “Fashion effect aka ‘manscara.’” Not that I use the stuff.
25-D, seven letters, “108 Odyssey fellows.” I always like seeing Homer in a crossword. The 108 is an extra treat. And that is the number, which a reader can work out by adding numbers as Telemachus gives them in book 16.
36-A, four letters, “‘A nightingale who sits in darkness,’ per Shelley.” I like to think that my late friend Rob Zseleczky is pleased whenever Shelley turns up in a crossword.
46-A, five letters, “Many a paperweight.” Mine are rocks and tile trim.
And another one of the clue-and-answer pairs that baffle me until I begin typing them out: 58-D, three letters, “Fellow from Wheeling.”
No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.
By Michael Leddy at 9:22 AM comments: 5
Friday, March 13, 2020
Unfit
I’m watching Donald Trump* struggle to read what’s been written for him and thinking, Unfit, unfit, unfit. What are those standing behind him thinking?
By Michael Leddy at 2:38 PM comments: 0
Recently updated
“By the Book” for the rest of us Now with more childhood reading.
By Michael Leddy at 11:38 AM comments: 0
Even in a pandemic
[January 23, 2020.]
Representative Adam Schiff (D, California-18):
“You know you can’t trust this president to do what’s right for this country. You can trust he will do what’s right for Donald Trump.”Even in a pandemic. Lies, misdirection, and xenophobia (“foreign virus,” “very strong border policy”) to stir the base. Of course.
[The words that might be chopped off by the ad: “The American people deserve a president.” Yes, we do.]
By Michael Leddy at 10:23 AM comments: 0