Mr. Businessmen

It’s surprising but not surprising to hear a president of the United States in 2020 refer to “businessmen,” and not, say, business owners.

[From the White House press briefing now underway.]

Danny Ray Thompson (1947–2020)

From the New York Times obituary:

For the better part of five decades, he was the baritone saxophonist and linchpin of one of the most idiosyncratic and influential ensembles in jazz.

Danny Ray Thompson, baritone saxophonist and flutist with the Sun Ra Arkestra, has died at the age of seventy-two. Or in Arkestra language, he has left the planet.

Here, from Halloween 2014, is a cheerful Tiny Desk Concert by a post-Ra Arkestra. “Queer Notions,” by the way, is a Coleman Hawkins tune, recorded by Fletcher Henderson and His Orchestra in 1933. I’ve always been partial to Arkestral interpretations of good old good ones.

I was looking forward to seeing the Arkestra next month at the glorious Virginia Theatre. Now postponed, but probably canceled.

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Stan Newman, was a relatively easy puzzle. That seems right in a difficult time.

Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:

1-A, seven letters, “Squealing stoppers.” OILCANS? No.

1-D, seven letters, “Holistic notion.” I hadn’t thought of this word in ages.

28-A, nine letters, “Honor for Peter, Paul and Mary.” Mildly clever.

33-D, four letters, “A matter of course.” MEAL? Something to do with golf? Even after getting the answer, I didn’t understand it, until I did.

34-D, three letters, “$2000 appliance, circa 1983.” MAC? No, wrong price, wrong year, and another answer rules out MAC. Where are (at least most of) those appliances now?

39-A, nine letters, “Tabloid fodder.” It took me a while to figure out the last six letters of the answer.

54-A, seven letters, “Part of the erstwhile Microsoft Student suite.” Also part of the Microsoft Works suite. “Suite”?

The funnest thing in today’s Stumper: the nine-letter crossing answers for 34-A, “East side” and 20-D, “Nietzsche, e.g.” My guess is that the puzzle began with that crossing.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

Old squares

In The Atlantic, Natan Last, crossword constructor, writes about “The Hidden Bigotry of Crosswords.” An excerpt:

That crossword mainstays such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal are largely written, edited, fact-checked, and test-solved by older white men dictates what makes it into the 15x15 grid and what’s kept out.

Poor Dr. Fauci

When I saw this moment, I knew what was missing. This version is the best I’ve found.

#CurbYourEnthusiasm Guest Starring Dr. Anthony Fauci as Himself pic.twitter.com/0MUbVkiELq

— Simon Taylor (@5imontaylor) March 20, 2020

[And just a thought: when someone makes a movie of this shitshow of a presidency, Jeff Garlin would make an excellent Mike Pompeo.]

Support your local or not-so-local independent bookstore

Elaine and I are great fans of the New York City bookstore Three Lives & Company. We visit whenever we visit the city, and we always come away with a pile of books. It seems unlikely that we’ll be able to visit Three Lives, or New York, any time soon. What to do?

Three Lives is currently doing business by telephone and e-mail (also curbside pickup, and hand delivery in the West Village). I e-mailed to say that I wanted to buy some books, and suggested that the store post photographs of their display tables on their website. They were unable to do that (the website is pretty rudimentary), but they sent me photos. So we now have nine books coming our way for further adventures in the Four Seasons Reading Club, our two-person adventure in reading.

I like the idea of supporting an independent bookstore in all seasons. But especially now.

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My timing is good: Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York has announced a #SaveNYC Quarantined Cash Mob for Three Lives.

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In Chicago, the Seminary Co-op Bookstores are doing business on the Internets. And — gasp! — they have, or had, a copy of Robertson Davies’s The Cornish Trilogy on the shelf.

Also in Chicago: Pete Lit reports that Madison Street Books, a weeks-old bookstore, is doing business on and off the Internets. The bookstore offers curbside pickup, free delivery in the West Loop, and one-dollar shipping in the States.

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From The Washington Post: “Independent bookstores survived the rise of online retail. Coronavirus poses bigger challenges.”

[Nine books for two people? Yes, because we already have one copy of William Lindsay Gresham’s Nightmare Alley.]

“Life was never normal”

I like this statement of resolve from Mark Hurst. He’s taking up something C.S. Lewis said in 1939: “We are mistaken when we compare war with ‘normal life.’ Life has never been normal.”

Hurst writes,

Life was never normal, and life certainly isn’t normal now. I’m going to wash hands, sit at home behind this screen, and get on with creating good online.

And we will get through this.

[This passage is in an e-mailed newsletter, so I have no way to link to it. But pass it on with appropriate credit to MH if you think it worthwhile.]

Blinks

I think that Deborah Birx is blinking out a coded message from the podium this morning.

“A fantod when it foamed”

David Staunton remembers Grandfather Staunton, “powerful but dim” in his grandson’s past:


Robertson Davies, The Manticore (1972).

Eno’s was and is (as Eno, no possessive) a real antacid. Its main ingredients (at least in our time): sodium bicarbonate, sodium carbonate, and citric acid. Here’s some history. And an advertisement:


[The Illustrated London News, June 9, 1923. Click for a much larger view.]

So now I can add Robertson Davies to my small list of writers and artists who speak fantod.

Other Robertson Davies posts
“Fellows of the first importance” : “Visible branch establishments” : “Like a duck to water” : “A designer and a manufacturer” : “The intrepid Orph” : “The socks-shorts moment” : Wealth, illusion, corruption

Six of them

Asshats, six of them, with their names visible for anyone to reference. Stupid, selfish, utterly irresponsible.

A related post
Homeric blindness in “colledge”