Intellectual prostration

Catching up on The New Yorker, I paused when I hit this sentence, from the historian Charles Beard, quoted in “In Every Dark Hour,” Jill Lepore’s piece on the prospects of democracy, past, present, and future:

The kind of universal intellectual prostration required by Bolshevism and Fascism is decidedly foreign to American “intelligence.”

Lepore likens this kind of intelligence to “street smarts — reasonableness, open-mindedness, level-headedness.”

And then I recalled this praise of our president:

“He’s been so attentive to the scientific literature and the details and the data. And I think his ability to analyze and integrate data that comes out of his long history in business has really been a real benefit during these discussions about medical issues. Because in the end, data is data, and he understands the importance of the granularity.”

That’s Deborah Birx, Dr. Birx, she of the thousand and one scarves, speaking to the Christian Broadcasting Network this past Wednesday. And if her praise of the president isn’t an instance of intellectual prostration, I don’t know what is.

And I’ll add: when it comes to the coronavirus, there can be no meaningful granularity without sufficient testing. That’e because granularity is “the extent to which a larger entity is subdivided.” I know a little bit about granularity.

[Lepore’s piece is in the February 3 New Yorker. Online, the title is “The Last Time Democracy Almost Died.”]

Feelings and beliefs

“I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they’re going to be. I don’t believe you need thirty thousand or forty thousand ventilators. You know, you go into major hospitals sometimes, they’ll have two ventilators”: Donald Trump* speaking to state TV last night. The Delphic orifice can never be wrong.

[I’m not the first person to think up the phrase “Delphic orifice” (Google shows six results), but this post appears to be the first instance of the phrase being applied to Donald Trump*.]

A National Emergency Library

The Internet Archive has suspended waitlists for all books in its collection to create a National Emergency Library.

The duration of the NEL is tied to the duration of the pandemic in the United States, but the books are available to readers everywhere.

“Pretty smart”

Willard the Wizard of Wanless’s World of Wonders tells “his great joke.” It concerns the naming of his carnival assistant:


Robertson Davies, World of Wonders (1975).

Wikipedia has the poop on Fletcher’s Castoria, now known as Fletcher’s Laxative. The old name can still be seen in fading advertisements: for instance, and for instance. And in full-page advertisements in Life:


[Life, March 25, 1940. Click for a much larger view.]

Related reading
All OCA Robertson Davies posts (Pinboard)

Pitching Ghostwriter

“Ghostwriter rewards the patient, the loyal, the attentive. If that means some fans will reach adulthood without ever learning who Max Mouse is, so be it”: from “The Pitch Meeting for Ghostwriter” (The Toast ). Word!

See also “The Pitch Meeting for Wishbone.”

Related posts
Ghostwriter’s identity : My Ghostwriter blurb

[As any Ghostwriter fan will remember, the show’s theme music began with “Ghostwriter — word!” Extra credit if you know who Max Mouse is.]

“Dear Mrs. Mermet”

Excerpts from Robert Walser’s letters to Frieda Mermet (n+1 ). Starts weird, gets weirder fast.

Related reading
All OCA Robert Walser posts (Pinboard)

Blackwings on parade

At Blackwing Pages, Sean has invited pencil fans to share photographs of their Eberhard Faber Blackwing collections. I shared a photograph of my modest stash — one box purchased back when any office-supply store could order Blackwings for a choosy customer. (The price: around $10.) Another pencil fan has shared a photograph of a genuine collection, eighteen variations on the Blackwing. Just wow.

Related reading
All OCA Blackwing posts (Pinboard)

Canned fish

“Canned fish is one of the great delights of this shoulder season, as spring begins its ascent — and maybe particularly when so many of us are cooking with the cans in the back of the pantry”: The New York Times looks at sardines and tuna. Mainly at tuna. But the sardines are in there pitching.

Last night we used two cans of tuna in an OCA specialty: pasta with tuna and lemon. Come noon, sardines.

Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)

Inventory

Elaine and I went shopping this morning, the first time we’ve been in a store, and the first time we’ve been anywhere but on a walk, since March 13th. We went to what grocery snoots would call the “better” supermarket, which now reserves two hours in the early morning for people over sixty, all on the honor system. So we put on our nitrile gloves and shopped.

When the kids flew the nest and we became once again a household of two, we drifted back to the citified shopping habits of our earlier years — picking up a few things every day, a piece of fish for dinner, a lemon, asparagus, and so on. This morning we spent more than $300. Many groceries. I should note that the “better” supermarket is also, by far, the more expensive supermarket. But we were willing to pay for the convenience of shopping in a nearly empty store. And we tipped our cashier and bagger mightily. I suspect that many people are doing so.

What was missing? Only a handful of items: flour, ice cream, toilet paper, American cheese, and frozen vegetables. These items weren’t entirely gone: there were still containers of Ben and Jerry’s, some Kraft Singles, some scattered vegetables. The toilet-paper aisle still had one four-roll package. I’m guessing that many a shopper thought twice and put it back on the shelf for someone who really, really needs it.

Which reminds me of a never-fail comedy moment whenever I did a big shopping expedition with the kids on Sunday afternoons (as Elaine ran the classical hours on the university FM station). As we hit the appropriate aisle, I’d ask, “Who needs toilet paper?” “Me! Me!”

Adults? Anyone?

Trump on why he picked Easter as the day he wants to end strict social distancing and reopen American businesses: "Easter is a very special day for me ... Easter Sunday, and you'll have packed churches all over our country." pic.twitter.com/6cXEtW8LmR

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 24, 2020

The man on the left is out of his fucking mind. The man on the right too, I fear. And they’re standing — what? — less than two feet apart?

The adults in the room must step forward — or, if necessary, leave the room — and tell the truth, plainly and clearly. There’s too much at stake.

[On an unrelated note: you can remove additional content from an embedded tweet by choosing Set Customization Options and checking Hide Conversation. No need for more than one instance of the video clip in the tweet above.]