Pessoa now

A New York Review Books newsletter asked what people are reading now. I sent these paragraphs:

I’m reading Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet (Richard Zenith’s translation from the Portuguese). I found my way to it by tracking down an unidentified passage in Spanish from a book that appears onscreen in Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory. And then a friend mentioned that Pessoa’s book and Almodóvar’s film are two of his favorite things. So one translation led me to another.

The Book of Disquiet seems like appropriate reading for these times. It's a book of fragments, short or shorter commentaries on life both real and imagined, the work of a solitary man — Bernardo Soares, a Lisbon bookkeeper (one of Pessoa’s heteronyms) — who travels between his fourth-floor apartment on Rua dos Douradores and his workplace on the same street. “Isolation has carved me in its image and likeness,” he says. He writes of tedium, of his obscurity, of his co-workers, of what he sees from his fourth-floor window, of his own efforts to write. “If our life were an eternal standing by the window”: that seems to be most of us right now.

Here’s a post with the passage from Pain and Glory that started it all. George Bodmer mentioned Pessoa’s book in a comment. Elaine and I are a third of the way through.

Reader, what are you reading now?

[Heteronyms: Pessoa created a great many authorial identities for his writing — not aliases but imaginary selves with distinct styles and interests. Pessoa called Soares a semi-heteronym, an identity closer to Pessoa himself.]

Please don’t laugh at my recipe

Or “recipe.” It’s appropriate for tough times, a way to make a can of baked beans into four sweet and spicy lunches. It’s my memory of Western Beans on the Range, a recipe I read on a can of Heinz Baked Beans back in my student days. I loved this dish then and still do. Like liverwurst, it’s something I must have at least a couple of times a year:

Chop one medium onion. Brown in a pan with a little oil.

Add one large (28 oz.) can of vegetarian baked beans, after pouring off the sauce at the top.

Add some ketchup and chili powder, stir a bit, and let everything heat up. I have found that it’s impossible to add too much chili powder.

Serve with cheese, American or cheddar, and buttered bread. For added elegance, substitute potato chips for bread.

The Art of Quarantine

“If the subjects of the world's most iconic paintings can practice social distancing, you can too”: The Art of Quarantine.

Screwballs

From Blind Alley (dir. Charles Vidor, 1939). Hal Wilson (Chester Morris), an escaped killer, sneers at learning and letters: “Teachers, writers — screwballs!”

What a great line. When Elaine and I watched this movie the other night, I wrote it down. And then I thought, Wait a minute, wait a minute.

We had realized, just minutes into the movie, that we had seen its remake: The Dark Past (dir. Rudolph Maté, 1948). I didn’t realize until I searched these pages that I had liked the 1948 utterance of this line enough to make a post about it in 2017. I am nothing if not consistent.

So many

Manu Dibango. Ellis Marsalis. Bucky Pizzarelli. Wallace Roney. Adam Schlesinger. Bill Withers. All but Bill Withers from the coronavirus.

A related post
Bill Withers and John Hammond

[If you can find it, Still Bill (dir. Damani Baker and Alex Vlack, 2009) is an excellent documentary.]

“Bedtime”

[Chris Ware, “Bedtime.” The New Yorker, April 6, 2020. Click for a larger view.]

Chris Ware writes about his cover:

As a procrastination tactic, I sometimes ask my fifteen-year-old daughter what the comic strip or drawing I’m working on should be about — not only because it gets me away from my drawing table but because, like most kids of her generation, she pays attention to the world. So, while sketching the cover of this Health Issue, I asked her.

“Make sure it’s about how most doctors have children and families of their own,” she said.

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, is by the puzzle’s editor, Stan Newman, composing as “Anna Stiga,” the alias he uses for easier Stumpers. And this one was easy, certainly the easiest Stumper I’ve done. 1-A, seven letters, “Frame + engine, transmission et al.”: a gimme. 1-D, six letters, “Yogi's power point.” Another gimme. And that “Kept happening” (60-A, eight letters). Again and again.

I liked the elements of dowdy in today’s puzzle:

15-D, seven letters, “‘Brush your breath’ sloganeer (c. 1980).” A forty-year-old advertising slogan. And we’re off!

16-A, eight letters, “Where a pat might be placed.” Feels like New York dowdy to me.

31-D, three letters, “Manufacturer of tiny bricks.” O childhood.

34-A, fifteen letters, “Think.” Yep. That’s what ya gotta do.

42-D, six letters, “Gershwin’s first hit song.” So first that I don’t even think of it as a Gershwin song.

And the cleverness:

6-D, six letters, “On fast food, perhaps.” In every sense.

7-D, fifteen letters, “[NO CLUE NEEDED].” Got it.

53-D, four letters, “Skin source.” I first thought of critters. Must be the Tiger King influence.

And the kind of clue that’s becoming a regular, one per Stumper:

52-D, four letters, “It’s far from Aristotelean.” Got it, even at a distance. (Yes, the clue should read Aristotelian.)

There’s one clue whose answer feels dubious: 50-A, four letters, “It’s seen on Irishman posters.” Given the answer, I wonder if the absence of The from the film’s title is meant to be meaningful.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

Duo MemDi, live-streaming

Here’s a performance to tune in for, Sunday, April 12, 3:00 p.m. Central: violinist Igor Kalnin and pianist Rochelle Sennet, Duo MemDi, playing music by Bach, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and H. Leslie Adams.

Igor and Rochelle are brilliant musicians who play with absolute precision and deep feeling. Elaine and I heard this program on March 7, our last “outside” music before staying home, where we’ll be listening next Sunday.

You can learn more about Duo MemDi at the duo’s website.

Dilettantism and sociopathy

“This is dilettantism raised to the level of sociopathy”: Michelle Goldberg on Jared Kushner’s role in the White House’s coronavirus response.

“Nov shmoz ka pop?”

[“Funny Bones.” Zippy, April 3, 2020.]

Phil Fumble: Nancy Ritz’s boyfriend. “Nov schmoz ka-pop,” or “Nov shmoz ka pop?”: catchphrase spoken by The Little Hitchhiker, a character in Gene Ahern’s comic strip The Squirrel Cage.

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)