Some rocks, prehistoric

A science project, in today’s Far Side reruns. “Some rocks” are an abiding preoccupation of these pages.

“Or a college of any kind”

Responding to a question about his contact with families of coronavirus patients, Donald Trump* yesterday went off in all directions. The slap here comes at the end:

”I think that the whole concept of computer learning is wonderful, but it’s not — tele-, telelearning. But it’s not the same thing as being in a classroom in a great college, or a college of any kind.“

Also: “telelearning”?

[My transcription.]

Homemade music

Sonny Rollins, September 15, 2001: “Maybe music can help. I don't know, but we have to try something these days, right?” We did, and still do. Here is an imperfect gesture toward better days: “Nuages” (Django Reinhardt) and “Georgia on My Mind” (Hoagy Carmichael–Stuart Gorrell).

YouTube also has us playing “In a Mizz” (Charlie Barnet–Haven Johnson). Surely someone out there must remember that tune from Citizen Kane (the party scene in Florida).

Great moments in pedagogy

Out for a walk this morning, listening to an episode of the BBC’s Great Lives about Harold Pinter, I remembered a moment from teaching Modern British Literature twenty years ago this spring. We were reading Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter aloud and had hit — I swear it — this bit of dialogue: “If there’s a knock at the door you don’t answer it.” And there was a knock at the door. I thought I’d better answer it.

It was my friend and colleague Norman, with (I think) something I’d left behind at lunch. I don’t remember what. But I’ve never forgotten the knock. It came the one and only time I taught a Pinter play.

TV as radio

From Tight Spot (dir. Phil Karlson, 1955), spoken by prison inmate Sherry Conley (Ginger Rogers):

“Television should be so good that when you close your eyes it sounds like a radio.”

Tight Spot is available from the Criterion Channel.

Comic strips in a pandemic

The New York Times looks at comics in the time of the coronavirus.

One strip that’s missing: Olivia Jaimes’s Nancy, which has taken a surprising turn: Sluggo is now staying with Nancy and Aunt Fritzi, and the kids are doing school on a computer, with delightful results. Another surprise: Aunt Fritzi spoke by phone today with Sluggo’s truck-driving uncles, characters introduced during the strip’s Guy Gilchrist years.

In other comics news, Zippy may be hoarding paper towels.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy and Zippy posts (Pinboard)

The perils of inattention

The Washington Post reports that “U.S. intelligence agencies issued warnings about the novel coronavirus in more than a dozen classified briefings prepared for President Trump in January and February”:

The repeated warnings were conveyed in issues of the President’s Daily Brief, a sensitive report that is produced before dawn each day and designed to call the president’s attention to the most significant global developments and security threats.

For weeks, the PDB — as the report is known — traced the virus’s spread around the globe, made clear that China was suppressing information about the contagion’s transmissibility and lethal toll, and raised the prospect of dire political and economic consequences.

But the alarms appear to have failed to register with the president, who routinely skips reading the PDB and has at times shown little patience for even the oral summary he takes two or three times per week, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified material.

Donald Trump*’s nose is stuck, along the rest of his head, someplace, yes, but not in a book.

King Oscar with cracked pepper

I see to my mild chagrin that I’ve posted about King Oscar Sardines with Spicy Cracked Pepper before, but I’m posting about these sardines again in a world newly attentive to “the small oily fish.” Click on the image if you prefer bigger fish.

The can of King Oscar I just had for lunch (with tomato soup and Saltines) was old enough to be missing the “Wild Caught” designation now on the wrapper. But whatever the label says or doesn’t say, these are extraordinary sardines. If there were such a thing as Szechuan sardines, these would be that thing. Intensely peppery, and the burn seems to be deepened by hot soup. Highly recommended.

Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)

[Since 2017, “the small oily fish” has been my deliberately dumb inelegant variation on “sardine.”]

Mystery actor

[Click for a larger view.]

Do you recognize her? Leave your answers in the comments. I’ll drop hints if necessary.

*

9:42 a.m.: That was fast. The answer is now in the comments. I think I have some of the most eagle-eyed readers in the world.

More mystery actors (Collect them all!)
? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ?

[Garner’s Modern English Usage notes that “support for actress seems to be eroding.” I’ll use actor.]

“Nobles”

Earlier today, Donald Trump* ranted about reporters receiving “Noble Prizes for their work on Russia, Russia, Russia.” He suggested that they return “their cherished ‘Nobles’” so that they can be given to “the REAL REPORTERS & JOURNALISTS who got it right.” Bonus laugh line: “I can give the Committee a very comprehensive list.” He also suggested that the “Noble Committee” demand the return of the prizes. Now the Noble tweets are gone. (Read them here.) But there’s this:

Does anybody get the meaning of what a so-called Noble (not Nobel) Prize is, especially as it pertains to Reporters and Journalists? Noble is defined as, “having or showing fine personal qualities or high moral principles and ideals.” Does sarcasm ever work?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2020

I hereby vow to explain all my typos, spelling errors, glitches in syntax, gaps in knowledge, and lapses in judgment as sarcasm. But I don’t expect to be any more convincing than our shambles of a president is.

It’s Twenty-fifth Amendment time.