Some Mutts

[Mutts, May 31, 2020.]

In today’s Mutts, “some rocks.” “Some rocks” are an abiding preoccupation of these pages.

André Watts on musical mistakes

I read a short version in a New York Times article. That made me want to go to the source, a clip of André Watts talking with Fred Rogers:

“Every time you make a mistake, naturally you think about it, because you think, Oh, that’s too bad, and you think about Why did I do that, and you try not to let it happen again. And while you figure out why you made that mistake, you actually learn more about that piece of music or that place in the piece of music. So it is always a learning experience, even when you’re unhappy about the fact that you made a mistake. It has a positive side.”

Useful for anyone learning anything.

See also one of Rachel’s tips for success in college: “Do not fear failing; instead, embrace each mistake as a learning experience.”

Minneapolis and Denmark

My friend Fresca is, as a correspondent of hers wrote, “RIGHT THERE,” living and working not far from where police killed George Floyd. (Active voice, not passive: They killed him.) Fresca’s most recent blog posts are devoted to events in Minneapolis.

This is a good morning to look once again at Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny. Snyder closes by quoting Shakespeare:

“The time is out of joint. O cursed spite, / That ever I was born to set it right!” Thus Hamlet. Yet he concludes: “Nay, come, let’s go together.”

From a BuzzFeed “grammar” quiz

[Sigh. Click for larger mistakes.]

I’d say that neither you nor I can trust this BuzzFeed grammar quiz. Or “grammar” quiz, as most of the questions have to do with idiom, spelling, or punctuation.

“Good practice”

Tweeting about protests outside the White House, Donald Trump* warned that protesters who breached the White House fence

would have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen. That’s when people would have been really badly hurt, at least. Many Secret Service agents just waiting for action. “We put the young ones on the front line, sir, they love it, and good practice.”

Behold, an American president who sees the Secret Service as a violence-hungry death squad and fantasizes about massacres on the White House lawn. This president is indeed the psychopath in chief.

[I removed sixteen periods in quoting these words.]

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Greg Johnson, is eerily easy, nothing like a typical Stumper. I started with 1-A, eight letters, “Flaky food-truck fare” and 1-D, four letters, “Hand ball.” And then off to the races. It may be that this week is just not the week for a difficult puzzle.

Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:

5-D, five letters, “Alternative to roasting bands.” I’ve never heard of roasting bands, but I could guess the dowdy answer.

6-D, three letters, “Word from a pro.” Concisely witty.

19-A, five letters, “Green breeze.” If you must have clues about this stuff, this clue is a clever one.

29-A, nine letters, “Out of alternatives.” Though I can’t remember where the apostrophe falls.

35-A, six letters, “Underworld boss.” He’s a legitimate businessman!

41-A, nine letters, “South American extremity.” The answer makes me think of James Joyce’s “Eveline.”

42-D, six letters, “Stone related to ‘pomegranate.’” I would like to say that the clue taught me something, though what it really taught me was that I could guess the name of a stone related to ‘pomegranate.’

One clue whose answer I don’t finally understand: 54-D, three letters, “Key carried by salesclerks.” A little help? I looked again and got it.

As for 1-A, I would like to recommend this establishment. Not a truck, but such great flaky fare. I would teleport myself there right now, but the time difference makes it much too early for lunch.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

Donald Trump*’s rhyme

Donald Trump*’s rhyme — “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” — has a history.

But presidents, like police, should seek to de-escalate.

“The man of action”

“The world belongs to those who don’t feel,” says Bernardo Soares:


Fernando Pessoa, from text 303, The Book of Disquiet, trans. from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith (New York: Penguin, 2003).

When I read this passage a few weeks ago, I thought of a certain politician who seems to regard other people as things. This morning I’m seeing it in a new way.

Simone Weil called the Iliad the poem of force, force being that which turns a human being into a thing. Pessoa’s man of action is the figure of force, one who treats people as things.

Related reading
All OCA Pessoa posts (Pinboard)

Same as it ever was

I remember talking on the telephone with my dad about the death of Amadou Diallo. My dad put it simply: “If he’d been white, he’d be alive.”

That was 1999. And now again, with the death of George Floyd, as with so many other deaths: If he’d been white, he’d be alive. I think it really is that simple.

“Vote as if your life depends on it”

Tony Schwartz, Donald Trump*’s ghostwriter, writes about “The Psychopath in Chief”:

Understanding what we’re truly up against — the reign of terror that Trump will almost surely wage the moment he believes he can completely prevail — makes the upcoming presidential election a true Armageddon.

Vote as if your life depends on it, because it does.

It’s true: Trump* equals death. And there’s now a Trump Death Clock.

And here’s the psychopath in chief this morning, stirring the pot (or the pit) by calling attention to a claim that face masks are about “social control,” not public health:

So many different viewpoints! https://t.co/DCesPbJu5M

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 28, 2020