What if

Goldie Blumenstyk, a writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education, wonders what might be happening if more college and university administrators “had made the moral case for a remote fall from the outset”:

Would higher ed be in any better shape right now in its quest for at least $47 billion in federal relief — not to mention more robust public support — if more college leaders had spent the past four months being more realistic and candid?

What if more had mentioned the unlikelihood of football this fall, of students’ being able to live safely together in residence halls, or even of holding any but the most necessary classes in person? Will it turn out that leaders’ push for a “normal-ish” fall in the midst of a deadly pandemic — whether motivated by good intentions, political pressure, existential financial fears, or some combination of all three — ultimately undermines their credibility and further damages goodwill?

Blumenstyk makes it plain: “For health and safety reasons, colleges should be predominantly online this fall. For financial reasons, some of them haven’t dared to make that call.”

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Airing of grievances

Donald Trump* is having airing of grievances this afternoon. CNN and MSNBC have cut away, but C-SPAN2 soldiers on.

As we all know, Trump* is a teetotaler. But the affect here is that of an angry, drunken elder holding his family hostage at the dinner table.

Trump* is not Captain Queeg, who had self-awareness enough to stop himself mid-rant.

“The craziest postcards”

“When he leaves, the craziest postcards arrive the next day,” says Peter to his girlfriend Lydia about his friend Karlchen, who’s been visiting them in Sweden while they vacation. This time Karlchen has sworn: no postcards. But the day after he leaves, four postcards arrive, each from a different railway station on the way back to Germany.


Kurt Tucholsky, Castle Gripsholm. 1931. Trans. from the German by Michael Hoffman (New York: New York Review Books, 2019).

I love the cheerful lunacy of youth at work or play here. I am reminded of my friend Aldo Carrasco.

Castle Gripsholm is yet one more NYRB rediscovery from Weimar Germany. All is long walks and witty banter and sex, with a pair of lovers who, after the arrival of another visitor, turn into a trio at the drop of a crossword puzzle. But along with the summer fun is a spirited effort to defeat autocracy, at least on a small scale, when a chance encounter offers the opportunity to save a young girl from the evil headmistress of a boarding school. Another NYRB book I recommend with enthusiasm.

[I read “Don’t search” as the start of the third message.]

Trout fishing in America

Tucker Carlson is going away for a while. I hope he has a nice long trip.

A pocket notebook sighting

[From To the Ends of the Earth (dir. Robert Stevenson, 1948). Click either image for a larger page.]

It’s Dick Powell’s notebook, and he’s writing fast and slow. Fast to get down the names he just saw on a hotel register. Slow to get down spots to show visitors in San Franciso.

More notebook sightings
All the King’s Men : Angels with Dirty Faces : Ball of Fire : The Big Clock : Bombshell : The Brasher Doubloon : Cat People : City Girl : Crossing Delancey : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Dead End : The Devil and Miss Jones : Dragnet : Extras : Eyes in the Night : The Face Behind the Mask : Foreign Correspondent : Fury : Homicide : The Honeymooners : The House on 92nd Street : Journal d’un curé de campagne : Kid Glove Killer : The Last Laugh : Le Million : The Lodger : Ministry of Fear : Mr. Holmes : Murder at the Vanities : Murder by Contract : Murder, Inc. : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : Naked City : The Naked Edge : The Palm Beach Story : Perry Mason : Pickpocket : Pickup on South Street : Pushover : Quai des Orfèvres : The Racket : Railroaded! : Red-Headed Woman : Rififi : La roue : Route 66 : The Scarlet Claw : Sleeping Car to Trieste : The Small Back Room : The Sopranos : Spellbound : Stage Fright : State Fair : A Stranger in Town : Stranger Things : Time Table : T-Men : 20th Century Women : Union Station : Walk East on Beacon! : Where the Sidewalk Ends : The Woman in the Window : You Only Live Once

Some votes

[“No Contest.” Zippy, July 13, 2020.]

Which is it better to be, Bogie or Sluggo? In today’s Zippy, Zippy and Griffy try both. In this final panel, the votes are in. Notice “some rocks” yonder in the Bushmiller landscape.

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Sundays

Georg Miermann, editor, and Emil Gohlisch, reporter, talk shop:


Gabriele Tergit, Käsebier Takes Berlin. 1932. Trans. from the German by Sophie Duvernoy (New York: New York Review Books, 2019).

I suspect this exchange might be a joke on the journalistic habit of recycling a familiar premise: it appears that Herr Andor has recycled the premise of the wonderful film Menschen am Sonntag [People on Sunday] (dir. Robert Siodmark and Edgar G. Ulmer, 1930). Herr Andor has also written, more than once, about “The Last Horse-Cart Driver.” Recall in our time continued media attention to shoe and typewriter repairpersons.

Käsebier Takes Berlin is yet another NYRB rediscovery. It’s a sharp satire of fad as culture in Weimar Germany, with an unremarkable singer named Käsebier becoming the inspiration for everything from fountain pens to a Weimar version of Hudson Yards.

A related post
People on Sunday

[The exchange between Miermann and Gohlisch takes place in 1929. Menschen am Sonntag was released on February 4, 1930. So the chronology is off. But I still think it likely that Tergit, writing in 1931, was making a joke on the film and that a reader in 1932 would have taken Andor’s story as inspired by Menschen am Sonntag. A Borgesian possibility: Siodmark and Ulmer got hold of the fictional Andor’s unpublished story and took it as the inspiration for their film.]

Donald Trump*, desperado

Donald Trump* is a desperado, “one in despair or in desperate straits.” He is also a desperado, “a bold or violent criminal.” Commuting Roger Stone’s sentence is the act of a desperado.

I think there are two possible explanations of this commutation.

One: In despair or in desperate straits, afraid that Stone might seek a reduced sentence by spilling some beans and making more difficulties for the November election, Trump* issued a commutation. Commuting the sentence of someone who has lied to protect you: about as bold as it gets.

Two: In despair or in desperate straits, knowing that he will never be reelected and not caring what people make of his action, Trump* issued a commutation. Commuting the sentence of someone who has lied to protect you: again, about as bold as it gets.

But to be in despair is to have lost hope, and I’m not sure I can imagine Donald Trump* as having ever been humble enough to have hoped. But he’s still a desperado. And he’s never coming to his senses.

[Definitions from Webster’s Third. Thanks to George Bodmer for snapping me out of a trance by reminding me that it was a commutation, not a pardon.]

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper is by Andrew Bell Lewis. Nearly every ABL Stumper I’ve done has been on the difficult side. This puzzle too — a word here, a word here. Thirty-three minutes later, I had all the words.

Some clue-and-answer pairs I look upon with favor:

12-D, ten letters, “Symbol of simple living.”

15-A, eight letters, “Focus of a Buenos Aires museum.” Just weird. I heard the answer yesterday, in a BBC Radio Great Lives episode about Jorge Luis Borges. But it would have been easy enough to get anyway.

18-A, six letters, “‘He IS American music,’ per Kern.” Well, yes, he is. But so are Louis Armstrong, the Carter Family, Charley Patton, Jimmie Rodgers, &c.

25-A, eight letters, “Drop-off spot.” I was trying to think of something having to do with kids and school. No.

38-D, eight letters, “What makes flamingos pink.” I don’t know how I know, but I do.

40-A, nine letters, “Austronesian transportation invention.” Again, looking up a word years ago pays off.

45-D, six letters, “Gum for the office.” Yeah. Heck yeah.

47-D, five letters, “Onset of evening.” Eh, a little forced. But there’s something I like about clues whose answers I don’t understand until some time after solving.

52-D, four letters, “Swimmer or blister.” A bit of a stretch, but I like the defamiliarization.

64-A, eight letters, “Faux glow.” Ick.

My favorite clue in today’s puzzle: 59-A, eight letters, “Pawn’s purpose.” Pretty clever.

And one clue whose answer is unpersuasive: 62-A, eight letters, “The ultimate scholarship.” I think it’s more commonly called something else.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

*

After the fact: I figured out from a reference to “Brad and Matt” (here) that “Andrew Bell Lewis” is Matthew Sewell and Brad Wilber. Look at their last names.

“What happens when they don’t?”

From Paul Murphy, a third-grade teacher, the big question about guidelines (any guidelines) for re-opening schools: “What happens when they don’t?”

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