I went to the nearby Binny’s to shop, where I kept forgetting to put on my mask. Where was it anyway? I picked up a few bottles of wine, and filled my cart with beer bottles so that I could compare labels. I met Ben and showed him a small front room, paneled in dark wood, with cheap American beer and brandy on the shelves. I explained that it must be the Upper Midwest room. An employee walked up to ask if she could ask a question. She was trying to figure out how to let people know that the store was open on Sundays. What about putting a coffin in the window? I told her I didn’t think that would work.
Outside I met my dad, and we walked down a brick-paved street. He was barefoot, walking like a much younger man, and I cautioned him to watch for the rat traps by the curb as we walked back to my hotel.
Related reading
All OCA dream posts (Pinboard)
[Binny’s: a midwestern chain of alcohol superstores. The traps were the large black boxes you might see along the walls of a big-box store.]
Friday, July 31, 2020
A trip to Binny’s
Thursday, July 30, 2020
An EXchange name sighting
[Loophole (dir. Harold D. Schuster, 1954). Click for a larger view.]
Los Angeles lives: this building, still standing at 5639 Sunset Boulevard, now houses JEM Motor Corp., seller of high-end used vehicles. The number is no longer GLadstone 3111.
The exchange name on the cab that’s about to roll out from Tanner: SYcamore.
More EXchange names on screen
Act of Violence : The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse : Armored Car Robbery : Baby Face : Blast of Silence : The Blue Dahlia : Blue Gardenia : Boardwalk Empire : Born Yesterday : The Brasher Doubloon : The Brothers Rico : Chinatown : Danger Zone : The Dark Corner : Dark Passage : Deception : Deux hommes dans Manhattan : Dick Tracy’s Deception : Down Three Dark Streets : Dream House : East Side, West Side : Fallen Angel : Framed : The Little Giant : The Man Who Cheated Himself : Modern Marvels : Murder by Contract : Murder, My Sweet : My Week with Marilyn : Naked City (1) : Naked City (2) : Naked City (3) : Naked City (4) : Naked City (5) : Naked City (6) : Naked City (7) : Nightfall : Nightmare Alley : Out of the Past : Perry Mason : Pitfall : The Public Enemy : Railroaded! : Red Light : Side Street : The Slender Thread : Stage Fright : Sweet Smell of Success : Tension : This Gun for Hire : Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
“W.G. Sebald: A Profile”
Out from behind a paywall at The Paris Review, James Atlas’s “W.G. Sebald: A Profile.” An excerpt:
When I asked his London agent, Victoria Edwards, what he was like, she said she’d never met him. Like his peripatetic narrator, he liked to go for walks in all weather; twice when I called, his wife told me he was “out with the dogs.” The notion of a literary profile bewildered him. “I am glad you liked The Emigrants and quite astounded that you propose to come all the way to talk to me,” he’d written in reply to my request for an interview.Yesterday afternoon I pulled from a shelf three books by Sebald I haven’t yet read. Finding this profile available online feels like a sign that it’s time to read them.
Related reading
All OCA Sebald posts (Pinboard)
[The text of the profile appears to have been scanned, with conspicuous errors. But it’s free. The books I have read: Vertigo, The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn, Austerlitz, and a collection of interviews.]
Last words from John Lewis
He wrote them to the published in The New York Times on the day of his funeral. An excerpt:
Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.*
One more, coming on a day when Donald Trump* has wondered aloud about postponing the November election:
Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
Orange car art
Daughter Number Three lightens the day with three photographs of a little orange Subaru. Want.
Related reading
All OCA orange posts (Pinboard)
Word of the day: buff
How rare it is these days to hear someone described as a buff. It’s a decidedly dowdy word. Buffs used to be everywhere: jazz buffs, camera buffs, stereo buffs. They were always male, and they wore madras shorts in summer, particularly at cookouts, where they spoke of Brubeck and Kenton, lenses and pre-amps. In cold weather, they switched to chinos and took the conversation indoors, sitting on mid-century chairs and sofas, with trays of cold cuts and bowls of pretzels at the ready.
That paragraph came from my imagination. The next two do not.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word and explains its surprising origin:
“An enthusiast about going to fires” (Webster 1934); so called from the buff uniforms worn by volunteer firemen in New York City in former times. Hence gen., an enthusiast or specialist. Chiefly North American colloquial.The dictionary’s first citation is from the New York newspaper The Sun (1903): “The Buffs are men and boys whose love of fires, fire-fighting and firemen is a predominant characteristic.”
It seems that the color name buff — “of the colour of buff leather; a light brownish yellow” — comes from the French buffle, buffalo. The dictionary hedges: that’s “apparently” the origin.
And once again from my imagination:
If we ever go back to having cookouts and sitting on mid-century furniture, the surprising origin of buff will be something to word buffs for talk about. Or does they already know about it?
A visit with Billy Gray
“Sure. Come on down, and we’ll chat our asses off”: Billy Gray invites the journalist Steve Unger to come over for a visit: “My Visit with Bud from Father Knows Best ” (Next Avenue).
A comment I must add: the imaginary world FKB did indeed address serious real-world troubles. This post catalogues a few.
Other FKB posts
“Betty’s Graduation” : A conversation from another world : FKB pencil sharpener : Flowers knows best : “Languages, economics, philosophy, the humanities” : “Margaret Disowns Her Family” : Scene-stealing card-file : “A Woman in the House” : “Your dinner jacket just arrived”
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Ajax for frontline medical providers
A Theater of War event for frontline medical providers:
This event will use Sophocles’s Ajax to create a vocabulary for discussing themes such as personal risk, death/dying, grief, deviation from standards of care, abandonment, helplessness, and complex ethical decisions. The project aims to foster connection, community, moral resilience, and positive action.It’s a Zoom event, open to the public, scheduled for this Thursday, July 30, 7:00 p.m.–9:30 p.m. EDT. Register here.
For some readers or viewers, Ajax may be a play to approach with caution. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Related reading
All OCA Sophocles posts (Pinboard)
“Why should I?”
An exchange this morning between Representative Eric Swalwell (D, California-15) and Attorney General William Barr, about a point that came up during Barr’s confirmation hearing:
“You were asked, could a president issue a pardon in exchange for the recipient’s promise to not incriminate him? And you responded, ‘No, that would be a crime.’ Is that right?”William Barr makes it easy to know what to think of him. See also “Bill Barr Tests Negative for Integrity.”
“Yes, I said that.”
“You said ‘a crime.’ You didn’t say it’d be wrong; you didn’t say it’d be unlawful. You said it’d be a crime. And when you said that, that a president swapping a pardon to silence a witness would be a crime, you were promising the American people that if you saw that, you would do something about it. Is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“Now, Mr. Barr, are you investigating Donald Trump for commuting the sentence of his longtime friend and political advisor Roger Stone?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Why should I?”
[My transcription.]
