AJ on ED

Alice James, in a diary entry dated January 6, 1892:

It is reassuring to hear the English pronouncement that Emily Dickinson is fifth-rate — they have such a capacity for missing quality; the robust evades them equally with the subtle. Her being sicklied o’er with T.W. Higginson makes one quake lest there be a latent flaw which escapes one’s vision.

Long before I kept a blog, I kept a commonplace book, writing out passages of all sorts by hand. I found these sentences quoted in a letter from Lorine Niedecker to fellow poet Louis Zukofsky, February 14, 1952. I just checked, and the quotation is accurate.

I mean no disrespect to “the English.” It’s the idea of disapproval as a mark of high quality that amuses me.

Related reading
All OCA Dickinson posts (Pinboard)

[For Thomas Wentworth Higginson, see here.]

Dr. Pepper × 20

A Dr. Pepper jingle, as interpreted by Eubie Blake, Doc Watson, Muddy Waters, Grandpa Jones, Maybelle Carter, the Swan Silvertones, Bill Monroe, the Four Freshmen, Bo Diddley, Melissa Manchester, Bobby Short, Ike and Tina Turner, the Mills Brothers, Teresa Brewer, B.B. King, Lynn Anderson, Chuck Berry, Hank Snow, Dana Valery, and Gladys Knight and the Pips.

None of this is normal

From The New York Times:

In a concentrated predawn burst, the president posted or reposted 89 messages between 5:49 a.m. and 8:05 a.m. on top of 18 the night before, many of them inflammatory comments or assertions about violent clashes in Portland, Ore., where a man wearing the hat of a far-right, pro-Trump group was shot and killed Saturday after a large group of Mr. Trump’s supporters traveled through the streets.

In the weekend blast of Twitter messages, Mr. Trump also embraced a call to imprison Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, threatened to send federal forces against demonstrators outside the White House, attacked CNN and NPR, embraced a supporter charged with murder, mocked his challenger, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and repeatedly assailed the mayor of Portland, even posting the mayor’s office telephone number so that supporters could call demanding his resignation.

There’s much more, including this bit:

Mr. Trump likewise reposted messages asserting that the real death toll from the coronavirus is only around 9,000 — not 182,000 — because the others who died also had other health issues and most were of an advanced age.

The latest tweet, forty-odd minutes ago: “The only way you will stop the violence in the high crime Democrat run cities is through strength!”

He’s armed, dangerous, at least semi-mobile, and running out of hyphens. Vote, early, as if your life and the life of our democracy depend on it.

[I’ve omitted the links in the Times article, which go to tweets by others, not Trump*’s retweets. I just don’t want that junk here.]

Cheese barn or cheesebarn

[Zits, August 30, 2020. Click for a larger cheese barn.]

“Nails R Us.” “Carpet Emporium.” In today’s Zits, Jeremy thinks of his father Walt as “the closed captioning of road trips.”

I think of “Grandpa’s Cheesebarn” as a sign that we see when we drive to the East Coast or back. Grandpa has three locations; the original, the one whose sign we pass, is in Ashland, Ohio, the (self-proclaimed) “world headquarters of nice people.” Elaine and I have stopped there just once, when we moved from Boston to Illinois. The water in the restaurant where we had a quick meal smelled powerfully of sulfur. We asked the server if there was a problem with the water. She didn’t understand what she meant. Even if she had, there was nothing she could have done to fix the water.

But there is something I can do to fix today’s Zits. Because Grandpa spells cheesebarn as one word:


[Click for a larger cheesebarn.]

At least it’s not camel-case. Not yet anyway.

Play Music on the Porch Day

[Better late than never.]

It’s (still) Play Music on the Porch Day.

Elaine and I played this morning, viola and guitar, for twenty or thirty people, using the available shade in our front yard. Everyone was masked and keeping proper distance. Our set list:

On a Little Street in Singapore : I Cover the Waterfront : Georgia on My Mind : Sweet Georgia Brown : Lullaby of the Leaves : Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man : It Had to Be You : Nice Work If You Can Get It : The Song Is You : Nuages : Alfalfa Medley: I’m in the Mood for Love /I’m Thru with Love : Love Is Here to Stay : Pennies from Heaven : In a Mizz : Boulevard of Broken Dreams : Walk Away Renee : Orange Crate Art : Speak Low : Molambo : When Day Is Done

And now, in the words of Ringo Starr, “I got blisters on my fingers!” Really. I’ve written most of this post with dictation.

We are already planning to do it again, and we’re not waiting until next August. On our list: Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Willard Robison, Fats Waller, and “Love’s Old Sweet Song.” And maybe no blisters.

[Last live music before today: as a listener, March 8; as a player, March 13.]

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper is by Matthew Sewell. A thirty-two-minute workout, targeting all major muscle groups.

Many clue-and-answer pairs to admire here:

1-A, ten letters, “Creators of story lines.” N-A-R-R-A-T-O-R-? Oops, no.

8-D, seven letters, “Green-haired Lincoln or Washington.” Somehow I flashed on our old Walgreens, which like every Walgreens, has no apostrophe in its name. I just checked.

11-D, six letters, “Many Oktoberfest deliveries.” Exceedingly misleading.

15-A, ten letters, “Approaches a runway too fast.” This post, which will reveal the answer, explains how I happen to know the answer.

23-D, eleven letters, “Welles’ War of the Worlds landing site.” I had it confused with a Thornton Wilder town, but ETs, to my knowledge, never stopped there. Or did they?

27-A, four letters, “Something often penciled in.” No, Michael, it can’t be APPT, because there’s nothing in the clue to signal an abbreviated answer.

30-D, six letters, “Embroidery sample.” What?

43-A, six letters, “Copy righting.” Clever.

59-D, three letters, “Vowelless Scrabble play.” The answer, fortunately, is not one of those ridiculous Scrabble words like CWM.

61-A, ten letters, “Ferocious problem-solvers.” I’m from academia, so the idea of people ferociously solving problems is pretty foreign to me. SUBCOMMITTEE? Hah.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

Hagoromo Fulltouch Chalk

“I didn't want to become a chalk dealer, but I did like the idea that I could be the ’first stick is free’ chalk dealer on the block in my department”: from CNN, the story of Hagoromo Fulltouch Chalk, a favorite of mathematicians.

I’d like to try it — just one stick. One of the things I don’t miss about teaching: the cracked fingertips made worse by chalk dust in the whorls. Perhaps Hagoromo would be an improvement.

[Found via Luke Leighfield’s newsletter Ten Things. I’ve repunctuated the sentence from CNN to make it more readable.]

*

November 23, 2020: The New York Times visited the factory.

Charlie Parker centennial

The alto saxophonist and composer Charlie Parker was born on August 29, 1920. Columbia University’s WKCR is playing his recordings around the clock, today through September 2.

I can claim to have known one musician who played with (or behind) Parker: the composer and cellist Seymour Barab, who was a member of the orchestra for Bird with Strings at New York’s Birdland. Seymour said that from set to set, night after night, every Parker solo on a given tune was a new creation.

If I had to choose just one Parker recording to listen to again and again, it’d be this one: “Embraceable You” (George and Ira Gershwin), with Miles Davis, trumpet; Duke Jordan, piano; Tommy Potter, bass; and Max Roach, drums. Recorded October 28, 1947. I’ve always thought of this recording as signifying autumn and overcoats, so I’m disappointed to learn that the temperature in New York City that day was up in the 70s, a fact I hope to forget.

“This country does not love us back”

“It’s amazing why we keep loving this country and this country does not love us back”: Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers.

Listen to his complete statement.

Sour-deens

A pause in Lena Grove’s travels:



And the moment of decision:


William Faulkner, Light in August (1932).

When I taught Light in August for the last time, I brought sardines and crackers for the class. Everyone loved them. No, I cannot tell a lie.

Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)

[For some reason, or no reason, sardine posts tend to appear on Thursdays.]