The fix we’re in

We’re in a terrible fix when so many possibilities of preserving or achieving freedoms and justice depended, at least largely, upon one eighty-seven-year-old Supreme Court justice’s not dying.

Democracy is fragile. Vote.

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, is a tough puzzle that took me forty-one minutes to solve. (Your minutes may vary.) I started briskly with 1-A, three letters, “Color close to silver”; 1-D, four letters, “Tender feeling”; 9-A, four letters, “Latter-day cheaters”; and 12-D, four letters, “Marvel debut of ’63.” And then my pace slowed considerably.

Matthew Sewell knows how to put the um in Stumper. 28-D, five letters, “Fortes”? 32-A, three letters, “Bar display”? Um . . . no idea. At least not right away.

Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:

3-D, seven letters, “Thrown-together attention-getter.” I just discovered that the answer is in Merriam-Webster.

14-D, eleven letters, “They take the edge off.” I was thinking of files and sandpaper.

25-D, ten letters, “Medieval military governments.” Just a surprising word to see.

35-D, eight letters, “Two shovels for ‘work available,’ for example.” I should have known this one immediately.

43-A, five letters, “Rome’s ___-Shelley Memorial House.” Every crossword reference to ___ or Shelley reminds me of my friend Rob Zseleczky.

43-D, six letters, “Submits for approval, perhaps.” Clever.

57-A, four letters, “Snow the heat, maybe.” Also clever.

61-A, three letters, “Common rack range.” The clue redeems the answer.

My favorite from this puzzle; 8-D, eight letters, “Kingston trios, often.” I wrote in an answer, no crosses, no nothing. It had to be, thought I. And it was. Is the answer plausible, really? Trios? I’m not sure. But for a moment I felt that Matthew Sewell and I were having a mind meld.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933–2020)

[Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 1977. Photograph by Lynn Gilbert. From Wikimedia Commons. Notice the poster for Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf.]

This year of nightmares just got much worse: “Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court’s Feminist Icon, Is Dead at 87” (The New York Times).

*

There’s now an obituary from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Love thy neighbor?

[Click for a larger view.]

What might it take to persuade some people to take COVID-19 seriously and act accordingly? I’ve wondered if this message might work. I know that I’m not the first person to think of it. (Thanks, Internets.) But I did think of it, and I offer it here, made with Friedrich Althausen’s beautiful Vollkorn font.

A pocket notebook sighting

Language trouble. The driver is flummoxed. “Jerry, haven’t you got a piece of paper? Draw it out for him.” A piece of paper? Jerry can do better than that. He carries a pocket notebook.


[Frank Puglia, Paul Henreid, and Bette Davis. Now, Voyager (dir. Irving Rapper, 1942).]


[Click either image for a larger view.]

I’ll leave it to you to figure out what Jerry is saying.

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 : To the Ends of the Earth : 20th Century Women : Union Station : Walk East on Beacon! : Where the Sidewalk Ends : The Woman in the Window : You Only Live Once

[“It is time to draw a boat.”]

“Made to Be Broken”

From August 7, one of the best episodes of This American Life I’ve heard: “Made to Be Broken.” (I’m catching up.)

Listening to this episode reminded me of a time when I tried to get someone in authority to break a rule. I had a student who was not going to pass the course. It was not mathematically possible. I had tried to persuade her to drop and make a fresh start next semester. No, she was determined to continue.

One day past the deadline for dropping a course, she told me that she realized I was right. I got on the phone and asked that an exception be made to allow her to drop. Every rule and requirement on campus had some room for exceptions, I said. The student had made a difficult and smart choice, I said, and there was no reason for her GPA to be burdened with an F (zero) from her first semester in college. No, no exception would be made. She would fail the course. Thanks, authorities.

[These events took place before drops were done online, and before retaking a course removed an earlier grade. It would have been a simple matter to process a drop one day after the fact.]

Stanley Crouch (1945–2020)

A New York Times obituary characterizes Stanley Crouch as a “fiercely iconoclastic social critic who elevated the invention of jazz into a metaphor for the indelible contributions that Black people have made to American democracy.”

The Crouch model of criticism as combat is one I have little use for. Nor am I a fan of the Crouch–Wynton Marsalis neo-conservative aesthetic that shaped Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Ken Burns PBS series Jazz. But there was no doubting Crouch’s love of and devotion to the music.

Today’s pollen and mold

[One website, three free mobile apps.]

Pollen.com: Pollen low. No mold info.

Klarify: Weeds high. Grass moderate. Trees low. With a warning: “Watch out!” No mold info.

PollenWise: Trees moderate. Grass, weeds, mold, all low.

WebMDAllergy: Mold high. Ragweed moderate. Dust, grass, trees, all low.

I feel like the BBC’s Shipping Forecast. Except that the Shipping Forecast doesn’t give several different forecasts for the same location.

Fliqlo

Yuji Adachi’s Fliqlo screensaver turns a Mac or Windows computer into a flip clock. I used this screensaver years ago. When it stopped working in 2013 after an OSX update, I forgot about it. But it’s been keeping time all this time.

For those who teach and have conferences with students, Fliqlo can be a handy way to keep track of time without awkward glances at a phone or watch.

Let me rephrase that: For those who teach and at some point will once again have conferences with students, this screensaver can be a handy way to keep track of time without awkward glances at a phone or watch.

How to improve writing (no. 88)

When you take care with writing, it’s difficult to stop. And so I found myself paying attention to these paragraphs on a box of Tetley British Blend tea bags:

Celebrating the True British Cuppa

Tetley Tea proudly celebrates 185 years of tea expertise in crafting the perfect brew. Known for its authentic British heritage, Tetley master blenders have lovingly created our best selling British Blend from the finest tea leaves around the world including Africa and Assam to give you a rich, bold and flavorful cup of authentic British style black tea. This robust, full bodied tea is perfect for your everyday pick me up.

Try it with a dash of milk for that royal experience!

It’s good strong tea, and it leaves a powerful tannin stain in the cup. But that’s pretty poor writing. “Proudly celebrates”: as opposed to “ashamedly celebrates”? “Known for its authentic British heritage”: a glaring dangling modifier. The clash of its and our presents a tricky problem of agreement. “Lovingly created”: oh please. “Around the world including Africa and Assam” sounds awkward. The march of adjectives — rich, bold, flavorful, robust, full bodied — is a bit much. That second sentence from beginning to end is unwieldy — try reading it aloud. And the first paragraph is short on hyphens, needing five to make things right. I can’t believe someone was paid to write this stuff.

Here’s my suggested revision, which fixes these problems and drops some of the hype:

Celebrating the British Cuppa

Tetley Tea celebrates its 185-year British heritage with the best-selling Tetley British Blend. Tetley master blenders bring together the finest tea leaves from Africa, Assam, and around the world to give you a rich, flavorful cup of authentic British-style black tea. Perfect for your everyday pick-me-up. Try it with a dash of milk for a royal experience.

I’ve let some of the nonsense (“cuppa” and “royal experience”) stand. But I’d suggest that my understated paragraph is far more British than Tetley’s original.

I remember a far simpler Tetley pitch: “I like those tiny little tea leaves in Tetley tea.” Yes, it was a simpler time.

Related reading
All OCA “How to improve writing” posts (Pinboard)

[This post is no. 88 in a series, dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]