While I was sleeping

Earlier this morning, Orange Crate Art had its two millionth visitor, from Istanbul, visiting a post about the Mayflower Coffee Shop(pe). Yay.

I suspect that the visitor was seeking to clarify a reference in Frank O’Hara’s poem “Music.” Search for “mayflower coffee shoppe ” and “frank o’hara ” and my post should be the first result. Or at least one of the first results.

It was mid-afternoon in Istanbul when someone there found the post. The Internet, it’s a wonderful thing.

A commercial to go with it

David Plouffe’s description of Donald Trump*: “A spray-tanned, drugged-up pitchman for Regeneron.” Now there’s a TV commercial. Or a “TV commercial.”

[Plouffe’s words: yesterday, on MSNBC.]

“I might as well”

Maria Magdalena Theotoky is a graduate student at Spook, the College of St. John and Holy Ghost. She has signed up for New Testament Greek with a professor she calls Prof. the Rev., Simon Darcourt. Prof. the Rev. is checking his students’ Latin skills by asking for a translation of a short passage. It forms the motto, he says, for the work of his seminar: “Conloqui et conridere et vicissim benevole obsequi, simul leger libros dulciloquos, simul nugari et simul honestari.“ Maria is the only woman in the class of five. And she is the only student who can provide a translation.

Robertson Davies, The Rebel Angels (1981).

The Rebel Angels is the first novel of The Cornish Trilogy. Only one-thousand-and-something pages to go!

Related reading
All OCA Robertson Davies posts (Pinboard)

[The source for the passage: book 4, chapter 8. Augustine is describing pleasures with friends.]

A concise description

“A spray-tanned, drugged-up pitchman for Regeneron”: on MSNBC, David Plouffe just offered this concise description of Donald Trump* on the White House lawn yesterday.

*

Oh, look: now there’s a TV commercial.

Recently updated

Opportunities A Washington Post article about how systemic racism shaped George Floyd’s life has more on Floyd’s time in college. There are more articles to come. The next one is to be all about education.

Sluggo, the Sultan of Swat

[Nancy, May 19, 1950. Click for a larger view.]

There’s a Nancy for every occasion. Get on that stage, Sluggo, and give Mike Pence what for.

Thanks to Chris at Dreamers Rise for this strip.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

[Post title with apologies to George Herman Ruth Jr.]

Cursive is good for you

Psychology Today reports on new research suggesting that cursive is good for your brain:

Data analysis showed that cursive handwriting primed the brain for learning by synchronizing brain waves in the theta rhythm range (4-7 Hz) and stimulating more electrical activity in the brain's parietal lobe and central regions. . . .

The latest (2020) research on the brain benefits of cursive handwriting adds to a growing body of evidence and neuroscience-based research on the importance of learning to write by hand.

Related reading
All OCA handwriting posts (Pinboard)

Reality just got a little weirder

I’m not linking, but I just read that Stormy Daniels (yes, that Stormy Daniels) will be conducting a paranormal investigation at a nearby location, once a poorhouse, later a psychiatric hospital. Tickets are $75.

Advice from Colbert

Stephen Colbert just now, offering advice to Susan Page, the moderator of tonight’s debate:

“Susan, if you want to make Mike Pence shut up, you have to ask him to say ‘Black lives matter.’”

I feel sorry for Daniel Dale

Oh, the work of a legit fact-checker. My fact-checking of Mike Pence can be much more casual. No. No. No again. Nope. False, I’m afraid. Uh-uh. No, not that one neither.

*

Kamala Harris was impressive. Though Pence seemed to be using up more time, CNN clocked the candidates as virtually equal. I think Harris was able to turn Pence’s endlessness against him: she waited as he went on and on, then insisted on time to respond, and, in so doing, had the last word in a number of exchanges. I believe that rhetorical strategy is known as rope-a-dope.