A precept from Paracelsus

It’s National Coming Out Day. And by chance, I read this sentence this afternoon, in Robertson Davies’s The Rebel Angels (1981), where it’s attributed to Paracelsus:

Be not another if thou canst be thyself.

Man and Superman

The New York Times reports on a Donald Trump* scheme:

In several phone calls last weekend from the presidential suite at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Mr. Trump shared an idea he was considering: When he left the hospital, he wanted to appear frail at first when people saw him, according to people with knowledge of the conversations. But underneath his button-down dress shirt, he would wear a Superman T-shirt, which he would reveal as a symbol of strength when he ripped open the top layer. He ultimately did not go ahead with the stunt.

Bikes and birds

A former Trump* White House official speaks:

“They aren’t even considering what happens when he’s feeling worse than he’s feeling now, when he’s hopped up full of steroids and other performance enhancers. He’s on the sort of drugs you’d see with a Tour de France rider in the mid-’90s!” Another way to say this, the former White House official said, was that the president is “hopped up on more drugs than a Belgian racing pigeon.” In keeping with the bird theme, this person said the president’s illness was proof that “the chickens are coming home to roost.”

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, is a really good one, meaning 1. that I could solve it, and 2. that I could solve it in about twenty-four minutes. Some giveaways, some stumpish clues, some surprises and weirdness and fun. I started with a giveaway: 1-D, three letters, “It had 300+ campus chapters in ’69.” Only one possible answer, really, for that clue, even if the answer was a little before my time.

Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:

5-D, five letters, “Hand-made props.” Stumpish.

8-D, four letters, “Talk follower or preceder.” Surprising.

24-A, seven letters, “Guys set for life.” I was thinking STATUES, though the clock is ticking, or has ticked, for so many of them — and rightly so.

26-A, four letters, “Chica, brevemente.” Maybe a giveaway, but the clue redeems the crosswordese.

27-D, four letters, “Either of two in the Bluetooth logo.” So that’s what they are! So much fun with shorter answers in this puzzle.

33-A, nine letters, “Swing shift?” I was thinking hours.

41-A, five letters, “Upsize, say.” I did not see this one coming.

One clue that made me wince: 45-A, three letters, “Pronoun in Hiroshima.” There’s a place name that should be off-limits for wordplay, I’d say.

And one clue that leaves me baffled: 32-A, four letters, “Suspended course.”

Huh? Wha? No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

Newman speaks

[“A Message from Your Friendly Local Mail Carrier.” From PACRONYM.]

I’m not sure that it strikes just the right tone, but I can’t resist sharing it.

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.