“What should I do until then?”

[“Biden His Time.” Zippy, October 22, 2020.]

Today’s Zippy poses an urgent question. Griffy explains that he has to keep Zippy “offstage & blindfolded” while awaiting the end of one “long national nightmare” or the start of a nightmare even worse.

What to do in the next twelve days? I’ve voted, and I’ve given all the money to candidates that I can. I will follow the news, some of it, and try to remind myself that CNN and MSNBC seek to intensify angst.

Also: read, write, walk, do FaceTime, and listen to music. And have a glass of wine, a bottle of beer, or two ounces of Scotch at night. Reading includes the comics and Robertson Davies’s The Cornish Trilogy. Music includes The Harry Smith B-Sides. Scotch means Glenmorangie.

How do you plan to get through the next twelve days?

A Langston Hughes Zoom event

Jameatris Rimkus, archivist, presents “The Mystery Recordings of Langston Hughes: A Poet Visits the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign,” Thursday, November 5, 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m. CST. Registration is free, via this link.

The mystery recordings, found in a box in the University Archives, are of Hughes reading his work for a live audience. The only documentation: the recordings were made by WILL Radio. But the archivist is on the case.

“What? What?”

Whatever our current misery, I feel fortunate to have had eight years of life with this man as president. And to have him campaigning for Joe Biden now. Barack Obama, a few minutes ago at a drive-in rally in Philadelphia:

“You’ll be able to go about your lives knowing that the president is not going to retweet conspiracy theories about secret cabals running the world or that Navy SEALs didn’t actually kill Bin Laden. Think about that. The president of the United States retweeted that. Imagine. What? What?”

Honk! Honk!

A repurposed caption

[Cartoon by Lars Kenseth. The New Yorker, September 21, 2020. Caption by me. Click for a larger view.]

I thought it might be fun to repurpose the caption from a recent New Yorker cartoon by Teresa Burns Parkhurst. So I looked at recent cartoons from the magazine’s Cartoon Caption Contest. The Burns caption fits this cartoon well. This one too, kinda sorta. But the cartoon above, from a few weeks back, is a perfect loopy fit.

The New Yorker offers no prize to winners of its Contest. And certainly not to someone captioning after the fact with borrowed goods. I am therefore awarding myself a small plate of crackers with peanut butter, and a small glass of Silk on the side, to be consumed as a midafternoon snack.

The canonical all-purpose captions for New Yorker cartoons — “Christ, what an asshole!” and “What a misunderstanding!” — would work well here too. But I wanted to make something out of the blue.

“Fellows”

[Zits, October 21, 2020.]

As D’ijon explained in yesterday’s Zits, Pierce is “experimenting with conformity.” But it’s not just his appearance that’s changed. Look at his speech balloon: he’s sounding like the old Mark Trail. And from Monday’s strip:


[Zits, October 19, 2020. Click either image for a larger view.]

I have to think Pierce’s whom is meant for laughs. Notice also his wristwatch.

Related reading
A handful of Zits posts

The Old Landmark

Elaine called it first. Fourth and Bowery: we were there, at that corner, last summer, on foot, on our way to see an exhibit of Joe Brainard’s collages, drawings, and paintings. In the time of Naked City, the corner establishment, 359 Bowery, was The Old Landmark Bar and Restaurant. The Old Landmark appears in five Naked City episodes.

[Detective James Halloran (James Franciscus) pays a visit in search of information. “Line of Duty,” October 14, 1958. Click any image for a larger view.]

[Halloran again. “Beyond Truth,” April 7, 1959. In this episode the interior seems to be that of another establishment.]

“Killer with a Kiss” gives good glimpses of the Bowery to the south of The Landmark (the 7 Up sign) and north. Look — there’s the Five Spot Café, at 5 Cooper Square. Even if you don’t know jazz history, you might know the Five Spot from Frank O’Hara’s poem “The Day Lady Died.” By 1960 a sign with the establishment’s name had replaced the generic BAR & GRILL visible in “Line of Duty.” And by 1960 one or more buildings across 4th Street had been torn down for a parking lot.

[“Killer with a Kiss,” November 16, 1960. A drinker inspired by a missionary’s zeal pours out what’s left in her bottle. Burt Brinckerhoff, a near ringer for Anthony Perkins, plays a psychokiller posing as a blind pedestrian, waiting to cross the Bowery.]

[“Show Me the Way to Go Home,” November 21, 1961. Burt Brinckerhoff, Celia Adler, and Lois Nettleton take a break. The Old Landmark stands in the background.]

Here’s a last glimpse of The Old Landmark. I like the tattered awning, a nice urban touch.

[“Bridge Party,” December 27, 1961.]

Not only were we walking the Bowery last summer: we had lunch last summer at the establishment that now stands where The Old Landmark stood, Phebe’s Tavern and Grill. It was a lovely place for lunch, brick walls, an old wood floor, salmon burger, quinoa salad.

Here’s a post from an East Village-centric blog with some photographs of The Landmark. Dig the businessman’s lunch menu — quite a ways from salmon and quinoa. According to this post, The Old Landmark was in business in 1910. According to the New York City Municipal Archives (see below), this building dates to 1920.

And here’s one final look at The Old Landmark, as it appeared not in Naked City but in real life:

[From the New York City Municipal Archives Online Gallery, 1939–1941. Click for a larger view.]

The 29-DVD set of Naked City, all four seasons, is still available. A great value in television.

Related reading
All OCA Naked City posts (Pinboard)

Thank you, Brian and Al

“We have absolutely nothing to do with the Trump benefit today in Newport Beach”: Brian Wilson and Al Jardine disavow a Donald Trump* benefit put on by Mike Love’s touring version of the Beach Boys (Variety ).

Mike Love is just so gross.

Lighting and me

I finally realized why I get so much spam mail about lighting fixtures. Look at my last name.

[L-e-d, as in LED.]

Jeffrey Toobin, exposed

From the New York Daily News:

Journalist Jeffrey Toobin has been suspended from the New Yorker after exposing himself during a Zoom call, according to a report. Sources told VICE that Toobin was suspended while an investigation is conducted. The incident reportedly occurred during a call between workers at the New Yorker and WNYC radio, in which the prolific writer allegedly showed his penis. “I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off-camera," Toobin, who’s 60, said in a statement to VICE. "I apologize to my wife, family, friends and co-workers.”

I was going to say that there’s always been something about Jeffrey Toobin that rubs me the wrong way, but I think I’ll just step back from that joke. Toobin has, though, always seemed to me a tad arrogant, more than a bit of a mansplainer in his CNN appearances. Now he really has some mansplaining to do. “I thought I was off-camera” is a pretty limp excuse.

*

It’s worse. I’ll add that I made that rub-the-wrong-way joke before the full extent of Toobin’s folly was known.

Afterthought: “Toobin’s folly” would make a nice euphemism for something or other.

A related post
How to improve writing (no. 80) (A Toobin sentence)

“Orange Crate Shark”

I downloaded the Google app to try its new song-recognition feature. Just hum, and the app tells you the song. I often have unidentifiable bits of music popping into my head. For instance. And more recently, this little phrase for strings. I’m a capable hummer. So I thought the Google app might be useful to me.

I tried humming. I started with “Orange Crate Art.” The Google app identified it as “Baby Shark.”

Okay, something easier.

The Google app turned “Old McDonald” into “Death Grips” by Ha Ha Ha. Yes, really. Honest.

For “Take the ‘A’ Train” it had nothing.

A minute or so later the app was gone from my phone.