Today’s Saturday Stumper

Geography to the rescue: 14-A, eight letters, “Chicago IMAX theater site on the Lake.” That’s a start. And 4-Down, four letters, “English coal port”? That’s guessable. As is, somehow, 15-A, seven letters, “Presidential summit, today.” But today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by “Andrew Bell Lewis” (Matthew Sewell and Brad Wilber), was an undelightful slog. Nine abbreviations and acronyms and initialisms. Too many, IMHO. Too much trivia: 1-A, eight letters, “App used by MLB for player evaluation.” And I wonder if the constructors were trying to outdo each other in the farfetchedness department. 29-D, nine letters, “Appliance needing good food release.” What? Or rather, Wut?

Some clue-and-answer pairs I liked:

12-D, nine letters, “What you don't have to take.” Clever.

34-A, seven letters, “Misses surfing, perhaps.” Thank you, Brian Wilson.

44-D, five letters, “Crème brûlée ingredient.” Ridiculous, but enjoyable.

55-A, six letters, “Teem members?” Cute.

One really unconvincing clue: 43-D, six letters, “Staple of Chinese cuisine.” I have never heard anyone refer to this six-letter answer. Some online searching suggests that it’s a reach. Just toss it in that appliance needing good food release.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

Tweetstorm

Donald Trump*, spreader of disinformation, sower of discord, speaker at the headquarters of a landscaping company. Who’s writing this script?

*

It seems that his lawyers will be speaking. And lo: the landscaping company sits across the street from a crematorium and a few doors down from a so-called adult bookstore (“DVD’s/Lotions,” “Novelty Gifts,” “Viewing Booths”). Look up 7739 State Road, Philadelphia, and you can see the whole street. Did Trump*’s people think they were booking space at the Four Seasons Hotel?

The best thing I’ve read today

[While waiting.]

Philip Kennicott, writing in The Washington Post about Trumpism as “a chronic condition of American public life,” “a lifestyle disease rooted in sedentary thinking”:

No matter what happens to Donald Trump or who assumes the presidency in January, we can say this: He brought the truth of America to the surface. I’ll leave his policies and his politics — to the extent that he ever had policies or coherent politics — to the pundits. As a critic, I can say that he embodied, embraced or inflamed almost everything ugly in American culture, past, present and perhaps future. He made it palpable and tangible even to people inclined to see the bright side of everything. That this week’s election wasn’t a repudiation of Trumpism, that some 6 million more Americans believe in it now compared with four years ago, is horrifying. But it’s also reality, and it’s always best to face reality.

He also gave our unique brand of ugliness — rooted in racism, exceptionalism, recklessness, arrogance and a tendency to bully our way to power — a name. Trumpism is now rooted in the lexicon, and although white supremacy may be the better, more clinical term for what ails America, Trumpism is a useful, colloquial alternative.

This way, please

Andrew Bates, speaking for the Biden campaign:

“As we said on July 19th, the American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.”

[From Bloomberg.]

Pluperfect

[While we are waiting.]

[“An Intense Tense.” Zippy, November 6, 2020.]

Today’s Zippy raises a question hitherto unasked in comics. Having thought of “hitherto unasked,” I couldn’t not type it.

What’s your favorite part of grammar? I want to say, with Sarah Palin, “All of ’em.” But my genuine answer might be adjective order, an astonishing example of how rules are built into language in ways that we may not even realize. As they say, language speaks us.

I also like the past subjunctive, because it can be a challenge, like an extreme sport.

When did you last hear someone speak of the pluperfect tense? For me, it might have been in eighth-grade English with Mrs. Skewes. And now she wants me to correct Zippy. It is called the pluperfect, or the past perfect, Zippy, not “past pluperfect.”

See also the “future pluperfect.”

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)

Music to wait by

[“Georgia on My Mind” (Hoagy Carmichael–Stuart Gorrell). Mildred Bailey and a sextet directed by Matty Malneck: Nat Natoli, trumpet; John “Bullet” Cordaro, clarinet; Malneck, violin; Roy Bargy, piano; Fritz Ciccone, guitar; Mike Trafficante, tuba. November 24, 1931.]

Son House and Buddy Guy

[While we are waiting.]

I went on a Son House kick yesterday and discovered that an episode of Camera Three with Son House and Buddy Guy is now available at YouTube. The last few minutes, a House and Guy duet, have long been available online. The scant information at the IMDb gives the episode title as “Really the Country Blues,” aired August 17, 1969.

The term “country blues” is an invention of record collectors of course, and the host’s characterization of Guy’s music as “the new country blues” is bizarre. But there’s nothing wrong with the music.

[Really! The Country Blues is the title of a 1962 compilation LP from Origin Jazz Library.]

A Naked City mail chute

[While we are waiting.]

That’s a pretty spiffy mailbox. Detective Arcaro, could you step away so we can get a good look? Please?

[A hotel manager (Charles Tyner), Detective Adam Flint (Paul Burke), Detective Frank Arcaro (Harry Bellaver), and Lieutenant Mike Parker (Horace McMahon). From the Naked City episode “C3H5(NO3)3,” May 10, 1961. Click any image for a larger view.]

Here’s the one good glimpse of the box:

[Flint and mailbox.]

I don’t see the name, but I’m assuming it’s a Cutler Mailing System. Notice the pre-ZIP Delivery Zone label. I spotted one of those in 2013, on a visit to the Tibor de Nagy Gallery. The gallery’s address was 724 Fifth Avenue, in Zone 19. The ZIP Code for that address: 10019. The hotel in this Naked City episode was the Spencer Arms Hotel, 140 West 69th Street. The ZIP Code for that address: 10023. See? The world makes sense: 19, 10019; 23, 10023. Elaine remembers seeing the hotel when was a Juilliard student living on the Upper West Side. In 1986 the building became a co-op.

One more glimpse before parting, with a good view of the chute:

[Flint and Parker with Jack Lubin of the bomb squad (Terry Carter). Carter, by the way, was the first Black actor to appear in the series.]

Looking through the Spencer Arms’ lobby windows in Google Maps’ Street View leads me to believe that the Cutler Mailing System has left the building.

This post is for my friend Diane Schirf, who likes Cutler Mailing Systems.

Related reading
All OCA Naked City posts (Pinboard)

“I will arise and go now”

Donald Trump’s lunatic performance on Twitter this afternoon (“we hereby claim the State of Michigan”) makes me think he might be happiest in a country of his own. Greenland is already taken. Let him retire then to the (tax-free!) Principality of Mar-a-Lago. “I will arise and go now, and go to Mar-a-Lago,” &c. And stay there, as it has no extradition treaty with the United States.

Did I really have this conversation?

Yes, I did, last week at the gas station.

“Just so you know — the card reader at the first pump isn’t working. I tried two cards.”

“How isn’t it working?”

“It doesn’t read the cards.”

[True, the machine could have eaten my card. But in that case, I would have said “The card reader ate my card.” And I wouldn’t have been able to try a second card. The technical term for this sort of stuff: conversational implicature.]