“5:00 p.m.”?

[Catching up on podcasts.]

From This American Life, “Late Registration,” a story about Kanye West, Wisconsin, and the true meaning of “5:00 p.m.”

Barack Obama, writing by hand

Barack Obama, in “an adapted and updated excerpt” from A Promised Land, his forthcoming memoir:

I still like writing things out in longhand, finding that a computer gives even my roughest drafts too smooth a gloss and lends half-baked thoughts the mask of tidiness.

His tools of choice: a pen and a legal pad.

One great mistake in college comp classes: equating writing with word processing.

Related reading
Obama revisions : OCA posts about writing by hand

“Big with significance for someone”

From the second novel of The Cornish Trilogy, a moment in the growth of the artist’s mind.

Robertson Davies, What’s Bred in the Bone (1985).

That final sentence makes me think of Willa Cather.

Related reading
All OCA Robertson Davies posts (Pinboard)

COVID follies

In Illinois’s Region 6, things are bad. And yet.

Today Elaine saw a Facebook ad for a nearby restaurant’s Thanksgiving buffet. An indoor buffet, $25 per person, $12.50 per “kid,” $62.99 for a family of four. If ever there could be a buffet worth risking one’s life for, it wouldn’t be this one: ham, turkey, fried chicken (choose one), mashed potatoes, noodles, gravy, green beans, dressing, rolls, pumpkin pie. What, no cranberry sauce?

The mitigation measures for our region of the state include no indoor dining at restaurants. Outdoor tables must be at least six feet apart. So how can this restaurant be offering an indoor buffet? Because we have county sheriffs who have proudly announced that they will not enforce COVID restrictions. These sheriffs see themselves as standing up to J.B. Pritzker, our (Democratic) governor, who cannot be allowed to take away our freedoms, &c.

Comments on the Facebook ad run mostly along those lines. I’ll reproduce a couple as typed:

I hope you’re going to be open for thanksgiving it’s a virus or the government don’t shut you down

just please dont close or go to carry out only! We need to have strong businesses! Not cowl down to the govt!! You guys stand strong and stay open!

One comment describes calling the restaurant and being told that employees don’t wear masks and that there’s no social distancing. And they’re planning a buffet? It’s a recipe (sorry) for disaster.

On terse comment caught Elaine’s eye: “On my bucket list.”

Elaine’s reply, surprisingly, stands, at least for now:

Isn’t the bucket list a list of things you want to do before you die? An unmasked Thanksgiving COVID hotspot might do the trick for a lot of people. Take-out food tastes just as good as in-restaurant food.

The best way to support a restaurant in the COVID era: order takeout directly from the restaurant. Pay in cash and tip generously. We’ve been doing just that with our favorite restaurant since mid-March. But we’ll be making our own Thanksgiving dinner, which will be a safer and tastier choice than that buffet. And we’ll have cranberry sauce. Also sweet potatoes.

[About those sheriffs: Yes, Illinois is a blue state. But move away from a handful of metropolitan areas, and it’s a sea of red.]

“No Cap!”’

[Life, June 10, 1946. Click for a larger view.]

After reading a BBC history of the ballpoint pen, I had to go looking for Reynolds. All I can say is that the claim of a four- to fifteen-year supply of ink fills me with existential dread. Notice (bottom left) that the pen is gendered — not unusual in the twentieth century.

The Reynolds name is still around, as an Indian brand owned by Newell Brands. And look closely: the Reynolds Xpres-Dri gel pen appear to be a Paper Mate Ink Joy with slightly different packaging. The tell-tale Paper Mate hearts remain. Newell owns Paper Mate too.

Related reading
All OCA pen posts (Pinboard) : Photographs of the Reynolds 400

[Gendered pens: among others, the Parker Compact Jotter (“for girl-size hands”), the Parker Lady Duofold, the Lady Sheaffer, the Sheaffer PFM (Pen for Men).]

Veterans Day

[From “Armistice Day.” Editorial. The New York Times, November 11, 1920.]

Then and now: the need to reinstate the United States “in the esteem of the world” by means of significant alliances.

I found this editorial a welcome contrast to the language of “swift triumph” and “unconquerable spirit” that ran through the observances of Armistice Day 1920.

Gillian Welch, Pessoa reader

Gillian Welch, talking with The New York Times:

“About a month ago, my eye was drawn to a book that has sat mostly unread on my shelf for some time, The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. I picked it up and randomly read a passage of such beautiful poignancy, such exquisite human precision, that the wonderment of creative expression flooded me. I told no one about it, but kept it to myself, and the impulse to write, the need to grapple with this moment has returned to me and grown from that little seed.”

Thanks to Stefan Hagemann for pointing me to this passage. Stefan guest-wrote an OCA post that still pulls in readers, How to answer a professor.

Related reading
All OCA Pessoa posts (Pinboard)

The ballpoint pen

“On 29 October 1945, the New York City branch of Gimbels department store unveiled a new product. Billions upon billions would follow in its wake”: the BBC tells the story of the ballpoint pen.

The fountain-pen expert Frank Dubiel used to call the Bic the most reliable pen of all. But he was devoted to fountain pens. And in truth, fountain pens require only modest care and occasional feeding to work well.

Related reading
All OCA pen posts (Pinboard)

Enlightenment value

“We’ve spent the last four years debating the value of the Enlightenment with a reality-show host”: Stephen Colbert, last night.

A Vivaldi for our time

[Click for a bigger joke.]

Elaine noticed the cover of a remarkable musical score in the wilds of Facebook. The name that goes with this cover is Stephanie Michele Ruddy, but I don’t know whether Stephanie is the creator or the sharer or both. Perhaps she is both, just as Four Seasons is both a hotel and a total landscaping company. At any rate, I thank her. And Elaine.