Idiom of the day: hurrah’s nest

From the Naked City episode “Idylls of a Running Back” (September 26, 1962). Lieutenant Mike Parker speaks:

“This is a hurrah’s nest, and the sooner it’s dumped on the district attorney’s desk, the better I like it.”

A what? Merriam-Webster says that a hurrah’s nest is “an untidy heap, mess.” Specifically, “a tangle of debris blocking a trail or stream.” Webster’s Second marks the expression as Colloq., U.S. The Oxford English Dictionary defines hurrah’s nest as “a confused or disorderly mass,” “a state of confusion or disorder.” The first citation, from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1829): ”A queer-looking Dutchman, with a head like a ‘hurra’s nest.’” The OED marks the expression as U.S. None of these sources explains how this curious phrase came to be.

But I know how it came to be in Naked City: Ernest Kinoy, the episode’s writer, thought, Let me put in this odd phrase. And then someone with curiosity and dictionaries and a little time on his hands will look it up.

Done!

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[“His hands”: because I am imagining a voice from 1962.]

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Mystery actor

[Click for a larger view.]

I think he’s pretty recognizable, but he’d be more so if this picture were a talking picture. Do you recognize him? Leave your guess in a comment. I’ll drop an oblique hint if necessary.

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Here’s a hint: He’d be more recognizable if you could hear him talking. But if you were sitting at the bottom of a pool in scuba gear, you wouldn’t be able to hear him talking.

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Elaine has a suggestion: You need to look elsewhere for a clue. Elsewhere.

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The answer is now in the comments.

More mystery actors (Collect them all!)
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A flying desk

Morning approaches. “The brief uncertainty” of waking has faded; the narrator knows what room he is in and has reconstructed it in the dark. Or so he believes.

Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way, trans. Lydia Davis (New York: Viking, 2002).

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I just discovered that I posted the same sentence in 2007 when I first read Proust. Well, a good sentence is a good sentence.

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This sentence too.

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Of Harrises and Kings

[Candace Hilligoss (“Mrs. Harris”) and Sanford Meisner (Kip Harris). From the Naked City episode “Hold for Gloria Christmas,” September 19, 1962. Click for a larger view.]

A bar owner points the police to a friend and patron of a dead poet: “You know, Kip Harris, the writer. He’s always on television with his young wife.”

In 1962 those lines would have unmistakably suggested Alexander King (1899–1965) and Margie King (1932–2018). Between 1959 and 1961, Alex and Margie made five joint appearances on The Tonight Show with Jack Paar. Alex made many more solo appearances. In 1959 Alex and Margie had a show of their own, Alex in Wonderland, on New York City’s Channel 13 (public television). And in 1959 Margie made a brief appearance in an episode of Naked City.

Elaine and I knew Margie as Margie King Barab. We visited Margie and her husband Seymour Barab in New York every summer for many years. On one visit we watched an episode of Alex in Wonderland on Margie’s MacBook: Margie raised questions and posed topics, and Alex expounded. It was Ask Me Anything, pre-Reddit. At one point Margie played a solo on a snare drum.

From a New York Times article, “Man of Many Words: Alexander King Appears to Have Rich Source of Material for TV Show” (April 12, 1959):

Mr. King talks frequently, on and off the air, about his wife, a young woman from Chadron, Neb., whom he married six years ago. Mrs. King has appeared on the musical stage in summer stock. She obtained some of her musical training as an exchange student in France. She played a snare drum in high school and occasionally does a drum solo on the TV program. “We thought it would be fun,” she says.

O mid-century world, that had such people in’t!

As for the actors in that screenshot: you may recognize Candace Hilligloss from Carnival of Souls (dir. Herk Harvey, 1962). Hilligoss studied with the actor and acting teacher Sanford Meisner.

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“Like little boats”

Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way, trans. Lydia Davis (New York: Viking, 2002).

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“Kids on the Case”

From the podcast Criminal, a great episode: “Kids on the Case,” true stories of children solving crimes, helping to solve crimes, and finding a missing person. These kids are living the dream, or at least my childhood dream. I was a boy secret agent.

Yes, this episode is from September. I’m catching up.

Speaks softly, doesn’t lie

From the This American Life episode “Personal Recount,” devoted to stories of people changing their minds. Louis Rosman is an Iowa farmer who voted for Donald Trump in 2016. His granddaughter Lizzie Johnson interviewed him for the show:

LJ: How long did it take you to figure out that Trump was not that change that you wanted?

LR: Well, this virus has really convinced me because he totally disregarded it and still does. He acts as if it don’t exist. And all these people are dying, and he still thinks that’s all you have to do, is just ignore it. And then he said, it’ll be over with by Easter. It’ll be over with by July. And it’s always a bunch of damn lies. It scares the hell out of me. I ain’t ready to die yet.

And then the deal the way they were handling those children down at the border, herding them around like a prisoner-of-war camp. Five hundred-some are separated from their parents, and some of them are six months old.

LJ: It sounds like thinking about those kids without their parents has really stuck with you.

LR: Well, why wouldn’t it? With anybody, anybody with feeling. Trump has no feeling. Absolutely none. That’s why I like Joe Biden, because he has a soft voice and he doesn’t tell lies. I wanted someone who cares for someone or something besides himself.

LJ: Would you have thought I was crazy if, in 2016, I told you, hey, you would vote for a Democrat in 2020, straight down the ticket?

LR: If you would have told me what was going on now back then, I wouldn’t have believed this could happen.

We need to hear more stories of people changing their minds.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump* is retweeting a crackpot who says that Georgia’s governor and secretary of state “will soon be going to jail.”

[“Who voted for Donald Trump”: I’ve dropped the asterisk for impeached, as Trump* wasn’t an impeached president in 2016. I’ve made one slight alteration in the TAL transcript.]

Items in a series

The narrator has heard Mlle. Swann’s mother yell: “Gilberte, come here! What are you doing?” And Gilberte’s name begins to touch everything:

Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way, trans. Lydia Davis (New York: Viking, 2002).

People, a line of work, a neighborhood: I like that wildly disparate series.

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Naked City Stonewall

Though the television series Naked City ranges all over Manhattan (and beyond), it makes the island feel more like a small town, its locations immediately recognizable. Look, there’s the Park again. And Park Avenue. And Riverside Drive. And The Old Landmark.

Here’s another landmark. Elaine spotted it first: the Stonewall Inn, 53 Christopher Street. The park is Christopher Park. Its fence is at least 130 years old. The Stonewall sign is now gone.

[Varney (Dana Elcar) and Joseph Irma (Paul Richards) talk over their plans. From the Naked City episode “Strike a Statue,” May 16, 1962. Click for a larger view.]

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