Here comes Gilberte

Gilberte Swann makes an appearance on the Champs-Élysées:

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

The narrator’s early meetings with Gilberte are strange stuff, combining elements of childhood (marbles, governesses, snowballs down the back) with talk of the theater and an out-of-print book about Racine.

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)

Word Matters

An excellent podcast: Word Matters, with Merriam-Webster editors Emily Brewster, Neil Serven, Ammon Shea, and Peter Sokolowski. I’ve especially enjoyed the sixth and seventh episodes, one looking at the changing meaning of matriculate, the other busting the myth that Shakespeare invented x number of words.

In college, I never understood matriculate, and it never occurred to me to look it up. Every semester at registration I’d see the question: “Are you matriculated?” Sometimes I’d check Y. Sometimes, N. It didn’t seem to matter. I suspect that the coach who borrowed matriculate for football purposes didn’t understand the word either.

Edward M. Stringham’s archives

“The papers of Edward M. Stringham fall roughly into three categories: diaries; notes on literature, music, and art; and correspondence.” Mary Norris writes about the extraordinary archives of a New Yorker collator: “The Archives of an Unfulfilled Genius” (The New Yorker ).

Swann, dreaming

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

The young man in a fez is Swann himself: “like certain novelists, he had divided his personality between two characters, the one having the dream, and another he saw before him wearing a fez.”

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)

“Audiophile’s purchase”

Re: 8-D, seven letters, “Audiophile’s purchase,” see Anthony Tommasini, “No, I Am Not Getting Rid of My Thousands of CDs” (The New York Times).

Unknown, known

Charles Swann, making people’s lives make sense to him:

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

Donald Rumsfeld’s talk of “known knowns,” “known unknowns,” and “unknown unknowns” (what we know we know, what we know we don’t know, and what we don’t know we don’t know) is easily mocked, but it does make sense. The part of a person’s life we don’t know must count as an unknown unknown, no? Swann converts the unknown unknown into a known known by an act of imagination. Here’s hoping.

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Stan Newman, the Newsday puzzle editor, is on vacation until January 2. Today’s Saturday Stumper, by Doug Peterson, is an update of a Stumper published in 2010. It’s surprising/not surprising how dated some of the clues feel ten years after. Take 8-D, seven letters, “Audiophile’s purchase.” Well, yes, but where? Or 11-D, eight letters, “It weighs less than one ounce.” Should that be weighed? Or 21-D, four letters, “Product once pitched by Garfield.” Easily guessable, but there’s no reason that anyone in 2020 (except Jim Davis) should be expected to remember it. Or 66-A, nine letters, “Erstwhile airline.” Erstwhile indeed. I’m not disrespecting the puzzle; I’m just observing that the recent past often feels much more dated than older pasts.

Some clue-and-answer pairs I admire:

3-D, ten letters, “Flip one.” I immediately thought of “the bird.”

17-A, nine letters, “Unwanted overhang.” I immediately thought of gutters.

20-A, nine letters, “‘The Clue in the Crossword Cipher’ solver.” Could be fun to seek out.

32-D, five letters, “Crud!” An exclamation that calls for a revival. I’m surprised to see that crud is an old, old word. My guess would have been that it’s a recent euphemism for crap.

40-D, four letters, “Element of change.” What’s “change”?

49-A, five letters, “Pickup provider.” I’m surprised to see that it’s still around.

57-A, five letters, “‘Darn it, dude!’” Suddenly I’m back in high school, or on a basketball court after school. The answer fits, but no one would have been saying “darn.”

64-A, nine letters, “Some of them are overlaid.” And coming soon to my part of Illinois.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

Scalloped potatoes

“These movies are to Fox News what scalloped potatoes are to Pop Rocks soaked in Red Bull and PCP. A balm”: Virginia Heffernan writes in praise of Hallmark Christmas movies.

Good call, TCM

Among the Christmas movies on the TCM schedule: The Apartment (dir. Billy Wilder, 1960), airing today (4:45 Central). I’ve always thought of The Apartment as a Christmas movie, and I’m glad TCM does too.

Elaine’s little phrase

Elaine thinks that “the little phrase” from Venteuil’s Sonata for Piano and Violin that runs through Swann’s Way may have its model in a piece by Mendelssohn. As far as either of us can tell, no one has made this suggestion before.

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)