Naked City Mongol

[Joe Silver as “Dean of Admissions.” From the Naked City episode “No Naked Ladies in Front of Giovanni’s House!” (April 17, 1963). Click for a larger view.]

I dunno. Maybe they used the same pencil from episode to episode. At any rate, there it is in the cup, a Mongol.

On the second shelf, the fourth book from the right looks like it might be a volume from the Reader’s Digest Condensed Books series. In a dean’s office?

Like every other Naked City episodes, this one is at YouTube. Not one of the best, but it does afford the chance to see Harry Guardino, Marisa Pavan, and Christopher Walken.

Venn reading
All OCA Mongol posts : Mongol and Naked City posts : Naked City posts (Pinboard)

Everything changes

A question for non-smokers and ex-smokers only: when did you last see an ashtray? Meaning a traditional tabletop ashtray, not the enormous outdoor kind. My answer: I can’t even remember.

Leaving Mar-a-Lago

From CNN:

Many once-loyal members of Mar-a-Lago are leaving because they no longer want to have any connection to former President Donald Trump, according to the author of the definitive book about the resort.

“It's a very dispirited place,” Laurence Leamer, historian and author of Mar-a-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power at Donald Trump’s Presidential Palace, told MSNBC host Alex Witt on Weekends with Alex Witt Saturday. He said members are “not concerned about politics and they said the food is no good.”

It sounds like Mar-a-Lago may be turning into a latter-day Xanadu. Jigsaw, anyone?

The Blogger Quick Edit tools

The pencil icon that allowed for quick edits to Blogger posts and widgets disappeared a few days ago, along with the tools icon for editing widgets. But there are ways to get them back. Two posts from Adam at Too Clever by Half, this one and this one, explain.

I took what looked like the path of least resistance: I downloaded the Mac app Cascadea (new to me, $2.99) and created a Blogger Tools style for my blog, typing in my URL and one line of code:

.item-control {display:initial;}

You can also restore the Quick Edit tools so that they display (in unusable form) on any Blogger blog. That change makes it possible to once again delete comments that you’ve left on other blogs while logged into Blogger.

An ideal fix would have the Quick Edit tools visible on your blog alone, and only when you’re logged in and can use them. But to paraphrase Salzberg’s Theory of Pizza, it’s better to have a pencil you don’t want (or can’t use) than to want a pencil you don’t have.

Having just spent more than half an hour trying to figure out how to get Blogger to display side-by-side images with wraparound text, I will agree with Too Clever by Half that Google continues to make Blogger more difficult to use.

January 25: The Quick Edit tools are back. But to have them available in Safari, you have to allow cross-site tracking. (The setting is under the Privacy tab in Safari Preferences.) I’d rather not have cross-site tracking, so I’m going to use the Cascadea modification and just get used to seeing the tools all the time. It’ll be like living in a home workshop.

More about masks

More about masks, from NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday, “Not All Masks Are Created Equal: How To Choose The Safest Mask For You,” an interview with Jeremy Howard, a research scientist at the University of San Francisco. Howard is a co-founder of Masks4All.

See also “Why Aren’t We Wearing Better Masks?” by Howard and Zeynep Tufecki (The Atlantic).

A related post
Double-masking

Double-masking

In The New York Times, a suggestion to double-mask:

Double-masking is a sensible and easy way to lower your risk, especially if circumstances require you to spend more time around others — like in a taxi, on a train or plane, or at an inauguration.

I have it from an informed source that double-masking is standard practice for many doctors and nurses: better mask underneath, cheap paper mask on top. Toss the cheap mask, and let the better mask sit in sunlight before using again.

Today’s Newsday Saturday

Today’s Newsday  Saturday crossword, by Matthew Sewell, is not a Stumper. But it’s not that easy either. I started with an answer that I knew had to be right: 15-D, ten letters, “Bound to happen.” I was almost right, right enough to get a few (correct) answers and catch my mistake. I still think my mistaken answer fits the clue better.

Some clue and answer pairs I especially liked:

7-D, four letters, “Close watch.” The answer should have been obvious, and yet it wasn’t.

14-D, ten letters, “Sit-downs.” A nice clash of diction between clue and answer. “Sit-downs” makes me think of Tony Soprano and company. The answer, not so much.

16-A, four letters, “It may be nursed in a nursery.” Aww.

19-A, three letters, “Gull or rook.” Good birdplay.

A clue whose answer I find unconvincing: 65-A, ten letters, “‘Dinner is served’ sight.” Does anyone really say those ten letters? I may need to travel in better circles. Or these days, any circles. Or any shapes.

My favorite clue in this puzzle: 63-A, ten letters, “What those who have had it have.”

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

Hank Aaron and Peanuts

For two weeks in August 1973, Peanuts devoted its daily (non-Sunday) strip to Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, and Snoopy. You can start on Wednesday, August 8, and read through to Wednesday, August 22.

Here’s some context: “Hammerin’ Hank’s 715th Home Run” (Fishwrap). And the New York Times obituary for Aaron.

Thanks to Stefan Hagemann for pointing me to this moment in baseball, comics, and culture.

Naked City Mongol

[Frank Gorshin, Charles Tyner, and a Mongol. From the Naked City episode “Beyond This Place There Be Dragons” (January 30, 1963). Click for a larger view.]

The Mongol seems to be the official pencil of the Naked City, showing up in a number of episodes.

“Beyond This Place There Be Dragons” is one of my favorite Naked City episodes. You can watch this episode, and every other Naked City episode, at YouTube.

Venn reading
All OCA Mongol posts : Mongol and Naked City posts : Naked City posts (Pinboard)

Time passing

From the Murphy Brown episode “Midnight Plane to Paris” (November 9, 1992). Murphy (Candice Bergen) to her son Avery: “A baby’s brain doesn’t even recognize time has passed. You’re kind of like the Beach Boys that way.”