Don Heffington (1950–2021)

Drummer and songwriter, and Van Dyke Parks collaborator. Variety has an extensive obituary.

I heard Don play with Van Dyke in Chicago and St. Louis. So I can agree with Don’s Lone Justice bandmate Marvin Etzioni, quoted in Variety: “Like Ringo, he didn’t play drums, he played songs.”

The Los Angeles Times obituary has a great photo of DH and VDP. And here is Don Heffington’s website.

Write this down

Once again, research has shown:

A study of Japanese university students and recent graduates has revealed that writing on physical paper can lead to more brain activity when remembering the information an hour later. Researchers say that the unique, complex, spatial and tactile information associated with writing by hand on physical paper is likely what leads to improved memory.

Related reading
All OCA handwriting posts (Pinboard)

Vaccination

It makes me happy whenever I hear that someone I know has received a COVID-19 vaccine. Yay, says I, every time.

Today Elaine and I got our first shots of the Moderna vaccine. Yay, says I.

And it makes me happy to see so many people getting vaccinated. Sometimes 800 a day, the nurse said. And that’s in deep-red downstate Illinois. Yay, says I.

“In the lighted bookshop windows”

After the death of the writer Bergotte, a simple, solemn memorial.

Marcel Proust, The Prisoner, trans. Carol Clark (London: Penguin, 2003).

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)

“A little patch of yellow wall”

In Proust’s The Prisoner, the writer Bergotte dies after after gazing at “a little patch of yellow wall“ in Vermeer’s View of Delft. Marcel, our narrator, says that a critic described this patch as “so well painted that it was, if one looked at it in isolation, like a precious work of Chinese art, of an entirely self-sufficient beauty.” Vermeer’s painting is on loan in Paris. Bergotte, ill, hasn’t left his house in years. But he doesn’t remember this patch of wall, and he wants to see it.

Is there such patch in Vermeer’s painting? Elaine found a good discussion of that question by Dean Kissick: “The Downward Spiral: Little Patch of Yellow Wall” (Spike ). And another: “Petit pan de mur jaune” (Essential Vermeer).

My 2¢: I think it’s the bright roof in the right third of the painting. But I think the point is to invite the reader to look as closely as Bergotte looked. Bergotte’s response makes me think of the last sentence of Rilke’s “Archaic Torso of Apollo”: “You must change your life.” But Bergotte has no future:

“That is how I should have written, he said to himself. My last books are too dry, I should have applied several layers of colour, made my sentences precious in themselves, like that little patch of yellow wall.”

Moments later, he dies.

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)

[Quotations from The Prisoner, trans. Carol Clark (London: Penguin, 2003). The translator follows Proust in keeping the dialogue tag inside quotation marks. By this point in In Search of Lost Time, it’s more or less clear that the narrator’s name is Marcel. The confirmation is still to come. The sentence from Rilke: “Du mußt dein Leben ändern.”]

Heather Cox Richardson on the NRA

In today’s installment of Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson, historian, offers a brief history of the NRA’s shift from “sports” to “gun rights.”

[I just realized that the title Letters from an American must have been inspired by Alistair Cooke’s BBC broadcast Letter from America.]

Pocket notebook sighting

Two of the (many) creepy things about the gossip columnist J. J. Hunsecker are his little pocket notebook and his little writing instrument.

[J. J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) and Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) at 21. From Sweet Smell of Success (dir. Alexander Mackendrick, 1957).]

Good grief: it’s a perforated pad with the Hunsecker name on every page.

[Click either image for a larger view.]

Harry Kello is a corrupt cop. That little note for Sidney is a directive meant to destroy a musician’s career. J. J. will ask for that piece of paper back, of course.

What is J. J. writing with? I’d guess a miniature mechanical pencil, sterling silver no doubt, but the handwriting suggests a pen. A miniature ballpoint? But the thick and thin lines of Kello suggest a fountain pen. Well, it’s a movie. A great one.

An economical choice for the aspiring gossip columnist: the Zebra T-3 mini ballpoint or TS-3 mini mechanical pencil. Speak viciously and carry a small writing instrument.

More notebook sightings
All the King’s Men : Angels with Dirty Faces : Ball of Fire : The Big Clock : Bombshell : The Brasher Doubloon : Cat People : City Girl : Crossing Delancey : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Dead End : The Devil and Miss Jones : Dragnet : Extras : Eyes in the Night : The Face Behind the Mask : Foreign Correspondent : Fury : Homicide : The Honeymooners : The House on 92nd Street : Journal d’un curé de campagne : Kid Glove Killer : The Last Laugh : Le Million : The Lodger : Ministry of Fear : Mr. Holmes : Murder at the Vanities : Murder by Contract : Murder, Inc. : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : Naked City : The Naked Edge : Now, Voyager : The Palm Beach Story : Perry Mason : Pickpocket : Pickup on South Street : Pushover : Quai des Orfèvres : The Racket : Railroaded! : Red-Headed Woman : Rififi : La roue : Route 66 : The Scarlet Claw : Sleeping Car to Trieste : The Small Back Room : The Sopranos : Spellbound : Stage Fright : State Fair : A Stranger in Town : Stranger Things : Time Table : T-Men : To the Ends of the Earth : 20th Century Women : Union Station : Vice Squad : Walk East on Beacon! : Where the Sidewalk Ends : The Woman in the Window : You Only Live Once

A Walser talk

Soon: Susan Bernofsky talks about Robert Walser with the poet Eileen Myles. It’s a Zoom event, free, April 15, 7:00–8:30 p.m. GMT: “Clairvoyant of the Small": A Conversation.

Also soon: Bernofksy’s biography of Walser, Clairvoyant of the Small: The Life of Robert Walser, arrives on May 25.

Related reading
All OCA Walser posts (Pinboard)

[World Time Buddy is a handy site for figuring out when.]

In Illinois-15

Representative Mary Miller’s response to mass murder: to retweet Lauren Boebert and Ben Shapiro. That is all ye know in Illinois-15, and all ye need to know.

All the Mary Miller posts
January 5 and 6 in D.C., with Mary Miller : The objectors included Mary Miller : A letter to Mary Miller : Mary Miller, with no mask : Mary Miller, still in trouble : His ’n’ resignations are in order : Mary Miller in The New Yorker : Mary Miller vs. AOC

Ralph Kramden’s list

[Ralph Kramden’s bad points and good points, by Ralph Kramden. From the Honeymooners episode “Young Man with a Horn,” March 24, 1956. Click for a much larger view.]

I have the thirty-nine “classic” Honeymooners episodes on DVD, but I am still driven to watch whatever episode airs on Sunday night on MeTV. “Young Man with a Horn” aired this past Sunday. In this episode a visit from doughnut-company owner August Gunther and his wife to the Kramdens’ apartment — the Gunthers’ first apartment, many years ago — prompts Ralph to emulate Mr. Gunther and aim to become a success by eliminating his weaknesses and building up his strong points.


Bad points: 1. Late for work. 2. Oversleeping. 3. Snores. 4. Loses temper. 5. Don’t pay debts. 6. Too fat. 7. Brags. 8. Connives. 9. Daydreams. 10. Avoids responsibility. 11. Stubborn. 12. Too fat. 13. Overeats. 14. Neglects wife. 15. Spends foolishly. 16. Gullible. 17. Sloppy dresser. 18. Treats wife like workhorse. 19. Generally untidy. 20. Too fat. 21. Talks too much. 22. Argues too much.

Good points: 1. Loves wife. 2. Admits mistakes. 3. Soft hearted. 4. Has good intentions. 5. Basically honest when pinned down.

Norton suggested bad point no. 5: “You owed me two dollars for the last month.” And after Ralph pays up: “I knew it’d work!” Norton’s single suggested good point, which sort of makes this list: “The sweetest guy in the world.”

“Young Man with a Horn” is one of the most poignant Honeymooners episodes. It has very little yelling, and is nearly all hope, failure, and hope.

You can watch this episode now at YouTube.

*

An afterthought: It occurred to me that aside from the names of members behind in dues, written on a chalkboard in the Raccoon lodge, Ralph’s list of bad points and good points might be the only handwritten text we ever see in The Honeymooners.

Related reading
All OCA Honeymooners posts (Pinboard)

[Individual items on the list shift in and out of focus as the camera moves away from the wall. I transcribed with care. As far as I can tell, this transcription is the only one to be found online. I am thinking of this post as a fleeting refuge from the horror of current events.]