Theories

Marcel Proust, Finding Time Again, trans. Ian Patterson (London: Penguin, 2003).

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)

ABC

On “the preeminence of ABC.” From Judith Flanders’s A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order (New York: Basic Books, 2020):

It is an unspoken assumption of alphabetic writing systems that the alphabet is primary. Letters near the beginning of the alphabet are somehow superior to those that follow: alpha males dominate romantic fiction; in the 1950s, B-movies followed or preceded the main feature; in the 1960s the B-side of records carried the songs that were not expected to be hits. The preeminence of ABC over, say, DEF, or LMN, runs unconsciously through every part of the world that uses an alphabet, and some regions that do not: there have been broadcasting companies named ABC in the USA, Australia, Britain, the Philippines, and even in Japan, a nonalphabet country; it is also the title of a Swedish news program, a Spanish newspaper, and several food companies and cinema chains across the globe. As well as an Arab Banking Corporation in alphabetic Bahrain, there is an Agricultural Bank of China in decidedly nonalphabetic China. ABC is a programming language, and a streaming algorithm. English-speakers learning first aid are reminded to check ABCs (airways, breathing, circulation). Mathematics has an abc conjecture, an ABC formula, and Approximate Bayesian Computation. The Admiralty, Baranof, and Chichagof Islands off the coast of Alaska are known as the ABC Islands; their counterparts in the Lesser Antilles are Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao.

I’m still in the preface and already learning things.

"Millionaire cousins“

A tribute to the housekeeper Françoise’s “millionaire cousins,” the Larivières, who come out of retirement to work in a café run by the widow of their nephew, who has been killed in the Great War.

Marcel Proust, Finding Time Again, trans. Ian Patterson (London: Penguin, 2003).

An odd moment, in which the relatives of a fictional character, in a book “in which everything has been made up,” are avowed as real. Even odder when we realize that it seems to be not “Marcel,” the autobiographical narrator, who speaks here but his creator, M. Proust.

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)

John Richards (1923–2021)

John Richards, the founder of The Apostrophe Protection Society, has died at the age of ninety-seven. Here is a tribute from the Society’s pages. And here is an article from The Washington Post.

Related reading
All OCA apostrophe posts (Pinboard)

The Netflix DVD library that was

Jim Vorel, writing about the Netflix DVD library that was:

We traded in a library of 100,000 titles for one that currently has less than 4,000 — and we’re never going to get the former back. There’s no telling how long even the gutted version of DVD.com (Netflix’s DVD spin-off) will continue to operate, but I imagine I’ll be going down with the ship, still nostalgic for its glory days.

Not me. Our household left Netflix some time ago. We rejoin for a month when there’s more Stranger Things.

Vorel’s commentary is worth reading, but I have to point out his publisher’s cynical trick of loading the URL with words chosen to generate traffic about DVD.com doom. The title of the commentary: “The Former Netflix DVD Library Is a Lost Treasure We’ll Never See Again.” But the URL that goes with it:

www.pastemagazine.com/movies/netflix/netflix-dvd-service-plan-subscribers-discontinued-closing

That’s why I haven’t linked. The URL is there if you want it.

“Blue, black, yellow, plaid, etc.”

A patron of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, or someone purporting to be a patron, wrote a letter of complaint about the orchestra’s decision to devote its 2021–2022 season to the work of Black composers.

An excerpt, preserving the errors in the original:

I feel you could and should structure your programing and events as ‘musicians’ and their contribution to the art,or a style not weather they are blue, black, yellow, plaid, etc.

I don’t take this letter at face value: I suspect that it’s the work of a provocateur. What interests me though is not the identity of the writer but the items in a series: “blue, black, yellow, plaid, etc.”

Why do white people so often bring colors not found in humankind into discussions of race? “I don’t care if you’re black, white, green, or purple,” &c. I think doing so serves two purposes. One, the catalog of colors loudly proclaims a lack of racism and shows just how much the white person means it: “You could be green for all I care,” any color, of course, being a deviation from the default setting white. At the same time, the catalog renders the realities of color and racism absurd — because there are no green or purple people. The catalog of colors thus urgently marks the white person’s distance from racism while simultaneously trivializing the reality of color — which in itself is a racist gesture.

I thought these thoughts on my own. But I am late to the game.

Related reading
The invocation of strangely colored people (Rachel Manija) : Stuff white people do: invoke strangely colored people (macon d) : You Don’t Care if Someone Is Black, White, Green, or Purple? You Should! (Katy Waldman)

[And what about all the seasons devoted to the work of white composers? The provocateur appears not to understand irony. “Black, white, green, or purple” appears to be a common series. I knew it before reading Katy Waldman’s essay.]

A Joe Biden notecard

My son Ben thought I would like this photograph of a notecard in Joe Biden’s hands. I do. It’s a markedly different notecard from one seen in the former guy’s hands.

Thanks, Ben.

Related reading
All OCA index card posts (Pinboard)

Mystery actor

[Click for a larger view.]

This guy’s in trouble. Just look at the beads of sweat on his forehead and temples. Can anyone help him out by at least letting him know the name of the actor playing his part?

Leave your best guess in the comments. I’ll drop a hint if one’s needed.

*

That was fast. The answer’s now in the comments.

More mystery actors (Collect them all!)
? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ?

Astraios, music and film

A concert from Astraios Chamber Music, available through May 3: Music & Silent Film. A total delight, and probably the most artful COVID-era online production I’ve seen, right through to the closing credits.

Among the films shown: El hotel eléctrico (dir. Segundo de Chomón, 1908), with a score by Elaine Fine. Watch, listen, enjoy.

Will Shortz, enemy of free verse

Will Shortz, doing the Sunday Puzzle this morning on NPR, asked what an Olympic swimming pool and a poem have in common. The answer: meter. Shortz: “A poem usually has meter.”

Uh, no.

Will Shortz’s blend of smarty-pants certitude and cluelessness (no pun intended) irks me whenever it surfaces. As it did this morning.

See also “Cool jazz pioneer”, nepenthe, and NOLIKEY.