Will Shortz again

Will Shortz, giving the answer to last week’s puzzle on NPR this morning: “Ma Rainey, as in the movie Ma Rainey’s Blues.” There was no correction from Lulu Garcia-Navarro.

The title of the play and movie is of course Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, a title taken from the song of that name. I wonder whether Blues was a genuine mistake or a way to skirt bawdy language.

See also “Cool jazz pioneer”, nepenthe, NOLIKEY, and Will Shortz on poetry and meter.

Mother’s Day

Heather Cox Richardson has a beautiful installment of Letters from an American today, honoring a (non-biological) mother in her life.

Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers, including mine, now just a mile and a half away.

Today’s Newsday Saturday

Today’s Newsday  Saturday crossword, by Matthew Sewell, is no Stumper, but it’s still plenty challenging. I got a quick start filling in the upper left corner (5-D, three letters, “‘___ man can tether time or tide’: Burns”), floundered about elsewhere, and finally found much of the puzzle falling into place after getting 4-D, fifteen letters, “It’s sticky to raise.”

Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:

7-D, seven letters, “Make-up artist.” Good punning.

11-D, fifteen letters, “Receiving-line delivery.” I was thinking the answer must have to do warehouses. Nah.

14-A, six letters, “Deep hostilities.” Better punning.

15-A, eight letters, “‘I spy’ occasion.” Been there, done that.

25-D, six letters, “Possible cause of smearing.” TREMOR? No, nothing to do with make-up or an unsteady hand.

38-D, seven letters, “Move like a squirrel.” Poor squirrels — you just show up and they drop what they’re doing. How do they ever relax?

47-A, four letters, “Table material.” A nice example of a clue adding value to an answer. Sad but true: my first thought was DEAL, from Marcel’s deal table in In Search of Lost Time.

58-D, three letters, “Opening remark.” Another value-added answer.

61-A, seven letters, “Hard to dismiss.” Still true, largely, with appropriate and inappropriate exceptions.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Stacey Abrams on Robertson Davies

Stacey Abrams, talking about books with The New York Times:

What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?

What’s Bred in the Bone, by Robertson Davies, is a novel about a man whose life contained much more than the surface would suggest, including espionage and angels. Davies was a distinguished Canadian author, and this is Book 2 of his Cornish Trilogy (The Rebel Angels and The Lyre of Orpheus are first and third). I usually recommend the book to folks who ask me for a good book list. Rarely has anyone heard of him or the novel, which is a shame.

Related reading
All OCA Robertson Davies posts (Pinboard)

Block that metaphor

On MSNBC a few minutes ago:

“He might pull the rug out from under Kevin McCarthy no matter how many times he tries to go back to the well.”

Related reading
All OCA metaphor posts (Pinboard)

Hive mind

My iPhone (iOS 14.5.1) is a hive of activity: the Safari Favorites icons for The New York Times and the Times Spelling Bee change at will. The blackletter T  for the Times sometimes changes to the bee of the newspaper’s Spelling Bee, as seen here. And the bee for the Bee sometimes changes to the T of the Times. (Please trust me on that.) I’ve tried deleting bookmarks and saving again, and the icons still appear to have a mind of their own — a hive mind, I guess.

Cobbler’s bench or mulberry bush?

The things we debate in our fambly. Everyone else knows “Pop Goes the Weasel” as beginning with “All around the cobbler’s bench.” I, like the cheese, stand alone: I’ve always know the song as beginning with “All around the mulberry bush.” Both versions are fine, of course. That’s the folk process. But which is more common, the bench or the bush?

The bush, I suspect. Google’s Ngram Viewer has no results for “All around the cobbler’s bench” in American English or British English, 1900–2000. The Viewer does have results for “round the cobbler’s bench” in American English, which makes me think that “Round and round the cobbler’s bench,” not “All around,” is the more usual phrasing. (Why the shortened search? Because the Viewer won’t search for more than a five-word string.)

The Straight Dope says that in North America, the bush is more common that the bench, and that in the United Kingdom, “All around the cobbler’s bench” is the usual phrasing. Which, I’d say, makes its absence from Ngram results for British English puzzling. But not more puzzling than “Pop Goes the Weasel” itself, whose words I refuse to reduce to meaningful paraphrase.

As for Google itself:

“round and round the cobbler’s bench” weasel : 1,140 results

“all around the cobbler’s bench” weasel : 2,040 results

“all around the mulberry bush” weasel : 225,000 results

I added the word weasel to the searches to rule out results concerning gardening or shoemaking. And now I am off to wind, wind, wind the bobbin.

Another thought about vaccination

What I learned yesterday about the lack of interest in vaccination in my deep-red part of Illinois helps me to understand a conversation I had a week or so ago. We were talking about vaccines. Someone’s sister had a fever of 102° after getting the second Moderna shot. Oh, said I, the second shot really wiped me out for a day. “Yes, but it’s better than getting COVID.” And I said, “Of course!” And I thought to myself, Why would anyone need to say it’s better? Obviously it is.

And now I realize, people here do need to say it’s better to put up with side effects for a day or two or three than to contract COVID. That’s not already obvious to everyone.

The George Floyd Bunt Staff

Fresca posted a photograph of a man playing a Bundt pan instrument in George Floyd Square. “That’s Douglas Ewart!” I said.

Douglas was playing a “sonic sculpture” of his creation, the George Floyd Bunt Staff, which he describes as “an idiophone comprising tin and cast-aluminum Bundt baking pans whose sonic potential and possibilities are incalculable.” The staff honors Floyd as “the Everyday Hero,” known to and loved by many. As Douglas says,

George Floyd Bunted with his life to open the eyes, and awaken hearts, portals, conscience, intelligence, ire, reprimands, demands, and commands.

Here is Douglas Ewart’s website. Here is his commentary on the instrument and the events that gave rise to it. And here is a short video, with Douglas, Ananya Chatterjea, and Julia Gay playing staffs. Videography and editing by Stephanie Watt.

How do I know Douglas Ewart’s music? From LPs and CDs of course. But also from three performances at the University of Illinois, with Stephen Goldstein, Wadada Leo Smith, and Quasar.

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