Orange Crate Art

Saturday, May 15, 2021

Out of practice

Elaine and I went out to visit friends last night, our first nighttime social effort in well over a year. And we didn’t remember to turn on the outside light when going out. We’re out of practice.

But we did remember how to talk to other people in person. Once again, it didn’t feel odd at all.

Today’s Newsday Saturday

I woke up thinking I’d better write a post about the Newsday Saturday crossword. And then I realized that I hadn’t done the puzzle last night. Why? Because we were visiting friends to watch a movie, for the first time in well over a year. The times are changing.

Today’s puzzle is by the Newsday puzzle editor, Stan Newman. It’s a fine puzzle, with room for lowlifes and rowdies and royalty:

5-D, four letters, “Wild bunch.”

28-D, five letters, and 49-A, three letters, “Quite a boor.”

34-A, fifteen letters, “2017 QEII celebration.”

For me this was one of those puzzles in which clue after clue leads nowhere — for instance, 17-A, seven letters, “Paper aide,” or 30-D, five letters, “More than kind.” And then when the puzzle is done, nearly every answer seems inevitable.

Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:

3-D, six letters, “Bread flavoring.” Yes.

8-D, fifteen letters, “Erie Canal Museum city.” We’ve stayed there a few times on road trips — in the city, not the museum.

20-A, seven letters, “They’re in a book of Liszt’s.” Where they’d be Liszted in the index, I suppose.

30-A, five letters, “Evacuation order.” A nice clash of diction between clue and answer.

35-D, eight letters, “Signature collectors’ banes.” Who thinks about these things? Signature collectors, I guess.

38-A, six letters, “Deny or sustain, say.” Not as obvious an answer as you might think.

44-D, six letters, “Milwaukee TV tribute statue in a two-thumbs-up pose.” Not SISKELANDEBERT.

62-A, eight letters, “Subject of an early Tom Wolfe book (1968).” Easy to be misled by the opening letters of the answer, at least if you’re me.

One pairing that doesn’t persuade me: 12-D, eight letters, “Ecclesiastical antonym.” I may be missing something, but I don’t see a contrast. Ecclesiastical matters can be just as 12-D in their focus as anything else.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Friday, May 14, 2021

“Adoration” again

[“Adoration,” by Florence Price, arranged by Elaine Fine. Randall Goosby, violin. Zhu Wang, piano.]

Here’s “Adoration” again, this time with audio and video. And this time the text under the video at YouTube credits Elaine as the arranger.

I get pitches

Only occasionally. They suggest “collaboration,” and they’re inevitably from someone with no idea what my blog is about. This morning, there’s a pitch from a website:

Hello! Great to MEAT you!

It’s all about meat and health and positive emotions. Meat: that must be why this pitch was in the SPAM folder! Maybe I should send them one of my WURST efforts! Or should it be WELL-DONE? I’ll hurry and try not to take too LOIN! Now I’m out of exclamation points.

Related reading
All OCA liverwurst posts (Pinboard)

[What is my blog about? Many things.]

E-mail, or email ?

From Bryan Garner’s LawProse Lesson #364:

From the inception of email in the late 1970s, the word was predominantly hyphenated. (Same with e-business, e-commerce, etc.) In print sources, the turning point came in 2012: that's the year in which, in books at least, the solid form overtook the hyphenated form in frequency of use. Today the solid form predominates by a 2:1 ratio in books. The ratio is much higher in other types of writing. The Chicago Manual of Style acknowledged the shift in its 17th edition of 2017. If you've been a stalwart hyphenator and intend to continue, just know that your communications will strike people as ever more quaint.

I like the consistency of e-noun, no matter the noun, and have no plans to remove hyphens from my 2005 post How to e-mail a professor. I’m content to have my communications strike people as ever more quaint. Just look at some of the meanings of quaint : “clever, ingenious; wise, knowing; skilled” (OED). Granted, those meanings are obsolete.

If you like to subscribe to Bryan Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day & LawProse Lessons, you can sign up for the free e-mails or emails here.

Spencer Silver (1941–2021)

He inadvertently created the adhesive that found a use in “repositionable pressure-sensitive adhesive sheet material” — aka the Post-it Note. The New York Times has an obituary.

OCA is big on Post-it Notes. I see eight partial pads on my desk as I’m typing.

Some Post-it Note posts
Disses, digital and analog : Jim Lehrer’s Post-it Notes : Post-it Note bird : Post-it Note history : Thelonious Monk : Twenty uses for a Post-it Note

Thursday, May 13, 2021

A Fine Price

[“Adoration,” by Florence Price, arranged by Elaine Fine. Randall Goosby, violin. Zhu Wang, piano.]

Elaine just learned that her arrangement of Florence Price’s “Adoration” for violin and piano will appear on violinist Randall Goosby’s first album, Roots (Decca), to be released on June 25. HIs performance, with pianist Zhu Wang, has been released on YouTube as a calling card for the album.

This performance of “Adoration” is the first recording of Elaine’s arrangement. But “Adoration” seems to be everywhere in this grief-stricken time. Last July a string orchestra in Chicago played “Adoration” (Elaine’s arrangement) as part of a musical vigil for Elijah McClain, the violinist killed by police in Aurora, Colorado.

[Price wrote “Adoration” for organ. How was Elaine able to make an arrangement? The piece is in the public domain in the United States. Elaine’s arrangements of “Adoration” for duos and for string orchestra are available in the IMSLP under a Creative Commons license.]

M-W, NFT, WTF

Merriam-Webster is selling an NFT of its definition of “NFT.” The pitch begins: “Many people don’t really know what “NFT” means. But you do. So does Merriam-Webster, America’s most trusted dictionary.”

The current high bid: Ξ 7 ($26,344.89).

Yes, it’s for a good cause, with the proceeds going to Teach for All. But I dunno. My post title is meant to suggest my amused disbelief. You’d never catch The American Heritage Dictionary engaging in this kind of postmodern stunt, harumph. (My harumph is in jest.)

Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Matt Thomas’s Times digest

Matt Thomas is ending his Sunday New York Times Digest after more than thirteen years. He explains why here. He will continue to blog at Submitted for Your Perusal.

Matt reads the print Times, and thus always finds items that a reader/skimmer of the online Times is likely to miss. I am grateful for his dedication to finding items worth sharing.