Small pleasures

The video of a meeting about an urgent university matter suffered from terrible lag. The problem wasn’t the browser or the connection. It was the website, which probably wasn’t made to stream recordings of hour-long meetings with ease. I quote from the meeting:

“The names of the files are”

Buffering . . .

Buffering . . .

“intuitive.”

If there’s to be lag, it can at least be amusing lag.

[No. 10 in a series.]

Eric Carle (1929–2021)

Eric Carle, artist and author of countless books for children, has died at the age of ninety-one. The New York Times has a lengthy obituary, with links to previous Times coverage of his work.

Here is Eric Carle in 2009, talking about The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

“No Worries if Not!”

What’s happening to The New Yorker ? The styling of a title for a cartoon piece: “No Worries if Not.” The title is all-caps on the page, but in the browser tab and in two New Yorker e-mails (May 23, May 24), if  is styled with a lower-case i. Look, here’s proof:

  [Left to right: May 23, May 24.]

A year ago, The New Yorker capitalized if in titles. As recently as December 21, the magazine capitalized its if s. But by December 28, the capital was gone. It’s still gone, as this April title shows. It appears that in lowercasing if, The New Yorker has ditched The Chicago Manual of Style and the MLA Handbook and cast its lot with the Associated Press and The New York Times.

I must point out: the April title I’ve linked to in the preceding paragraph — “I Am Trying to Decide if I Should Buy Two Rolls of Paper Towel or Three” — is in need of correction. It should read “I Am Trying to Decide Whether I Should Buy Two Rolls of Paper Towel or Three.” How do I know that?

Garner’s Modern English Usage on if and whether:

It’s good editorial practice to distinguish between these words. Use if for a conditional idea, whether for an alternative or possibility.

Merriam-Webster is particularly helpful:

There is a grammatical hint that calls for whether instead of if. Whether is the one that precedes an infinitive, which is the verb form in the collocation “to + simple verb,” as in “I am wondering whether to change our reservations.” Whether, in this case, refers to the making of a choice, whereas if states a condition, as in “If the contestant spells the word wrong, he or she will be eliminated.”

Read “whether I should buy” as “whether to buy,” and the choice is clear. Or you could think of Hamlet: “Whether ’tis nobler,” &c.

Why did the if in the April title make me think about whether ? Because if and whether often confound me when I write. So I keep an entry about the two in a notes app.

But let’s leave rolls of paper towel alone. I think the writer is being arch. No worries if not!

[See also pant. And Apple’s approach to pluralization.]

The Bronx

From To Each His Own (dir. Mitchell Leisen, 1946). Daisy Gingras (Victoria Horne), after hearing about life in claustrophobic Piersen Falls:

“The more I hear of them cozy little towns, the better I like the Bronx.”

[Now streaming at the Criterion Channel.]

Cursive in Maine

The New York Times reports on cursive handwriting in a Maine school:

For years, screens have replaced notebooks, keyboards have subbed in for pens and digital life has revolved around the printed word.

But at a small school in Maine, cursive handwriting thrives, with two students recognized in a national contest last week for their skills crossing T’s and dotting I’s with precise and legible shape, size, spacing and slant.

But it bears repeating: writing by hand ≠ cursive handwriting.

Related reading
All OCA handwriting posts (Pinboard)

Twelve movies

[One to four stars. Four sentences each. No spoilers.]

Guilty Bystander (dir. Joseph Lerner, 1950). A great role for Zachary Scott as Max Thursday, ex-cop, practicing alcoholic, and house detective in a seedy hotel. His son and his ex-wife’s (Faye Emerson) brother are missing, and he has to pull himself together, at least enough to find them. Mary Boland has a great turn as Smitty, the hotel proprietor; J. Edward Bromberg is a poor man’s Peter Lorre as a gangster in a warehouse. A good low-budget effort, restored from a single surviving print: it’s like Italian neo-realism in a B-movie. ★★★

*

No Man’s Woman (dir. Franklin Adreon, 1955). Marie Windsor is a nasty, scheming, treacherous art dealer — what noun did you think I was leading up to? In what became the manner of Perry Mason and Murder, She Wrote, this movie presents a host of characters with good reason to kill: an ex-husband, the ex’s fiancée, a gallery assistant, the assistant’s fiancé, and an art critic. Unambitious storytelling but fine performances. Windsor must have had great fun playing this role. ★★★★

*

The Woman in Question (dir. Anthony Asquith, 1950). A British Rashomon, and a luckily appropriate follow-up to No Man’s Woman. Agnes (Jean Kent), aka Madame Astra, fortune-teller, is murdered, and a police inspector is given five different accounts of her character, from a landlady, a sister, the sister’s beau, a neighbor, and a suitor — and yes, the inspector cracks the case. A tour de force for Jean Kent, who changes from genteel lady to slattern to siren to helpless damsel to scorned lover. Props too to Hermione Baddeley, as an ultra-talkative landlady, and to Dirk Bogarde, who brings an element of Nightmare Alley to the story. ★★★★

*

Christmas in July (dir. Preston Sturges, 1940). A fever dream of capitalism and consumerism, with Dick Powell as an office drudge who devises an inscrutable entry for a rival coffee company’s slogan contest: “If you don’t sleep at night, it isn’t the coffee, it’s the bunk.” When his co-workers concoct a telegram telling him he’s won, a shopping spree and hilarity ensue. I think of Preston Sturges as Frank Capra with an edge, a filmmaker who both mocks and cherishes cheerful realities. With snappy writing and many members of Sturges’s informal stock company. ★★★★

*

I Care a Lot (dir. J Blakeson, 2020). Rosamund Pike plays Marla Grayson, an evil court-appointed guardian who robs old people of their assets and their freedom. When she puts Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Weist) into a care facility, things go very wrong. This movie looks like teary made-for-TV drama at first, before turning into a very dark comedy. Is it my imagination, or is Marla supposed to look like Ivanka Trump? ★★★★

[Ivanka? Did you get your hair cut?]

*

Time Regained (dir. Raúl Ruiz, 1999). An adaptation of the final volume of In Search of Lost Time that takes up and recasts elements from throughout Proust’s novel (including the famous madeleine scene, here treated in a funny, offhand manner). A brilliant film with painterly cinematography that captures the novel’s narrator, Marcel, moving through space and time, as rooms and streets open onto memories, and people change into younger then older versions of themselves. With Catherine Deneuve as Odette, Emmanuelle Béart as Gilberte, John Malkovich as Charlus, and Marcello Mazzarella as an eerily convincing Marcel. It’s for readers only: if you haven’t read Proust, much of what’s here will make little or no sense. ★★★★

*

This Land Is Mine (dir. Jean Renoir, 1943). Life under occupation: the Nazis have marched into town, and residents make peace with the occupiers or don’t. We see a variety of responses: from a pragmatic railway manager (George Sanders) to a switch man and saboteur (Kent Smith). At the heart of things: Albert Lory, a meek schoolteacher (Charles Laughton) who lives at home with his mother (Una O’Connor), secretly adores a colleague (Maureen O’Hara), and unexpectedly finds the chance to speak truth to power. That this movie feels so much of our time in its premise is both tragic and unsurprising. ★★★★

*

Two by Mitchell Leisen

To Each His Own (dir. Mitchell Leisen, 1946). I love discovering a movie I’ve never heard of and being knocked out, as happened here. Waiting for a train, a businesswoman (Olivia de Havilland) examines her life in a series of flashbacks. At the heart of her story: a son born out of, as they used to say, wedlock. So many things to consider here: a small town, small minds, selfishness, generosity, grief, stoic determination, love, self-knowledge, and, as time begins to run out, an ending that puts me in mind of Make Way for Tomorrow. ★★★★

*

No Man of Her Own (dir. Mitchell Leisen, 1950). Even better, I’d say. The story is built of probable impossibilities: pregnant, alone, with nothing but a suitcase and a handful of coins, Helen Ferguson (Barbara Stanwyck) travels by train to San Francisco but ends up in Illinois after a derailment kills her newfound traveling acquaintances, a recently married couple back from a year in Europe. The husband’s family has never seen even a picture of his wife, who was also pregnant. Helen Ferguson takes the identity of the late Patrice Harkness, and thus begins a high-stakes attempt to erase the past and create a new life — but the past, as William Faulkner said, ain’t even past. ★★★★

[I’ve seen two other Leisen films, Murder at the Vanities and Easy Living, but I couldn’t have told you who directed.]

*

The Blue Dahlia (dir. George Marshall, 1946). Shades of the Odyssey: Alan Ladd plays Johnny Morrison, a Navy pilot who comes home to Helen, his two-timing wife (Doris Dowling) and a house full of day-drinking partiers. When Helen turns up dead, Johnny becomes the prime suspect. A satisfying story full of fine performances: Howard Da Silva as owner of the Blue Dahlia nightclub, Veronica Lake as Lauren Bacall, Will Wright as a house detective (did every building have one?), and, above all, William Bendix as a fellow vet prone to fits of rage. My favorite moments: Ladd and Lake in a car in the rain, exchanging snappy patter; Ladd tipping over a table. ★★★★

*

Nichols and May: Take Two (dir. Phillip Schopper, 1996). An episode of American Masters, now at TCM. It’s worth waiting out the commentary from an odd array of talking heads (men only, including Tom Brokaw) to get to the skits, which are incredibly smart and incredibly funny, with incredible timing and tone. It’s comedy that demands attention to every word. Listen, for instance, to Nichols and May talking over music. ★★★★

*

They Won’t Believe Me (dir. Irving Pichel, 1947). I always like seeing TV people in their pre-TV days: here Robert Young, the genial family man of Father Knows Best, is utterly convincing as Larry Ballentine, a player-schmuck who thinks he can juggle his wife (Rita Johnson) and multiple girlfriends (Jane Greer and Susan Hayward). The movie takes the form of extended flashbacks as Larry tells his story to a jury — something like a high-end Detour, and here too the protagonist’s story defies belief. The final scene must have startled audiences in 1947 — it certainly startled me. Favorite line, Hayward to Young: “You’ve got quite an opinion of your drawing power, haven’t you?” ★★★★

[Sources: the Criterion Channel, Netflix, TCM, YouTube.]

Related reading
All OCA film posts (Pinboard)

Brontë manuscripts

Brontë manuscripts for sale: “A trove of Brontë family manuscripts — all but unseen for a century — will be auctioned by Sotheby’s as part of what the auction house is billing as the sale of a legendary ‘lost library’ of British literature treasures” (The New York Times ).

Recently updated

Words of the day: estrade and dais  Now with names for the chemistry-classroom fixture with sink and Bunsen burner.

“Mostly I read”

From a rebroadcast episode of Innovation Hub, “The Man Behind 24-Hour News,” in which Kara Miller interviews Lisa Napoli, author of Up All Night: Ted Turner, CNN, and the Birth of 24-Hour News. Napoli says that she stopped watching television in 2001:

“My mother called and said ‘Put the TV on,’ and I saw the second plane hit the tower, and I turned the television off, and I have not had it on — I have not had a television since then. . . .

“I just can’t — I can’t consume it. I live in a large apartment building in downtown Los Angeles. Last night we were sitting here eating dinner, and we could see someone with a gigantic television on — we see them every single day; all day long it’s on CNN. I don’t think it’s healthy; I just don’t think it’s healthy. . . .

“I just made the personal choice twenty years ago to turn it off, and I feel smarter because of it. I read. I listen. Mostly I read.”

[I could’ve sworn I posted these comments, more or less, when the show first aired. Apparently not.]

Words of the day: estrade and dais

What’s the word for the platform at the front of a classroom where the instructor’s desk stands? Is there a word for it? I was reaching for such a word on Saturday and later found one in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette : estrade.

From the Oxford English Dictionary : “a slightly raised platform; a dais.” Estrade is borrowed from French, which gets the word from the Spanish estrado. The first OED citation for the word in English is from 1696. But when Brontë uses the word, it’s undoubtedly meant to be read as French, in the company of classe, classroom; grenier, attic; salle à manger, dining room; and so on. The OED provides a citation that places us in a classroom. From J.G. Fitch’s Lectures on Teaching (1880): “The teacher . . . should have his desk on a mounted estrade or platform.”

Dais is a much older word, first appearing in English in the thirteenth century. It has relatives in Old French, modern French, Italian, and Provençal. The primal source is the Latin discum, table. The OED definitions:

A raised table in a hall, at which distinguished persons sat at feasts, etc.; the high table. (Often including the platform on which it was raised.)

The raised platform at one end of a hall for the high table, or for seats of honour, a throne, or the like: often surmounted by a canopy.

The dictionary notes that these meanings became obsolete in 1600 but were later revived by historical writers and antiquarians.

Another meaning came later, with a first citation from 1888, post-Brontë:

By extension: The platform of a lecture hall; the raised floor on which the pulpit and communion table stand in some places of worship.

I will admit that in my life as a student and teacher, I never heard anyone speak of a dais or an estrade. A reference to the first would have made me think of the table at a Dean Martin celebrity roast. A reference to the second would have baffled me:

Professor: “Come up to the estrade after class and we can talk about that question.”

Me: “?”

But some of my earliest teaching took place in a classe with an estrade. (I’m sticking to the French of Villette for fun.) The estrade — okay, platform — must have been at least a foot off the classroom floor, with an extra step between platform and floor. I often descended from my perch to walk around the front of the room at an altitude that felt more congenial.

*

A question came up in the comments: Geo-B wondered about a name for the front-of-the-room classroom fixture with sink and Bunsen burner. I asked a chemistry teacher. It’s called a demonstration table or demonstration bench. Thanks, Phyllis!

Here, from the American Chemical Society, is a description of a properly outfitted chemistry classroom.