Martin Radtke and the NYPL

When I visited the New York Public Library’s J. D. Salinger exhibit in November 2019, I took a quick photograph of a plaque in the floor — and then forgot about it. Here, from that photo, are the words on the plaque.

Inscribed here are the words of an immigrant whose life was transformed by the Library and whose estate now enriches it.

IN MEMORY

MARTIN RADTKE

1883–1973

I had little opportunity for formal education as a young man in Lithuania, and I am deeply indebted to The New York Public Library for the opportunity to educate myself. In appreciation, I have given the Library my estate with the wish that it be used so that others can have the same opportunity made available to me.

In 1974 The New York Times published a story about Martin Radtke, his donation, and the plaque.

Related reading
All OCA library posts (Pinboard)

The joys of browsing

Jason Guriel writes about the joys of browsing: libraries, bookstores, record stores, video stores: “Life in the Stacks: A Love Letter to Browsing” (The Walrus).

“Nine eight eleven alarm clocks”

V. gives us a glimpse of his brother’s writing habits:

Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (1941).

Related reading
All OCA Nabokov posts (Pinboard)

Donald Rumsfeld (1932–2021)

George Packer, writing in The Atlantic:

Rumsfeld was the worst secretary of defense in American history. Being newly dead shouldn’t spare him this distinction. He was worse than the closest contender, Robert McNamara, and that is not a competition to judge lightly. McNamara’s folly was that of a whole generation of Cold Warriors who believed that Indochina was a vital front in the struggle against communism. His growing realization that the Vietnam War was an unwinnable waste made him more insightful than some of his peers; his decision to keep this realization from the American public made him an unforgivable coward. But Rumsfeld was the chief advocate of every disaster in the years after September 11. Wherever the United States government contemplated a wrong turn, Rumsfeld was there first with his hard smile — squinting, mocking the cautious, shoving his country deeper into a hole. His fatal judgment was equaled only by his absolute self-assurance. He lacked the courage to doubt himself. He lacked the wisdom to change his mind.

And speaking of McNamara and Rumsfeld, Errol Morris’s documentaries The Fog of War (2003) and The Unknown Known (2013) are worth seeking out.

A related post
Homer’s Rumsfeld (It’s Agamemnon)

Camp COVID

From CNN:

More than 80 teens and adult staffers from a Central Illinois summer camp tested positive for Covid-19 in an outbreak that has impacted people across three states, officials said.

The Crossing Camp in Schuyler County held in mid-June did not check vaccination status for campers or staffers, and masks were not required indoors at the camp, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) said in a news release. . . .

All campers and staff were eligible for vaccination, although “IDPH is aware of only a handful of campers and staff receiving the vaccine,” the department said Monday.

The camp is a Christian enterprise, with a website promising “Best Summer of Your Life.” The link to a Medical Release Form from the site’s dropdown menu for Summer Camps goes nowhere. A page detailing What to Bring does not mention masks.

The camp session that suffered the outbreak: Student Camp 2021, for eight-graders through graduating seniors — all old enough to have been vaccinated.

*

August 31: Now the count is “180 confirmed and probable cases” (Chicago Tribune).

[The Wayback Machine’s archive of the site also shows a Medical Release Form link that goes nowhere.]

FeedBurner e-mail subscriptions

A word to all who read Orange Crate Art via e-mail: FeedBurner will end e-mail subscriptions in July. I’ve looked for an alternative service without success. Some services offer only notifications, so that a subscriber must click through to read a post. Other services send posts with intrusive ads or awful formatting. Most emphasize the building of one’s brand — that’s not me.

If you’ve been reading via e-mail, all I can suggest, at least for now, is that you visit Orange Crate Art in person or subscribe via RSS. I hope you’ll do one or the other or both.

[If I do find an appropriate service, e-mail subscribers will need to resubscribe. I would never give subscribers’ e-mail addresses to another service without permission.]

More interesting tuna salad

If anyone doesn’t already know: curry powder makes tuna salad instantly more interesting. I first tasted tuna salad with curry powder — as an unannounced ingredient — in Cambridge, Massachusetts, many years ago, after buying a sandwich to eat while waiting to buy tickets, or something.

If that last sentence fails to makes this post more interesting, please ignore it and focus on curry powder instead.

A Mongol sighting

Nicky’s face (John Cassavetes) is hidden, for now. But there’s his pencil, its ferrule shining, immediately recognizable — at least if you care about pencils.

[Mikey and Nicky (dir. Elaine May, 1976).]

[Click either image for a larger view.]

Related reading
All OCA Mongol pencil posts (Pinboard)

[The first (headless) shot fills the screen; the second shows part of the first.]

Van Dyke Parks and Verónica Valerio

“A legendary 1960s music producer teams up with an up-and-coming musician from Mexico”: Marco Werman talks with Van Dyke Parks and Verónica Valerio about their new album, Van Dyke Parks Orchestrates Verónica Valerio: Only in America.

Related reading
All OCA VDP posts (Pinboard)

Clip art and rocks

[“Ee-Yew!” Zippy, June 29, 2021. Click for a larger view.]

“Some rocks” is an abiding preoccupation of these pages.

Venn reading
All OCA Nancy posts : Nancy and Zippy posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)