Paul McCartney and relativity

From “Like Professors in a Laboratory,” the fourth episode of the mini-series McCartney 3, 2, 1:

”George Martin was like our teacher, just because of the age. He was a little bit older. It wasn’t much. I mean, I think we always thought of him as an old man. I think he was like probably thirty when he started with us, which I certainly don’t think of as old now.”

George Martin was born in 1926 (d. 2016). Paul McCartney was born in 1942.

Paul is not my favorite Beatle, but four episodes in, McCartney 3, 2, 1 is a delight, a parade of surprises about what’s in Beatle songs and how those things got there. Rick Rubin, McCartney’s partner in conversation, is an enthusiast and a helpful maker of suggestions that McCartney picks up and expands upon. Too much head bobbing though.

Back to relativity: here’s Russell Procope, clarinetist, saxophonist, Ellingtonian, talking about King Oliver and Johnny St. Cyr and making a similar observation about age.

“Change in plans!”

I am here today to hate on an (unembeddable) Fidelity Investments commercial.

And it is a commercial, though it also runs on the PBS NewsHour as an underwriting spot. Long form (:30) or short (:03), there it is on the NewsHour, night after night.

In this commercial we see a chic older couple moving their money around — not once, not twice, but three times.

First they decide to put money aside for impending grandchildren. Which means that they don’t trust their daughter to use the money they’ve already set aside for her to benefit her children? Or that they’re leaving their daughter nothing? Or that they have so much money that they can dish out still more of it to future generations? Whatever: “Change in plans!” The wife gets to say it first. And it becomes a refrain.

After setting a chunk of money aside, the couple decides to move to a loft. The thought arises when they see a sign as they stroll through a city: “Lofts Available Next Summer.” “Change in plans!” says the husband. His exclamation is the worst moment in the commercial. It’s his casual smugness what does it. Notice that his hair is fuller, lusher, than his wife’s, which may help to explain his smugness.

[“Change in plans!” Click for a larger, smugger view.]

And then a third more mysterious change, marked by an artist’s return to the easel: “Mom, you’re painting again? You could sell these.” Mom smiles dimwittedly. When the couple walk into the Fidelity office yet again, the rep knows what to expect: “Let me guess: change in plans?” Are they looking to open a gallery? To buy additional Joy of Painting DVDs? Is the agent being sarcastic when she says “Change in plans”? Am I joking when I allude to Bob Ross? (The answers to these questions: Probably not. Probably not. Probably not. Yes.)

Notice that every “change in plans“ in this commercial is a cheerful one. No family crises. No medical crises. And everything in the commercial worsens when you know that the background music is Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” Wealth management indeed.

I had intended to post something else today, but — “Change in plans!”

[“What does it”: a Popeyeism, not a typo.]

Peppa Pig, language influencer

From The Wall Street Journal : “Peppa Pig, a Pandemic Favorite, Has American Children Acting British.”

I love hearing children say “Jawgh.” Everyone loves hearing children say “Jawgh.”

[I hope the link works.]

“Favorite Books”

An anonymous reader asked me to “correct” the Favorite Books section of my Blogger profile by listing titles instead of writers. From my point of view, there’s nothing to fix.

As my wife Elaine suggests, you can take any name on the list as prefaced by the words “anything by.” They are all good bets. Elaine does something like that in her Blogger profile: “everything by Stefan Zweig, Willa Cather, and Balzac.”

If you want titles, you might look at the Pinboard tags for OCA fiction and poetry posts. (There’s a list of top tags in the sidebar.) Or you might look at the annual reports of the Four Seasons Reading Club, our household’s two-person adventure in books: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. The names in tagged posts and the FSRC reports go well beyond those on the profile list.

Finding D. W.

Jason Szwimer, the voice of D. W. Read for four seasons of Arthur, has a podcast, Finding D. W., devoted to finding and interviewing the other males who have voiced the character. NPR had the story this morning.

The podcast appears to be available in all the usual places.

Go fish

Fun: Why Everyone Is Obsessed With Tinned Fish (Thrillist). I can vouch for the Bela and Matiz brands.

Thanks to Music Clip of the Day for this catch.

Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)

Today’s Newsday Saturday

Today’s Newsday  Saturday crossword, by S. N., Stan Newman, the puzzle’s editor, is a real challenge, a great crossword, a Saturday Stumper in everything but name. I ended up stuck in the northeast corner last night and put the puzzle aside for another episode of Mare of Easttown. And while I was watching, an answer I needed to sort that corner out — for 19-A, five letters, “Some stocks or colleges” — popped into my head, and not because of anything happening in Easttown. Episode over, I went back to the puzzle and got the rest. Three episodes to go.

Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:

1-A, seven letters, “1990 coinage in PC Magazine.” The puzzle begins on an educational note. I didn’t know the word went back so far.

5-D, four letters, “What onion rings lack.” SKIN? The answer was not obvious to me.

8-D, three letters, “It’s good for Nazarenes.” A tough one from the northeast. But then so simple.

10-D, four letters, “Arm elevator.” O northeast corner. I thought I knew it, then thought too hard. REST?

15-D, six letters, “Francis is the first pope to be one.” My education is showing.

22-D, three letters, “It often flew FDR during WWII.” Surprising.

29-A, four letters, “Sticking point.” A nice way to clue this answer.

31-A, six letters, “Pop star since the ’50s.” I am happy to know this performer is still with us.

38-A, three letters, “What tops certain faces.” Defamiliarization at work.

50-D, six letters, “Second-shot target, often.” More defamiliarization.

57-A, four letters, “Early-year beef.” An inventive way to improve the answer.

My favorite: 14-A, fourteen letters, “Indy, more formally.” Aha! But even after you see most of it, the final letters are perhaps not obvious.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

“Nothing has ever happened”

Emmanuel Bove. My Friends. 1924. Trans. from the French by Janet Louth. (New York: New York Review Books, 2019).

Deadpan comedy of alienation and poverty. At times I imagine the narrator as a Chaplinesque tramp, at others as a Vladimir or Estragon. Samuel Beckett admired Bove’s prose.

Fritzi’s “No”

[Nancy, July 16, 2021. Click for greater negativity.]

Aunt Fritzi: “Nancy skims everything she reads, so you have to position your argument carefully.” Thus this card, which recalls (for me anyway) Guillaume Apollinaire’s calligrams and what has been called “the greatest Nancy panel ever drawn.”

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

“Do”

Only Donald Trump** would speak of a coup as something to “do.” Jeez.

But read that statement in its entirety. His increasingly convoluted and implausible explanations of his actions are signs of desperation and decline.

[** = twice impeached. Kurt Vonnegut gave the asterisk an additional meaning.]