Mary Miller won’t wear a mask

I am not wearing a mask again.

— Congresswoman Mary Miller (@RepMaryMiller) July 20, 2021

News reports and photographs suggest that Mary Miller (R, Illinois-15) has rarely worn a mask. (Here’s an account of Miller in close quarters with no mask on January 6.) It’s still not known whether she has been vaccinated. If she has been, she’s keeping her (unmasked) mouth shut about it.

On June 7, Elaine and I sent a letter:

The Honorable Mary Miller
1529 Longworth House Office Building
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Congresswoman Miller:

As you may know, the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies and the Center for Geographic Analysis at Harvard University have created a map showing COVID-19 vaccination rates by congressional district. The map and supporting data are available from Harvard’s Geographic Insights website:

https://geographicinsights.iq.harvard.edu/vaccineuscongress

The data for Illinois shows our district, Illinois-15, with the lowest rate of vaccination by population in the state: 40.7% of residents with vaccines initiated, and 29.74% of residents with vaccines completed. In other words, only three of every ten people in Illinois-15 are fully vaccinated.

This state of affairs does not bode well for the health and economic well-being of our district. What business will want to locate in an area with such a low rate of vaccination? What student who has other choices will want to go to college in an area with such a low rate of vaccination?

In light of our abysmal vaccination rate, we have two questions for you: What steps, if any, have you taken to encourage vaccination in IL-15? And what steps, if any, will you now take to encourage vaccination in IL-15? Given your dedication to the cause of life, it seems to us that you should have no hesitation about encouraging people to be vaccinated.

Sincerely, &c.

At this point I think it’s safe to say that we won’t be receiving a reply.

All the Miller posts
Chris Miller, pandemic denier : January 5 and 6 in D.C., with Mary Miller : The objectors included Mary Miller : A letter to Mary Miller : Mary Miller, with no mask : Mary Miller, still in trouble : His ’n’ resignations are in order : Mary Miller in The New Yorker : Mary Miller vs. AOC : #Sedition3PTruck : Mary Miller’s response to mass murder : Mary Miller and trans rights : Mary Miller on a billboard : Some of Mary Miller’s votes : Illinois-15, COVID-Central : Another Miller vote : The Millers in Esquire : Nuts in Illinois

A Pessoa biography

The New York Times has two reviews — 1, 2 — of Pessoa, a biography of Fernando Pessoa by Richard Zenith, one of his translators.

I read Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet in Zenith’s translation last spring. It turned out to be perfectly suited to the times. This post explains why. And this post explains how I found my way to the book.

Thanks again, George.

Related reading
All OCA Pessoa posts (Pinboard)

Rick Laird (1940–2021)

Rick Laird, bassist, most notably with the Mahavishnu Orchestra, later a photographer, has died at the age of eighty. The New York Times has an obituary.

In my high-school days, the first incarnation of the Mahavishnu Orchestra — John McLaughlin (guitar), Jerry Goodman (violin), Jan Hammer (keyboards), Rick Laird (bass), and Billy Cobham (drums) — was a regular presence on my turntable.

Domestic comedy

“Do you want tomatoes?”

“Yes, please.”

“How many?”

“Some?”

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

[“Some,” as in rocks. They were grape tomatoes.]

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)