[Click for a larger view.]
That cabdriver — you know her? Leave your best guess in the comments. I’ll add a hint if needed.
*
None needed — the answer is now in the comments. Thanks to Elaine, who spotted this driver as we were watching.
More mystery actors (Collect them all!)
? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ?
[Garner’s Modern English Usage notes that “support for actress seems to be eroding.” I use actor.]
Monday, August 9, 2021
Mystery actor
By Michael Leddy at 7:35 AM comments: 3
Sunday, August 8, 2021
“Back to square one”
The ONLY reason we are back to square one on COVID, is because the @GOP wanted it that way.
— Pam Keith, Esq. (@PamKeithFL) August 8, 2021
They desperately wanted to foil Biden’s recovery, and they succeeded.
Dead people in our wake is just acceptable collateral damage, as far as the @GOP is concerned.
This explanation seems to me, alas, entirely plausible.
The Trump** cult really is, as I wrote in June 2020, a death cult. In its ranks, millions who believe that endangering their own lives and the lives of others equals “freedom.”
My representative in Congress, Mary Miller (R, Illinois-15), rejects masks, casts doubt on vaccines, and tells her constituents to “Do what’s best for you & your situation!” Meaning?
[Some background on Pam Keith here.]
By Michael Leddy at 10:12 AM comments: 3
Schoolboyish
Stefan Zweig and Joseph Roth, Antibes, 1931:
After the café, work and note-taking resumed, broken up every so often by excited, schoolboyish visits to the stationery shop, where Zweig and Roth indulged without restraint their passion for pens, notebooks, pencils, and special ink.Zweig’s ink of choice: violet.
George Prochnik, The Impossible Exile: Stefan Zweig at the End of the World (New York: Other Press, 2014).
By Michael Leddy at 8:46 AM comments: 4
Saturday, August 7, 2021
“Florsheim cap toes!”
In today’s Zippy, Griffy speaks:
“I was born in th’ decade I now consider ‘correct’ when it comes to fashion, architecture, automobiles & signage.”And when Zippy notes that Griffy’s vest was popular in 1947:
“Yes! 1947! Florsheim cap toes! Dress slacks! Black socks! William Powell! Edward Everett Horton!”What is a cap toe? Here’s an explanation:
A cap toe is any kind of shoe that has horizontal stitching across the toe box that extends to the welt on either side, thus forming a ‘cap’ on the toe.“Florsheim cap toes!” sounds like a Zippy “over and over.” Florsheim cap toes! Florsheim cap toes!
Here, direct from 1947, is a pair of Florsheim cap toes:
[Life, November 3, 1947. Click for a larger size.]
Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)
By Michael Leddy at 10:36 AM comments: 0
Today’s Saturday Stumper
Today’s Newsday Saturday crossword is a Stumper. The Stumper is back, or at least will be back, on occasion, as editor Stan Newman said in January. Today’s puzzle is by Steve Mossberg, a name I’ve never seen on a Newsday Saturday. It’s a good puzzle, one that had me scanning the grid for something, anything, to fill in. The clue that finally helped: 26-D, five letters, “Language of Sri Lanka.” Every other answer in the puzzle came by way of 26-D.
Is there a word for doing a puzzle in that way, with every answer coming by way of a cross with a previous answer? Chain-solving? Cross-stitching?
Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:
1-A, seven letters, “Put together, as two shots.” I imagined the construction of a lethal cocktail.
3-D, five letters, “Not spread around.” See 56-D.
10-D, four letters, “One of eleven in Macbeth.” Sneaky.
13-D, four letters, “Where the River Po rises.” I was trying to think of a Italian city.
17-A, six letters, “Out of service.” My first thought was DEMOBBED. Too much T. S. Eliot in my past.
27-A, eleven letters, “’70s fad on wheels.” Good grief, that was a thing.
37-A, fifteen letters, “Pygmalion genre.” The first answer I got by way of 26-D. Is it the giveaway I think it is?
41-A, four letters, and 58-D, three letters, “Take care of by needling.” I like seeing a clue repurposed in this way.
56-D, four letters, “Spread around.” See 3-D.
60-A, eight letters, “Fruity, bubbly brand.” For me, forever associated with Frasier.
65-A, seven letters, “Frost or ice, for example.” I thought the answer must be some bit of slang.
No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.
By Michael Leddy at 7:59 AM comments: 1
Friday, August 6, 2021
Domestic comedy
[Fun while driving.]
Name your Price:
Hi PriceAnd always standing off to the side at the family reunion:
Lo Price
Wright Price
Bergen PriceRelated reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)
[My dad would have liked this stuff.]
By Michael Leddy at 3:15 PM comments: 0
Dad, i.m.
My dad, James Leddy, died six years ago today. He’d have been ninety-three this year.
Elaine and I just watched the (terrific) movie Career Girls (dir. Mike Leigh, 1997), in which two college flatmates, both now thirty, reunite after six years apart. Six years might feel like an eternity for someone who’s thirty. These days it feels like no time at all.
Here’s what I wrote after my dad died.
By Michael Leddy at 8:13 AM comments: 0
Thursday, August 5, 2021
Chris Miller again
The man who purportedly represents me in the Illinois House of Representatives, Chris Miller (R-110), is in the news again for lying. From Politico :
State Rep. Chris Miller is continuing to promote the false claim that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election. “Make no mistake, Donald J. Trump was overwhelmingly elected in this last election cycle,” Miller said at a [July 28] political event to promote state Sen. Darren Bailey’s bid for governor.Miller’s previous moment in the news: his presence in Washington on January 6, with a truck bearing a Three Percenter sticker.
Miller’s wife Mary (“Hitler was right on one thing”) Miller purportedly represents me in the House of Representatives.
Related reading
All OCA Chris Miller and Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)
By Michael Leddy at 2:58 PM comments: 0
Absorbine Juniors
[“Nailing It.” Zippy, August 4, 2021. Click for a larger view.]
I thought about going down the rabbit hole yesterday. I went today. In search of an entertaining advertisement for Absorbine Jr., I discovered that there were two Jrs. Here they are, or were, sharing the year 1959 in the pages of Life.
[Life, June 1, 1959 and October 5, 1959. Click either image for a larger view.]
The Absorbine Jr. website makes no mention of a preparation for athlete’s foot. But it does explain “Jr.”:
Absorbine was originally created in 1892 by Wilbur F. Young and his wife, Mary Ida, to relieve the muscle pain of their hardworking horses that pulled heavy cargo. The popularity of the formula grew among farmers, who soon realized it quickly relieved their own aches and pains too.The strange thing is that both products were sold under the same name. “Oh, and pick up some Absorbine Jr., willya?” “You bet.” Imagine the hilarity that might have ensued when an unwitting athlete applied mentholated liquid to a foot. As Zippy would say, “Yow!”
Absorbine Jr., named after W.F. Young’s son, Junior, was developed specifically for humans — for fast, long lasting and effective relief of pain, stiffness and muscle aches.
But a stranger thing, for me: a couple of days ago I wrote in an e-mail to my friend Fresca, “It’s great to know people are getting after books.” (Books I had sent her for a free library had already been taken.) Where did that quaint “getting after” come from? From an ad in the pages of Life, which I hadn’t seen before this morning? I suppose that’s what Vladmir Nabokov might have called precognitive e-mail.
Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard) : Nabokov, dreams, precognition
By Michael Leddy at 9:17 AM comments: 0
Wednesday, August 4, 2021
Casualties
Dear Ana Cabrera:
Barack Obama’s birthday party is not a “casualty” of COVID-19. The casualties of COVID-19 are those whose lives have been ended or upended by the spread of a contagious disease. Birthday parties don’t count.
[CNN is on in the background.]
By Michael Leddy at 12:52 PM comments: 0