Pocket notebook sighting

[Deep Valley (dir. Jean Negulesco, 1947). Click for a larger view.]

A guard is about to lick his pencil before writing up convict Barry Burnette (Dane Clark). Which raises the question: Why did, or do, people lick their pencils before writing? The practice goes back a ways. I think I’ve seen it happen only in the movies. Certainly pencil-lickers weren’t, or aren’t, all using indelible pencils. The plausible answer, from MIT: the wet lead makes a darker line.

More notebook sightings
All the King’s Men : Angels with Dirty Faces : The Bad and the Beautiful : Ball of Fire : The Big Clock : Bombshell : The Brasher Doubloon : Cat People : Caught : City Girl : Crossing Delancey : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Dead End : The Devil and Miss Jones : Dragnet : Extras : Eyes in the Night : The Face Behind the Mask : Foreign Correspondent : Fury : Homicide : The Honeymooners : The House on 92nd Street : I See a Dark Stranger : Journal d’un curé de campagne : Kid Glove Killer : The Last Laugh : Le Million : The Lodger : Ministry of Fear : Mr. Holmes : Murder at the Vanities : Murder by Contract : Murder, Inc. : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : Naked City : The Naked Edge : Now, Voyager : The Palm Beach Story : Perry Mason : Pickpocket : Pickup on South Street : Pushover : Quai des Orfèvres : The Racket : Railroaded! : Red-Headed Woman : Rififi : La roue : Route 66 : The Scarlet Claw : Sleeping Car to Trieste : The Small Back Room : The Sopranos : Spellbound : Stage Fright : State Fair : A Stranger in Town : Stranger Things : Sweet Smell of Success : Time Table : T-Men : To the Ends of the Earth : 20th Century Women : Union Station : Vice Squad : Walk East on Beacon! : Where the Sidewalk Ends : The Woman in the Window : You Only Live Once

Artist’s conception

[Or “artist’s” conception. Drawing by me.]

A related post
Block that metaphor

Uh-oh, Safari 15

There appear to be many good reasons not to upgrade to Safari 15 for Mac (Michael Tsai).

I tried 15 via Safari Technology Preview (described here). To my eyes, 15 looks ghastly. I’ll stay with 14 or, if need be, switch to Brave or another browser. (But not Chrome.)

Franz Kafka, artist

“Drawing and sketching extensively before he published a single word”: “Kafka, the Artist” (Los Angeles Review of Books). With a link to the National Library of Israel’s online archive of Kafka drawings and manuscripts.

Related reading
All OCA Kafka posts (Pinboard)

Yikes!

“Today’s Tedium is looking at Yikes! pencils, one the 1990s most iconic school supplies, and how a notorious fat substitute indirectly helped its creation”: “Yikes! You Call That a Pencil?”

Thanks to Mike Brown at Oddments of High Unimportance.

Block that metaphor

On CNN, a healthcare worker who refuses to get vaccinated for COVID-19 speaks:

“I believe that the fabric of our truly free, civilized society is at a precipice.”

Related reading
All OCA metaphor posts (Pinboard)

Recently updated

Makin’ whoop Now with a surprising pre-millennial whoop.

Starring Joe Namath et al.

[Click for a wider and longer play.]

This dramolette (a word I’ve borrowed from Robert Walser) draws on commercials that play incessantly on MSNBC and the PBS NewsHour, with Joe Namath, Jimmie Walker, George Foreman and family, Tom Selleck, and the “Change in plans!” guy.

A related post
“Change in plans!”

One of some

[Nancy, January 10, 1955. Click for larger rocks.]

In “today’s” Nancy, Herman owes Sluggo a dollar, so Sluggo is being solicitous about his friend’s well-being. I like it that even “that big rock” is one of some.

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

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

Hi and Lois watch

In today’s Hi and Lois, the talk has shifted to “the new series on Netflix.” “I thought this was a book club,” sniffs Lois.

[Hi and Lois, September 28, 2021. Click for a larger view.]

The third hand from the left: is it on Lois’s leg? I don’t think so. I think there must have been a problem with the instructions for the assembly of today’s strip. Or to say it less fancifully: the colorist messed up.

[Hi and Lois, September 28, 2021, labeled by me. Click for a larger view.]

I think that Part A, or at least part of Part A, is really the arm of the middle character’s chair and should be green. Part B is Lois’s other pant leg and should be blue. I think.

As for figuring out the oddly shaped book in Lois’s lap: I give up.

[Click for a larger view.]

*

6:08 p.m.: I think I have it: the small brown and white patches should be green. They form the arm of Lois’s chair in partial profile.

Related reading
All OCA Hi and Lois posts (Pinboard)

[Is there such a dearth of imagination at Hi-Lo Amalgamated that all three characters must wear pants of the same or nearly the same color? Maybe it’s the club uniform.]