Words of the year Now with insurrection.
Monday, January 10, 2022
Being avant-garde
“The most avant-garde thing we can be is a human being”: William Parker, composer, bassist, bandleader, who turns seventy today. This observation appears in an e-mail from the record label AUM Fidelity marking the day.
Here’s a hefty sample of Parker at work with his group In Order to Survive.
Related posts
The William Parker Quartet : William Parker in The New York Times : Wood Flute Songs
Google, ugh
From The Washington Post: “Google is manipulating browser extensions to stifle competitors, DuckDuckGo CEO says.” Of course that can only happen if you’re using Chrome.
David Brooks’s books
I went back to Friday’s NewsHour for a screenshot, and I couldn’t resist choosing this one. “Look, Judy! Look, Jonathan! I am . . . a wild and crazy guy!”
I’ve never seen this Brooks background before — he’s usually at one end of a long living (?) room, with books at the other end. I was wondering if there might be a Garner’s Modern English Usage, third edition, among the blues. There isn’t.
But: can you spot the old Bartlett’s Quotations? The title isn’t readable, even with the larger view, but there’s definitely a Bartlett’s Quotations in there.
Related posts
A book on Judy Woodruff’s shelf : T.S. Eliot’s Complete Poems and Plays on Hardball
[“Wild and crazy”: because he has arranged books by color. I should have been explicit about that.]
How to improve sleeping
I was writing a review of a book of Vivian Maier’s photographs:
What these photographs have in common is — no, that’s no good.
These photographs share — that’s much better.
This post can’t count as a “How to improve writing” post, as those posts are about public prose, and this partial sentence is from the dream world. Yes, I was improving a sentence in a dream.
Related reading
All OCA dream posts (Pinboard)
Sunday, January 9, 2022
Close the door
There was a catastrophic fire in the Bronx today:
Commissioner [Daniel A.] Nigro said the door to the apartment where the fire started was left open, which helped fuel the fire and allowed the smoke to spread. “We’ve spread the word, ‘close the door, close the door,’” to keep a fire contained, he said.“Close the door” is the theme of a famed PSA created by the sound recordist Tony Schwartz.
Everyone should hear this message. Please pass it on.
[I learned about this PSA in 2017, not long before another fire in the Bronx.]
Yow-Zah’s
Snow was on the ground and a beer advertisement on the side of the building when the tax people took this photograph.
The full text:
Yow-Zah’sIt looks to me as if “And Other Hobbies” and “And Supplies” were afterthoughts. Or they were forethoughts painted over, or sort of painted over. The words now compete with the NYC.gov/records watermark that runs across the photograph.
Model Airplane Shop
And Other Hobbies
Gas Motors, Parts & Gas Kits
Boats, Accessories, Balsa Wood
And Supplies.
The date of the building’s construction, according to the Municipal Archives: 1931. A 1931 classified advertisement lists a cigar and stationery store for sale at this address. When this photograph was taken, Yow-Zah’s may have already been defunct (notice the disarray of the windows). By May 1941 the address housed the Paragon Chimney and Furnace Cleaning Company. By 1952, it was Harry’s Hand Laundry (“Shirts 18¢, Sheets 14¢, Pillow cases 6¢.”) Today the address is home to Kaché Restaurant and Lounge, serving Carribean-American cuisine.
Green’s Dictionary of Slang dates yowza! or yowzah! to 1933: “a general excl., either of approval or of vaguely non-committal agreement.” Yow-Zah’s Hobby Shop is listed in the Brooklyn Telephone Directory, Winter 1939–40: ESplanade 7–9003. And yes, it’s the only Yow-Zah’s in the book.
Thanks, Brian, for finding this photograph.
*
February 4: An eagle-eyed reader reports that the advertisement on the side of the building is for Stegmaier’s beer.
Related posts
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives
[I searched for the 2192 address in the Brooklyn Public Library’s Brooklyn Newstand, a great resource for time-traveling Brooklynites.]
Saturday, January 8, 2022
Prune latte
M’m! M’m! Good? Behold the prune latte.
Many years ago, Bob and Ray had a bit about Bob and Ray’s House of Toast. The Backstayges ran a House of Toast in Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife, serving toast (buttered on the far side or the near side) and prune shakes.
And yes, there once were prune shakes.
Thank you, Elaine, for sending the recipe my way.
Related reading
All OCA Bob and Ray posts (Pinboard)
Today’s Saturday Stumper
Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, is about as difficult, I’d say, as last Saturday’s puzzle. Two thirteen-letter answers and two fourteen-letter answers were surprisingly easy to work out with just a few letters’ worth of crosses.
Clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:
1-D, five letters, “Ill-fitting?” I was thinking about a word the other day and wondering, Wait — is that a word? It is. It is the answer to this clue.
10-A, four letters, “Drapery sample.” The clue improves an often-seen answer.
14-A, five letters, “Accordion cover material.” When was the last time you saw an accordion?
16-D, fourteen letters, “Uncouth, metaphorically.” A funny, dowdy expression. It make me think of what used to be called “bad table manners.”
21-A, five letters, “Well fixed.” Gentle misdirection.
27-A, thirteen letters, “Start taking things seriously.” Though I think of the answer in a different way.
46-D, six letters, “Tony Award, in part.” Clever.
56-A, nine letters, “One in a cast with a cause.” My first thought was of someone suing.
57-D, three letters, “Taking from a timetable.” Like 10-A, a familiar answer improved by its clue.
One complaint: 37-A, three letters, “Express.”Unless I’m missing something, this clue is just not 61-A, nine letters, “Convincing.”
No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.
Friday, January 7, 2022
Sidney Poitier (1927–2022)
The New York Times has an obituary.
My checklist: No Way Out, Blackboard Jungle, Edge of the City, The Defiant Ones, Paris Blues, Lilies of the Field, A Patch of Blue, To Sir, with Love, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
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