Orange Crate Art

Friday, January 21, 2022

Thích Nhất Hạnh (1926–2022)

The New York Times has an obituary.

I like this passage from The Miracle of Mindfulness (1999):

I like to walk alone on country paths, rice plants and wild grasses on both sides, putting each foot down on the earth in mindfulness, knowing that I walk on the wondrous earth. In such moments, existence is a miraculous and mysterious reality. People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

Henry James, “The Third Person” (1900).

Elaine and I have been reading a volume of Henry James’s ghost stories with diminishing patience. The Turn of the Screw — great. But the other stories are a mixed bag, and Jamesian syntax doesn’t help. I lost my mind a little with the sentence above and made a motion, with two stories left, to move on. Elaine seconded. The motion carried. So even before Amy came in, we were out. And we turned this afternoon to Tempest-Tost, the first volume of Robertson Davies’s Salterton Trilogy.

[The volume in question: “The Turn of the Screw” and Other Ghost Stories, ed. Susie Boyt (New York: Penguin, 2017).]

Mary Miller again

For a third time, Representative Mary Miller (R, Illinois-15) appears in The New Yorker (January 31). She’s mentioned in Jane Mayer’s long, revealing article about Virginia Thomas, the hard-right activist married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas:

Ginni Thomas has her own links to the January 6th insurrection. Her Web site, which touts her consulting acumen, features a glowing testimonial from Kimberly Fletcher, the president of a group called Moms for America: “Ginni’s ability to make connections and communicate with folks on the ground as well as on Capitol Hill is most impressive.” Fletcher spoke at two protests in Washington on January 5, 2021, promoting the falsehood that the 2020 election was fraudulent. At the first, which she planned, Fletcher praised the previous speaker, Representative Mary Miller, a freshman Republican from Illinois, saying, “Amen!” Other people who heard Miller’s speech called for her resignation: she’d declared, “Hitler was right on one thing — he said, ‘Whoever has the youth has the future.’”

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts

A lost art

From Till the End of Time (dir. Edward Dmytryk, 1946). A cowboy, Bill Tabeshaw (Robert Mitchum), opines:

“I thought letter writing was a lost art, like steer milking.”

Related reading
All OCA letter posts (Pinboard)

Thursday, January 20, 2022

Pluto again

A New York Times interactive feature: “Is Pluto a Planet?”

Orange Crate Art has always been in Pluto’s corner, small as that corner may be.

Related reading
All OCA Pluto posts (Pinboard)

EXchange names on screen

Cliff Harper (Guy Madison) is home, courtesy of MAdison 1234. And he will soon see more exchange names in his family’s telephone directory.

[From Till the End of Time (dir. Edward Dmytryk, 1946). Click either image for a larger view.]

More EXchange names on screen
Act of Violence : The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse : Armored Car Robbery : Baby Face : Black Widow : Blast of Silence : The Blue Dahlia : Blue Gardenia : Boardwalk Empire : Born Yesterday : The Brasher Doubloon : The Brothers Rico : The Case Against Brooklyn : Chinatown : Craig’s Wife : Danger Zone : The Dark Corner : Dark Passage : Deception : Deux hommes dans Manhattan : Dick Tracy’s Deception : Down Three Dark Streets : Dream House : East Side, West Side : Escape in the Fog : Fallen Angel : Framed : Hollywood Story: The Little Giant : Loophole : The Man Who Cheated Himself : Modern Marvels : Murder by Contract : Murder, My Sweet : My Week with Marilyn : Naked City (1) : Naked City (2) : Naked City (3) : Naked City (4) : Naked City (5) : Naked City (6) : Naked City (7) : Naked City (8) : Naked City (9) : Nightfall : Nightmare Alley : Nocturne : Old Acquaintance : Out of the Past : Perry Mason : Pitfall : The Public Enemy : Railroaded! : Red Light : Side Street : The Slender Thread : Stage Fright : Sweet Smell of Success (1) : Sweet Smell of Success (2) : Tension : This Gun for Hire : The Unfaithful : Vice Squad : Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Getting free COVID tests via USPS

WNYC reports that people who live at an address not registered with the USPS as a multi-unit dwelling have been unable to order free COVID tests if someone from the same address has already ordered them. What to do: fill out this form, or call 1-800-ASK-USPS.

And if you havent yet requested free COVID tests: here’s the sign-up page.