Lunch plans

I had lunch early this morning in a restaurant on Fordham Road. The good ol’ Bronx! I found the restaurant by looking at tax photos, c. 1939–1941, in the NYC Municipal Archives Collections.

I don’t know what I ate.

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Jeff Zucker’s legacy

In The Washington Post, Margaret Sullivan considers the legacy of CNN president Jeff Zucker:

Zucker, as much as any other person in the world, created and burnished the Trump persona — first as a reality-TV star who morphed into a worldwide celebrity, then as a candidate for president who was given large amounts of free publicity.

The through line? Nothing nobler than TV ratings, which always were Zucker’s guiding light, his be-all and end-all and, ultimately, his fatal flaw.

I remember what I think of as an infamous CNN moment from May 2016, when the network devoted screentime to a parked plane: “We’ll continue to monitor the takeoff of that plane.” As I wrote back then, any complaint

about the failure of “elites” to protect democracy from the likes of Donald Trump misses the point that Trump’s candidacy is itself the product of an elite — not a political elite but a media elite, one that has kept Trump (and even his parked plane) front and center for months now.

Good riddance to Jeff Zucker.

Domestic comedy

Elaine and I were admiring a handsome Carhartt chore coat: cotton duck with water-repellent coating, quilted nylon lining, corduroy-trimmed collar, and rivet-reinforced pockets. In black, brown, orange, and army green.

The catch: it was a chore coat for dogs.

“But what kinds of chores would a dog do? Herding? That’s not a chore. It’s a lifestyle!”

“It’s a profession!”

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All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard) : Good going, Carhartt

Hating on 1-D

A clue in an ultra-nifty crossword by Rose Sloan and Norah Sharpe helped me understand why our fambly dislikes a particular brand of bottled water, not that any of us drink bottled water very often:

1-D, six letters, “Water brand with added salts (which might just make you more thirsty?).”

I make no judgment about whether the minerals added to 1-D’s purified tap water are dangerous. I’m not even sure that they make you thirstier. All I know is that we don’t like 1-D, which, many years ago, a younger family member deemed “melty.” We like our water wet, not melty.

[The answer to 1-D begins with D .]

“It is snowing”

It is time once again to recall a poem by Pierre Reverdy: “Souffle.”

[I has been snowing all day, with more snow expected tomorrow.]

“Awful ones for the boys”

Valentine Rich (“of New York”) and Nellie Forrester of the Salterton Little Theatre are discussing the casting of parts for the Little Theatre’s production of The Tempest.

Robertson Davies, Tempest-Tost (1951).

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[“Darling,” the narrator tells us earlier, is ““Little Theatre lingo, copied from the professional theatre.”]

Garamond

In The New York Times, a writer recommends Garamond:

A few months ago, while I was looking at a long-term project I’d been working on in fits and starts, my cursor meandered toward the word processor’s font menu, and with one click the text reappeared in Garamond. I nearly gasped. Dressed in gentle serifs and subtle ornamentation, my words swelled with new life, and I saw hidden in the screen behind them the reflection of someone else, someone whose presence commanded respect.

Uhm, okay, sure.

Says the writer, “I cannot start any document — a novel, a letter, an invoice — without first clicking on the drop-down menu labeled ‘Font’ and considering my options.”

Which is why other writers might choose iA Writer, or a similar app. Or pen, or pencil. Or choose to print a draft in Courier, so that it doesn’t look beautiful. It’s always about the words.

“By Dillon His Self”

Dillon Helbig, writer and illustrator, placed his work on a shelf in his public library. Read about what followed (The Washington Post ).

Recently updated

Nick DeMaio and the Eldorado Now with a c. 1939–1941 photograph.

“Waffles Has a Good Time”

Lawrence Daily Journal, Kansas, March 18, 1898 pic.twitter.com/bqVNRQkkHi

— Yesterday's Print (@yesterdaysprint) January 31, 2022

Thanks, Seth.

This news item pairs well with “A Splendid Newfoundland, Cursing Birds, and the Fashion Fox,” an animal-centric episode of the podcast Criminal. Also pairs well with this refrigerator magnet from Daughter Number Three.