“We applaud the new policy of the AP Stylebook and the hundreds of publications that have followed suit”: Bryan Garner explains why it makes sense to capitalize Black but not white.
Thursday, February 10, 2022
How to improve writing (no. 100)
A sentence from a New York Times article:
It is unclear what the inspector general has done since then, in particular, whether the inspector general has referred the matter to the Justice Department.The phrase in particular (which at first seems to follow from since then) and the repeated inspector general make for an ungainly sentence. My revision:
It is unclear whether whether the inspector general has referred the matter to the Justice Department or taken any other action.Even better:
The inspector general has referred to matter to the Justice Department, which has opened an investigation.Related reading
All OCA How to improve writing posts (Pinboard)
[This post is no. 100 in a series dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]
Wednesday, February 9, 2022
With apologies to Malvina Reynolds
Little boxes from the White House,
Little boxes gone to Florida,
Little boxes from the White House,
Little boxes all the same.
There’s a pink one, and a green one,
And one marked “Love from Kim Jong-un,”
And they’ve all gone down to Florida,
And they all look just the same.
SCAT happens
From today’s New Yorker crossword, by Natan Last: 44-A, four letters, “Emulate Jelly Roll Morton, in a way.” The answer: SCAT. No. This, I suspect, is what happens when someone goes to Wikipedia to create a clue.
Yes, the Wikipedia article about scat singing references Morton’s discussion of the origins of scat singing. And Morton gave a demonstration of scat singing in his 1938 Library of Congress sessions. But I think you’d be hard-pressed to find many jazz listeners who would ever think of Morton — pianist, composer, and bandleader — as a scat singer.
And no, Mel Tormé is still not a “cool jazz pioneer.”
I will now cheer myself by listening to the “Avocado Seed Soup Symphony.” Scat surrealism at its finest.
[If Last had done a little more browsing, he might have chosen a better clue, because while Wikipedia’s article about scat singing mentions Morton, Wikipedia’s article about Morton doesn’t mention scat singing.]
Rhythmical snorting
Walter Vambrace is instructing his daughter Pearl (eighteen) in walking:
Tempest-Tost is the first novel of Davies’s Salterton Trilogy.
Related reading
All OCA Robertson Davies posts (Pinboard)
[The wheezing background noise in this video might suggest a phantom roaster.]
Sen-Sen again
From Christmas Eve (dir. Edward L. Marin, 1947). Aunt Matlilda (Ann Harding) gives instructions:
“Remember, Robert, when William brings Mr. Jonathan to the car, you must conduct yourself as though he had never gone away.”Mr. Jonathan, you see, drinks.
“Yes, ma’am. I even have the package of Sen-Sen to give to him before he kisses you.”
No one will ever have this conversation again, for Sen-Sen is no more.
Related posts
Cachou Lajaunie : Dingburg’s Main Street : Violet candy and Mad Men
Tuesday, February 8, 2022
EXchange names on screen
[From Kiss of Death (dir. Henry Hathaway, 1947). ]
Maybe I’m a rank sentimentalist, but I love when a column of exchange names fills the screen.
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 : Till the End of Time : This Gun for Hire : The Unfaithful : Vice Squad : Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
Misreading
Every time I cycle through the cable menu, I misread Henry Danger as Henry Darger. Every time.
Now that Darger’s name is in the news, nothing will change.
Monday, February 7, 2022
Who owns Henry Darger?
In a 2014 post about a battle over the rights to Vivian Maier’s photographs, I wrote that I’d “always been puzzled that the discovery of Henry Darger’s work didn’t prompt similar legal action.” But no, not the discovery — the commercial success.
The New York Times today reports on a legal battle between Henry Darger’s landlords and some distant Darger relatives, who never knew him and now claim the rights to his work. Given the commercial value of that work, the relatives’ claim that “For us, it’s always been about family” may prompt skepticism.
In 2002 I wrote something about John Ashbery and Henry Darger. I’m still happy with it.
*
February 23: From the Chicago Sun-Times:
Circuit Judge Kent Delgado told lawyers representing a Clarendon Hills woman claiming to be a distant relative of the reclusive artist — and who wants a portion of his assets — that her legal filing is full of “holes.”Related posts
Delgado gave Christen Sadowski’s attorneys until late May to refile their paperwork. Among his concerns, Delgado said, is that Sadowski has no “personal knowledge” that she is a Darger relative and is relying on the research of an “heir finder” service.
A Darger exhibit and an Ashbery story : Darger and Maier
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