My friend Fresca just informed me that today is National Pencil Day and that the Library of Congress Instagram account has an appropriate array of photographs.
Thanks, Fresca!
Related reading
All OCA pencil posts (Pinboard)
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
Library of Congress pencil pics
The world and the corner
From the Mary Tyler Moore Show episode “Not a Christmas Story” (November 9, 1974). Murray (Gavin MacLeod) has written a new opening for Ted (Ted Knight):
“Good evening. This is Ted Baxter, with news from around the world and around the corner.“But Ted thinks it would be better the other way around:
“Good evening. This is Ted Baxter, with news from around the corner and around the world.“And, of course, an argument follows. Perhaps the show’s writers themselves had disagreed about how the line should go.
Who do you think has it right — Murray, or Ted? Which opening sounds better to you, and why? Anyone teaching a writing class: you might bring this question in and ask your students which and why.
Related reading
All OCA MTM posts (Pinboard)
[The episode is at YouTube. The first scene has the argument, but the line is a subject of discussion as the episode continues.]
Advice about news
Advice in The Washington Post: “How to stay up-to-date on terrible news without burning out.”
Tuesday, March 29, 2022
Yellow Ticonderogas
Eberhard Faber Mongols were on the job in the WJM newsroom during the first season of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. After that, it’s Dixon Ticonderogas and no-name pencils. A great loss for Mongol fans.
Perhaps one of the writers was using a Ticonderoga when working on the episode “Mary Richards and the Incredible Plant Lady” (March 3, 1973). The premise: Rhoda (Valerie Harper) has borrowed money from Mary to open a plant shop, and she’s taking her time about paying back. The reason: she’s secretly using her earnings to buy Mary a new car, a yellow Mustang convertible. Rhoda knows that Mary has had her eye on a Mustang. But it turns out — uh-oh — that Mary hates yellow. She and Rhoda and Georgette (Georgia Engel) sit in the newly purchased car in the dealer’s showroom:
Georgette: “Yellow’s a lovely color, Mary. It’s the color of the sun, and wheat fields.”Related reading
Mary: “Yeah.”
Rhoda: “Ticonderoga pencils.”
Georgette: “And daffodils, and lemons — whoops, I shouldn’t have said that.”
All OCA MTM posts : Ticonderoga posts (Pinboard)
A question
Where has Merrick Garland gone? Long time passing.
Representative Elaine Luria (VA-2), last night: “Attorney General Garland, do your job, so that we can do ours.”
Representative Adam Schiff (CA-28), last night: “We are upholding our responsibility. The Department of Justice must do the same.”
Monday, March 28, 2022
Orange tool art
[Kyocera peeler, Harry’s razor.]
We bought the peeler several years ago in an Asian supermarket. I bought the razor a week or so ago, but I recognized the resemblance only last night.
[People without full beards are sometimes surprised to learn that people with full beards still need to shave. That’s how we keep the beard from overtaking the face and neck.]
Sunday, March 27, 2022
A working search box
For whatever reason, the DuckDuckGo search box that I’ve had in the sidebar for several years no longer works. As Elaine said, it DuckDuckWent. The DDG page for making a search box is gone, and I’ve been unable to make a new working search box with an independent generator. It all makes me think that the company has disabled embedding. So I’ve switched back to a Google search box.
Blogger being Blogger, the code for the search widget is crummy. And the code is invisible in the Layout window. But if you’re willing to edit the HTML for a Blogger template, you can make things nice. Go to Theme, choose Edit HTML, click on the pile of boxes to find and select the Search widget (labeled BlogSearch1), and change
cellpadding='1' cellspacing='1' to
cellpadding='3' cellspacing='3'.
That’ll give the search box a proper left side and make a little more space between the box and the button.
Before:
After:
[If conspiracy theorists are indeed turning to DuckDuckGo, the company might have good reason to disable embedding.]
Helvetica for free
Gary Hustwit’s 2007 documentary Helvetica, now fifteen years old, is streaming free through March 30.
When I first saw this film, almost fifteen years ago, I wrote something about it. My favorite lines (still) are from Erik Spiekermann:
“Other people look at bottles of wine or whatever, or, you know, girls’ bottoms. I get kicks out of looking at type. It’s a little worrying, I must admit. It’s a very nerdish thing to do.”
Outtakes (7)
[Outtakes from the WPA’s New York City tax photographs, c. 1939–1941, available from 1940s NYC. Click any image for a much larger view.]
Related posts
Outtakes (1) : Outtakes (2) : Outtakes (3): Outakes (4) : Outtakes (5) : Outtakes (6) : More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives
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