Sleep study

It was Rembrandt’s biography of Liszt that inspired the three then–surviving members of The Left Banke to conduct a sleep study. They sought volunteers in the tri–state area: New York, New Jersey, and Florida. They found four volunteers in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

Elaine and I were walking toward a Wal-Mart when we saw an older woman from the music society leaving the store — well-dressed, perfect hair. It was obvious that she had not worn a mask while shopping. We swerved to the left to avoid her.

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[Talk about pre-cognitive dreaming: the bonkers governor of Alabama is more or less the woman I saw in my dream. I saw a photograph of the governor shortly after waking up this morning. And I must have listened to The Left Banke’s final album at least a dozen times in the last few weeks.]

NBC, sheesh

“Price of eggs soar ahead of Easter:” a chyron, as seen on NBC Nightly News tonight. I have proof:

[Click for a larger mistake.]

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Automat redux?

The Washington Post wonders if COVID might revive Automat-style dining.

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“It will be sunny one day”

From Letters of Note, a letter from Stephen Fry to a stranger.

It may not be true that it will be sunny one day, but it might help to believe that it will be.

Outtakes (10)

[Outtakes from the WPA’s New York City tax photographs, c. 1939–1941, available from 1940s NYC. Click for a much, much larger view.]

The outtakes sometimes remind me of Ed Ruscha’s Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966). But with the outtakes, sometimes they’re the same building.

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Outtakes (9)

[Outtakes from the WPA’s New York City tax photographs, c. 1939–1941, available from 1940s NYC. Click either image for a much larger view.]

These two are back to back, or side by side, photographs taken inside a store selling — what?

The little card, center left, says rab retsulc — cluster bar. Candy? Grounding equipment?

*

April 13: An intrepid reader sussed out the location:

[85 Warren Street, Manhattan, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

The repeated -ket turns out to be part of STEAMER BASKETS. Steamer baskets were baskets of fruit given as gifts to those going on an ocean voyage. Down at the tip of Manhattan, close to the water’s edge, Peters Market was well-placed to sell steamer baskets.


Many thanks to the intrepid reader who made shared this find.

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Today’s Saturday Stumper

For me the name Stella signifies in several ways: Sir Philip Sidney, Jonathan Swift, a noisy Marlon Brando, the painter Frank, the breadsticks and cookies D’Oro, guitars, “by Starlight,” and, most recently, tough crosswords. The constructor Stella Zawistowski is known for difficulty. (Her website: Tough As Nails.) Yet her Newsday  Saturday Stumper today was on the easy side. 5-D, four letters, “Bearing”? That was a start. And then 20-A, four letters, “Game’s ‘warm.’” Got it. The grid resembles last Saturday’s: two triple-stacks (ten letters, not nine), two triple-columns (eight letters, not nine).

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-A, ten letters, “Often-furry fan favorite.” My first thought was that it had to do with cosplay, which I know nothing about.

3-D, six letters, “Where the Cajuns came from.” Flashback to eighth-grade English.

7-D, five letters, “Morsel or cancel.” I like the -el noun–verb combination.

13-D, eight letters, “Hand-held devices.” It can’t be something to do with phones, can it?

28-A, five letters, “One with a suit to press.” Nice misdirection.

30-A, eight letters, “Certain company men.” Unexpected.

32-A, twelve letters, “Entry in a genetic terms glossary.” Timely.

41-A, twelve letters, “Old-timey chair protector.” This was the clue that broke the puzzle open for me.

45-A, eight letters, “Court surface.” Hi Mom!

52-D, five letters, “Brooklyn congressman who had a plan.” I had no idea.

56-D, four letters, “Brass, but not bronze.” Clever.

61-A, ten letters, “Later, elongated.” I kept thinking that there was a trick, but the only trick is in hearing “Later” correctly.

62-D, three letters, “1 1/2 millennia before Adaptation.” The clue redeems, sort of, an awkward answer.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

How to improve writing (no. 101)

From a New York Times article about unpaid labor in academia:

[A lecturer] says she has seen a devaluation, even though adjuncts often have similar credentials to tenured professors.

I take it that the mistake here belongs to the reporter. Ask: what is similar to what?

Corrected:

[A lecturer] says she has seen a devaluation, even though adjuncts often have credentials similar to those of tenured professors.

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[This post is no. 101 in a series dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]

Teaching for free

Prompted by the now-infamous listing for an unpaid teaching position at UCLA, The New York Times looks at the realities of academic labor: “The unspoken secret had been fleetingly exposed: Free labor is a fact of academic life.”

These unpaid arrangements are perhaps the most concrete example of the unequal power in a weak labor market — in which hundreds of candidates might apply for one position. Institutions are able to persuade or cajole people who have invested at least five or six years in earning a Ph.D. to work for free, even though, academics said, these jobs rarely lead to a tenure-track position.

I gotta say it again: Where else do people willingly work for free? In cults.

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Time for cheese

From The Mary Tyler Moore episode “Murray Takes a Stand” (January 31, 1976). Sue Ann Nivens (Betty White) speaks:

“No one is ever too busy for cheese.”

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