Rubbish

Leonard Thompson, seventy-one, farm-worker:

Ronald Blythe, Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village (1969).

Also from Akenfield
Davie’s hand

Motive in prisons

“Big prisons in small towns”: that’s the focus of the third season of the WBEZ podcast Motive. The stories are Illinois-centric, but Illinois here is a stand-in for a nation.

From Akenfield

He is identified only as Davie, born in 1887, “who cannot read or write a word and who insists that he has nothing to say”:

Ronald Blythe, Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village (1969).

Some unusual “some rocks”

[Nancy, June 20, 1949. Click for a larger view.]

Today’s yesterday’s Nancy has some unusual “some rocks.”

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts : “Some rocks” posts (Pinboard)

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.

Related reading
All OCA dream posts (Pinboard)

[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.]

Related reading
All OCA sheesh posts (Pinboard)

Automat redux?

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

Related reading
All OCA Automat posts (Pinboard)

“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.

Related posts
Outtakes (1) : Outtakes (2) : Outtakes (3): Outakes (4) : Outtakes (5) : Outtakes (6) : Outtakes (7) : Outtakes (8) : Outtakes (9) : More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives

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.

Related posts
Outtakes (1) : Outtakes (2) : Outtakes (3): Outakes (4) : Outtakes (5) : Outtakes (6) : Outtakes (7) : Outtakes (8) : More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives