Nancy, tidying

Nancy is tidying.

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All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

“Home of Piccalilli”

[Grant’s Pickle Works, 2533 Third Avenue, Bronx, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

I love the motto, the list of products, and the partly horizontal, partly vertical telephone number.

The two buildings to the right still stand. The Pickle Works has given way to a gas station.

For Honeymooners fans: “When I finish with you, there’ll be piccalilli all over Bensonhurst!”

Related posts
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by Steve Mossberg. It sparked, for me, no joy, and I did not finish. I got about a third of the puzzle done before I 51-A, eight letters, “Couldn’t go on,” and I ended up revealing letters one by one on the way to an unhappy ending. A few nits to pick:

10-D, four letters, “Sci-fi word Merriam-Webster is watching (but ‘No robes required’)”: as of January 2021, the word was added to the dictionary.

28-A, twelve letters, “Snarky greeting comeback”: I’m not sure it’s meant to be snarky. Maybe in the movies?

The clue that really made me balk: 25-D, ten letters, “Green beverage brand.” Well, no.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Domestic comedy

“I don't like the way you imitate him. It's more annoying than he is.”

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All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

[We get a lot of mileage out of Dan Duryea in our house.]

“Workers preparing coffee”

But not just any coffee.

[“Workers preparing coffee.” A photograph from the WPA Federal Writers’ Project, n.d. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

Thanks, Brian.

Related reading
All OCA Chock full o’Nuts posts (Pinboard)

Jungle music

Helga Crane has gone to a Harlem nightclub with friends. There’s a band, and a floorshow.

Nella Larsen, Quicksand (1928).

Here’s an unmistakable suggestion of the “jungle music” of the early Duke Ellington. (One of the many pseudonyms under which the Ellington band recorded in the 1920s and ’30s: The Jungle Band.) But the scene here can’t be the Cotton Club: the people in Helga’s crowd are black, and the Cotton Club was limited to white patrons (with rare exceptions for celebrities of color). Helga is the child of a Danish mother and Black American father: the ambivalence that marks her brief time in “the jungle” markes every episode of her life. As the novel will later ask, “Why couldn’t she have two lives, or why couldn’t she be satisfied in one place?”

I recommend Quicksand with great enthusiasm. It's not as artful or modern as Passing in its approach to narrative, but it’s a compelling novel that spirals down to a stark, abrupt end.

Also from Quicksand
“Ten hours to Chicago”

The Far Side minus Garfield

As the title says, The Far Side minus Garfield.

Garfield minus Garfield
Thoughtless : “Look at me” : Odie with sunglasses : Sofa, Jon’s back : Minus everything

In the dark and the light

From The Long Wait (dir. Victor Saville, 1954), cinematography by Franz Planer. I won’t attempt an explanation of how the story reaches this point. I’m just glad that it does, as these striking compositions of light and dark add some redeeming value to a mediocre film.

[Click either image for a larger view.]

In the dark

From Woman in Hiding (dir. Michael Gordon, 1950), cinematography by William Daniels. A mill is the setting for this extended scene in the dark. If you look closely, you can see Ida Lupino climbing steps in the first image. Howard Duff and Stephen McNally (or two stunt doubles) are fighting in the second. Non-spoiler spoiler: no one falls to his death there. That’s Lupino and McNally in the third image.

[Click any image for a larger view.]

Masking, still masking

An item of interest:

Are you still masking? If you are, please tell me so I don't feel so much like a fucking alien freak. I was called 'hysterical' today because I am still concerned about COVID. That was fun.

— Mask and Vax, please!🌵 (@J__Possum) May 28, 2022

As Boing Boing reports, this tweet resonated with many readers. (Look at the numbers.) With me too, but I’m not worried about feeling like “a fucking alien freak.” I don’t care what anyone thinks. I give no fucks. Or rather, I do give a fuck — about not getting COVID-19 or giving it to someone else.

When Elaine and I went shopping today, we saw, for the first time, no one else wearing a mask. And we live in a county in which only 45.2% of the population is vaxxed. And only half of those people are boosted. And I should care that someone thinks it’s strange to be wearing a mask?