From the Brookings Institution, a free PDF: Trump on Trial: A Guide to the January 6 Hearings and the Question of Criminality.
The first hearing: this Thursday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.
Tuesday, June 7, 2022
Trump on Trial
By Michael Leddy at 8:19 AM comments: 0
Monday, June 6, 2022
How to improve writing (no. 102)
From a New York Times obituary for the dance teacher Martha Myers:
Ms. Myers was diminutive — the 1998 newspaper article said she described herself as “5 feet 2 inches and shrinking” — but impactful.Diminutive seems to me an odd word to apply to a person, at least as a predicate adjective. Perhaps the writer thought short pejorative?
As for impactful, Garner’s Modern English Usage calls it
barbarous jargon dating from the mid-1960s. Unlike other adjectives ending in -ful, it cannot be idiomatically rendered in the phrase full of [+ quality], as in beautiful (= full of beauty), regretful (= full of regret), scornful (= full of scorn), and spiteful (= full of spite). If impact truly denotes a quality, it does so only in its newfangled uses as a verb <it impacts us all> and as an adjective <the mechanic’s tool known as an impact driver>.One need not find the point about -ful persuasive to cringe a bit at impactful.
Whatever its future may be, *impactful is, for now, a word to be scorned. Among its established replacements are influential and powerful.
Back to the Times. How about this sentence instead?
Ms. Myers was slight of stature — the 1998 newspaper article said she described herself as “5 feet 2 inches and shrinking” — but mighty.And to remove the interruption when quoting from the article cited earlier in the obituary:
Just “5 feet 2 inches and shrinking,” as she said in the 1998 newspaper article, Ms. Myers was slight of stature but mighty.Related reading
All OCA How to improve writing posts (Pinboard)
[This post is no. 102 in a series dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]
By Michael Leddy at 3:35 PM comments: 2
Our tube
From oldest to youngest: Charles Lane, Arthur Space, Whitman Mayo, and Matthew Broderick, all in the Lou Grant episode “Generations” (January 26, 1981). Familiar faces in new arrangements: one of the pleasures of television. See also these arrangements.
[Charles Lane’s face should be familiar to any I Love Lucy viewer. Arthur Space: Doc Weaver on Lassie. Whitman Mayo: Grady Wilson on Sanford and Son.]
By Michael Leddy at 9:07 AM comments: 0
Long Promised Road coming to PBS
Brian Wilson is coming to the PBS series American Masters: Long Promised Road (2021) airs on June 14.
As they used to say, “Check your local listings.” (What listings?)
Related reading
All OCA Brian Wilson posts (Pinboard)
By Michael Leddy at 9:05 AM comments: 0
Sunday, June 5, 2022
Nancy, tidying
Nancy is tidying.
Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)
By Michael Leddy at 7:44 AM comments: 0
“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
By Michael Leddy at 7:44 AM comments: 12
Saturday, June 4, 2022
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.
By Michael Leddy at 6:30 AM comments: 4
Friday, June 3, 2022
Domestic comedy
“I don't like the way you imitate him. It's more annoying than he is.”
Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)
[We get a lot of mileage out of Dan Duryea in our house.]
By Michael Leddy at 7:24 AM comments: 0
“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)
By Michael Leddy at 7:23 AM comments: 6
Thursday, June 2, 2022
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”
By Michael Leddy at 8:10 AM comments: 0