Mr. Deasy, schoolmaster, has paid Stephen Dedalus, teacher, his monthly wage, £3 12s. The coins make “a lump” in Stephen’s pocket. When the conversation turns to the importance of saving money, Mr. Deasy invokes Shakespeare: “Put but money in thy purse” he says. Uhm, that’s Iago, as Stephen points out. But Mr. Deasy is undaunted. He asserts that Shakespeare himself “knew what money was”; he was a poet, yes, “but an Englishman too.” And then Mr. Deasy reveals “the proudest word you will ever hear from an Englishman’s mouth.” Wait for it. From the “Proteus” episode:
James Joyce, Ulysses (1922).
Related reading
All OCA Joyce posts (Pinboard)
[In his Ulysses Annotated, Don Gifford points out that in Dublin 1904 Stephen could live comfortably on his modest salary. On June 16 he spends more than half his month’s wages in a pub crawl.]
Tuesday, June 28, 2022
“I paid my way ”
Foley
Tricks of the Foley artist. From The New Yorker:
Vegetables are old standbys: snapped celery for broken bones, hammered cabbage for a punch. (According to the Web site Atlas Obscura, during the climax of Titanic, in which Kate Winslet floats, shivering, on a piece of debris, Foley artists peeled back layers of frozen lettuce to add texture to the sound of her crisping hair.) Paper clips or nails, taped to the tips of a glove, are useful for the clicking footsteps of a house pet. Wet pieces of chamois leather, the sort that is used for cleaning cars, are highly versatile.
Rodney Davis vs. Mary Miller
The New York Times has an article about their primary contest. One detail I didn’t know about: “At the rally here [Mendon, Illinois] on Saturday night with Mr. Trump, Ms. Miller’s campaign played videos of Mr. Davis wearing a mask at the height of the pandemic.” Shame on him, right?
In December 2020, Miller called the presidential election “the greatest heist of the 20st century.” On January 5, 2021, she cited Adolf Hitler as being “right on one thing.” In July 2021, she declared that she was not wearing a mask again. But really, her mask has been off for a long time.
Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)
Monday, June 27, 2022
S _ _
It can tricky to get a crossword right from Across words alone. Three letters, “Place for a mud bath”: STY, obviously. Oops, no, SPA.
“He himself?”
Stephen Dedalus is staying with Buck Mulligan, friend and medical student, and Haines, an Englishman studying Irish folklore. From the opening episode, “Telemachus”:
James Joyce, Ulysses (1922).
Stephen will expound his theory about Hamlet in the “Scylla and Charybdis” episode of the novel. I won’t attempt to rehearse his theory here. All I’ll say is that Haines’s final question startled me anew when I read it for the first time in many years.
Related reading
All OCA Joyce posts (Pinboard)
Sunday, June 26, 2022
Copyediting the crossword
Today’s Atlantic crossword is a good one. But the clue for 66-A, “Amount of Blinde Mäuse, in a nursery rhyme” should refer to the number of Mäuse. A count noun takes number.
G. & S.
In Boro Park, Brooklyn, in the 1960s, we knew this store as G. & S. Or, “the dry goods store.” Merriam-Webster has two definitions of dry goods :
1 : grocery items (such as tobacco, sugar, flour, and coffee) that do not contain liquidI think it’s no. 2 that fits G. & S.
2 : textiles, ready-to-wear clothing, and notions as distinguished especially from hardware and groceries
The earliest reference to the store that I can find at Brooklyn Newsstand is a listing in an ad for Congoleum dealers:
Two years later, there’s an ad with a handy location marker:
[The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 7, 1930.]What I remember of this store (which spanned several storefronts): no shelves, just merchandise in cardboard boxes, with prices written on packages with a grease pencil or Magic Marker. (Let’s be real: it must have been a grease pencil.) I remember things like dish towels and white tee-shirts and household chemicals. Lysol, maybe. Maybe Eveready batteries? I don’t know — because I was a kid, not someone taking notes for a blog post.
[G. & S. Department Store, 4806–14 New Utrecht Avenue, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click either image for a larger view. And notice the “Floor Covering Dept.” signage in the second photograph.]My brother Brian says that G. & S. stood for “Gary and Son.” I think I remember our dad once imparting that bit of Brooklyn fact. (He was just the kind of guy who’d be willing to ask a store clerk.) At some point the store became G. & Sons. That name appears in this 1963 advertisement:
[Kings Courier, June 15, 1963. Click for a larger view.]You can see a G. & Sons sign in this c. 1983–1988 tax photo. The storefront later housed a National Wholesale Liquidators outlet, followed by Albert & Sons. Google Maps shows that Albert was gone by 2017. A 2021 Google Maps photograph shows this office building still under construction, with an Amazing Savings store on the ground floor. Notice that the illustration is careful to obscure the presence of the El overhead.
Thanks, Brian.
Related posts
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives
[If you’d like to go down the Congoluem rabbit-hole: you’ve been warned.]
Saturday, June 25, 2022
Miller White Life?
Miller: President Trump… I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court yesterday pic.twitter.com/RqxmbT8jx5
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 26, 2022
A charitable explanation would be that Mary Miller (R, IL-15) flubbed her script. Anyone can make a mistake, and the speaker here is dumber than a box of rocks. Given the tenor of her remarks about the city of Chicago, “white life” might be a Freudian slip (the quiet part out loud). Whatever. It would be a shame if this glaring moment were to go unnoticed. It hasn’t.
Mary Miller is a disgrace to her district, her state, her party, her country, and the universe. Here’s a Chicago Tribune article that recounts various Miller missteps, beginning with “Hitler was right on one thing” and ending with “white life.”
*
The official explanation, from a campaign spokesman (because Miller never takes questions from the press): “a mix-up of words.” And: “Her campaign noted that she is the grandmother of several nonwhite grandchildren, including one with Down syndrome.” White being, for Miller and company, the default setting.
Miller also referred in her remarks to “global elites.” And we know what that coded language signals.
Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)
[Post title with apologies to a venerable name in beer.]
Feeding kids
Alexandra Petri has a satiric piece in The Washington Post: “We must protect life from conception until the moment of birth!”
It’s no surprise to me to learn that Mary Miller (R, IL-15) is one of just forty-two members of the House of Representatives who voted on Thursday against the Keep Kids Fed Act of 2022, created to help fund meal programs throughout the year. Miller is zealous about prohibiting abortion and allowing unlimited access to weapons. Not so zealous about feeding children.
One detail: the bill is meant to
extend flexibilities for summer meals in 2022. This will make it easier to feed all students during the summer months, particularly those in rural areas, through flexible options like meal delivery and grab-and-go. [My emphasis.]Rodney Davis, Miller’s opponent in the Republican primary, voted for this bill. Friends who tell me that there’s no difference between Davis and Miller, that it’s a mistake to cross over to vote in the Republican primary: you’re wrong.
Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)
[Miller holds
Today’s Saturday Stumper
I’ve read Ben Zimmer’s prose many times, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a crossword puzzle by him before today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper. It’s a good puzzle, relatively easy with toughies here and there. I began with 13-D, eight letters, “Groups inspired by pop-punk” and 20-A, five letters, “Rome’s ____-Shelley Memorial House,” and never had to look back.
Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:
1-A, nine letters, “Non-stretchy attire rarely worn on Zoom calls.” A delightful start. But rarely ? Really? I learned this amusing term only recently and am grateful to know what I have been wearing on and off Zoom calls.
1-D, six letters, “Scouts, often.” Noun? Verb? This clue gave me more trouble than it was probably meant to.
8-D, seven letters, “Mega-selling action figures of the ’90s.” Oh, yes, I remember them.
15-A, nine letters, “Settled.” This ambigious clue had me stuck for a bit.
17-A, nine letters, “Emotional fulfillment guide written long, long ago.” Pretty decorous.
35-D, eight letters, “Ticket stubs, menus, etc.” I love such stuff.
39-D, seven letters, “Trademark for wearable Teflon.” Somehow “wearable Teflon” doesn’t sound nearly as cool.
43-D, six letters, “Originally, to adjust a musical instrument.” Huh.
49-D, four letters, “Metaphorical concession.” Pleasantly defamiliarizing.
55-A, nine letters, “‘That’ll never happen again.’” Colloquial clue, colloquial answer.
60-A, nine letters, “Orthodontist's palatal appliances.” BITEPLATES won’t fit. Need more room!
No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.
