How to improve writing (no. 103)

From a New York Times obituary for Margaret Keane, painter of big-eyed children:

Such rebukes had no effect on the popularity of Keane art. In 1964, Keane prints alone grossed $2 million. In 1965, a Life magazine article, “The Man Who Paints Those Big Eyes,” likened it to Howard Johnson’s ubiquitous restaurants.

I noticed the problem while eating a bowl of Shredded Wheat: what’s it ? If the referent is art, it’s too far back. Better:

Such rebukes had no effect on the popularity of Keane art. In 1964, Keane prints alone grossed $2 million. In 1965, a Life magazine article, “The Man Who Paints Those Big Eyes,” likened Keane art to Howard Johnson’s ubiquitous restaurants.

But now the repeating Keane is too much. How about:

Such rebukes had no effect on popular taste. In 1964, Keane prints alone grossed $2 million. In 1965, a Life magazine article, “The Man Who Paints Those Big Eyes,” likened Keane art to Howard Johnson’s ubiquitous restaurants.

As the Times obituary makes clear, it was Margaret Keane, not her credit-taking husband Walter, who did the painting.

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All OCA How to improve writing posts (Pinboard)

[This post is no. 103 in a series dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]

“Real, real bad”

“Things might get real, real bad on January sixth”: White House chief of statt Mark Meadows to his assistant Cassidy Hutchinson, January 2, 2021.

And when Rudy Giuliani was around, Hutchinson heard references to the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.

And when Meadows was told about the presence of weapons on January 6, he did not even look up from his phone. And then he did, and said that he had told Donald Trump.

In other words, they knew. Of course they did.

*

And Trump: “Take the fucking mags away.” He wanted magnetometers removed so that those with weapons could enter the space for his rally. Those people weren’t there to hurt him, he said. So when he talked about walking down Pennsylvania Avenue, he was sending armed supporters to the Capitol.

And Trump did intend to walk (or ride) to the Capitol. And enter the House chamber. And he grabbed for the steering wheel of the presidential SUV when told that he was going back to the White House: ”I’m the fucking president. Take me up to the Capitol now.” He also lunged at a Secret Service agent in the vehicle. [The grab and lunge are disputed. Hutchinson was testifying to what she was told.]

Back at the White House, Trump lost his lunch. In other words, he threw it against a wall. Ketchup everywhere. Hutchinson says that Trump had thrown dishes or flipped a tablecloth on other occasions as well.

*

Hutchinson knew enough to caution Meadows not to go to the Willard Hotel on January 5, where Michael Flynn and Roger Stone was scheming. Meadows called in instead.

*

As rioters were nearing the Capitol, Hutchinson asked Meadows if he had told Trump. No, Meadows said. The president wants to be alone.

“He doesn’t want to do anything, Pat”: Meadows to Trump lawyer Pat Cipollone.

”You heard it, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong”: Meadows to Cipollone, about the chant to hang Mike Pence.

*

Trump wanted a January 7 post-insurrection statement to cast blame on Pence and suggest pardons for rioters. Meadows suggested language about pardons as well.

Pardon requests came from Giuliani and Meadows.

*

Liz Cheney is closing with accounts from unidentified witnesses of the pressure put on them before they testified to the January 6 committee. “He knows you’re loyal,” and so on. Under his eye, right? That’s witness tampering.

“I paid my way ”

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).

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[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.]

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.

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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.

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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 liquid

2 : textiles, ready-to-wear clothing, and notions as distinguished especially from hardware and groceries

I think it’s no. 2 that fits G. & S.

The earliest reference to the store that I can find at Brooklyn Newsstand is a listing in an ad for Congoleum dealers:

[The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 2, 1928.]

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.]

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.

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[Post title with apologies to a venerable name in beer.]