Highland Park

“This scene has repeated itself over and over again because of the unfettered access to weapons of war,” said Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat from suburban Chicago. “What was supposed to be a celebration of our freedom and unity today turned into yet another bloody massacre” (The New York Times ).

Artle

From The Washington Post: “‘Wordle’ fan? The National Gallery of Art has launched a copycat.” You get four guesses. I bit:

Artle #57
🎨 🟥 🟩 ⬜ ⬜
https://www.nga.gov/Artle

But I don’t expect to see such success often.

On the Fourth

Today would be a good day to watch Don’t Be a Sucker, a short 1943 film from the U.S. Department of War. Context at Wikipedia. Complete cast at IMDb.

Here’s an excerpt. A soapbox speaker is addressing a small crowd, presenting himself an “American American,” or what Tucker Carlson would call a “legacy American.” The speaker rails against “Negroes,” Catholics, Masons, and “alien foreigners.” A Hungarian-born professor (Paul Lukas) listens with dismay: “I’ve heard this kind of talk before, but I never expected to hear it in America.” When the speaker is done, the professor talks at length to another spectator who thought the speaker made “pretty good sense,” at least until he mentioned the Masons:

“We must never let ourselves be divided by race, or color, or religion, because in this country we all belong to minority groups. I was born in Hungary; you are a Mason: these are minorities. And then you belong to other minority groups too. You are a farmer; you have blue eyes; you go to the Methodist church. Your right to belong to these minorities is a precious thing. You have a right to be what you are and say what you think, because here we have personal freedom. We have liberty.

“And these are not just fancy words. This is a practical and priceless way of living. But we must work at it. We must guard everyone's liberty, or we can lose our own. If we allow any minority to lose its freedom by persecution, or by prejudice, we are threatening our own freedom. And this is not simply an idea: this is good hard common sense.

“You see, here in America it is not a question of whether we tolerate minorites. America is minorities. And that means you and me. So let’s not be suckers. We must not allow the freedom or dignity of any man to be threatened by any act or word. Let’s be selfish about it. Let’s forget about we and they. Let’s think about us.”

Everything old is new again. Including this post: it’s more or less a post I made in May. But I wanted to share it again today.

“Where’s the ‘T’?”

The dad joke in today’s Dustin is a worthy one.

I did not expect to be linking to Dustin on two consecutive days.

Tommy Morgan (1932–2022)

Chances are if you hear a harmonica on a pop recording made within the last fifty or so years, you’re hearing Tommy Morgan. Variety has an obituary.

Here’s a tour de force with multiple instruments. Here’s the Beach Boys’ “I Know There’s an Answer” (Brian Wilson–Terry Sachen–Mike Love), with Morgan’s bass harmonica solo. And here’s “My Jeanine” (Van Dyke Parks), from the Parks–Brian Wilson album Orange Crate Art, also with Morgan on bass harmonica.

Ramona, memories, oranges

Here’s some orange crate art from JSTOR. With “Ramona Memories,” from the San Fernando Heights Lemon Association.

As Van Dyke Parks wrote, “Back when Ramona had heart, memories of her orange crate art.”

Thanks to Jim at 30 Squares.

[Like the lemon crate, VDP’s lyric alludes to Helen Hunt Jackson’s novel Ramona.]

Kubrick Self Service Stores

[Kubrick Self Service Store, 1267 40th Street, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

I was taking a virtual walk down 13th Avenue, Boro Park, c. 1939–1941, and decided to turn down 40th Street. And there I found this sharp photograph. The name of course struck me. But I don’t think there’s a connection: Stanley Kubrick grew up in the Bronx, where his father was a homeopathic physician. The photograph holds up on its own.

I like the retail density: signage at jaunty angles, canned goods and packages stacked high in the windows, and pyramids on crates. Those pyramids would have to come down each night, but it doesn’t look as if the window displays will be coming down anytime soon. I like the unimaginable prices: 16¢, 23¢, 2 for 25¢. The bicycle doesn’t appear to be for deliveries: no basket. I’m not sure that a self-service store would offer delivery anyway. Remember Mr. Potter, the druggist in Orson Welles’s The Stranger? “All your needs are on our shelves.” I like and don’t like the carriages outside the store, because I suspect that mothers out doing the marketing in this world left them unattended. You couldn’t navigate a carriage and do the marketing very easily. But only the Dead End Kids would make off with a carriage for kicks. I think there’s a movie in which they do just that.

I also like the Wes Anderson-like symmetry. And those curved E s.

Kubrick Stores were a chain, limited, it seems, to Brooklyn, headed by Solomon Kubrick. In 1940 there were three more stores at 1411 Avenue J, 4904 Church Avenue, and 6619 18th Avenue, all wih the same “Kubrick Self Service Stores” sign. A store at 4911 13th Avenue (nine blocks from the 40th Street store) appears to postdate the tax photos. There’s a tantalizing snippet about that 13th Avenue store in Google Books. From The Progressive Grocer (1943):

This is how manager Milton Schwartz, of the Kubrick Self Service Food Store, 4911 13th Ave., Brooklyn, N. Y., went after the booming cereal business right after point rationing began.

End of snippet. But how? How? Inquiring minds still want to know.

There’s little information about Kubrick Stores online. DuckDuckGo and Google have nothing. Brooklyn Newsstand has a couple of robberies, a number of Help Wanted listings, and a single appearance in a group advertisement directed at shoppers (Ajax Cleanser, 2 for 23¢). No obituary for Solomon Kubrick at Brooklyn Newsstand or The New York Times. The most recent glimpse of 1267 40th Street in Google Maps shows — what else? — a mobile-phone store.

Coming soon: the buildings that flanked 1267. Stay tuned.

Thanks to my brother Brian for turning up helpful information on Kubrick Stores.

Related posts
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives

Dustin desserts

Hayden: “I have to write a paper about the use of idioms.”

Ed: “Oh, that’ll be a piece of cake.”

And more dessert idioms in today’s Dustin.

Barf

“At dinner with the aspiring public intellectual and her ‘cabal’”: this fawning, gushing New York Times article about Solveig Gold, a Princeton alum, and Joshua Katz, her Princeton professor-now-husband, makes me come close to wanting to cancel my subscription.

An excerpt:

As her guests were about to arrive, Ms. Gold changed from a plain blue summer shift into a more glamorous cinched-waist yellow dress, drawing an approving smile from her husband, who was wearing a pink linen shirt.

She set the long rectangular table in the grass precisely, with a Wedgewood-blue and white tablecloth, cloth napkins tied up in yellow ribbons, place cards inked in a neat cursive hand and melamine dishes in a Provençal design.

The background: Katz asserts that he was fired from Princeton for his political views, a victim of the culture wars. It’s a witch hunt, his lawyer says. An alternative explanation: he was fired for reasons made clear in these two articles (two of many) from The Daily Princetonian : 1, 2.

My take: if you sleep with your students, if you discourage one of them from seeking mental health treatment, and if you pressure her not to cooperate with an investigation into your actions, you should not expect to hold onto your job. You can have nice dinner parties instead and have the Times send someone down to cover them and write about your wife, who was another one of your students. Barf.

[I must point out: the place cards are for a table seating just six people.]

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by Steve Mossberg, whose last Stumper (June 4) left me defeated. I found today’s puzzle much more cooperative. It plays well with others, at least if the others are me. I started in the northeast corner with 11-A, three letters, “Call the Midwife airer.” That could be one of two answers, right? I tried one of them and moved to 15-A, four letters, “Shed thing.” Aha: those two answers gave me 11-D, ten letters, “Amateur group for many a sport,” which in turn yielded 15-D, five letters, “‘Few know ____ own strength’: Swift” and 29-A, five letters, “Put up.” This puzzle and I seemed to understand each other well. I got the right and left edges first. The northwest corner: that was the toughest.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-D, four letters, “Exit sign regulator.” My guess was correct, but it took a while for me to have any reason to think it was.

8-D, four letters, “Performance composition.” ARIA? No.

14-A, ten letters, “Stellar saga.” I thought it had to be a movie title.

16-A, ten letters, “Seven-foot construction.” Is there a name for a massive hero sandwich?

19-A, six letters, “Mentor in uniform.” Surprising.

24-D, ten letters, “Novel numbers.” Nifty! I don’t think I’ve ever seen this answer in a puzzle.

25-D, ten letters, “Not to be answered.” As with 24-D.

32-D, nine letters, “Apt to blow you away.” Literally, or figuratively?

41-D, five letters, “What nearly half a billion call you.” A great clue.

48-A, six letters, “Name close to Washington’s in reference books.” I was not fooled.

My favorite in this puzzle: 45-D, five letters, “Pharmacy figure.” Very clever.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.