In the great green room

In The New York Times, Elisabeth Egan pays tribute to Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight Moon.

One of the great moments of grandparenthood (so far): reading Goodnight Moon to a granddaughter who pulled it from the shelf at bedtime and said she didn’t understand it. (Kinda like Elisabeth Egan at first!) Elaine and I did an explication de texte, noticing all the details and small changes in the great green room. We felt so honored to be entrusted with the hermeneutics of it all.

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Goodnight commas

A letter to “my” representative

[Click for a much larger view.]

I don’t expect an answer. But I take pleasure in writing to “my” representative. She won’t read it, but someone in her office might. And might then have something to think about.

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All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

Sheiks

Up late, boosted and vaxxed and achy, watching the beginning of A Face in the Crowd (dir. Elia Kazan, 1957), it hit me: the music that runs behind the opening credits (credited to Tom Glazer) is more or less a version of the Mississippi Sheiks’ “Sitting on Top of the World.” An apt choice for the story the movie tells. Here’s the original 1930 recording, with Walter Vinson (guitar, vocal) and Lonnie Chatmon (violin). From the liner notes for the CD Stop and Listen (Yazoo, 1992):

When the Sheiks’ Walter Vinson unveiled the melody for his partner, Lonnie Chatmon, the latter’s first reaction was to ask, "What kind of song is that?“

Answer: a hit song, recorded by many. It owes something to Tampa Red (Yazoo doesn’t say what, and I don’t know offhand). And it’s the source for Robert Johnson’s “Come On In My Kitchen.” It’s a formative song, and I’m glad I was up late, boosted, vaxxed, and achy, to notice its presence in the movie.

[Tampa Red’s “It Hurts Me Too” is a dead ringer for “Sitting on Top of the World,” but it’s a later recording.]

Advice from one who’s been

You do not want to get the bivalent COVID booster and this year’s flu vaccine at the same time. You just don’t. That’s advice from one who’s been.

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Jack Delaney’s Now with a 1960 advertisement and a Tack Room.

Infuriating

Infuriating to find PBS bumping the second episode of The U.S. and the Holocaust for a ninety-minute recap of QEII’s funeral service.

And at 8:30, instead of showing tonight’s (second) episode of The U.S. and the Holocaust, PBS is showing last night’s episode again. No explanation needed, apparently.

All three episodes are streaming, so we’re watching the second episode via the link above.

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Jack Delaney’s Now with a menu.

Anna meta

Princess Betsy Tverskaya recounts what Liza Merkalova said:

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, translated by Constance Garnett, revised by Leonard J. Kent and Nina Berberova (New York: Modern Library, 2000).

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“The turning point of summer” : Theory of dairy farming : Toothache

The U.S. and the Holocaust

I’m not a Ken Burns fan, but I recommend watching The U.S. and the Holocaust. The first episode aired tonight; the second and third air tomorrow and Tuesday. All three are streaming at PBS.

I wonder if anyone ever imagined that this documentary series would begin airing four days after a governor lured refugees onto buses with promises of employment and housing, and one day after a crowd raised their right arms to the defeated former president in an index-finger salute. We dismiss such cruelty and madness at our peril.

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MSNBC royal hierarchy Guess who’s in London?