SHELL

[3437-47 Fort Hamilton Parkway, Boro Park, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

Granted, it’s only a tax photograph, but it’s beautifully composed, with the long lines of the pavement below and the long line of the wire above, all moving toward to the station; the pipes and telephone pole projecting upward; and the globes atop the pumps (SHELL) and the clock. And the hatted man, hand in pocket, moving toward the camera. I am imagining him as Max von Mayerling, lost in Brooklyn, walking back to the car to tell Madame (Norma Desmond) that it will be a long drive back to Los Angeles.

The tax records give 1930 as the approximate date of this station’s construction. In 1931, the station was briefly in the news, as one of twenty-five Brooklyn gas stations robbed by a trio of young men. In 1949 the station appeared in New York State court records, when a station owner petitioning for a variance to expand cited the history of this Shell station to support his petition:

[Click for a larger view.]

So by 1947 this smart little station was already larger.

In 2022 the corner of Fort Hamilton Parkway and Chester Avenue is still a Shell station. At some future point someone may look at this photograph and say “That was what gas stations looked like.”

Related reading
More OCA posts with photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives

No[!] Hurry[!]

Teachers, tell your students: Michelle Reis, actress and former Miss Hong Kong, nearly died because of a doctor’s unpunctuated text.

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All OCA punctuation posts (Pinboard)

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by Paolo Pasco, his first Stumper, I think, and truly Stumpery (twenty-six minutes for me). The northeast and southwest, relatively easy. The northwest and southeast, much more challenging. Here’s a profile of the constructor.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-A, ten letters, “Groups attending board meetings.” I thought of CARPENTERS. Finally getting 8-D right helped a lot here.

3-D, seven letters, “Selling points.” An answer meant to confound.

8-D, seven letters, “Figure skater attire.” My first (wrong) answer.

10-D, ten letters, “Heavy metal instruments.” My second (correct) answer. I took a chance, because I liked the possibility of seeing them in the puzzle.

23-A, nine letters, “They’re often taken out of stock.” Fees of some sort, right? Right?

26-A, nine letters, “Exercise with no running.” Nifty.

33-D, seven letters, “Dutch doctor known for his optotypes.” Who? For his what? Oh, that! Everything has a name.

34-A, three letters, “Guy going back for a plan.” Didn’t fool me.

41-D, five letters, “Trunk depression.” Weirdly defamiliarizing. But not always a depression.

49-A, ten letters, “‘Encore’ antonym.” Ha.

51-A, ten letters, “Shades worn on your feet.” New to me, though not to my feet.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Mary Miller, on it

Representative Mary Miller (R, IL-15) continues to use her official Twitter account to warn parents about the danger of fentanyl in Halloween candy. The warnings tie into the claim that we have an “open border.” “These pills are deadly, and parents should be vigilant and carefully check their child’s Halloween candy this year,” she warns in her latest tweet on this topic.

This year? Mary, a good parent checks the candy every year.

But the fear of fentanyl in Halloween candy is, according to a toxicologist and addiction specialist, “a moral panic.” And a scholar of urban legends calls Halloween fentanyl just that — an urban legend, like razor-blade-filled apples. See this The Washington Post article: “The media and the Halloween ‘rainbow fentanyl’ scare.”

Meanwhile, Mary Miller has said nothing about the attack on Paul Pelosi today and the conspiracy-driven mindset that prompted it.

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All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

How to improve writing (no. 105)

Looking at the bare-bones website for the in-the-news Donda Academy, I could not help staring at this sentence:

Writing should be regarded as an activity that necessitates critical thinking, an aspect that is necessary to all good writing.

The sentence appears as Rule 58 on a page about “Who we are.” It’s meant, I think, to sound impressive, but it says in essence that writing requires critical thinking, which is required in writing. It takes about ten seconds of critical thinking to rewrite the sentence to remove redundancy and the awkward aspect.

How about:

Writing well means thinking critically.

Or:

Good writing requires critical thinking.

Or to avoid the clichéd “critical thinking”:

Good writing requires thought.

Or:

Think hard to write well.

From twenty to four or five. Omit needless words.

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All OCA How to improve writing posts (Pinboard)

[This post is no. 105 in a series dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]

Guernica wear

[“Anguish, Half Off.” Zippy, October 28, 2022. Click for a larger view.]

In today’s Zippy, Griffy notes that museums sell Picasso everything — mousepads, T-shirtscoffee mugs. “What’s next?” he wonders. “Guernica bedsheets and party dresses??”

I wouldn’t have believed it, but you can find a Guernica skirt, complete with Picasso signatures along the waistband, front and back, at Etsy.

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[Did you get to see Guernica at the Museum of Modern Art? It was removed to Spain in 1981.]

Really bad handwriting

[Click for a larger view.]

Fresca read my bad handwriting adeptly. I mentioned that I had worse — far worse — but hesitated to post it because I didn’t know what it said. If it said something like drive to collect ransom, I’d be in big trouble if someone were to figure it out.

Here’s a sample that’s safer. I can make out The addres (no final s), and that’s all. These jottings, in pencil on an index card, might be months old. I have no idea what they’re about. But finding such stuff months later can be what happens when you use both sides of an index card.

The New York Times is still looking for bad handwriting from grown-ups who have gone astray.

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All OCA handwriting posts (Pinboard)

Finding you well

The unhinged anti-Semite formerly known as Kanye West has closed his Donda Academy, effective immediately. The Donda Academy is or was an unaccredited private (Christian) K-12 school, charging $15,000 yearly tuition.

The principal’s announcement of the October surprise — school’s out! — rewards careful study. It’s a nice reminder never to begin a message with “I hope this e-mail finds you well.” Or “I hope this email finds you well.” Take your pick.

I hope this blog post finds you well.

*

And now, on the same day, the school is, supposedly, “back and returning with a vengeance.”

[The Donda announcement begins “We hope this email finds you well.” I still prefer e-mail.]

Jambalaya

[Click for a larger serving.]

Elaine and I split a can of Progresso Spicy Jambalaya with Sausage & Ham last week. Not bad, but I thought I could do better. So we assembled the ingredients (i.e., went shopping), and I made a pot of jambalaya yesterday.

I followed this recipe, more or less, and had excellent results. I remembered that the recipe called for 16 oz. of crushed tomatoes only after dumping in all of a 28 oz. can, so I scooped almost half a can’s worth of tomatoes out of the pot as carefully as I could. The recommended 2½ cups of chicken broth (I used low-sodium stock) were not nearly enough to soften the rice, so I used the whole quart.

The recipe is supposed to be “easy to make in one pot.” And as Elaine reminds me, “one pot” means just one burner in use. The preparation for the cooking required four bowls (to hold chicken, Andouille sausage, celery, green pepper, onion, and garlic), two small cups (for dry seasoning, hot sauce, and Worcestershire), and one measuring cup (for rice and stock). And another small cup for scooping out tomatoes. So many bowls and cups. But still, “easy to make in one pot,” with little skill required. The only changes I’ll make for future cooking will be to add some oil when sauteeing the vegetables and avoid the unforced tomato error.

The jambalaya turned out well: intensely flavorful, and hot without being incendiary. And, if it doesn’t go without saying, far better and far more substantial than the canned stuff, whose main selling point seems to be its intense heat. “Hotter Than ’Ell,” to borrow from Fletcher Henderson.

Call for bad handwriting

[Pretty much actual size. Click for a larger view.]

The New York Times wants to see your bad handwriting, for possible use in an article about grown-ups whose handwriting has gone awry. Here’s my contribution, sent today.

As I told the Times, my handwriting declines when I’m writing notes to myself for future reference. I often find that what was readable in the moment is unreadable, or nearly so, later on. When I’m writing for other eyes, my handwriting — sometimes printing, sometimes cursive — is still pretty spiffy.

Can you decipher what’s written here?

*

October 27: Here’s more of mine, much worse.

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All OCA handwriting posts (Pinboard)