The Automat on TCM

Lisa Hurwitz’s documentary The Automat (2021) airs on TCM, November 22, in the company of several movies with Automat scenes. The Automat is also now streaming at HBO Max.

The documentary is deep nostalgia, and it makes me feel grateful to have eaten at the Automat, even if only once, even if it was only coffee and a piece of cake or pie, even if the place was wildly depressing — nearly empty, with a few old people sitting alone at tables.

Related reading
All OCA Automat posts (Pinboard)

[The documentary cites the rise of Chock full o’Nuts as one factor in the Automat’s decline and fall.]

Chock full o’Nuts on sale

Chock full o’Nuts is having Black Friday sale, 25% off, and free shipping for orders over $45. The code: BF2022. The sale ends on Friday, November 25, at 11:59 EST.

Only a zealot would think this news worthy of a blog post. I am a zealot.

On a related note, a friend tells me that Lee Hays of the Weavers wrote jingles for, among other products, Chock full o’Nuts frozen doughnuts. It’s right there in Doris Willens’s biography of Hays.

Related reading
All OCA Chock full o’Nuts posts (Pinboard)

Katie Hobbs wins

[Made with the Mac app Acorn.]

In Arizona, Katie Hobbs will defeat Kari Lake in the race for governor. Lake’s response, as reported in The New York Times: “Arizonans know BS when they see it.” An interesting comment from someone who hides behind a filter.

Nancy and wrapping paper

[Nancy, December 19, 1949. Click for a larger view.]

In today’s yesterday’s Nancy, Nancy is visiting her neighborhood grocer. You’ll have to click through to see why she needs wrapping paper. Yes, it’s December 19, but that hint is also a form of misdirection.

I hope the grocer has an enormous roll of string suspended from the ceiling with which to wrap packages. And a pair of scissors to cut the string. Or at least a tape machine.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard) : A selection of paper-roll cutters (Pinterest)

Dustin, blogger

Dustin Kudlick is starting a blog. His sister Meg is helping him add a counter. It feels quaint just to type those words — blog, counter.

But as they say, the best time to start a blog was twenty years ago. The second-best time is today.

Culver × 8

Last Sunday the Ghost of Brooklyn Past visited the Culver Paper Co. in Boro Park. This Sunday the Ghost walks the environs of the Culver Line in Boro Park.

The 1940 Brooklyn telephone directory lists twenty-eight businesses whose names begin with Culver, along with a Frank Culver and a Miss Mildred Culver. (Incredible that the directory identified (at least some?) unmarried women as “Miss.”) Here are eight of the businesses, c. 1939–1940, courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click any image for a much larger view.

  [Culver Coffee Pot, aka Culver Coffee Shop, 4409 18th Avenue. Culver Radio, 4419 18th Avenue. The coffee shop is between Natural Bloom Cigars and another coffee shop, the Excellent Coffee Shoppe. The Brooklyn Times-Union reports George Nekolokeos and Peter Kapoolas opening the Culver Coffee Pot in 1928. Advertisements show a Culver Radio in business at nearby 18th Avenue addresses as early as 1929.]

  [Culver Glass Co., 4506 18th Avenue. Culver Public Market, 4510 18th Avenue. The Culver Glass Co. was in business as late as 1959, with Irving Rothenberg as the owner.]

  [Culver Floor Covering, 4518 18th Avenue. Culver Florist, 952 McDonald Avenue. Click, look closely, and you’ll see someone at a window. Click again, look closely, and you’ll see the florist’s sign.]

And now, a twofer. It’s one of the most beautiful tax photos I’ve seen. Do click for a larger view:

[Culver Confectionery and Culver Theater, 4323-4329 18th Avenue. Now playing: Bitter Sweet (dir. W.S. Van Dyke, 1940), with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy.]

Today 4409 is a Mexican restaurant; 4419, a yeshiva in a new building. A supermarket stands where 4506 and 4510 stood. A women’s clothing store and a pharmacy are at 4518 and 952. And at 4323-4329 — what else? — a bank.

Once again, Brooklyn Newsstand is an invaluable aid in garnering some details of Brooklyn Past. And once again, our visit will end with imaginary ice cream. This way to the confectionery.

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

Nancy breaks a wall

[Nancy, November 13, 2022. Click for a larger view.]

In today’s Nancy, our protagonist has broken the fourth wall. Or the right edge. Or from her perspective, the left edge. And that must be how she got into today’s Zippy.

Venn reading
All OCA Nancy posts : Nancy and Zippy posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)

Looking for trouble

From a short post I wrote yesterday: “I don’t go looking for trouble. It finds me.” I was aiming to sound noirish, and I must have had Raymond Chandler Trouble Is My Business (1950) in the back of my mind. Geo-B thought I was referencing Harry Potter, which surprised me. I’ve read no more than a page of the first Potter novel. But here’s the passage, from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999), the third Harry Potter novel:

“I don’t go looking for trouble,” said Harry, nettled. “Trouble usually finds me.”

Last night, we were watching an episode of Seinfeld, “The Switch” (first aired January 5, 1995). Kramer’s mother Babs (Sheree North) meets up with Newman (Michael Knight):

Hi, Newman.

Hi, Babs.

What are you doin’?

Just mindin’ my own business.

You can’t get into trouble that way.

What makes you think I’m lookin’ for trouble?

From what I hear, you postmen don’t have to look too far.

[Fiendish laughter.] Well, you know, sometimes it just has a way of finding me.

Here’s the scene.

Older sources suggests that such phrasing has long been in the air. From Computers in Libraries (1990):

I don’t go looking for these things, honest I don’t. As the editor of Database Searcher has been known to say, “Trouble finds me. I don’t go looking for it.”

From the magazine Soldiers (August 1984):

“I don't look for trouble. Trouble looks for me when I make my walking checks during the trip.”

From Erwin Haskell Schell’s Technique of Administration: Administrative Proficiency in Business (1951):

I want to find trouble before trouble finds me.

And from Mark Guy Pearse’s Christ’s Cure for Care (1902) in which an old mother offers wise counsel:

“Don’t you trouble trouble
Till trouble troubles you.
Don’t you look for trouble:
Let trouble look for you.”

And if we were still in the world of noir, a voicover might now take over:

I remembered a poem my sainted mother used to recite: “Don’t you look for trouble: / Let trouble look for you.” Well, ma, it’d found me — but good.

[Thanks, Elaine, for finding the 1951 and 1902 sources. And thanks, Joe, for identifying Babs as Kramer’s mother, not his sister.]

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by Steve Mossberg, and it’s a doozy, or a lulu, or both. Thirty-seven minutes for me, and more than once I was sure I’d have to give up. My starting point was 3-D, four letters, “Where the Rhine rises,” a clue I’ve seen, more or less, before. From there, 18-A, five letters, “Sounding stuffy.” Timely! And after that I struggled. Toughest points, the northwest and southwest. Oof.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-D, four letters, “Go around.” SPIN? TURN? Your initial guess may be better than mine.

11-D, ten letters, “Play adaptations.” Clever.

14-A, ten letters, “Large racket.” This one drove me a bit crazy.

16-A, ten letters, “What ranch houses typically haven’t.” I was thinking the answer had to be plural.

26-D, five letters, “Depression on a trunk.” A giveaway, nearly indentical to a clue from last Saturday.

42-A, six letters, “Of the above.” Tricky. I first thought the answer must be an arcane bibliographical abbreviation.

44-D, six letters, “French writer of ‘Facts are stubborn things.’” I thought that came from John Adams. But the French writer isn’t the original source either, not that the clue says he is.

49-A, four letters, “Mozzarella alternative for lasagna.” No, I’m a traditionalist.

53-A, five letters, “What a seminarian may become.” It’s misdirection only if your idea of a seminary is, uh, parochial.

59-D, three letters, “Cell ancestor.” A nice way to make the familiar difficult.

62-A, ten letters, “Largest break in the California Coastal Range.” Threw me for a loop. SOMECANYON?

My favorite in this puzzle: 37-A, fifteen letters, “Time best forgotten.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

NPR, sheesh

“As him and his aides think about this.”

Related reading
All OCA sheesh posts (Pinboard)

[I don’t go looking for trouble. It finds me.]