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Words of the year Now with gaslighting.

Domestic comedy

I was reading up on the Pillsbury Doughboy (“anthropomorphic dough,” Wikipedia calls him) when I realized that the boy shares his name with the American infantry. I know what a WWI doughboy is, but as I confessed to my fambly, I had never noticed the wordplay.

And Elaine: “Do you think the Pillsbury Doughboy gets all his clothes at Men’s Wearhouse?”

It’s domestic comedy because of this previous moment of domestic comedy.

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

[Our daughter Rachel says that Elaine’s quip is an example of a callback. Merriam-Webster’s examples of the word in recent use on the Internets reflect this meaning, not yet included among the dictionary’s definitions.]

Whence bebop?

“An onomatopoetic name reflecting the short notes and off-the-beat rhythms characteristic of the genre”: Merriam-Webster on the origin of bebop.

See also this Merriam-Webster Word Matters podcast episode: “A Lexical History of ‘Jazz.’”

Buono’s Groc.

[230 Van Brunt Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

I chose this photograph because it has everything. Everything is defined as a privilege sign, a Bell Telephone sign, an awning, a horse, an unattended child, neighborhood loafers (blocking the entrance to the upstairs apartments), a bicycle with an old-fashioned kickstand, trolley tracks, cobblestones, tattered movie posters (Don Ameche, Alice Faye, and Carmen Miranda starred in the 1941 film That Night in Rio), laundry hanging on a line, and a mysterious figure at a second-story window.

It occurs to me that so many stores in the olden days had no official name displayed. Sometimes a store was just “the store,” as in “I need a coupla things from the store.” I know the name of this store — sort of — because of a full-page advertisement listing Brooklyn purveyors of Doublemint gum. This address is listed under South Brooklyn as Buono’s Groc.:

[The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 11, 1941.]

And there’s Tony Buono, in the 1940 telephone directory:


Residents of 230 were associated with various mishaps and acts of mayhem through the years, both on and off the premises. Some incidents collected from newspaper articles available at Brooklyn Newsstand:

1886: a resident bit his brother-in-law’s lip
1887: a resident interfered with an arrest
1887: a resident was attacked and beaten
1896: a resident was in a fight and fired two shots
1904: a resident died of gas poisoning
1905: a resident was shot in “an Italian shooting bee”
1908: a resident was arrested for extortion
1910: a resident conspired in the theft of 2,000 cigars
1911: a resident died after eating toadstools, not
          mushrooms
1931: a Buono son was stabbed by “the star boarder”

That last incident is the only one to which the Buono name is attached. George Buono had accused the boarder of being too friendly with Mrs. Buono, his mother.

A son of the Buono family, Private Valentino A. Buono, was killed in the Second World War in 1944. A Brooklyn Daily Eagle list of casualties identifies his mother as Mrs. Madeline A. Buono.

Today 230 Van Brunt is a three-family residence. Estimated value: $1,796,700. Not a horse in sight.

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

Amazon ads ads ads

“The first page of Amazon results includes an average of about nine sponsored listings — twice as many as Walmart displays, four times as many as Target”: The Washington Post explains why shopping on Amazon has gotten worse.

Now I understand why it was so difficult for our household to buy the edition of Anna Karenina we wanted.

Me, in my naïveté: “Could it be that searches for one edition of Anna Karenina are redirecting me to what Amazon would like me to buy instead? I think it could.” Jeepers.

Charles Schulz centennial

Charles Schulz was born on November 26, 1922. Comic strips have taken notice, at least every comic strip I read (a handful). Here’s a gathering. The most oblique homage: today’s Nancy.

All OCA Peanuts posts (Pinboard)

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by Stan Newman, the puzzle’s editor, composing as “Lester Ruff” — less rough, easier. Yes, indeed. I began with 1-D, six letters, ”Advisor to Odysseus” and, unlike Odysseus, sailed on through — no detours.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

2-D, six letters, “California schools close on his birthday.” I did not know that.

9-A, six letters, “Tries to draw.” Mild misdirection.

12-D, eight letters, “Verb for the past.” So spelled, really? Yes, really.

16-A, six letters, “Layout with a PYFGCRL line.” I remember when the idea seemed to be everywhere, at least in the Apple II world.

23-A, four letters, “Jack’s beat poet pal.” At the wheel, keeping everyone in stitches.

26-D, seven letters, “What Snoopy drives in She’s a Good Skate, Charlie Brown.” A cheerful touch.

27-A, four letters, “Dramatic overture.” Clever phrasing.

37-D, eight letters, “Me, me, me, me, me,. . . .” Hah.

54-A, three letters, “Hopper, for instance.” Heh.

60-A, eight letters, “The Mr. Coffee TM75, e.g.” What? This clue is a bit of a problem.

Another nit to pick: the clue for 48-D, six letters, “Southwestern sluggers” makes for a problem with the answer for 44-D.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Tuck Points

A third imaginary radio show, Tuck Points, all about sheets:

“This week on Tuck Points: well-fitted fitted sheets, the foundation of good sleep.”

Other imaginary shows
Blanket statements : Stemside

Blanket Statements

Another imaginary radio show: Blanket Statements, the show about blankets and the people who sleep with them:

“After the break, we’ll be talking about plaid. Is it really warmer?”

Yes, plaid is really warmer, In blankets and in everything else.

Another imaginary show
Stemside

Thanksgiving 1922

[“Vaudeville on Island: Keith Artists to Give Thanksgiving Program on Blackwell’s.” The New York Times, November 30, 1922.]

Yes, November 30: the next-to-last Thursday of the month wouldn’t become Thanksgiving Day until 1939.

It’s not clear what population these vaudevillians were entertaining: at various times asylum, hospital, and prison populations were all housed on Blackwell’s Island, or Welfare Island, as it had already been renamed in 1921. Given a Times report on Thanksgiving 1914 at Blackwell’s, I suspect that the audience was a prison population.

I recognize two of the names here: Eddie Foy, whom I know only as a name, and “Demarest,” as in William Demarest, Uncle Charley from My Three Sons, who perfomed in vaudeville with his wife Estelle Collette (real name Esther Zychlin).

On this same Thanksgiving, the great tenor Beniamino Gigli sang at Sing Sing. The inmates had already been visited by vaudevillians on November 26th. From the Times: “Sing Sing has not had a grand opera entertainment since the San Carlo Opera Company was there a year ago” (“Grand Opera for Convicts at Sing Sing Thanksgiving,” November 27, 1922.)

And if you’ve never heard Gigli, here’s “M’apparì” (1923). And another rendition, thirty years later.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Related Thanksgiving posts
Blackwell’s Island, 1914 : Sing Sing, 1907 : Sing Sing, 1908