A Jerry Craft interview

From this morning’s Morning Edition, an interview with Jerry Craft. He has a new book, School Trip, coming out in April. I wrote about his New Kid and Class Act in this post.

[I’m happy to know that Craft did get to the Texas school system that had disinvited him after some parents charged that his books promulgated critical race theory.]

Rudolph and reindeer, explained

“Quick etymology.”

Thanks, Elaine.

Word of the day: commuter

[Nancy, January 24, 1950. Click for a larger view.]

Nancy’s new train whistles, smokes, goes choo-choo — it does (in Bushmiller Bold) EVERYTHING.

I was surprised to see commuter in use in 1950 — I would have guessed that it was a later invention. I’m even more surprised to see that the word (“Originally U.S.”) dates from the mid-nineteenth century. The first Oxford English Dictionary citation is from 1865 (The Atlantic Monthly ):

Two or three may be styled commuters’ roads, running chiefly for the accommodation of city business-men with suburban residences.

Pre-“traffic and weather on the eights,” there were commuters.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

[I would have placed commuter in the 1970s, perhaps because that’s when I became a commuter when attending college. There was much consternation about Fordham at Rose Hill becoming a commuter campus.]

Nut sorter, dowel inspector, egg processor

Nut sorter, dowel inspector, egg processor: The Washington Post reports that the Social Security Administration evaluates disability claims by using a Dictionary of Occupational Titles, last updated in 1977, to determine what kinds of work a person with a disability might be able to do. But many kinds of work described in the dictionary would be difficult or impossible for anyone, with or without a disability — because the work itself is obsolete or nearly so. See the first six words of the post.

Here’s one occupational title that I noticed, pen and pencil repairer:

Repairs and replaces parts of fountain pens and mechanical pencils, using electric buffer, handtools, and magnifying lens: Repairs or replaces ink sacs, plungers, barrels, and other parts, using handtools. Places pen points on straightening block and rubs them with mandrel to straighten points. Twists and turns points with pliers under magnifying lens to align points. Washes pens and pencils in cleaning solution. Removes engraving and polishes pens and pencils, using electric buffer. May operate pantograph engraving machine or stamping machine to inscribe names on pens and pencils. May operate bench lathes to cut out parts for pens and pencils. May sell pens and pencils. May requisition replacement parts for pens and pencils.

Ink sacs — yes, for pen fanatics, but not in most people’s definitions of real life in 2022. The dictionary also describes work in telegraphy and television-tube rebuilding. I could go on. But I think another form of work cited in the Post article tops them all: manual scoreboard operator.

Related posts
Harvey Wang’s New York : “Old-world skillz” : “Trailing-edge technology”

[I was hoping for pinsetter, a job my dad had as a Depression kid. But the dictionary is too up-to-date for that. Alas, the links in the last two posts are gone.]

Recently updated

Terry Hall (1959–2022) Now with a link to a New York Times obituary.

EXchange names on the screen

[She Played with Fire (dir. Sidney Gilliat, 1957). Click for a larger view.]

I once characterized telephone-directory-fills-the-screen as a low-grade reality effect: even a fictional telephone directory is in some way a work of non-fiction. Here the reality effect is strong: at least some of the addresses are real, and Litaweave Products was still doing business from 90 Teesdale Street, London, as late as 1965. (Thanks, Google Books.)

And what is a “peelhead”? Something used in making pizza.

More telephone EXchange names on screen
Act of Violence : The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse : Armored Car Robbery : Baby Face : Black Angel : Black Widow : Blast of Silence : The Blue Dahlia : Blue Gardenia : Boardwalk Empire : Born Yesterday : The Brasher Doubloon : The Brothers Rico : The Case Against Brooklyn : Chinatown : Craig’s Wife : Danger Zone : The Dark Corner : Dark Passage : Deception : Deux hommes dans Manhattan : Dial Red 0 : Dick Tracy’s Deception : Down Three Dark Streets : Dream House : East Side, West Side : Escape in the Fog : Fallen Angel : Framed : Hollywood Story : Kiss of Death : The Little Giant : Loophole : The Man Who Cheated Himself : Modern Marvels : Murder by Contract : Murder, My Sweet : My Week with Marilyn : Naked City (1) : Naked City (2) : Naked City (3) : Naked City (4) : Naked City (5) : Naked City (6) : Naked City (7) : Naked City (8) : Naked City (9) : Nightfall : Nightmare Alley : Nocturne : Old Acquaintance : Out of the Past : Perry Mason : Pitfall : The Public Enemy : Railroaded! : Red Light : Side Street : The Slender Thread : Slightly Scarlet : Stage Fright : Sweet Smell of Success (1) : Sweet Smell of Success (2) : Tension : Till the End of Time : This Gun for Hire : The Unfaithful : Vice Squad : Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Twelve movies

[One to four stars. Four sentences each. No spoilers. Sources: Criterion Channel, DVD, TCM, YouTube.]

Junebug (dir. Phil Morrison, 2005). One cannot live by film noir alone. A lovely, understated movie, in which Madeleine and George (Embeth Davidtz and Alessandro Nivola), a recently (and hastily) married couple, drive from Chicago to visit George’s family in North Carolina. It’s a crowded, difficult house, with patriarch Eugene (Scott Wilson) nearly inarticulate, matriarch Peg (Celia Weston) burdened with responsibilities, George’s brother Johnny (Ben McKenzie) reluctant about impending fatherhood, and George’s wife Ashley (Amy Adams), a firecracker, as her mother calls her, all agog with plans for the baby. Madeleine’s presence is the final complication: is she here to meet her husband’s family, or to snag the work of a nearby Howard Finster-like artist for her gallery? ★★★★ (CC)

*

She Played with Fire (dir. Sidney Gilliat, 1957). Brit noir with Gothic overtones: a minor fire brings insurance adjuster Oliver Branwell (Jack Hawkins) to a great manor house, where he is surprised to meet up with a woman he loved years before, the now married Sarah Moreton (Arlene Dahl). And then things get complicated — not because of adultery but because of another fire, and forgery, and telltale herbal cigarettes, and a strong touch of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Les Diaboliques. Why not four stars? There’s a large problem with the plot, because of an obvious question that’s never asked or answered. ★★★ (YT)

*

Crossroads (dir. Jack Conway, 1942). It’s 1935 (no war), and William Powell is David Talbot, a member of the French diplomatic corps, recently married to Lucienne (Hedy Lamarr) and the likely choice to serve as ambassador to Brazil. But something goes wrong: a threatening letter arrives in the mail, and David Talbot finds himself blackmailed for crimes committed when he was Jean Pelletier, before a case of amnesia wiped out his criminal past. Aside from an opening scene that is almost from pre-Code days, Lamarr has little to do. Also with Basil Rathbone, Claire Trevor, H.B. Warner (Jesus, Gower the druggist, and one of Sunset Boulevard’s waxworks), and Felix Bressart, who steals the movie as a wise, funny psychoanalyst. ★★★ (TCM)

*

A Woman’s Secret (dir. Nicholas Ray, 1949). Okay, but which woman? And when a shot rings out, whose account of what happened is to be believed? At the center of the story is a friendship — “an odd friendship,” one observer calls it — between a former singer turned manager (Maureen O’Hara) and her protege (Gloria Grahame). The implications are unmistakable, even if the movie takes everything back at the end. ★★★ (TCM)

*

The Dark Corner (dir. Henry Hathaway, 1946). It was better on a first viewing in 2010. This story of a private detective (Mark Stevens) being stalked (it’s complicated) by another private detective (William Bendix) is super-stylish, with lavish sets (that art gallery!) and slick cinematography by Joe MacDonald. Despite loads of snappy banter, there’s little chemistry between Stevens and his hopelessly devoted secretary (Lucille Ball, who reportedly hated the way the director treated her); the two standouts are Bendix and Clifton Webb as the effete owner of an art gallery. As Elaine said, it’s a good thing that Ball found her true home in comedy. ★★★ (CC)

*

Waiting for Guffman (dir. Christopher Guest, 1996). I wish I could remember who told us, years ago, to watch this faux-documentary about a midwestern town’s effort to celebrate its sesquicentennial. In Blaine, Missouri, the high-school drama teacher, NYC-refugee and gay caricature Corky St. Clair (Guest) is enlisted to stage a musical celebration of the town’s patchy history: founded by travelers who thought they had reached California, Blaine became the Stool Capital of the World and was later visited by ETs who probed several locals. Many types here: a resentful band director (Bob Balaban), a futureless Dairy Queen employee (Parker Posey), a dentist who feels the urge to entertain (Eugene Levy), and the inveterate amateurs whom Corky calls “the Lunts of Blaine" (Catherine O’Hara and Fred Willard). When news comes that a producer from the New York theater world, Mort Guffman, is coming to view Red, White, and Blaine, the need to do well becomes urgent, as Corky and his cast believe that Broadway might be in their future. A hilarious and poignant picture of people doing their best, and dammit, the songs are good, though the best number, “This Bulging River,” is only available as a DVD extra (or from YouKnowWhere). ★★★★ (DVD)

[If you live in a little town, you probably already know what sesquicentennial means.]

*

Gaslight (dir. George Cukor, 1944). A small cast — Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, and Joseph Cotten are the principals — along with a townhouse that grows smaller and more claustrophobic as the story develops. The principals give brilliant performances — Bergman as an apologetic, self-doubting bride, Boyer as her suave, dictatorial husband, Cotten as a protector watching from afar. And then there’s Angela Lansbury, in her first screen performance, as a nasty servant. Joseph Ruttenberg, a remarkably versatile cinematographer, gives the story a strong infusion of noir. ★★★★ (TCM)

*

Mr. District Attorney (dir. Robert B. Sinclair, 1947). Based on a long-running radio serial, with Adolphe Menjou as a hard-driving DA (he’s to the law what Julian Marsh of 42nd Street is to the theater), Dennis O’Keefe as his ethically wavering assistant, George Couloris as a white-collar criminal, and Marguerite Chapman as an inscrutable love interest. Chapman makes the movie, with a role reminiscent of Jane Greer’s Kathie in Out of the Past. With genuinely surprising and suspenseful moments as the movie nears its end. The radio DNA is most noticeable, I think, in the wisecracking by investigator Harrington (Michael O’Shea). ★★★ (YT)

*

What Happened Was . . . (dir. Tom Noonan, 1994). From a two-person play by Noonan, with Noonan and Karen Sillas as Michael and Jackie, co-workers having dinner in Jackie’s apartment on a Friday night. I can’t agree with one reviewer that the movie shows “how people actually behave on a date,” for at least two reasons: it’s not clear to both parties that this meeting is a (first) date, and most people are not Michael and Jackie, and would likely not find themselves engaged in the painful truthtelling that happens in the course of this evening. My favorite moment: the story of the book, which is more than a little heartbreaking. ★★★★ (CC)

*

Midnight Limited (dir. Howard Bretherton, 1940). I’m not a fan of train travel, and least not in its Amtrak incarnation, but I’m a sucker for a train movie: Berlin Express, The Lady Vanishes, The Narrow Margin, Night Train to Munich, North by Northwest, Sleeping Car to Trieste, The Tall Target, Terror by Night. I did not expect much from the low-budget effort (Monogram Pictures), but I found even less: ultra-cheap sets (not a single shot showing the window of a train compartment), wooden acting, and a preposterous plot. Hint to the detective: when a man on a train is robbed of $75,000 in diamonds, start by finding out who knew he was on the train. The one redeeming element of weirdness: George Cleveland (Gramps from Lassie) as a seedy “professor” who bears an at least passing resemblance to Joe Gould (two years before Joseph Mitchell’s New Yorker profile “Professor Sea Gull”). ★ (YT)

*

Crime and Punishment (dir. Josef von Sternberg, 1935). I’m not a fan of the novel, which seems to me the work of a writer trying to figure out something new to drop in, chapter by chapter. So in a perverse way, I like this highly condensed adaptation, with fine performances by Peter Lorre as Roderick (!) Raskolnikov, Edward Arnold as Porfiry, and Marian Marsh as Sonya. Condensation aside, we end up with the novel’s sentimentality all the same. Look for Johnny Arthur (father to Darla in Little Rascals shorts) and Michael Mark (the bereaved father in Frankenstein) in small roles. ★★★ (YT)

*

Fear (dir. Alfred Zeisler, 1946). A low-budget (Monogram Pictures) uncredited adaptation of Crime and Punishment, with Raskolnikov turned into Larry Crain (Peter Cookson), a contemporary American college student who loses his scholarship, pawns his father’s watch, and — well, you probably know what’s coming. Here, too, much of the Dostoevsky world is missing. Warren William (the first Perry Mason) is the investigator who dogs Larry; Anne Gywnne is a Sonya sans family, sans sex work. A surprisingly good movie on its own terms, and its full weirdness only becomes clear at the end. ★★★ (YT)

Related reading
All OCA “twelve movies” posts (Pinboard)

iCloud Drive (Archive): delete?

I went looking for an explanation of why my Mac showed iCloud Drive (Archive), iCloud Drive (Archive) - 1, and iCloud Drive (Archive) - 2. I found the answer and deleted all but the most recent archive (2), which I then renamed as iCloud Drive (Archive). Gigabytes saved! Lifelong learning!

Uffizi e-mail etiquette

Eike Schmidt, the director of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, has made rules for staff e-mail (Artnet). Among the rules: No bold, no multiple exclamation points, no ?! combinations, no sentences in all caps. Ellipses? Only sparingly.

When Uffizi staff need to e-mail an academic, they might want to consult How to e-mail a professor. Almost eighteen years old, and still going strong.

NPR, sheesh

“These cookies have taken on new meaning as an adult.”

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