MLK

From “Give Us the Ballot,” addressed to the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, at the Lincoln Memorial, May 17, 1957, three years after Brown v. Board of Education:

Three years ago the Supreme Court of this nation rendered in simple, eloquent, and unequivocal language a decision which will long be stenciled on the mental sheets of succeeding generations. For all men of goodwill, this May seventeenth decision came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of human captivity. It came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of disinherited people throughout the world who had dared only to dream of freedom.

Unfortunately, this noble and sublime decision has not gone without opposition. This opposition has often risen to ominous proportions. Many states have risen up in open defiance. The legislative halls of the South ring loud with such words as “interposition” and “nullification.”

But even more, all types of conniving methods are still being used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters. The denial of this sacred right is a tragic betrayal of the highest mandates of our democratic tradition. And so our most urgent request to the president of the United States and every member of Congress is to give us the right to vote.

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929.

On Arthur Avenue

Last Sunday it was no. 2390. This Sunday I’m still on Arthur Avenue, famed street of Italian-American culture, and today I’m admiring Arthur Avenue Noodle & Macaroni Manufacturing. I love the words beneath the company name: “di pura semola.” And I love the 6 in the window. It’s not often that you see anything selling for 6¢. Maybe nails in a hardware store.

[Arthur Avenue Noodle & Macaroni Manufacturing, 2376 Arthur Avenue, The Bronx, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

You can see AAN&MM with a different sign in an earlier photograph, found by an assiduous reader. Squint past the pushcarts.

Until recently, no. 2376 was the home of Arthur Avenue Fiasco, an Italian restaurant. “Permanently closed,” says Google Maps. The restaurant’s Facebook page is still up, but the restaurant’s website is gone.

I must mention: in the Italian-American world of my mom’s childhood, all pasta was homemade. None of this manufactured stuff. My mom’s grandmother did the work, cutting by eye with great accuracy. Even spaghetti.

And if you’re wondering about the difference about macaroni and noodles — I am too. That’s a rabbit hole I will eye from a distance, through a manicotti telescope. The distinction might be between tubular and non-tubular pasta, but in Italy, maccheroni can refer to both.

Coming next week, nos. 2374 and 2378. Worth waiting for, believe me.

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

“Fritzi Ritz is my co-pilot!”

Zippy loves Nancy.

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All OCA Nancy and Zippy posts (Pinboard)

[Still awaiting Griffith’s Some Rocks: The Ernie Bushmiller Story.]

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, is a solid sender, with fifteen-letter answers crossing at the center, ten-letter answers in two triple stacks and two double stacks, and considerable novelty. Many stacks, but no OREOS in this puzzle.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-D, ten letters, “They help you get a grip around greens.” Which greens?

2-D, ten letters, “Strike that moves the needle.” Pretty novel.

7-D, fifteen letters, “Golda Meir received the first one (1952).” At least a partial giveaway — the answer, I mean.

15-A, ten letters, “Member of West Point’s ‘class the stars fell on’ (1915).” I guessed right.

18-A, ten letters, “KQED or WNYC.” I love it.

23-A, eight letters, “Winning number?” Maybe. Possibly. Hope so.

28-A, three letters, “Cover nickname on 13 People issues (1975-1991).” The answer is a trace of a lost world, when magazines and tabloid newspapers were stacked at the supermarket checkout.

32-D, ten letters, “Music Icons stamp honoree (2022).” Our household has four sheets.

33-A, five letters, “City in Cather’s O Pioneers!” That title comes from Walt Whitman.

37-A, fifteen letters, “Buck passer’s dismissal.” Nicely colloquial.

43-A, four letters, “Informal meeting, these days.” Do people say it, or just write it?

46-A, five letters, “Jockey’s burden.” At least figuratively.

56-D, four letters, “New stock issue.” Clever.

64-A, six letters, “Flat surfaces.” Easy, but a fun clue.

Two clues whose answers leave me baffled:

6-D, five letters, “Porcine plunderer’s pop” and 16-D, five letters, “Recently past.” Did something go wrong in the editing?

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

*

There are now explanations of the bafflers in the comments.

“What emperor?”

Alfin the Vague (1873-1918), king of Zembla, Charles Kinbote’s father, “a kind, gentle, absent-minded monarch”:

Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (1962).

Also from Pale Fire
Aunt Maud’s clippings : Chthonic, grimpen, sempiternal : Index cards : “Insert before a professional”

Editing after sending

I updated my iPhone XR yesterday to iOS 16.2 and now have the option to edit text messages after sending them. So often I have corrections to make because of mistyping (my curved index finger too often hits the wrong key) or because dictation has come out garbled. And being the kind of guy I am, I send those corrections in follow-up texts. I respect the reader, though a better sign of respect might be to proofread more carefully before sending. But hey, it’s texting.

Since updating, I’ve had no occasion to edit after sending. I haven’t seen a single mistake, typed or “heard.” But if the phone or I ever do happen to make a mistake again, I am happy to know that editing is now available. As is unsending, for use in more drastic circumstances.

Some dictation failures
Boogie-woogie : A concluding truck for belated pubs : Derrida : Edifice and Courson Blatz : I just move the lawn : Wrath scholar

[The recipient of a message must have iOS 16 or later, iPadOS 16 or later, or macOS Ventura for editing and unsending to take effect.]

“Insert before a professional”

Charles Kinbote, editor and commentator, thanks his publisher, “good old Frank.”

Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (1962).

If you’re not familiar with Pale Fire: it’s a novel in the form of an annotated edition of a poem, with foreword, notes, and index. The 999-line poem, “Pale Fire,” is by John Shade, a Frost-y poet teaching at a small northeastern college. The editor and annotator is Shade’s not-quite-next-door neighbor Charles Kinbote. That’s all I should say.

There’s another Frank in the novel, John Shade’s handyman, mentioned in Kinbote’s note to line 181. The novel is full of doubles.

Also from Pale Fire
Aunt Maud’s clippings : Chthonic, grimpen, sempiternal : Index cards

”’‘“

Finally, I found an answer, from the User Experience Stack Exchange: Why are the right- and left-quotation marks on iOS’s keyboard reversed?

Every time there’s a system update, I check to see if this problem has been fixed. It turns out to be a feature, not a bug. But a pretty strange feature, says I.

MSNBC, sheesh

A reporter, this afternoon:

“The president said that him and his team are fully cooperating.”

Related reading
All OCA sheesh posts (Pinboard)

Flight need

A guest on MSNBC earlier this afternoon, commenting on airline woes:

“Does the system need repaired and upgraded?”

[Need + past participle] is a regionalism. It’s become one of my regionalisms.

Related reading
More OCA [need + past participle] posts