A Gershwin and a Mongol

January 1, 1930: a photograph of George Gershwin, composing with a Mongol pencil.

Embed from Getty Images[Click for a much larger view.]

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All OCA Mongol posts (Pinboard)

[It’s a Getty Images photograph, not for sharing. I learned today from Fresca that Getty photographs can be embedded. But you have to click on the photograph and scroll down to see the </> Embed button.]

Look to the tip

I charged my Apple Pencil, paired it (once again) with my iPad, and was all set to draw something for some kiddos.

Nothing.

I turned Bluetooth off. I turned Bluetooth on. I asked the iPad to forget the pencil. I re-paired the devices. Nothing. I restarted the iPad. Nothing. I turned Bluetooth off. And so on.

I finally discovered that the problem had nothing to do with pairing devices: the pencil’s tip needed tightening.

I found the solution not at Apple Support but at iMore, where tightening the tip is the first suggested fix for a non-working Apple Pencil.

Foot and feet

[Nancy, May 12, 1950. Click for a larger view.]

In today’s yesterday’s Nancy : five-foot shelf, two-feet Sluggo.

See also 12ft.io.

[Context: Aunt Fritzi has said that Nancy must earn what she wants by standing on her own two feet. Sluggo: “How about you standing on my own two feet?”]

MSNBC, sheesh

One guest speaking of another, earlier this afternoon: “As Ryan enunciated . . . .”

What’s wrong with said ?

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How to improve writing (no. 110)

It never fails: or, rather, it always fails. I look at Talking Points Memo and I end up tinkering with one or more sentences from Josh Marshall. I stopped at five:

The fact that one or more of the Supreme Court Justices appear to be venally corrupt in a rather fulsome fashion is a new addition to the story of the early 21st century. But the heart of it remains this: The current corrupt majority wants to wholly remake American law with little attention to precedent or any coherent jurisprudence or theory of interpreting the constitution. They’ve got the power and they’re going to use it. If you don’t like it, too bad. Yet they also want the deference and respect accorded to thoroughly apolitical players guided by restraint and an approach to the work that is more than dressing up their own policy aims with whatever theory serves the needs of the moment.

What I notice:

~ Empty prose additives: “the fact that,” “in a rather fulsome fashion,” “new addition,” “wholly remake,” “deference and respect,” “thoroughly.”

~ Vagueness: “the heart of it remains this,” “apolitical players.” I must have written “Avoid this alone” several thousand times in the margins of students’ essays. I have no idea who the players might be. Persons? Institutions? At any rate, players suggests the opposite of those who are apolitical.

~ An abundance of prepositional phrases: “in a rather fulsome fashion,” “to the story,” “of the early 21st century,” and so on. Chains of prepositional phrases are often a sign of slack writing. (See Richard Lanham’s paramedic method.)

~ Awkwardness: “an approach to the work that is more than dressing up their own policy aims with whatever theory serves the needs of the moment.”

~ Illogic: It makes no sense to speak of corruption of one or more jusitices followed by a claim that a majority of justices are corrupt.

A possible revision:

A corrupt Supreme Court is something new in twenty-first-century America. Yet even as the Court remakes American law with little regard for precedent, jurisprudence, or the Constitution, it insists on being accorded the deference shown to institutions guided by restraint and objectivity.

From 123 words to 44. Is anything missing? Well, yes: an indication of what the institutions guided by restraint and objectivity might be. So perhaps:

A corrupt Supreme Court is something new in twenty-first-century America. Yet even as the Court remakes American law with little regard for precedent, jurisprudence, or the Constitution, it insists on being treated with respect.

From 44 words to 36.

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[This post is no. 110 in a series dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose. “Empty prose additives” is a lovely phrase I’ve borrowed from Claire Cook’s Line by Line: How to Improve Your Own Writing.]

“Sushi”

St. Louis sushi, so-called, is a plot point in this week’s episode of Somebody Somewhere. St. Louis sushi is, of course, not sushi: it’s pickle, cream cheese, and ham. “Kinda good but kinda gross,” says Sam. This food item is more commonly known as Lutheran sushi, Minnesota sushi, or prairie sushi. I suspect that the writers chose “St. Louis” for its s sounds and the rhyme of lou and su.

Here are some thoughts from within the Gateway City itself about the series and the “sushi.” Caution: there are spoilers.

I’ll say it again: Somebody Somewhere deserves a much larger audience. It’s terrific.

Mystery actor

[Click for a larger view.]

Leave a name in the comments. I’ll drop a hint if one is needed.

*

The answer is now in the comments.

More mystery actors (Collect them all!)
? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ?

“Silent and black-and-white”

Steven Millhauser, “The Little Kingdom of J. Franklin Payne,” in Little Kingdoms (1993).

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How to improve writing (no. 109)

From a brief biography of a university president, on the president’s page at his university’s website:

He is a proud father of daughter X, son-in-law Y, two granddaughters, and daughter, Z all residing in Michigan.

Michigan, really? I would think that this family must reside in the darker regions of ancient Greek mythmaking.

This president doesn’t deserve any help in fixing this sentence, and he’d probably fire anyone who tried. But it wouldn’t be difficult to improve things. Cut the son-in-law; cut “all residing in Michigan” (the president’s school is in Kansas, and besides, who cares?); name everyone or no one. He has two daughters and two granddaughters. And he’s fired many faculty members.

Thanks to the reader who brought life at Emporia State back to my awareness, but who might not want to be associated with this snarky post.

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[This post is no. 109 in a series dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]

AI hallucinations

Hallucinations are in the air. The New York Times has an unsurprising article about what results when chatbots hallucinate. And at Grammarphobia, Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman look at the words hallucinate and hallucination as used in the field of artificial intelligence.

I left a comment on the Times article yesterday:

Why should any of this stuff be surprising? ChatGPT had me winning the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize ($100,000!) and had my wife, a composer and string player, as a world-famous pianist (before it removed us both). It mistakes the celebrated, fictional Lillian Mountweazel for a real person. It makes up lines of poetry, giving “The years upon my back like some great beast” as a line from Yeats’s “The Wild Swans of Coole.” When I asked about Edwin Mullhouse, as in Steven Millhauser’s (great) novel Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943–1954, by Jeffrey Cartwright, it gave this account:

Edwin Mullhouse is the main character in the novel “The Breakthrough” by American author Jonathan Safran Foer. Edwin is an 11-year-old boy who dies suddenly and is remembered by his best friend, Jeffrey Eugenides, who recounts Edwin’s life in a fictional memoir.

I’m reminded of the YouTube clip giving an account of the Beatles from the year 3026, with John, Paul, Greg, and Scottie traveling from their native Linverton to perform at Ed Sullivan’s annual Woodstock festival.

I wrote “my wife,” not “Elaine Fine,” fearing that the Times might not okay a comment referencing another person by name. Tonight I discovered that ChatGPT has once again given us fictive accomplishments, awarding me a doctorate from UC Berkeley, “a large following on Twitter,” and authorship of Poetics of the Hive: Insect Metaphor in Literature and Digital Poetics: Hypertext, Visual-Kinetic Text and Writing in Programmable Media. Elaine and I must have met at Berekeley — she’s now described as having taught there. And she has a Guggenheim. These are our lives on artificial intelligence.

I still want my $100,000 back.

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All OCA ChatGPT posts

[The details in my Times comment all turn up in OCA ChatGPT posts. You can find the 3026 Beatles history here. It’s brilliant. I have never had a Twitter account. The books are real: the first is by Cristopher Hollingsworth; the second, by Loss Pequeño Glazier.]