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Van Dyke Parks in The Honeymooners He played Tommy Borden, not Tommy Manicotti.

Lollygagging

[Beetle Bailey, May 12, 2023. Click for a larger view.]

In the second panel of today’s Beetle Bailey, Beetle makes the effort the look up the meaning on his phone. “To spend time idling,” he reports. And Sarge accuses him of lollygoogling.

A good dictionary would reveal an interesting history for lollygag. From Merriam-Webster:

Since the 19th century, lollygag (sometimes also spelled lallygag) has been used as a slang word to describe acts of wasting time as well as displays of affection. Nowadays, lollygag doesn’t usually refer to flirting or cuddling, but back in 1946, one Navy captain considered lollygagging enough of a problem to issue this stern warning: “Lovemaking and lollygagging are hereby strictly forbidden. . . . The holding of hands, osculation and constant embracing of WAVES [Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service], corpsmen or civilians and sailors or any combination of male and female personnel is a violation of naval discipline.”

The Oxford English Dictionary entry for lallygag (U.S. slang, origin unknown, “to fool around; to ‘neck’; to dawdle, to dally”) includes a citation from 1868 with this choice phrase: “lascivious lolly-gagging lumps of licentiousness.” (That sounds like something written by one of William Safire’s ancestors.) Green’s Dictionary of Slang has an entry for lallygag with a wealth of citations. The Google Ngram Viewer shows lolly- far outpacing the lollygagging lally-.

I think lollygoogle might have some usefulness as an arch way to describe idle searching, but I prefer to use DuckDuckGo.

[William Safire: responsible for Spiro Agnew’s “nattering nabobs of negativism.” And if you’re now wondering: lollipop is a much older word that may derive from lolly, a dialect word for tongue. Might lollipop have something to do with lollygagging? Dunno.]

Portuguese canned fish

A website: Portuguese Canning Industry Digital Museum. The cans are here. The are four pages alone for brands beginning with A.

Found via Present & Correct.

Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)

Writing materials

Dolly Parton, talking to Melissa Block of NPR about songwriting:

Sometimes I get woke up in the middle of the night, because I often dream about singing songs. And I used to think I’d remember ’em, where I’ll be singing in a dream, and I know it’s not a song I know. And so I just try to keep a little tape recorder or notepad. But even on planes, I just write on a barf bag if I get an idea for a song. I just dig in my purse, try to find a pencil, and write on anything I can. That’s how all writers do it though, somebody that really writes all the time like I do.

Do you ever write with lipstick?

I’ve written with my lipstick, and I’ve written with an eyebrow pencil a lot.

Probably a little easier with an eyebrow pencil, I would think.

It’s a little better, a little easier.

More writing materials: Mercer Ellington said that in writing the non-autobiography Music Is My Mistress, his father Duke Ellington used hotel stationery, menus, and napkins.

Chris Strachwitz (1931–2023)

A different kind of record executive. From the New York Times obituary:

Traveling the nation to discover little-known performers for the Arhoolie label, which he founded in 1960, he earned a nickname: El Fanático.

The documentary This Ain’t No Mouse Music! (dir. Maureen Gosling and Chris Simon, 2014) traces Strachwitz’s devotion to blues, bluegrass, norteño, Cajun music, and New Orleans jazz. The film streams at Kanopy, and it’s worth seeking out.

Legacy

I was listening to an NPR conversation about cannabis. In Illinois, sales of the legal stuff have dropped. Is that because users are turning to illicit (and cheaper) sources?

We don’t use the word illicit, the host was told. The word is legacy.

Still obvious after all these years

We were waiting around. Another waiter: “You’re not from around here, are you?”

We’ve lived here for thirty-odd years, but no, not originally.

“I could tell. From __________?”

He was asking what town we live in. And yes, he had that right too.

“University?”

Is it that obvious? Well, yes.

Years ago, I took my kids to meet David Newell/Mr. McFeely at our nearby PBS station. “So you teach at the university?” he asked me. I, an academic? Was it that obvious? Well, yes.

[Re: “__________”: I keep some nouns off OCA. Re: “Well, yes”: but not at an R1 school.]

“We too have our stories”

Steven Millhauser, “The Princess, the Dwarf, and the Dungeon,” in Little Kingdoms (1993).

Related reading
All OCA Steven Millhauser posts (Pinboard)

Vertigo, up or down

From The Washington Post: “Vertigo is still the best movie ever. Or the worst movie ever. Discuss.” The writer, Ty Burr, leans toward “still the best.” I think so too — it’s been my favorite movie for many years. Dream, need, obsession, sheer weirdness: what’s not to like?

Vertigo was a second date for Elaine and me, when the movie was re-released in 1984. I remember vividly that someone in the audience screamed in fear at the end. A real scream, in real fear. And then the movie was over, and everyone had a giddy laugh, including the screamer.

Two Vertigo posts
Scottie and Midge : Nancy and Sluggo and Vertigo

[“Someone in the audience”: not Elaine, not me.]

Reading in NYC schools

Big news in The New York Times: reading instruction will be changing in New York City schools:

Hundreds of public schools have been teaching reading the wrong way for the last two decades, leaving an untold number of children struggling to acquire a crucial life skill, according to New York City’s schools chancellor.

Now, David C. Banks, the chancellor, wants to “sound the alarm” and is planning to force the nation’s largest school system to take a new approach.

On Tuesday, Mr. Banks will announce major changes to reading instruction in an aim to tackle a persistent problem: About half of city children in grades three through eight are not proficient in reading. Black, Latino and low-income children fare even worse.

In a recent interview, Mr. Banks said that the city’s approach had been “fundamentally flawed,” and had failed to follow the science of how students learn to read.

“It’s not your fault. It’s not your child’s fault. It was our fault,” Mr. Banks said. “This is the beginning of a massive turnaround.”

Over the next two years, the city’s 32 local school districts will adopt one of three curriculums selected by their superintendents. The curriculums use evidence-supported practices, including phonics — which teaches children how to decode letter sounds — and avoid strategies many reading experts say are flawed, like teaching children to use picture clues to guess words.

The recent podcast series Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong is a great introduction to the theory and practice of reading instruction in the United States. Though it’s not mentioned in the Times article, I think it must have something to do with the changes in New York City.

Related reading
A few OCA Sold a Story posts

[The Times link is a gift link. No subscription needed.]