“Mondays are dark”

I heard this expression for the first time this morning. Obviously, I have not spent enough of my life among show people.

[“Dark”: the theater is closed.]

AI and VDP

It’s dispiriting to see so much AI-generated blather about stuff one loves. Example: this explanation of Van Dyke Parks’s “Dreaming of Paris.” A sample passage:

The lyrics of the song are poetic and thought-provoking, allowing the listener to interpret its meaning in their own unique way. It is a song that invites introspection and reflection, encouraging listeners to delve deeper into their own desires and dreams. Through its enchanting melody and evocative lyrics, “Dreaming of Paris” captures the essence of longing for something beyond the ordinary and the beauty of pursuing one’s passions.

Yeah, sure. I’m reminded of what it’s like to read the work of a student who hasn’t done the reading.

One more:

While Parks has not explicitly mentioned any specific events or experiences that directly influenced “Dreaming of Paris”, it is evident that his love for the city and its rich cultural history played a significant role in shaping the song. It is likely that his personal encounters, observations, and memories of Paris have influenced the lyrical themes and overall ambiance of the song.

The really sad part is that the website presenting this blather embeds a brief video in which VDP talks about the events that underlie the song: the assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, a trip to Paris, a second trip to Paris, the Iraq War. Listen: the historical realities are in the song itself.

There’s a name attached to the writing on the website, but I say it’s AI, and I say the hell with it. If I’m wrong, I’ll eat my copy of “Dreaming of Paris” (Bananastan, 2011), even the sleeve by Ed Ruscha, who just did the sleeve for the Beatles’ “Now and Then.”

A related post
Van Dyke Parks, two singles

A waterfront barber

[194 Columbia Street, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

It’s Sunday morning, but this scene is not quite Edward Hopper. On or in Early Sunday Morning, the barber shop was closed. Hopper called that painting “almost a literal translation of Seventh Avenue” in Manhattan. This Sunday we’re in the Waterfront District of Brooklyn. I am imagining that it’s a noon-ish weekday (notice the shadow under the sole pedestrian), with most potential customers at work. In addition to the barber and the pedestrian, there’s someone at a window. Look closely.

Why is it the Union Park Barber Shop? No clue. There’s a Union Square Park in Manhattan. Brommer’s Union Park was was a location in the Bronx. Go figure.

Today no. 194 houses an event space, Poppy’s HQ. Things happen there.

[Click for a larger barber.]

Related reading
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by Steve Mossberg, and it is exceedingly difficult. Forty-nine minutes for me, and I missed by one letter, an impossible cross, or what’s known as a Natick, as explained by Rex Parker, who coined the term:

Natick Principle — “If you include a proper noun in your grid that you cannot reasonably expect more than 1/4 of the solving public to have heard of, you must cross that noun with reasonably common words and phrases or very common names.”

I hereby give you 5-D, six letters, “Steamed bun from China,” and 14-A, nine letters, “‘Brain’s Scriptwriter’ per Johns Hopkins.” Those answers may not be proper names, but I think they’re obscure enough to count as a Natick. Though they might signify gaps in my knowledge. Either way, really unfun.

Some more clue-and-answer pairs of note:

6-A, four letters, “Many a golf course.” Misdirection abounds in this puzzle. I like the economy of this example.

6-D, eleven letters, “Japanese restaurant decor.” So obvious once you see it. But does one really see this decor at a Japanese restaurant? I’m not sure I have. Do ramen shops count?

9-D, eight letters, “Swiss Guard weapons.” The Vatican theme continues at 57-A.

11-D, ten letters, “OK to put away.” A clue from the eastern edge that made me think this puzzle was going to be easy.

15-D, five letters, “Make for after-dinner.” Really, really strained.

17-A, ten letters, “Fall plant.” See 6-A.

25-A, thirteen letters, “Professional poker.” Getting the last four letters helped a lot.

39-A, four letters, “How some stovewave is made.” A bit ridic.

40-A, thirteen letters, “Call for caution.” I like the colloquial quality.

41-D, six letters, “Biggest little piggy.” I somehow knew it.

48-A, four letters, “Got rubbed down.” A really strained pairing of clue and answer.

56-A, four letters, “Helen Keller cofounded it.” A fact I happen to know.

57-A, ten letters, “Serving in the Vatican.” I’m surprised that this clue made it in, because the answer is so ridiculously arbitrary. Boo. Hiss.

My favorite in this puzzle: 35-D, eight letters, “Manual art.” Recent experience helped.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

“Now and Then,” the music video

It’s out. This one really got to me, and it made me not miss the song’s middle section, at least for now. Some laughter, many tears.

Epistolary Fritzi

“The secret to having a penpal is to avoid getting bogged down with responding to every small comment they make in their letter. If you do, you’ll just spend the whole letter recapping what they sent you”: in Olivia Jaimes’s Nancy, Aunt Fritzi reads a letter and replies.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

Crusts and chest hair

Do parents still tell a boy child that eating the crusts will put hair on his chest? According to The Family Circus , they do.

I like the way the Circus is stuck in an unyielding past. Brown paper bags! Cameras on straps! Landlines! Crusts and chest hair!

[Brown paper bags: The kind that you hold in front of you with two hands, not the fancy kind with paper handles. Ideally, there’s a head of celery sticking out from the top of the bag.]

Beatles now!

“Now and Then” is playing on BBC Radio 2.

And it’s now at YouTube.

I’m disappointed: they dropped the middle section of the song (“I don’t wanna lose you”), its most distinctive part, with unusual chord changes, and the part that, to my ears, makes the shift to the closing section (“Now and then”) so poignant.

[The chords in the middle section, which I worked out at the piano: F♯min Emaj7 F♯min Emaj7 G♯min D E C B. And then comes the shift to G: "Now and then.“]

Words of the year

From the American Dialect Society, enshittification , as used by Cory Doctorow: “Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification.”

From the Australian National Dictionary Centre, Matilda : “After their mega semi-final run at the Women’s Fifa World Cup, the soaring popularity of the Australian women’s football team has led to the choice.”

From the Cambridge Dictionary, hallucinate : “When an artificial intelligence hallucinates, it produces false information.” (An aside: Elaine is a world-famous pianist; I have won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.)

From the Collins Dictionary, AI : “Considered to be the next great technological revolution, AI has seen rapid development and has been much talked about in 2023.”

From Dictionary.com, hallucinate : “Using lexicography and data science, choose a single word that best represents, at this moment, AI’s many profound ramifications for the future of language and life.”

Also from Dictionary.com, a “vibe of the year,” eras : “It’s about more than just Taylor. (But yes, also Taylor.)” (Is it clickbait yet?)

From Macquarie Dictionary, cozzie livs, a play on cost of living: “What could be a more Australian approach to a major social and economic problem than to treat it with a bit of humour and informality?”

From Merriam-Webster, authentic: “the term for something we’re thinking about, writing about, aspiring to, and judging more than ever.”

From Oxford Languages, rizz : “Pertaining to someone’s ability to attract another person through style, charm, or attractiveness, this term is from the middle part of the word ‘charisma,’ which is an unusual word formation pattern.”

I’ll add to this post as more words arrive.

“What is internet, anyway?”

Internet Artifacts, from 1977 to 2007. The question above, from 1994, is from Bryant Gumbel, who was also wondering what the @  sign meant.