Taylor Swift and the apostrophe

The New York Times addresses a burning question of the day: Should there be an apostrophe in the title of Taylor Swift’s forthcoming album Tortured Poets Department ?

I say the title is fine without. I’d liken the phrase to “current events podcast” or “retired teachers association.” Or, say, “Elks convention.” No apostrophe needed.

Related reading
All OCA apostrophe posts (Pinboard)

[Something to distract myself as the Supreme Court considers the real burning question of the day.]

Luis Buñuel, MoMA hiree

Did Luis Buñuel really work at the Museum of Modern Art? Yes, he did.

This exchange, as recounted by Buñuel, makes me think of what Zippy might say if he were to interview for a job. The interviewer was Nelson Rockefeller:

When he asked if I was a Communist, I told him I was a Republican, and at the end of the conversation, I found myself working for The Museum of Modern Art.

“Pickleball infrastructure?”

[“Wrap Battle.” Zippy, February 8, 2024. Click for a larger view.]

I heard the phrase “pickleball infrastructure” while listening to NPR in December and immediately thought of it as an “over and over,” the kind of thing Zippy might like to repeat. I sent the phrase to Bill Griffith. He liked it, and here it is in today’s Zippy. I’m thrilled. Please click through to the strip and notice what’s in the third panel.

Bill put a name to such repetition in a recent strip: palilogia, also known as epizeuxis. Think of King Lear’s agonized “Never, never, never, never, never.” Or Steve Ballmer’s mildly insane “Developers, developers, developers, developers.” Or Zippy’s carefree “Pickleball infrastructure! Pickleball infrastructure! Pickleball infrastructure!”

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)

An NYT Vision Pro review

“After using the headset for about five days, I’m unconvinced that people will get much value from it”: Brian X. Chen reviews Apple’s Vision Pro (gift link).

The final comment:

It’s a computer for people to use alone, arriving at a time when we are seeking to reconnect after years of masked solitude. That may be the Vision Pro’s biggest blind spot.

Oh well. There’s always Kranmar’s Vision Pro. Inexpensive, and good at costume parties.

A related post
“It’s an iPad for your face”

Recently updated

Moleskine, sono pazzi Now resolved.

A Jerry Craft Zoom

Our household watched an Illinois Libraries Present event last night, a Zoom interview with Jerry Craft. I’m a fan of his graphic-novel trilogy, New Kid , Class Act , and School Trip . Some things I learned:

~ Craft’s first work was self-published after countless rejections: Mama’s Boyz , a book of comic strips.

~ He thought he’d never get beyond self-publication, as he was resolved to avoid three topics: slavery, civil rights, and police brutality.

~ New Kid, he said, made him “an overnight success” after thirty years of work.

~ Craft wanted to draw Jordan Banks, Drew Ellis, and Liam Landers as “three of the nicest kids you’ll ever meet.”

~ A live-action movie of New Kid is in development from the SpringHill Company (LeBron James and Maverick Carter) and Universal Pictures.

~ A Christian website faulted New Kid for including an “OMG.” Craft said he’d gladly change it to “Oh my goodness” if that made it possible for one more kid to read the book. (Me: But what kid says “Oh my goodness?” And they’d find something else to complain about anyway.)

~ He had to Google critical race theory after his books were charged with promoting it.

~ He draws in Adobe Photoshop with a digital pen and a Wacom tablet.

~ While answering questions, he drew, in real time, for the son of a librarian, a birthday card with Jordan on it. He has a trick to draw Jordan’s hair consistently: little hills, with two groups for the top of the head, two more for the hairline.

~ There may or may not be a fourth Jordan–Drew–Liam book.

~ Craft is now at work on an unrelated three-book project.

Sonny Rollins’s notebooks

Coming in April from New York Review Books, The Notebooks of Sonny Rollins. The February Harper’s has excerpts. Two of them:

Another good day to think and be thankful for.

*

One day in the future people will be saying “Yes I once saw Sonny Rollins.”

I once saw Sonny Rollins, in 1993, and that still might the most exciting live music I’ve ever heard. And I saw him once again in 2006. The second time I had these pages.

Related reading
All OCA Sonny Rollins posts (Pinboard)

Read Zippy tomorrow

All I’m gonna say is that anyone who reads Orange Crate Art should read Zippy tomorrow.

Recently updated

Moleskine, sono pazzi Now with another e-mail exchange. At least I’m getting a post out of this comedy of errors.

Trump, not immune

From The New York Times (gift link):

A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected former President Donald J. Trump’s claim that he was immune to charges of plotting to subvert the results of the 2020 election, ruling that he must go to trial on a criminal indictment accusing him of seeking to overturn his loss to President Biden.

From the ruling:

We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a President has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power — the recognition and implementation of election results. Nor can we sanction his apparent contention that the Executive has carte blanche to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and to have their votes count.

At bottom, former President Trump’s stance would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the President beyond the reach of all three Branches. Presidential immunity against federal indictment would mean that, as to the President, the Congress could not legislate, the Executive could not prosecute and the Judiciary could not review. We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter. Careful evaluation of these concerns leads us to conclude that there is no functional justification for immunizing former Presidents from federal prosecution in general or for immunizing former President Trump from the specific charges in the Indictment. In so holding, we act, “not in derogation of the separation of powers, but to maintain their proper balance.” See Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. at 754.

[From a Wikipedia article about Nixon v. Fitzgerald: “The Court ruled that the President is entitled to absolute immunity from legal liability for civil damages based on his official acts. The Court, however, emphasized that the President is not immune from criminal charges stemming from his official or unofficial acts while he is in office.”]