The Langston Hughes House

[20 E. 127th Street, Harlem, New York City, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

It’s now the Langston Hughes House, not yet open to the public except for scheduled events. Here from New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, is some history about Hughes and this address, his home from 1948 until his death in 1967.

The NYC Municipal Archives recently posted this photograph with a 1957 recording of Hughes speaking about “The Writer’s Place in America.”

Another Hughes location in a tax photograph: the Harlem Branch Y.

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

[Some sources give 1947 as the year Hughes moved in. Arnold Rampersad’s The Life of Langston Hughes (2002) notes that Emerson Harper, whom Hughes regarded as his uncle, made the purchase on December 23, 1947, evidently keeping Hughes’s name out of the transaction to keep down the price. Harper and Hughes then became joint owners, as did Harper’s wife Toy, whom Hughes regarded as his aunt. Hughes moved to this address in July 1948.]

Fare forward, Brian Wilson

Sad news, as reported in The New York Times: “Brian Wilson’s Family Seeks to Place Him Under a Conservatorship.” An excerpt:

The family of Brian Wilson, the musical architect whose genius helped power the Beach Boys, is seeking to place him under a conservatorship following the death of his wife, Melinda, last month.

According to documents filed in Los Angeles Superior Court earlier this week by lawyers representing the potential conservators, Mr. Wilson, 81, has “a major neurocognitive disorder,” and “is unable to properly provide for his own personal needs for physical health.” Melinda Wilson had previously provided care for her husband, but following her death on Jan. 30, the appointment of a conservator has become necessary, according to the petition filed on Wednesday.

Dementia: to paraphrase Sufjan Stevens, it takes and it takes and it takes.

I’m grateful to have seen Brian on the Pet Sounds and SMiLE tours (2000, 2004). That’s how I’d like to think of him on a stage — engaged with the music, his music. Anyone who’s watched recent clips of Brian in performance (I’m not linking) can see that he’s been declining for some time. I’m glad for him that he’ll now be home, in a familiar and living environment, and getting good care.

Related reading
All OCA Brian Wilson posts (Pinboard)

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by Stan Newman constructing as Lester Ruff, and it’s another Les Ruff puzzle that’s kinda Ruff after all. I began with 50-A, three letters, “Hamlet’s piece of work” and 50-D, four letters, “From which starters are selected.” Those clues opened up the southeast section of the puzzle. And then small struggles here and there.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-A, ten letters, “Redundant ratification.” I like the colloquialism.

2-D, five letters, “Swahili speaker of the future.” Of course, had to be, or will have to be.

10-D, eight letters, “Shop-at-home advocates.” I can’t abide this answer.

12-D, nine letters, “Abrupt attitude adjustment.” Does anyone recall attitude adjustment hours?

15-A, ten letters, “Toleration termination.” Another alliterative clue.

22-D, four letters, “Do meal micro-managment?” A lot of clue for a familiar answer: Stumper-y..

25-A, seven letters, “Small print with prices.” This one had me stumped for some time.

35-D, eight letters, “Strutting swell.” The puzzle goes from the future (2-D) to the past.

39-D, three letters, “If it contracted.” Good grief.

48-D, five letters, “How Appealing or Constitution Daily.” I thought these might be the names of race horses. But no.

53-A, ten letters, “Boxer in stripes for 50+ years.” I must check to see if this boxer is still at it. Nope.

57-A, ten letters, “Whom ‘LINDBERGH WEDS’ in a ’29 headline.” Quite a reach backward? Someone once gave me a copy of a book of hers, so I had this name, even though 48-D had me convinced that I had made a mistake.

My favorite in this puzzle: 45-A, seven letters, “Traditional place for lesser courses.” TAPASBA? It took me so long to see, and I was happy with myself when I did. Not haughty. Just happy.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

“To err is human”

A passage from page 87 of Judge Arthur Engoron’s decision is getting considerable attetion. The passage begins a section of the ruling entitled “Refusal to Admit Error”:

The English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744) first declared, “To err is human, to forgive is divine.” Defendants apparently are of a different mind. After some four years of investigation and litigation, the only error (“inadvertent,” of course) that they acknowledge is the tripling of the size of the Trump Tower Penthouse, which cannot be gainsaid. Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological.

What Pope wrote, in An Essay on Criticism (1711), line 525:

[To Err is Humane; to Forgive, Divine.]

Or with our capitalization and spelling: “To err is human; to forgive, divine.” Or if one eschews the semicolon, “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” The first half, as errare humanum est , has been attributed to Seneca the Younger.

Pope added the contrast between the human and the divine. He didn’t include a second is. But to err is human, and I don’t think Judge Engoron was erring in any matter of greater consequence.

[Text of Pope’s poem from a Harvard Library photostat of An Essay on Criticism (1711).]

$364M+ $355M $450M+

Engoron!

MSNBC said $364M, but everyone must have rechecked their addition.

Here’s the New York Times article (gift link). It first had $350M+, now revised to $355M. MSNBC says $355M+. Now the Times says $450M+.

Biden on Navalny

President Joe Biden, speaking about the death of Aleksei Navalny:

“People in Russia and around the world are mourning Navlany today because he was so many things that Putin is not. He was brave, he was principled, he was dedicated to building a Russia where the rule of law existed and where it applied to everybody. Navlany believed in that Russia, that Russia. He knew it was a cause worth fighting for and, obviously, even dying for.”

No comment yet from the psychopathic presumptive Republican nominee, who is busy trashing Fani Willis on his social media account.

[Found via Aaron Rupar. My transcription.]

Mystery actor

[Click for a much larger view.]

I knew he was in the movie, but I did not recognize him. Do you? Leave your guess(es) in the comments. I’ll drop a hint if one’s needed.

To avert a likely wrong answer: that’s not Ed Asner.

*

Here’s a hint: he’s best known for a role that had him living in an apartment.

*

This was a tough one. The answer is now in the comments.

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

Wilheminia Wiggins Fernandez (1949–2024)

“A soprano who rose from South Philadelphia to the opera houses of Europe, she was memorably seen and heard in a 1981 film considered a paragon of cinematic style”: from the New York Times obituary for Wilheminia Wiggins Fernandez, who sang “Ebben? Ne andrò lontana” from Alfredo Catalani’s opera La Wally in Jean-Jacques Beineix’s 1981 film Diva. The opening scene, in which Cynthia Hawkins (Fenandez) sings and Jules (Frédéric Andréi) covertly records, is still electrifying.

As a rookie called up to teach in a summer program for incoming college students, I scored a class’s worth of free tickets for Diva and Raiders of the Lost Ark — both about the hunt for a lost treasure — and took my students on field trips. We then thought and wrote and talked about similarities and differences between the two movies, one French, one American. What was I thinking in giving such an assignment? I was thinking originally.

Struggling to read

Adam Kotsko writes about the decline in college students’ reading ability:

Yes, there were always students who skipped the readings, but we are in new territory when even highly motivated honors students struggle to grasp the basic argument of a 20-page article. Yes, professors never feel satisfied that high school teachers have done enough, but not every generation of professors has had to deal with the fallout of No Child Left Behind and Common Core. Finally, yes, every generation thinks the younger generation is failing to make the grade — except for the current cohort of professors, who are by and large more invested in their students’ success and mental health and more responsive to student needs than any group of educators in human history. We are not complaining about our students. We are complaining about what has been taken from them.

Read it all: “The Loss of Things I Took for Granted” (Slate ).

The “we” means something: Kotsko says that he’s never met a college prof who didn’t share his sense of things. I‘ll quote from a post of mine that reproduced an e-mail that I sent in 2022 to three architects of the “balanced literacy” approach to teaching reading:

I wonder in retrospect about so many elements of college life. I wonder about the extent to which the dreary professorial practice of outlining the textbook on “the board” is not merely a matter of professorial laziness but a way to compensate, consciously or unconsciously, for students’ weaknesses as readers. I wonder about the extent to which the decline of interest in the humanities might be explained at least in part by the difficulty so many college students have with the mechanics of reading. Figuring out the words is, for many college students, just plain hard — because they were never properly taught how.

The decline is real, and it’s everywhere — even at Harvard, where in 2023 a professor reported that her students struggled to figure out subjects and verbs in the sentences of The Scarlet Letter.

Which reminds me to ask, whither grammar?

Thanks, Kirsten.

WATCH YOUR STEP

[From The Killers (dir. Robert Siodmak, 1946). Click for a larger view.]

As Lieutenant Lubinsky (Sam Levene) watches, “The Swede” (Burt Lancaster) walks into the light. On the big screen, the words above the doorway are easier to read: “WATCH YOUR STEP,” good advice for film noir generally, if only someone would heed it.

Cinematography by Elwood Bredell.

[I don’t get it: Criterion Channel on the television, the words are visible; Criterion Channel in the app or a browser, the words disappear.]