A golden pig

[231 4th Avenue, Gowanus, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

I enjoyed an outstanding porketta sandwich last week, and it brought to mind somthing I hit upon a few months ago, a tax photograph of a Brooklyn pork store, Suino d’Oro. A little history:

In 1905, an “Italian provision store” that occupied this property had its stores of ham, cheese, and macaroni plundered by burglars. The culprits were later found fighting in a gutter over what had become of their loot: “What did y’ do with that cheese? Where’s all that ham that was left?”

In 1959, a newspaper advertisement has three Suino d’Oro addresses, none of them this one.

As late as 1980, a pork store with this name was sponsoring a local baseball team. There could be a connection. But some quick searching suggests that suino d’oro is common parlance in the world of pork.

Back to that sandwich: why porketta? Wkipedia explains:

In the Upper Midwest porchetta, more often spelled “porketta,” was also introduced by Italian immigrants to the iron ranges of Minnesota and Michigan. Porketta remains a popular local dish in towns such as Hibbing, Minnesota, with distributors such as Fraboni Sausage.

And whaddaya know? Fraboni’s, a third-generation Italian grocery and deli in Madison, Wisconsin, plays a part in the story of our restaurateurs.

Now about that sandwich: it’s Italian pork roast, salsa verde, provolone, spinach, and banana peppers on focaccia.

[Click for a larger view.]

Today, no. 231 is an apartment building encased in scaffolding. Brooklyn Newsstand helped me add some yesterday to this post.

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

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, is one angry puzzle: 4-D, seven letters, “More than sore”; 10-A, three letters, “Expression of hate”; 40-D, seven letters, “More-than-sore manifestation.” Yow. But I didn’t mind. I thought this Sewell puzzle was swell. I did so well. The clue that got things going for me: 6-D, eight letters, “When Troy was founded.”

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

4-D, four letters, “Group advocating for ministries.” Didn’t fool me.

5-D, six letters, “Bluetooth or flash drive.” I had no idea that Bluetooth may be had in this form.

9-D, eight letters, “Fall event promoting mustache-growing.” I had to dig for this one. I’m long done with the growing season.

13-A, five letters, “3-D, e.g.” Delightfully Stumper-y.

16-A, fifteen letters, “Stand in time.” I started thinking about Proust. Not appropriate here. Time is on the move.

17-D, four letters, “WITCH PARKING ONLY, ALL OTHERS WILL BE ______.” A little levity.

20-A, six letters, “Spade accessory.” Didn’t fool me.

23-A, four letters, “‘I love you.’” A bit hilarious.

27-A, six letters, “Timbuktu’s country’s capital.” It pays to listen to a lot of music.

43-A, eight letters, “Bag handler.” Nice defamiliarization.

45-D, six letters, “Ring of Pluto.” This answer made me happy.

54-A, letters, “‘Trust me for now.’” Movie-esque.

My favorite in this puzzle: 35-A, seven letters, “Extra ambition.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

PBS priorities, good grief

When the PBS NewsHour panel began its analysis of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address last night, the first question Geoff Bennett put to Lisa Desjardins, reporting from the House chamber was not about what the president said. It was about the interruptions:

“Lisa, from your perch there, give us a sense of what you saw, especially some of the outbursts we heard throughout the evening.”

Yes, the outbursts, the interruptions, from Marge Greene, an unidentified member of Congress, and an audience member.

And speaking of interruptions, the PBS discussion that followed the Republican response was cut short at 9:59 Central with a promo for yet another pledge-drive spectacular, American Pop Flashback! Great Hits of the ’60s & ’70s, followed by an hour-long show about aging backwards. Priorities, good grief.

Keyword: all

I liked these sentences from the end of the State of the Union address best: “Above all, I see a future for all Americans. I see a country for all Americans. And I will always be president for all Americans, because I believe in America.”

[My transcription.]

Recently updated

Word of the day: lukewarm Now with its own faucet.

John McWhorter on prepositions

John McWhorter in The New York Times, stating what ought to be obvious: “The ‘Rule’ Against Ending Sentences With Prepositions Has Always Been Silly.” From Garner’s Modern English Usage :

The spurious rule about not ending sentences with prepositions is a remnant of Latin grammar, in which a preposition was the one word that a writer could not end a sentence with. But Latin grammar should never straitjacket English grammar. If the superstition is a “rule” at all, it is a rule of rhetoric and not of grammar, the idea being to end sentences with strong words that drive a point home.... That principle is sound, of course, but not to the extent of meriting lockstep adherence or flouting established idiom.

And:

Good writers don’t hesitate to end their sentences with prepositions if doing so results in phrasing that seems natural.

Bryan Garner cites a dozen writers on language, from 1936 to 2003, all of whom approve of ending a sentence with a preposition. And he adds nine examples from writers who so ended sentences. Notice too the first sentence in the passage I’ve quoted.

Even stranger is a bogus rule, which Garner doesn’t mention, against ending a sentence with the word it. A student once asked me about that one, which I’d never heard of. I tracked down its origin: Ending a sentence with it.

[That post gets visits daily.]

José Andrés on sardines

“Oh my God, they are so good that you wish you were inside the can with them”: chef José Andrés is speaking of sardines.

Thanks, Elaine.

Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)

[But I do think this is another case in which out here is better than in there.]

Slam the Scam

“On National Slam the Scam Day and throughout the year, we give you the tools to recognize Social Security-related scams and stop scammers from stealing your money and personal information”: the Social Security Administration announces National Slam the Scam Day.

This has been your Orange Crate Art PSA for the day.

Vision Pro Television

“In here you can watch on any TV from our curated collection”: lo, it’s the Vision Pro app Television, a simulacrum within a simulacrum.

In here sounds just plain creepy. I’ll quote what I wrote in a post earlier this year: “Out here will always be better than in there.”

“Bad news about Biden”

From Salon, Lucian K. Truscott IV on The New York Times and its coverage of Joe Biden and Donald Trump:

The New York Times has apparently devoted half a floor in its Eighth Avenue headquarters to a search for bad news about Biden, and then they reserve a space nearly every day above the fold on the front page for whatever grain of grim shit the Biden hunters have managed to come up with. They’re probably working on a story on how Biden is losing the pro-choice vote as we speak, while pointing out the wild success of Trump’s “move to the middle” on abortion with “centrist” voters.

If you’re getting off the subway anywhere near Eighth Avenue and 42nd Street, hold your nose. There’s something fishy at the New York Times.

I found this (hyperbolic) discussion refreshing. Between the Times coverage of Biden (did you know that he’s eighty-one?) and its failure (after almost four weeks) to correct an obvious error of fact in its obituary for Joyce Randolph, I’m thinking about canceling my subscription. That’s not hyperbole.