How to improve writing (no. 120)

One way to avoid glaring mistakes: be clear on which word is the subject in a sentence. From a Washington Post article (gift link) about NBC’s ill-considered decision to hire Ronna McDaniel as a political analyst:

And despite [Chuck] Todd’s pushback, there appears to be no plans to change course with this hire.

There is not the subject of that sentence (though as a word being named, it’s the subject of this sentence). The subject is plans. Revised:

And despite [Chuck] Todd’s pushback, there appear to be no plans to change course with this hire.

Better still would be for NBC to rescind this hiring.

Related reading
All OCA How to improve writing posts (Pinboard)

[This post is no. 120 in a series dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]

Buttonholes

Not long after posting a Garment District tax photograph this morning, I happened to read a New York Times obituary (gift link) for the tailor Martin Greenfield:

The traditionalism of the shop’s techniques is embodied by several century-old buttonhole-cutting machines still in use. A year ago this month, a rusted dial on one of the contraptions indicated that it had cut about 1,074,000,000 buttonholes.

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That number does seem dubious. A machine operating for a century would have cut 10,740,000 buttonholes a year. With a six-day workweek, that’s roughly 30,500 buttonholes a day. With an eight-hour workday, that’s 3812 buttonholes an hour, or sixty-three a minute. And even if the machine were running around the clock, that’d be twenty-one buttonholes a minute.

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March 26: I wrote to the Times and received a reply with a photograph. Yes, 1,074,000,000 buttonholes. And the machines may be well over a century old.

In the Garment District

[592 8th Avenue, Manhattan, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

Today we’re in the Garment District. The first floor of no. 592, formerly the 8th Ave. Remnant Store, is waiting for a new tenant, still with a display of ties in the window. The barber shop, Ben Klein, Louis Jacoby, Benjamin Sklar, Sam Kupferman are now long gone. As the poet said, there is no permanence.

Benjamin Sklar was a name in buttonholes and eyelets as early as 1918 and as late as 1958. What does it mean to manufacture buttonholes anyway? Are they little pockets of nothingness, to be sewn onto garments? Did Benjamin Sklar spend his life making nothing? No, of course not.

The Simplex name — “since 1918” — is still around, attached to machines for cutting rubber and other materials. And no. 592, that small building between giants, is still there. Today it houses a Western Union outlet.

Here’s a better view of the no. 592 and the giants.

[No. 592 in a larger context. Click for a larger view.]

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

[Google Books gave me Benjamin Sklar’s first name. The 1940 telephone directory gave me the rest of Jacoby’s and Kupferman’s names. Kupferman sold woolens and dress goods.]

Lyn Hejinian (1941–2024)

The poet Lyn Hejinian has died at the age of eighty-two. The New York Times has an obituary. It’s respectful and detailed, and it calls Hejinian a “central figure” and “leading light” of “the Language poetry movement.” They got that right.

But it has to be said: the Times published not one review of Hejinian’s poetry in her lifetime. The paper did reprint a published poem in 2023, and it published a snarky review of The Best American Poetry 2004, a volume that Hejinian edited: “‘People are writing poems!,’ each volume cries. ‘You, too, could write a poem!’”

Two sentences from Henjinian’s My Life (1987) that I like:

Long time lines trail behind every idea, object, person, pet, vehicle, and event.

And:

But a word is a bottomless pit.

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, is daunting. I started with 30-A, five letters, “Whom Ingmar Bergman adapted for the play Nora” and ended with 4-A, four letters, “New name among The Voice coaches in 2023” a name I had to look up. In between, some delightful clues and some that seem ridiculously strained.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

3-A, ten letters, “Cannoli cousin with a kick.” Cannoli called. He wants a DNA test.

8-D, fourteen letters, “Sustainable position.” A little surprising.

10-A, ten letters, “One following some breakups.” This one’s delightful.

13-D, fourteen letters, “‘Bulging’ sci-fi film cliché.” I didn’t know that the answer is a pat phrase.

17-A, ten letters, “Not always.” This one isn’t delightful. The clue suggests an answer regarding duration, doesn’t it?

20-A, five letters, “Reviewer’s motivations,” I have written many a review. I have no idea what this clue means. Wait — now I do have an idea what this strained clue means.

25-D, five letters, “Brook, but not stream.” I like clues in which words' meanings converge and diverge.

39-A, eight letters, “Kid with a relative advantage, these days.” Fun to see this ugly-sounding word as an answer.

44-A, five letters, “Cause of a bridge suspension?” The question mark signals a tricky answer, but it might also be asking "Is ‘tricky’ veering off into ‘ridiculously strained’?”

46-D, four letters, “Congratulation commencement.” Heh.

47-A, nine letters, “Radically improvisatory subgenre.” No. No. No one uses this answer to describe a form of music.

My favorite in this puzzle: 51-A, ten letters, “Sign site.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Ballaké Sissoko and Derek Gripper

Ballaké Sissoko is a Malian kora player. Derek Gripper is a South African classical guitarist who has brought his instrument to kora music. I had the good fortune to hear these musicians last night in a short (free) concert at the University of Illinois’s Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

Sissoko and Gripper’s musicianship and empathy are extraordinary, as they improvise their way through duets, shifting right before one’s ears from major to minor modes, from meditative lyricism to rhythmic grooves, always knowing (as improvising musicians do) when a piece is coming to an end. It’s as if Sessoko and Gripper follow the music where it leads them. And with both playing nylon strings, it’s sometimes impossible to know without looking, or even while looking, who’s doing what.

Sissoko and Gripper are now touring North America. If you have a chance to hear them, I’d say to take it. Here’s a sample.

New directions in eating

Our favorite restaurant in the whole wide world, Siam Thai, added a new dish not long ago: khao soi, or khao soy. Our restaurant serves a northern Thai version: it’s a semi-soupy dish, with soft and crispy noodles and two enormous chicken drumsticks in a thick, spicy, curry-like broth (made with a dash of coconut milk). On the side: lime, shallots, pickled mustard greens, and chili flakes in oil. Mao, the restaurant’s owner, told us that it’s her favorite dish when she goes out to eat and that she’s never found it made properly. So she decided to add it to the menu. She told us we would like it, and whaddaya know — she was right. But then we like everything at Siam Thai.

A related post
A strip-mall restaurant recommendation

Kafkish

Gary Gulman, from his Max special Born on 3rd Base :

“One of the most pretentious things you can say is ‘Kafkaesque.’ That’s just — you’re showing off. We’re working-class. Just say ‘Kafkish,’ which has the benefit of also sounding like a kosher pastry. ‘Can I get a pound of the Kafkish?’”

Gary Gulman is a brilliant comedian. His skill in going off on — nay, settling down with — a tangent and coming back from it as if nothing had happened is a wonder. I am looking forward to seeing more. Highly recommended.

A related post
Gary Gulman on the origins of postal abbreviations

[There are half a dozen instances of “Kafkaesque” in these pages, and they’re all okay.]

Mystery actor

[Click for a larger view.]

The pursed lips signify surprise — she wasn’t expecting company while cleaning out the safe. And she may not be expecting anyone to recognize her as a familiar face. Do you?

I was a bit baffled, even after seeing her name in the credits: wait a minute, is that —? But I think this one is easy. Leave your guesses(es) in the comments. I’ll drop a hint if appropriate.

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Here’s a clue: Of the many avenues, paths, roads, &c. that might lead to a career in film and television, this performer chose a good one.

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Someone got it — the answer is now in the comments.

More mystery actors (Collect them all)
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[Garner’s Modern English Usage notes that “support for actress seems to be eroding.” I use actor.]

Alterations & Repairs

[Click either image for a larger view.]

If you are in a city of any size, you’ve probably seen them in dry cleaners’ windows. The first time I saw these images, I thought they were honest-to-God representations of people who worked inside. O, the naiveté.

This man and woman appear to have now reached retirement age, ceding their seats to more modern-looking tailors: this one and this one.