Fred’s Ping Pong

[203 West 38th Street, Manhattan, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

The Garment District had BILLI RDS. It also had television, with spectator sports: baseball, basketball, boxing, hockey, and wrestling. And ping-pong, or ping pong. And dig the straw hat and white shoes. Is that man dressed appropriately, or is it well past Labor Day?

These buildings, modified, stand today. As of August 2022, an amusing piece of wall art graced the side of the tall building on the left. Mister Softee FTW!

*

April 29: A reader’s comment prompted me to look in Google Books. By 1944, Fred’s Ping Pong Centre was Hy’s Ping Pong Parlor, and — sakes alive — someone was taking bets on baseball games.

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

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Stella Zawistowski, begins: 1-A, eleven letters, “It takes willpower.” Uh, like this puzzle? The willpower to keep going even when it seems that one has nothing? It’s a hard, hard Stumper.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

3-D, five letters, “Massenet opera wirh Castilian soldiers.” Me, after solving: “That is fiendish.” Elaine, after I told her the answer: “That is totally fiendish.”

10-D, six letters, “Postcard paper.” I haven’t thought of the answer in years. Must look up.

15-A, eleven letters, “Not a broad way” and 16-A, three letters, “B’way, by definition.” An irresistible row.

21-D, seven letters, “Splendid display.” My first thought was PAGEANT.

30-A, nine letters, “Impatient utterance.” I don’t think so. I think of the answer as expressing dread, not impatience.

30-D, nine letters, “Not meant to spread around.” Good one.

44-D, six letters, “Bar from ’50s TV.” I have no idea what this clue is about. oh, wait: I think I do.

46-A, seven letters, “1990s depictors of Cortes and Pizarro.” Wait, there was a movie about Cortés and Pizarro?

49-A, three letters, “180 intro.” Had to be.

49-D, five letters, “Disinfect, in a way.” Ick.

55-A, six letters, “Steel production.” Tricky. I was thinking of every kind of BEAM imaginable.

59-D, three letters, “Relatively recent story starter.” Got it.

60-A, three letters, “It can mean ‘imitation.’” And sometimes does.

61-A, eleven letters, “Simon says it’s about Beatty.” A giveaway, I think. If not, a moment of instruction.

My favorite in this puzzle: 4-D, four letters, “Angels fear it.” Partly because the answer broke open a big chunk of puzzle, partly because it’s such a clever clue.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Mr. ZIP’s Windy Day

[Click for a larger book.]

“Young readers will love the interactive lift-the-flap element as they join Mr. ZIP for one windy adventure! Mr. ZIP and his trusty sidekick B. Franklin start their day in the mail room. Then it’s time to begin the mail route”: it’s Mr. Zip’s Windy Day, written by Annie Auerbach, illustrated by Laura Catrinella, available from the United States Postal Service. I’ve secured a copy with which to introduce the very young to the magic of the mail.

Imagine: a super-secret code that makes things get to your house faster.

Thanks, Diane.

Related posts
Messrs. Zip : Mr. ZIP : Snail Mail : A ZIP Code promotional film

Domestic comedy

“If we had a dog, and if we put our mailbox down by the front step, then the dog could get the mail for us.”

“Those are two pretty big if s.”

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

Neologism of the day

It’s alread :

alread \ˈȯl-ˌred\ or \ȯl-ˈred\ adverb
1 : prior to a specified or implied past, present, or future time : by this time : previously

2 → used as an intensive

I heard what sounded like a newish word in a fragment of conversation: “Mom, twice alread?!” Aha: yet another shortened form? No, the speaker had said “all red.” Her mom had exercised strenuously and, for a second time, was red in the face. But I would still like to make alread happen.

Pronunciation may vary, with stress falling sometimes on the first syllable, sometimes on the second. In the conversation I heard, stress fell on the second syllable: “Mom, twice all-RED?!” Or, for instance:

“The race has ALL-red started!”

“All right all-RED!”

I like alread way more than totes and adorbs put together.

Pronunciations, definitions, and that last exclamation from Merriam-Webster.

More made-up words
Alecry : Fequid : Humormeter : Lane duck : Lane-locked : Misinflame and misinflammation : Oveness : Power-sit : Plutonic : ’Sation : Skeptiphobia

Helen Vendler (1933–2024)

The New York Times obituary begins: “In the poetry marketplace, her praise had reputation-making power, while her disapproval could be withering.” I find it hard to imagine that anyone who spent a lifetime reading and writing about poetry would appreciate such a summary of her work.

[Learning from this obituary about Vendler’s early life lets me understand why she turned down a speaking invitation from what she called a “non-secular” institution.]

Pretty Proustian

Vladimir Nabokov, Glory, trans. Dmitri Nabokov and Vladimir Nabokov (New York: MacGraw-Hill, 1971).

Not just the moment of involuntary memory but also the shifting mountains, reminiscent of the church steeple in Combray.

Venn reading
All OCA Nabokov posts : Nabokov and Proust posts : Proust posts (Pinboard)

Ernie Bushmiller, man of his time

[Nancy, May 28, 1955. Click for a larger view.]

“The Ballad of Davy Crockett” first aired on television on October 27, 1954. Recordings followed in 1955. From late March through most of April of that year, Bill Hayes’s version was the number one song in the United States. The Disney movie Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier was released on May 28, 1955. And Ernie Bushmiller was keeping up a fad.

Wikipedia has an article about the song and the “Crockett craze.” The details in this post are therein.

Yesterday’s Nancy is today’s Nancy.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

An improved tube

The narrator characterizes Martin Edelweiss’s mother Sofia as an “Anglomaniac” who discourses on Boy Scouts and Kipling. Thus the house toothpaste.

Vladimir Nabokov, Glory, trans. Dmitri Nabokov and Vladimir Nabokov (New York: MacGraw-Hill, 1971).

And there was such a slogan:

[“We couldn’t Improve the Cream, So we Improved the Tube.” Colgate advertisement, Ladies’ Home Journal, October 1908. Click for a larger view.]

Related reading
All OCA Nabokov posts (Pinboard)

No small step

I think that Hi-Lo was taunting the reader. Trixie was “almost ready” to take a first step yesterday — those words appeared in her thought balloon. But no step today: Hi is at work.

Related reading
All OCA Hi and Lois posts (Pinboard)

[The F on the boss’s chair is for Foofram, as in Foofram Industries.]