“You can beat it just like I did”

From Letters of Note, a letter to an eight-grader from Joe Biden. Human kindness abounding.

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by Lester Ruff. In other words, it’s an easier Stumper from the puzzle’s editor Stan Newman. Easier, yes, and easier still if you don’t just glance at and misread the opening clue in the low-resolution printout. For 1-A, nine letters, the clue is “Metaphor for miscreants,” not “Metaphor for increments.” I thought BABYSTEPS would make a nice answer there. I think most solvers will find the southeast corner the toughest section of the puzzle. Seeing the answer for 60-A, nine letters, “Metaphor for mental mastery,” helped me a lot there.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-D, four letters, “South Carolinian soprano role.” A giveaway, or is that just me?

10-A, five letters, “Dickensian dismissal.” And a word worth reviving, if only for comic purposes.

20-A, five letters, “Where many views are seen.” Nicely misdirective.

22-D, seven letters, “He’s got an impeccable image.” And an interesting life story.

32-A, four letters, “Name on the cover of Favorite Haunts cartoons.” Wonderful.

35-A, fifteen letters, “Only Bond villain on AFI’s Villains list.” Not difficult to figure out, but seeing the full name might be enlightening.

39-A, six letters, “Not readily bent.” Funny.

43-D, six letters, “Of certain scales and services.” A great clue.

3-D, three letters, “Erstwhile RFK” — and there the online print version of the puzzle cuts off the clue. I knew I had the answer, but I had no idea what the clue is asking for. Now I have the clue: “Erstwhile RFK Stadium pro.”

58-A, nine letters, “First-founded US capital.” I did not see this answer coming.

My favorite in this puzzle: 12-D, ten letters, “Loonie’s shape.” The twelve and ten add value here.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

How to improve writing (no. 123)

In The New York Times today, in an article about the attempted assassination:

The crack of the bullets are heard as they pass the microphone that Mr. Trump speaks into.

Subject and verb should always agree. Sheesh, Times : this sentence has been standing as is since early this morning.

*

8:13 p.m.: I’ll be more expansive. What makes the sentence especially awkward is that you can't fix it by writing “the cracks of the bullets” — that sounds downright strange. I would choose something like this:

Three sounds are heard — crack, crack, crack — as the bullets pass the microphone that Mr. Trump speaks into.

Or simpler:

Three sounds are heard — crack, crack, crack — as the bullets pass Mr. Trump’s microphone.

The Times sentence is still standing as is.

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

[This post is no. 123 in a series dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]

“Competitive floating”

From the BBC: “The extinct Olympic sport that was the ’dullest’ of all time,” the distance plunge, derided as “competitive floating.”

Apple Calendar

Does everyone already know that you can reschedule events in Calendar by moving them with a finger or a mouse? I just learned by doing.

Apple System Status

A helpful page for Apple users: Apple System Status. That’s how I know there’s a problem with iCloud Private Relay right now. It’s not me; it’s them.

Bad Faith

A documentary urgently worth watching: Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy (dir. Stephen Ujlaki and Christopher Jacob Jones, 2024). It’s available from Amazon, Apple TV+, and Tubi. We watched via Tubi (for free) last night, with just three minimal commercial interruptions.

I was surprised by how many matters in this documentary were news to me. Just four: the role of Paul Weyrich, the so-called “Cyrus prophecy,” the hateful appropriation of the acronym LGBTQ, and the long-standing talk of a coming civil war. George Lang’s remark is just a recent instance. And the Christian nationalist emphasis on the conflict of light and darkness, the godly and the demonic (which includes anyone in government who is not “of God”), reminds me that Manichaeism is alive and well in these here United States.

I think that many people who will vote for Donald Trump understand very little about the future they’re voting for.

Toumani Diabeté (1965–2024)

The kora virtuoso Toumani Diabaté has died at the age of fifty-eight. The New York Times has an obituary.

Here is a sample of his artistry, with the guitarist Ali Farka Touré. It’s the kind of performance that should go on forever, if it could.

Paul Harvey redux

From a New York Times article by Peter Baker about last night’s presidential address to the nation:

He always knew that he would be delivering a speech like this. He just thought, or hoped, that it would be more than four years from now. Yet while it was not technically a farewell address, with six months still to go in office and more presidenting to do, it was the beginning of Joe Biden’s long goodbye.

Mr. Biden’s address to the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday night was all Joe, love him or hate him — the paeans to American exceptionalism, the evocations of family, the selective boasting about his record, the favorite lofty phrases about an “inflection point” and “saving our democracy,” and yes, the soft, raspy old man’s voice that no longer commands the room the way it once did.

“And yes, the soft, raspy old man’s voice”: it sounds as though Peter Baker is attempting to channel Paul Harvey.

I read these paragraphs aloud in the Orange Crate Art test kitchen. Elaine had the same gah! reaction.

[A belated thought: Baker’s prose is also reminiscent of H. V. Kaltenborn in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: “But those tired Boy Ranger legs are buckling.”

Saving our democracy

“Nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition. So I‘ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation”: President Joe Biden, a few minutes ago.