Dad, i.m.

My dad, James Leddy, died nine years ago today.

He showed up in a dream — not for the first time — on July 13. He tapped me on my wrist and said “Michael?” It was unmistakably his voice.

My dad appears in many OCA posts. Here’s a post with what I wrote after his death.

Curb your Curb references

On Saturday, iOS Dictation turned stop and chat into Stop & Shop, capitals and ampersand included.

More fun Dictation failures
“The nut free version” : “I mode the front lawn” : “Wrath scholar” : Spelling Glenmorangie : “F--k music” : “A concluding truck for belated pubs” : Edifice and Courson Blatz : Eight ways to spell Derrida : Nine ways to spell boogie-woogie

[To its credit, iOS Dictation and Mac Dictation now get most of these right. But Glemorangie is now Glenn Margie. And Oedipus (edifice ) is now Aus. In iOS, rathskellar is now rats killer, and folk music is still a curse. Neither Dictation service can spell Derrida. My phone didn’t even try. My Mac: da da.]

Something to say

It struck me the other night: “If you’ve got something to say, say it to my face” is utterly antithetical to discourse among academics, among whom implication and innuendo carry the day. Never say it to someone’s face, dear colleague — whisper it around instead.

Louis Armstrong’s house

[34-56 107th Street, Queens, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901. He and his wife Lucille bought this house in Corona, Queens, in 1943. It was Armstrong’s home for the rest of his life. Here he is on the front steps, after the house had been sided. And here are many more photographs of the exterior and interior.

Today 34-56 is the Louis Armstrong House, whose virtual exhibits are many. One remarkable moment: Armstrong on a 1951 home recording, playing along with the King Oliver Creole Jazz Band’s 1923 recording of “Tears” — featuring Louis Armstrong.

Related reading
All OCA Louis Armstrong posts : More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by “Anna Stiga,” Stan Again, Stan Newman, the puzzle’s editor, using an alias that signals an easier Stumper. I began with 16-A, six letters, “Column on sports pages” and began sailing, smoothly. The toughest section of the puzzle: the northwest corner.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-A, eight letters, “Daily source of answers for decades.” I was sure that the answer had to be OPERATOR.

1-D, seven letters, “Name at boxing weigh-ins.” For me, a name that recalls the dowdy world.

3-D, seven letters, “Outer space measure.” I was not fooled.

6-D, five letters, “Elder ender.” Made me laugh out loud.

9-D, eleven letters, “Needing a car wash, say.” I can’t imagine anyone using the word with reference to a car. Well, maybe Frasier Crane. But I can’t imagine Frasier Crane saying “car wash.”

14-A, five letters, “His museum displays 10 World Series rings.” I know little about baseball, but I love the idea that this guy gets his own museum.

16-D, seven letters, “Plural from the Latin for ‘pleasing.’” I had no idea.

21-D, eleven letters, “China replacer in ’81.” CORELLE is too short.

28-A, nine letters, “Monthly opening, maybe.” Nicely Stumper-y.

30-D, three letters, “____ king.” I filled in the answer with considerable confidence, but I was still surprised to find it correct.

33-A, four letters, “Sort of inclination.” Sort of, indeed.

46-A, six letters, “Stamp catalog descriptor.” The answer takes me back to childhood.

50-A, eight letters, “Serving with sauerkraut.” See also 37-D, six letters, “50-Across cousin.” This puzzle has food on the brain.

My favorite in this puzzle: 26-D, three letters, “‘What can ____ thee, knight-at-arms’: Keats.” Because Keats.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

*

1:28 p.m.: Oops — now the answers are really in the comments.

A pocket notebook sighting

[From State and Main (dir. David Mamet, 2000). Click for a larger view.]

Joseph Turner White (Philip Seymour Hoffman) writes down a slightly altered version of something he heard a passing localite say: “Only second chance we get is the chance to make the same mistake twice.”

Slight spoiler: White will get a second chance and will not make the same mistake twice.

See also Sufjan Stevens, in the sidebar: “I’m not afraid to get it right / I turn around and I give it one more try.”

Related reading
All OCA pocket notebook sightings (Pinboard)

Dictating on Apple devices

From Apple: commands for dictating text in macOS.

The explanations of dictation for iOS andf iPadOS are far more casual.

[Alas, there is no command to make dictation get the words right.]

Newspapers and novels

Walter Benjamin:

One may, if necessary, read the newspaper while eating. But never a novel. These are two conflicting obligations.

From ”Reading Novels,“ in The Storyteller Essays, trans. Tess Lewis (New York: New York Review Books, 2019).

Dalmatian or sardine

Joseph Turner White (Philip Seymour Hoffman), novice screenwriter, has a question. Ann (Rebecca Pidgeon), bookstore owner, has an answer. From State and Main (2000), screenplay and direction by David Mamet:

“You ever wonder why the Dalmatian’s the symbol of the firehouse?”

“First organized fire department was on the border of Dalmatia and Sardinia in the year 642.”

“That’s why the Dalmatian?”

“It was either that or a sardine.”

Like Ann’s earlier avowal to an inquiring bookstore customer that Jesse James was Henry James’s brother, this one has no basis in reality.

Related reading
All OCA sadine posts (Pinboard) : Firefighting in ancient Rome (Wikipedia) : Dalmatians and firefighting (Wikipedia)

Recently updated

Separated at birth A reader suggests a missing triplet. The reader is right.