“Contempt, rage, parsimony, racism”

In The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg writes at length about Donald Trump and the military: “Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had.’” Many familiar anecdotes, but also a new one about Trump’s offer to help the family of murdered Army private Vanessa Guillén with funeral expenses, and his response when he learned the cost: “contempt, rage, parsimony, racism.”

You’ll have to read the article to see what Trump said — I can’t bring myself to type it here.

Prophecy

On MSNBC earlier today, Chris Jansing posed a question to Ann Jacobs, chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission: “When will we know the results, and will it be on election night?”

I always dislike it when newspeople ask their guests to prophesy. But Jacobs gave a considered answer: “It will be very early in the morning on November 6th. If past is prologue, it’ll be somewhere around 2:30 or 3:30 in the morning.”

Autumn leaves

Guy de Maupassant, Alien Hearts. 1890. Trans. Richard Howard (New York: New York Review Books, 2009).

It’s a story of obsession and attempted possession, at once tragic and comic.

Related reading
All OCA Maupassant posts (Pinboard)

New directions in nomenclature

In some American classrooms, pipe cleaners are now known as chenille stems. For, I suppose, obvious reasons.

The OED covers chenille :

A kind of velvety cord, having short threads or fibres of silk and wool standing out at right angles from a core of thread or wire, like the hairs of a caterpillar; used in trimming and bordering dresses and furniture. Also attributive, as in chenille-work, chenille-carpet, chenille-machine.

The Google Ngram Viewer shows pipe cleaner still far out in front, though plumbing might have something to do with that.

Trump, running as a fascist

In The Bulwark, Will Saletan offers eighteen reasons to say that Donald Trump is running as a fascist:

A president who tried to impose elements of fascism in his first term — and who then deployed mob violence in an attempt to stay in power — is seeking a mandate to go much further. And half of the electorate is on the brink of giving him that mandate.

Read it all.

Sesquipedalian Sluggo (with liverwurst)

[Nancy, March 6, 1962. Click for a larger view.]

This strip reminds me of a Bryan Garner story that explains his interest in guides to English usage:

When I was four, in 1962, my grandfather used Webster’s Second New International Dictionary as my booster seat. I started wondering what was in that big book.

Then, in 1974, when I was 15, one of the most important events of my life took place. A pretty girl in my neighborhood, Eloise, said to me, with big eyes and a smile: “You know, you have a really big vocabulary.” I had used the word facetious, and that prompted her comment.

It was a life-changing moment. I would never be the same.

I decided, quite consciously (though misguidedly), that if a big vocabulary impressed girls, I could excel at it as nobody ever had.

I like that half of Sluggo’s big words are food-related.

Thanks, Brian.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

Academic payphone

“Here’s the college campus --- let’s go to the phone booth.”

“Why do you always go to the phone booth here?”

[Nancy, April 20, 1978. Click for a larger view.]

Thanks, Brian.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

[The Bushmiller dash is always made of three hyphens. Though he was done drawing Nancy himself fby the time this strip appeared.]

Kids making the scene

[1013 38th Street, Boro Park, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

I always like seeing kids in these tax photographs, standing around while the WPA fellows take their pitcher. This photograph struck me because of the words written on the door: NO KIDS UNDER 16 YR ALLOW. The sign above the building reads JUNK SHOP. I can understand why a junk-shop proprietor would keep the younger set out. But that hasn’t stopped these kids from making the sidewalk scene.

What happened one day on 38th Street: those three kids followed the photographers down (or up) the block. These kids would not be denied, though I doubt that anyone was trying to deny them. Click any image for a larger view.

[1001 38th Street.]

[1003 38th Street.]

[1005 38th Street.]

[1013 38th Street.]

[1023 38th Street.]

And down at the end of the block, still-younger kids have taken over.

[1071 38th Street.]

The three stars of these photographs appear only on the north side of 38th Street. Why? No doubt because they were too young to cross the street by themselves. If they’re still around, they’d now be close to or over ninety, and perhaps too old to cross the street by themselves. Who knows? My wild hope is that someone with an older relative who lived on this block will go browsing at 1940s.nyc and see someone they know. You never know. That kind of thing does happen. More than once.

“And that's why I have a blog.”

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

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by Frank Longo. Sigh: it sparked no joy. Too much trivia. I give you 12-D, nine letters, “Pair on Namibia’s coat of arms.” And 18-A, five letters, “Metropolis on the Ganges.” And 34-D, nine letters, “1930s Safety Director of Cleveland.” C’mon, man. And with a printer out of ink, I had to solve online (here). Cursor-cursor-cursor-touchpad, et cetera.

My favorite in this puzzle: 1-A, nine letters, “Left-leaning member of the board?”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

[Pressed for time, minimal commentary.]

Joan Crawford at the Automat

From Sadie McKee (dir. Clarence Brown, 1934). Alone in the city and down on her luck, Sadie (Joan Crawford) visits the Automat. Click any image for a larger view.

[Unless you have the free time and financial wherewithal to track down an original, this is as close as you’ll ever get to an Automat coffee spigot.]

[Coffee cost a nickel.]

[And the twin spigots dispensed both coffee and cream.]

[Civilization = cup and saucer.]

[I like that lettering. And I like the pedestals. I think that they were still around when I made what I remember as my one and only visit to an Automat, in the early 1980s with my friend Aldo Carrasco.]

This scene comes to a bitter end: Sadie sees a half-eaten piece of pie — food! — and the man who’s leaving it behind crushes out his cigarette in it. Is he nasty, or merely oblivious? Hard to say.


Related reading
All OCA Automat posts (Pinboard)