A nice Englishman

[Nancy, November 21, 1955.]

In today’s yesterday’s Nancy, Sluggo spies a pedestrian: “Here comes that nice Englishman we met yesterday.” And Nancy, from her chair, reading: “Say hello to him
--- make him feel at home.”

Did this Englishman wander in from Moon Mullins ? I see a strong resemblance to that strip’s Lord Plushbottom.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

[The Pinboard link does a search — no account needed.]

Lyonel Feininger, at last

From a 2018 post:

Lyonel Feininger, German-American artist, haunts me. I see a painting of his in a museum, write down his name, plan to look him up, don’t look him up, then see another painting, upon which the process repeats.

Okay, finally: here are some samples of this painter’s work, from the Art Institute of Chicago, the Guggenheim Museum, the Leicester Museums, the National Gallery, and the Whitney Museum.

Feininger was also a photographer (Harvard Art Museums), and he had a career in comics (MoMA). And lo: this photograph of a photographer holding a camera to his face is by Feininger’s son Andreas Feininger.

Sentimental sap that I am, I especially like this Feininger work in painted wood.

Flooding

From Robert Caro’s The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (1974):

By building his highways, Moses flooded the city with cars. By systematically starving the subways and the suburban commuter railroads, he swelled that flood to city-destroying dimensions. By making sure that the vast suburbs, rural and empty when he came to power, were filled on a sprawling, low-density development pattern relying primarily on roads instead of mass transportation, he insured that that flood would continue for generations if not centuries, that the New York metropolitan area would be — perhaps forever — an area in which transportation — getting from one place to another — would be an irritating, life-consuming concern for its 14,000,000 residents.

Everyone calls the book The Power Broker, of course, but I think the subtitle deserves emphasis.

And the population today: 23,500,000.

Related reading
All OCA Robert Caro posts (Pinboard)

[The Pinboard link does a search — no account needed.]

S-O

I was today years old when I reailzed — not learned, just realized — that the name Esso comes from Standard Oil.

These guitars are those guitars

He’s selling guitars. Quelle tromperie!

Lacking the patience to spell out the details, I’ll leave these guitars to your careful eye. I’d wager that this American Eagle electric guitar and its Presidential cousins are versions of this Chinese Les Paul knockoff. The American Eagle and Presidential guitars are going for $1500 each. The Chinese guitar: $144 each if you buy two from Alibaba. And the price goes down from there, down to $115 each if you buy a hundred or more.

I haven’t spotted ringers for the American Eagle and God Bless the USA acoustic guitars, but my guess is that these too are sourced from China.

The website offers fun disclaimers:

In-Stock Guitars:
We respectfully ask that you allow up to a few weeks for shipping due to a high volume of orders and the extra time it takes to ensure each guitar is carefully packed for successful delivery.

Pre-Order Guitars:
Please allow 5-6 months for manufacturing and delivery.

Somehow I get the idea that they’re aiming for that bulk-purchase price.

And as with those watches, what you see might not be what you get:

The images shown are for illustration purposes only and may not be an exact representation of the product.

So these guitars might turn out to be some other guitars after all. But as the song says, you can’t always get what you want from a website bearing his name.

[The URL for the Alibaba guitar is valid, but the company wants you to see it in their app. If you’re on a mobile device, just stay in your browser and you’ll be able to see it.]

“Built on a lie”

Robert Caro knows how to use the occasional short paragraph to advantage. From The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (1974):

The official records of most public agencies are public records, but not those of public authorities, since courts have held that they may be regarded as the records of private corporations, closed to scrutiny by the interested citizen or reporter.

This was very important to Robert Moses. It was very important to him that no one be able to find out how it was that he was able to build.

Because what Robert Moses built on was a lie.

Related reading
All OCA Robert Caro posts (Pinboard)

[The Pinboard link does a search — no account needed.]

Leonardo, no

I’ve never been much of a Ken Burns fan, and whatever affection I might have had for his work evaporated with Jazz. But I wanted to like his Leonardo da Vinci.

And I didn’t. It’s far too busy: split screens, with art on one side, nature on the other; unidentified artworks, by any number of artists, split-screen or full-, appearing and disappearing rapidly; art historians speaking as music plays behind them, or over them. The presentation defies any contemplation of art and makes it impossible, at least for me, to grasp the chronology of the life. The truly false note: yellow subtitles translate the abundant commentary of French and Italian art historians, but Leonardo’s own words are spoken, without attribution, in a deeply accented English by the Italian actor Adriano Giannini. It’s like listening to a commercial for an upscale fragrance.

And if the e-mails from my PBS affiliate are to be trusted, the fragrance would be called da Vinci. Not Leonardo.

It would be a good thing if this documentary were to bring about in its viewers a greater respect for the work of human intelligence: the eye, the hand, the mind.

[I’ve been grateful for many years now to the unknown hand at the British Journal of Aesthetics who changed my da Vinci to Leonardo, thus in a small way making me look smarter than I had any right to look. Post title with apologies to “Caroline, No.”]

Mystery actor

[Click for a larger view.]

Leave your guesses in the comments. I’ll be on and off one device or another this morning and will drop a hint when I can if one is needed.

*

No hint necessary: the answer is now in the comments.

More mystery actors (Collect them all!)
? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ?

Domestic comedy

“Proprioception — it's the sense of the body in space. I know about it from Charles Olson.”

“I know about it from Simone Biles.”

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard) : Charles Olson’s Proprioception : Simone Biles’s proprioception

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A 2025 calendar, free

Free: a 2025 calendar, in large legible Gill Sans, licorice and cayenne (as Apple would have it), three months per page. The calendar includes all the days, weeks, and months of the year, with days painstakingly distributed across weeks and weeks painstakingly distributed across months. It’s artisanal!

Minimal holiday markings: New Year’s Day, MLK Day, Juneteenth, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas.

I’ve been making calendars with the Mac app Pages and tables since late 2009, when the cost of outfitting the house with Field Notes calendars felt unjustifiable.

You can download here (via Google Drive): a 2025 calendar.

[Link now fixed.]