D! S! T!

The half-time show was a celebration of daylight-savings time. “Whether it’s too dark or too light, too early or too late, it keeps us going! D! S! T! D! S! T!”

If this show had had a better director, it might have included an appearance by Grandmixer D.ST., though he has since changed his name to DXT.

Related reading
All OCA dream posts (Raindrop.io)

[“Only fools and children talk about their dreams”: Dr. Edward Jeffreys (Robert Douglas), in Thunder on the Hill (dir. Douglas Sirk, 1951).]

Links for Los Angeles

From The Late Show, four links to help Los Angeles, as found here:

California Fire Foundation Wildlife & Disaster Relief

World Central Kitchen

California Community Fund — Wildlife Recovery Fund

Pasadena Humane — Eaton Fire Emergency

And from Mary Trump:

American Red Cross of Greater Los Angeles

Golly, Moses

[From Roz Chast’s New Yorker cover “Game Show.”]

It looks like Roz Chast might have The Power Broker on her mind.

Thanks to Kevin at harvest.ink.

*

Later in the morning: I now see that on her Instagram page, Roz Chast writes, “I think about Robert Moses sometimes.”

Related reading
All OCA Roz Chast posts (Raindrop.io)

A Robert Caro exhibit

At the New-York Historical Society: “Turn Every Page”: Inside the Robert A. Caro Archive. I like the note-to-self on the inside cover of one of Caro’s notebooks: “SHUT UP.” Because an interviewer’s silence will often, though not always, prompt a subject to say more.

Thanks to the reader whose comment on a previous post prompted me to make this post. I could’ve sworn I’d said something about this exhibit before, but no.

Related reading
All OCA Robert Caro posts (Raindrop.io)

Rat part

Why does this delightful story about Mark Zuckerberg have a rat part in it? Well, if the part fits.... But perhaps also because of this news item.

[Caution: the second link may not be safe for the workplace, or for anywhere else. Aiiee.]

A Staedtler Mars Lumograph

[From The Teachers’ Lounge (dir. İlker Çatak, 2023).]

A venerable pencil, on a desk in a classroom. The blur in front of the pencil: shavings.

Related reading
All OCA pencil posts (Raindrop.io)

“Oops, Sorry”

Robert Moses, adored by the press. From Robert Caro’s The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (1974):

The media, whose amplification of his statements without analysis or correction played so vital a role in making the public susceptible to the blandishments of his policies, carried out the same effective if unintentional propaganda for his personality. Continually, in five- or six-part series or Sunday-supplement feature stories or long interviews, it said he was totally honest and incorruptible, tireless in working sixteen- and eighteen-hour days for the public, and it allowed him to repeat or repeated itself the myths with which he had surrounded himself — that he was absolutely free of personal ambition or any desire for money or power, that he was motivated solely by the desire to serve the public, that, despite unavoidable daily contact with politicians, he kept himself free from any contamination by the principles of politics. His flaws reporters and editorialists made into virtues: his vituperation and personal attacks on anyone who dared to oppose him were “outspokenness”; his refusal to obey the rules and regulations of the WPA or laws he had sworn to uphold was “independence” and a refusal to let the public interest be hampered by “red tape” and “bureaucrats”; his disregard of the rights of individuals or groups who stood in the way of completion of his projects was refusal to let anything stand in the way of accomplishment for the public interest. If he insisted that he knew best what that interest was, they assured the public that was indeed the case. If there were larger, disturbing implications in these flaws — they implied that he was above the law, that the end justifies the means, and that only he should determine the end — they ignored these implications or joked about them; columnist Westbrook Pegler dubbed Moses’ technique of driving stakes without legal authorization and then defying anyone to do anything about them, the “Oops, Sorry” technique.

Westbrook Pegler? He has been called “one of the godfathers of right-wing populism.” Caro notes that Pegler called Moses “one of the greatest administrators of public office that we have ever had” and thought he’d make a good president.

Related reading
All OCA Robert Caro posts (Raindrop.io)

Notebooks of The Bear

They’re everywhere. I collected these from the show’s first three seasons. Click any image for a much larger view.

[Syd’s. From “Braciole” (2022). Notice too Syd’s Zebra Techo T-3 Mini Ballpoint Pen.]

[Marcus’s. From “Honeydew” (2023).]

[Carmy’s. From “Tomorrow” (2024).]

[Richie’s. From “Legacy” (2024). The page shows the beginning of a story about the chef Thomas Keller, who appears in the final episode of season three, “Forever” (2024). I can’t find any indication that the story beginning on this page is real.]

[Carmy again. From “Apologies” (2024).]

Related reading
All OCA notebook posts (Raindrop.io)

Multitasking drains the brain

Richard Cytowic, neurologist, writes about multitasking. From “How Multitasking Drains Your Brain” (MIT Press Reader), adapted from Your Stone Age Brain in the Screen Age: Coping with Digital Distraction and Sensory Overload (2024) :

Keeping ourselves alert and conscious, along with shifting, focusing, and sustaining attention, are the most energy-intensive things our brain can do. The high energy cost of cortical activity is why selective attention — focusing on one thing at a time — exists in the first place and why multitasking is an unaffordable fool’s errand.

Related reading
All OCA multitasking posts (Raindrop.io)

Two January 6s

Heather Cox Richardson writes about January 6, the 2021 and 2025 varieties.