He’s going there

The FFOTUS is speaking and blaming last night’s horrific helicopter-plane collision on the Biden administration and DEI. He adds that Pete Buttigieg has “a good line of bullshit.”

[FF: First Felon.]

“A fragrance of stunning richness and complexity”

I’ve always thought of the smell of New York City as a blend of urine, exhaust, garbage, and cigarette smoke — plus the hot mechanical smell wafting up through subway grates. I think Alison Bechdel and I are sharing some bandwith here. From Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006):

[Click for a larger view.]

Bechdel’s Fun Home and (the more difficult) Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama (2012) are profound graphic memoirs. I recommend them both.

The background for this panel: Village Cigars, at 110 Seventh Avenue South. The landmark store closed in 2024 after a hundred or more (?) years as a tobacco shop. In its WPA tax photograph, it was known as United Cigars.

Reading scores in decline

The National Assessment of Educational Progress shows reading scores for fourth- and eighth-graders in decline. On the NBC Nightly News last night, the conclusion was that “no one is quite sure why.” An educational researcher suggested a number of reasons: “could be screens, could be hangover from the Great Recession, could be relaxation of accountability, could be grade inflation.” No consideration of how reading instruction might play a part.

Related reading
All OCA reading posts (Pinboard)

Knees

Mark Zuckerberg is running out of knees.

Car(a)mel

It came up in conversation. Two syllables, or three? Edwin L. Battistella considers the difference.

I say the word with three syllables, using Merriam-Webster’s sad leftover pronunciation bits: /ˈka-rə-mel/. Those bits don’t even get an audio recording of their own at M-W. But if I were speaking of caramel-coated popcorn, something I never get to speak of these days, I’d say /ˈkär-məl/.

[Yes, there are plenty of more important things to talk about right now. And I do. But I’m wanting to post other things these days.]

Housman, misquoted

The television was on for “warmth.” Dr. Arnold Vincent (Jeffrey Lynn) was pouring himself a drink. From Whiplash (dir. Lewis Seiler, 1948):

“‘This does more than mortals can, to justify God’s ways to man.’ I think that’s misquoted, but it’s a rousing sentiment.”

The source, of course, is A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad, LXII (1896):

Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God’s ways to man.

I wonder whether the misquotation, announced as such, is a way to avoid complications with copyright. Or maybe it’s a way to signal that the doctor is sloppy in all things.

"We"

[Click for a larger, perhaps more exasperating view.]

Gosh, how I dislike this use of “we.” Speak for yourself, Arts & Letters Daily. And if you really mean what you say, stop linking to items about Joyce, Knausgaard, Proust, &c.

Weatherspeak

Heard last night, as the meteorologist spoke of Friday’s weather: “This is primarily a rain event.”

Or as they say in The Fantasticks, “Soon It’s Gonna Rain.”

One more “Orange Crate Art”

Van Dyke Parks and company performing “Orange Crate Art,” at Van Dyke’s Final Farewell Concert (January 18) or Final Farewell Parte Deux (January 19), at The Write-Off Room, Studio City, Los Angeles.

Related reading
All OCA Van Dyke Parks posts (Pinboard)

From an autobiography

It begins:

I am a lawyer and real estate agent.  I am in the third grade.

[Used with permission.]