Humans of Mulberry Street

[79 Mulberry Street, Manhattan, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections.]

Click for a much larger view. How many humans do you see?

The building at 79 Mulberry Street still stands. Where there was once P. Rizzo, an Italian-American grocery (notice the canned tomatoes, the olive oil, and the bread), there is now a restaurant, H.K. Wonton Garden.

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

[As a kid in Brooklyn, I always found those streetside cellar entrances deeply mysterious. Some had dumbwaiter-like machinery to bring goods up from below. No. 81, to the right in this photograph, still has railings on the sides of its cellar entrance.]

Fats Waller erasers

[“The Skinny on Fats.” Zippy, May 3, 2025.]

A Fats Waller double appears in today’s Zippy. But you have to see all the panels to understand.

Related reading
All OCA Fats Waller posts : Zippy posts

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by “Anna Stiga,” Stan Again, or Stan Newman, the puzzle’s editor, constructing under one of the pseudonyms that signals an easier Saturday. It is an easier Stumper, though I had to check the online puzzle to make sure I had everything right. (See 54-D and 62-A.)

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-A, eight letters, “Picasso contemporary.” But shouldn’t only a last name in the clue require only a last name in the answer?

12-D, ten letters, “Handshakers’ surprises.” My second answer, and something I hadn’t thought of in years.

19-A, eight letters, “They come between start and finish dates.” Easy if you’re me.

22-D, six letters, “A Swedish ferry destination.” Um, okay.

26-D, ten letters, “Dickensian architect apprentice.” This answer helped a lot.

37-D, three letters, “Term first used for the Apple Newton (1992).” That term seems so long ago.

39-A, five letters, “Turns aside.” Obliquely clued.

42-D, seven letters, “Extra effort.” See 39-A.

46-A, four letters, “Dickinson’s ‘The Heart ___ Pleasure First.’” But if we follow the established text: “The Heart ___ Pleasure – first.”

54-A, eight letters, “Bath water source of yore.” That’s really yore.

54-D, four letters, “Short helper in gas stations.” Only one answer fits here, but I’m baffled. I just figured it out while typing that sentence.

62-A, eight letters, “Hacker inspired by Longstocking.” Likely a giveaway for many, but it had me baffled in the southwest.

My favorite in this puzzle: 47-D, five letters, “Void cited by Shelley.” Because my friend Rob Zseleczky would have liked seeing Shelley in the puzzle.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

I don’t even know what to title this post

I step away from “life” to watch a movie and discover that in my absence the president of the United States has posted an AI image of himself as pope.

Me: “Holy shit.”

Elaine: “Literally.”

He’s a sick man.

Nineteen sixty-one

In our nearby beverage mart, I was paying for a twelve-pack of Athletic Free Wave Hazy IPA (aka non-alcoholic beer). “Nineteen sixty-one,” the cashier said.

“Is that supposed to be the year of my birth?” For a moment I didn’t realize she was telling me the price.

“You could pass for thirty-five,” she said.

I removed my cap to reveal the sparsely populated terrain that is the top of my head.

“Thirty-five,” she insisted.

I asked her when she had last been to the eye doctor. “A compliment is a compliment,” she said.

“And I need to figure out how to accept one,” I said.

But I still don’t believe I look thirty-five.

[See sidebar.]

#:~:text= again

“Wouldn’t it be nice if you could link to specific bits of text on a Web page rather than forcing people following your links to scan the page for whatever piece of information you’re trying to convey?” At TidBITS, Adam Engst explores the history of text fragment linking.

And while I’m writing this post, I want to say that in my experience, TidBITS is the friendliest Mac-centric site I know. You can ask a question without fear of being shot/shut down.

A related post
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Hacks cameos

Even if you don’t follow Hacks: last week’s episode (season four, episode four) has two wonderful cameos. I wish they’d been a bit longer, though then they might not have been cameos.

And I wish that I could someday get the pronunciation of cameo right.

The Criterion Channel in May

If you’ve ever wondered whether the Criterion Channel is worth a subscription, take a look at the May lineup. Yow!

He’s not well

Stephen A. Smith asks a question. My transcription:

It’s interesting that you brought up Harvard, because when people think about Harvard what they’re basically talking about is, they’re asking what do you say to those who view your actions as an attack on academic freedom rather than a defense of fairness. What do you say to that?

And the answer:

Well, I say this. We had riots in Harlem, in Harlem, and frankly if you look at what’s gone on, and people from Harlem went up and they protested, and they protested very strongly against Harvard. They happened to be on my side. And you know I got a very high Black vote – you know that. Very, very high Black vote. It was a very great compliment to me. I did criminal justice reform, I did opportunity zones for one of the greatest deals ever for the Black and Hispanic community. I got tremendous — they agree with what I’m doing with respect to Harvard.

Harvard, Harlem — what’s in a name?

And then there’s “He's got MS-13 on his knuckles.”

Not only is the emperor naked: he set fire to his clothes, which are now a burning heap on the White House lawn.

[I was torn about whether to capitalize Black in the transcription. Would he capitalize it?]

What’s an oligarchy?

Watching the PBS NewsHour last night, I was struck by an exchange between Geoff Bennett and Elissa Slotkin, Democratic senator from Michigan. Slotkin has repeatedly said that the Democratic Party needs to get “alpha energy” and fight against the perception that the party is (cheesy alliteration alert) “weak and woke.” There’s plenty wrong with the Democratic Party right now, but I can’t agree that there’s something wrong with compassion and an alertness to injustice. Slotkin also insisted that Democrats need to stop talking about oligarchy:

Bennett: You have also critiqued the party’s tone and messaging, and you say that Democrats should stop referring to the Trump administration as an oligarchy. Senator Bernie Sanders had something to say about that. Take a listen.

Sanders (on tape): I think the American people are not quite as dumb as Ms. Slotkin thinks they are. I think they understand very well. When the top one percent owns more wealth than the bottom ninety percent, when big money interests are able to control both political parties, they are living in an oligarchy.

Bennett: What’s your response to that?

Slotkin: So my response is, I agree with everything he said, other than, my dad didn’t know what oligarchy meant. Like, he asked me what it was about. It’s not that I disagree on the concepts or on the principles, and he’s right. And that energy that he’s bringing is great. It’s just that we gotta, again, communicate to those folks who may not know what an oligarchy is like my dad.

Elissa Slotkin is a United States senator. Her father asked her about oligachy. Did she explain it to him? Or would that be too woke?

Robert Reich has explained oligarchy in three-and-a-half minutes.