Barbara Ehrenreich (1941–2022)

The writer Barbara Ehrenreich has died at the age of eighty-one. The New York Times has an obituary.

I can recommend Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2001) and Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream (2005).

Related reading
Two posts about Bait and Switch

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by “Anna Stiga,” Stan Again, Stan Newman, the puzzle’s editor. The pseudonym is meant to signal an easier Stumper, but I found this one difficult. I missed by two squares, stumbling on 3-D, four letters, “Record-breaking 30th tropical storm of 2005”; 15-A, ten letters, “Florida’s ‘Inland Sea’”; and 19-A, five letters, “Dumbledore’s double agent.” Three proper names, all unknown to me. (I read exactly two pages of the first Harry Potter book before giving up on the prose.) If I had thought about 3-D for a few seconds, I would have figured out the answer, and that would have given me the other two. But no. I was adrift in an inland sea, beset by a double agent and a storm.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-A, ten letters, “Flamboyant stuff.” A wonderful way to begin the puzzle.

4-D and 37-D, five letters each, “One of the brothers in a garbage can on a Time cover (1932).” The possibilities are many but not infinite.

30-A, four letters, “Bitter ender.” Nice.

33-D, four letters, “Spot checkers.” Also nice.

45-A, six letters, “Nine-decade actor, ‘the best there has ever been’ per Olivier.” I was going with LIONEL until I realized that I needed, as per the clue, a last name. The answer took me by surprise.

54-D, five letters, “Many a seal.” Clever.

67-A, ten letters, “Poetic inspiration for Lolita.” I haven’t seen this association in a crossword clue before.

I have a quarrel with 27-D, ten letters, “Biannual celebrant with Taylor Swift as its ambassador for 2022.” That’s not what it’s called. I misread the clue. But there’s still a problem with the clue, which is why I misread it. There’s an explanation in the comments.

My favorite clue in this puzzle is 69-A, ten letters, “What mixers get a lot of.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Forty-three folders

[From the detailed inventory of things found at Mar-a-Lago.]

I am late to the game, having been bopping around all day, but I’d still like to note the sheer weirdness of seeing “43 Empty Folders” in the inventory of things found at Mar-a-Lago. As anyone who has read David Allen’s Getting Things Done knows, “forty-three folders” is a thing, an element in Allen’s practice of productivity: twelve folders for the months of the year, thirty-one folders for the days of the current month. Allen doesn’t say anything though about what to do with classified materials.

Merlin Mann’s long-dormant website 43 Folders was a key resource for fans of GTD, “inbox zero,” and the Hipster PDA (index cards held together with a binder clip).

Related reading
All OCA Getting Things Done posts (Pinboard)

[The inventory lists a total of forty-eight empty folders with “CLASSIFIED” banners. Full disclosure: I have never attempted to use forty-three folders to organize things. I need many more.]

Gosh darn urbane

After donating a bookcart’s worth of books at the library yesterday, we made a quick trip to Aldi. An impulse trip, which meant that we had no cold bags. So we made do with three tote bags that had just held books: a Futura typeface tote (from AIGA), a Love Is Love tote (a freebie from a real-estate agent with a booth at a Pride-themed farmers market), and a New York Review Books tote.

We are so gosh darn urbane.

Noah Webster

[Frontispiece and accompanying text from Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1961). Click either image for a larger view.]

I don’t know when these items disappeared from the Third. They’re not in my 1986 Third. The stray lines across the text are what’s left after my best effort to remove the traces of dictionary pleats. That’s my way of describing the almost inevitably damaged first pages of large dictionaries.

Related reading
All OCA dictionary posts (Pinboard)

[I wonder how much trial and error went into making those two columns of text match.]

Joe Biden tonight

President Joe Biden, speaking tonight:

“History tells us that blind loyalty to a single leader and a willingness to engage in political violence is fatal to democracy. For a long time we told ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed. But it’s not. We have to defend it, protect it, stand up for it, each and every one of us. That’s why tonight I’m asking our nation to come together: unite behind the single purpose of defending our democracy regardless of your ideology.”

The speech is now at C-SPAN.

[My transcription.]

A second Third

I have a Webster’s Second. I have a Webster’s Third. And I have a second Third, bought a library book-sale (for fifty cents, I think). The second Third is a first edition, with a color portrait of Noah Webster in the front and the name of a long-time member of the university community stamped on the inside cover.

I don’t need a second Third. My first Third is enough. But when it came time to haul books to the library today, the second Third made it back to the house from the car. I’m not parting with it yet.

A place for everything . . .

[“62563-B-Drama-Music-Opera-Writing & Misc. Iowa State Univ. Creative Arts Program - ’61.” Photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt. 1961. From the Life Photo Archive. Click for a much larger view.]

. . .  and everything in its place.

This photograph makes me feel less cluttered already. But it’s not going to stop me from taking a pile of books to the library today for the next book sale.

Here are a couple of photographs of my desk, without and with a desk organizer. You can see right away the difference an organizer makes.

This post is for Matt Thomas, who occasionally posts photographs of desks at Submitted for Your Perusal.

Molly Dodd again

For anyone who needs to know: the complete run of The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd is once again at YouTube. The costs of music-licensing pretty much assure that this show will never be available on DVD. So watch while you can, before the uploads are yanked once again.

I have the persistent thought that someday Elaine and I will be browsing in Three Lives & Company and we’ll see Blair Brown browsing and be able to tell her how much we love this show. We’ve already written a fan letter to Jay Tarses.

Orange Crate Art, as you have guessed, is a Dodd-friendly zone.

[Note: I have no idea if Blair Brown has ever browsed at Three Lives & Company.]

LTC

You know that you have the well-being of an older family member on your mind when you see a money-asking e-mail from LTC (Ret.) Alex Vindman in your inbox and the first thing you think is long-term care.

Long-term care insurance is a tricky proposition. Here’s one take.

[No questions: that’s all I’m gonna say about long-term care insurance.]