I am a careful and courteous driver. But in many years at the wheel I’ve on occasion let fly with the choicest words about the care and courtesy of other drivers. The only problem: the person sitting shotgun has had to hear those words. And as she’s pointed out, more than once, other drivers don’t get to hear them. Only she does. And while cursing is supposed to be good for the curser’s health, it may not be so great for a listener.
So I’ve sworn (pun intended) off car words. The words that have replaced them: “What an inconsiderate driver.” That sounds like a plot point from a Seinfeld episode, but I say the words straightforwardly — and I mean them. Say them with me: “Did you see that guy? What an inconsiderate driver.”
Tuesday, April 4, 2023
Goodbye to car words
Monday, April 3, 2023
ATTN: MSNBC
If I want to see moneyed persons exiting planes and stepping into big black vehicles, I can watch Succession. At least Succession shows what’s happening in the planes and cars.
Says Mary Trump:
Donald Trump will be arraigned tomorrow in a New York City courtroom to face 34 charges — that’s what matters. How he gets to the courtroom isn’t news.Now with a white vehicle out in front on a highway, it’s like O.J. Simpson 2.0.
The media’s insistence on covering every aspect of this man’s life to the exclusion of all else is one of the reasons this country is in such dire straits.
Enough.
All ice cream, all the time
[The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 5, 1925. Click for a much larger and more readable view.]
“You can live on HYDROX Ice Cream alone”: I guess this advertisement makes Hydrox the Soylent of its time. And how strange to discover — this very morning — that Soylent offers a “Neapolitan Variety Pack.”
Related posts
Candy store with Hydrox Ice Cream sign : A 1961 Hydrox Cookies advertisement
More trouble, brewing
Here’s a “gift” link to a Washington Post article, “Justice Dept. said to have more evidence of possible Trump obstruction at Mar-a-Lago.” An excerpt:
Investigators now suspect, based on witness statements, security camera footage, and other documentary evidence, that boxes including classified material were moved from a Mar-a-Lago storage area after the subpoena was served, and that Trump personally examined at least some of those boxes, these people said. While Trump’s team returned some documents with classified markings in response to the subpoena, a later FBI search found more than 100 additional classified items that had not been turned over.And:
Investigators have also amassed evidence indicating that Trump told others to mislead government officials in early 2022, before the subpoena, when the National Archives and Records Administration was working with the Justice Department to try to recover a wide range of papers, many of them not classified, from Trump’s time as president, the people familiar with the investigation said. While such alleged conduct may not constitute a crime, it could serve as evidence of the former president’s intent.A comment in Trump**’s recent interview with Sean Hannity may suggest a possible motive:
These people said prosecutors have collected evidence that Trump ignored requests from multiple advisers to return the documents to the archives over a period of a year, that he asked advisers and lawyers to release false statements claiming he had returned all documents, and that he grew angry after being subpoenaed for the documents.
“This is the Presidential Records Act. I have the right to take stuff. Do you know that they ended up paying Richard Nixon, I think, $18 million for what he had?”As FactCheck.org points out, Trump**’s claim about Nixon is both inaccurate and irrelevant.
[Two impeachments, two asterisks. And an untold number of crimes.]
Sunday, April 2, 2023
An unattended carriage
[1773 Ocean Avenue, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Hydrox made ice cream as well as cookies. (Proof). And a beautifully designed Hydrox Ice Cream privilege sign stood above this small Brooklyn candy store/luncheonette. Small indeed: if you look closely, you’ll see that the right side of the building is given over to Blumberg Tailoring, with its own entrance.
But what really caught my eye is the unattended carriage. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, people used to leave carriages unattended in front of stores. This tax photograph features the fourth unattended carriage to appear in these pages (here are the previous three). Were babies sleeping in those carriages? Our household thinks it likely.
Movie scenes come to mind: in Angels with Dirty Faces (dir. Michael Curtiz, 1938) three Dead End Kids walk off with an unattended baby carriage, baby (awake) included. Granted, the parents, too, are outside and come chasing. But still.
[Leo Gorcey, Bobby Jordan, and Billy Halop, strolling with a stroller. Click for a larger view.]
In Not Wanted (dir. Ida Lupino, 1949), Sally Kelton (Sally Forrest) takes a baby (also awake) from an unattended carriage outside a grocery/liquor store.
[She won’t get far. Click for a larger view.]
In real life, it’s common for Danish parents to leave babies in unattended carriages and strollers outside stores and restaurants. Really.
The ground floor of this Brooklyn building was recently home to Rukhsana Parlor, a beauty parlor. Google Maps shows no carriage outside.
Related reading
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard) : A 1961 Hydrox advertisement
“About something”
Saturday, April 1, 2023
“Queens man indicted”
The Queens Daily Eagle comes through:
A Queens man was indicted Thursday for allegedly making hush money payments to a porn star shortly before he was elected president of the United States in 2016.The QDE also covered the same Queens man’s first and second impeachments.
Today’s Saturday Stumper
Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper is by the puzzle’s editor, Stan Newman, constructing as “Anna Stiga” (Stan Again), the pseudonym that signals an easier Stumper. This Stumper was not easy though. I began with 27-A, three letters, “Declares, so to speak” and 3-D, six letters, “Paris premiere of 1980” and soon had the northwest and southeast corners done. But I missed by one square in the northeast: the first letter of 26-A, four letters, “Turkish tapas” and 26-D, five letters, “Drudges.” To my mind, that’s a ridiculous cross, even in a Stumper. If I were a kid playing some sort of game, I’d shout “No fair!” Or, in a resigned frame of mind, 20-D, seven letters, “Commiseration for a miss.”
Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:
18-A, ten letters, “It’s best left sealed.” Oblique and novel.
21-A, three letters, “Outback etching.” I learned something.
25-D, seven letters, “Get on with it.” HURRYUP? BUSFARE? No. No.
29-D, three letters, “Postwar establishment.” I thought of the CIA. But the last letter, by way of 33-A, makes the answer clear.
33-A, fifteen letters, “Fête nationale.” I knew it, I knew it.
33-D, eight letters, “Small town surrounded by soldiers.” This puzzle is not playing games.
44-A, four letters, “Reader using batteries.” I thought the plural must be a hint, but no, it uses a battery, singular.
47-D, five letters, “Freeman, at Shawshank’s end.” Are there rules about spoilers in crosswords? “Kane’s Rosebud”?
My favorite in this puzzle, sneaky in a Stumper-y way: 5-A, ten letters, “Rats, for instance.” But I’m not sure that the clue is accurate.
No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.
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