Nerves, arms, hands

Tom Walters saves the (or my) day: Three exercises to nerve pain in the arms (YouTube). Wonderful stuff for anyone typing and typing and pointing and clicking. If you want to skip the explanations, go directly to 3:20.

On a related note, The Washington Post has an article about the effect of device use on fine motor skills, including handwriting (gift link).

In Fraiserland

“The more I confessed to friends/strangers I cornered at the park that I craved the Cranes to fall asleep, the more I discovered that other millennial moms had the same postpartum addiction to Frasierland”: “Postpartum millennial moms can’t stop watching Frasier reruns” (The Washington Post , gift link).

Louis Armstrong’s legacy

Ethan Iverson on Louis Armstrong’s legacy: “Louis Armstrong’s Last Word” (The Nation ).

Related reading
All OCA Louis Armstrong posts (Pinboard)

Some Mondays

A little more about “Mondays are dark”:

The Oxford English Dictionary has among its definitions for the adjective dark: “Of a theatre or cinema: closed; not in use.” Its first citation is from 1889, from the Sunday Sentinel, a Milwaukee newspaper: “The Standard theater will be dark during a portion of the present week, commencing tomorrow.”

I found this item from 1890:

[New York Amusement Gazette, August 11, 1890.]

And almost a century later:

[New York, April 18, 1988.]

One can find more examples in Google Books of theaters dark on Mondays. “Mondays are dark” appears in a number of issues of New York in 1988. The phrasing also pops up in The New Yorker in (1964) and elsewhere. In Las Vegas, Mondays Dark is a twice-monthly variety show raising money for charities.

“Sleeping was her latest discovery”

Moira is one of Isabel’s new friends, the crowd responsible for the poetry chapbooks stuck in the chair cushions.

Katherine Mansfield, “Marriage à la mode” (1921).

Related reading
All OCA Katherine Mansfield posts (Pinboard)

Trump as student

When I hear Donald Trump dodge and lie, I sometimes imagine what it might have been like to have him as a student. Imagine young Trump, having left (flunked out of?) Fordham College, speaking to a professor teaching an econ class at Penn.

“Mr. Trump, I regret to tell you that the paper you gave me is largely plagiarized.”

“The girl who does my typing must have given me the wrong paper. That’s someone else’s paper; she must have put my name on it by mistake.”

“Can you ask her for your paper?”

”I don’t know her name. I don’t know the girl. She does my typing for me. I met her at a party.”

[Taken aback.] “Well, do you have something that you can show me of the work that you did for your paper?”

“That’s all back in New York. I’m leaving this afternoon for the weekend. I can have the paper on your desk on Monday afternoon.”

[Taken aback but remembering, too, how much loot this ne’er-do-well’s family has.] “I suppose that will be all right.”

I should add: this conversation is taking place on a Wednesday.

“Smudged-looking poems”

William’s wife Isabel has a new set of friends. They’re bright young things. When William comes home from work, it’s to a different house.

Katherine Mansfield, “Marriage à la mode” (1921).

I’m reminded of a Glen Baxter cartoon: “‘Another slim volume of modern English poetry!’ shrieked Jacobsen.”

Related reading
All OCA Katherine Mansfield posts (Pinboard)

“Mondays are dark”

I heard this expression for the first time this morning. Obviously, I have not spent enough of my life among show people.

[“Dark”: the theater is closed.]

AI and VDP

It’s dispiriting to see so much AI-generated blather about stuff one loves. Example: this explanation of Van Dyke Parks’s “Dreaming of Paris.” A sample passage:

The lyrics of the song are poetic and thought-provoking, allowing the listener to interpret its meaning in their own unique way. It is a song that invites introspection and reflection, encouraging listeners to delve deeper into their own desires and dreams. Through its enchanting melody and evocative lyrics, “Dreaming of Paris” captures the essence of longing for something beyond the ordinary and the beauty of pursuing one’s passions.

Yeah, sure. I’m reminded of what it’s like to read the work of a student who hasn’t done the reading.

One more:

While Parks has not explicitly mentioned any specific events or experiences that directly influenced “Dreaming of Paris”, it is evident that his love for the city and its rich cultural history played a significant role in shaping the song. It is likely that his personal encounters, observations, and memories of Paris have influenced the lyrical themes and overall ambiance of the song.

The really sad part is that the website presenting this blather embeds a brief video in which VDP talks about the events that underlie the song: the assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, a trip to Paris, a second trip to Paris, the Iraq War. Listen: the historical realities are in the song itself.

There’s a name attached to the writing on the website, but I say it’s AI, and I say the hell with it. If I’m wrong, I’ll eat my copy of “Dreaming of Paris” (Bananastan, 2011), even the sleeve by Ed Ruscha, who just did the sleeve for the Beatles’ “Now and Then.”

A related post
Van Dyke Parks, two singles

A waterfront barber

[194 Columbia Street, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

It’s Sunday morning, but this scene is not quite Edward Hopper. On or in Early Sunday Morning, the barber shop was closed. Hopper called that painting “almost a literal translation of Seventh Avenue” in Manhattan. This Sunday we’re in the Waterfront District of Brooklyn. I am imagining that it’s a noon-ish weekday (notice the shadow under the sole pedestrian), with most potential customers at work. In addition to the barber and the pedestrian, there’s someone at a window. Look closely.

Why is it the Union Park Barber Shop? No clue. There’s a Union Square Park in Manhattan. Brommer’s Union Park was was a location in the Bronx. Go figure.

Today no. 194 houses an event space, Poppy’s HQ. Things happen there.

[Click for a larger barber.]

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