Mongol sighting
From the film From Man on a Swing.
Orange Crate Art
“”Think metric!”
Yesterday’s Peanuts truly is today’s Peanuts. Still no metric system here.
A notebook and a pencil
When Gary Paulsen was a teenager, a librarian gave him a library card, then a book a month, then a book a week, and then a Scripto notebook and a no. 2 pencil.
What is a straight wire?
People in old movies are always sending their telegrams straight wire.
Lloyd Nolan
And other Lloyds.
Red Cars
From the movie Hell Bound: the Red Cars of the Pacific Electric Railway, junked.
Ticonderoga sighting
From the movie Hell Bound: just another day at the office: a Hawaiian travel brochure, drugs, and a Dixon Ticonderoga for jotting down appointments.
It’s Ciattarelli, dammit
In 1994, Jack Ciattarelli, now the Republican candidate for governor of the state, did indeed attempt to ban cursing in the borough of Raritan. Talk about cancel culture.
“This is not a sandwich”
A cheap, cheap movie set with pictures of sandwiches.
Domestic comedy
“That guy looks familiar. Everyone on this show looks familiar.”
“Employees superannuation”
From The New York Times, the apostrophe in the news.
Eleven movies, one mini-series
The Many Saints of Newark and others.
Elaine says
Elaine says that New York Roast tastes just like the Chock full o’Nuts coffee she enjoyed in her student days.
Chock full o’Nuts
As seen in NYC tax photos, c. 1939–1941.
Block that metaphor
Andrew Yang: “I want to be the metaphorical wet blanket for the country.”
Today’s Saturday Stumper
“Poppy?”
Less than, fewer than
I can imagine a writer wondering, “Should it be less than? Fewer than? I know: I’ll try both!”
Feel Flows
Having made my way through the 5-CD Beach Boys compilation Feel Flows: The “Sunflower” and “Surf’s Up” Sessions, I ask myself, as I have before: was there ever a group that so veered between the great and the awful?
Domestic comedy
“So do you like my Tom Waits imitation?”
Marie Wilcox (1933–2021)
Language rescuer and lexicographer.
A mobile phone
Dialogue from Harriet Craig (dir. Vincent Sherman, 1950).
Mater
A menu-bar Pomodoro timer.
A Hamilton House postcard
A restaurant on a linen-texture card.
The Grapes of Wrath, handwritten
The Guardian reports on the publication of John Steinbeck’s handwritten manuscript of The Grapes of Wrath.
Hamilton House cheesecake
A recipe from an executive chef.
Brian Wilson at his piano (?)
I think there’s more and less here than meets the ear — more than Brian Wilson at his piano and less than Brian Wilson at his piano.
EXchange names in directories
From Mrs. Craig, a customer directory and a reverse-lookup directory.
The quickening art
Anyone who doubts that music is “the quickening art,” as Oliver Sacks, borrowing from Kant, put it, would do well to watch last night’s 60 Minutes story about Tony Bennett, “The Final Act.”
ILGWU Co-operative Village
From The Garment Jungle (dir. Vincent Sherman, 1957).
Park Avenue and E. 102nd Street
In The Garment Jungle (dir. Vincent Sherman, 1957) and now.