Departure Mono
A monospaced pixel font.
Orange Crate Art
Phi Better Whatchamacallit
From Chicago Syndicate (dir. Fred F. Sears, 1955). Some hoods are giving undercover agent Barry Amsterdam (Dennis O’Keefe) a hard time: “Must be Phi Better Whatchamacallit.” “Kappa.” “Kappa — or copper.”
Twelve movies
Chicago Syndicate and others.
NPR, sheesh
You can walk a line. You can thread a needle. You can walk the line if you’re Johnny Cash. But you cannot walk a needle. Ouch.
Moleskine: seventy-five words
Pound for pound, those seventy-five words proved themselves among the most effective pieces of commercial copywriting of all time, briskly connecting the product’s intangible qualities — usefulness and emotion — to its material specification, thereby selling both the sizzle and the steak.
Labor Day
“Commuters, who have just come off the train, waiting for the bus to go home, Lowell, Mass.” Photograph by Jack Delano. January 1941.
“False balance” in the NYT
Margaret Sullivan, a former public editor of The New York Times, writes about “an ugly case of ‘false balance’” in that newspaper. It’s in a story about Kamala Harris’s and Donald Trump’s plans to increase afforable housing.
When crosswords try to do jazz
Count Basie was was known as the Kid from Red Bank. But it was Benny Goodman who was known as the King of Swing.
Empire of signs
In Columbus Circle.
Today’s Saturday Stumper
“Possible response to ‘Don’t know.’”
Bacon, wind
This headline alone makes me think that I should be supporting The Guardian.
University library or storage room?
“A university library without academic librarians is called a storage room.”
NYT, sheesh
The NYT misspells “stationery.”
Smells
From Daniel Pinkwater’s The Education of Robert Nifkin.
Bushmiller pareidolia
Parking meters.
MSNBC, sheesh
“He can also pretty regularly say things that drive a wedge between he and their support.”
Word of the day: trig
As found in Sarah Orne Jewett’s Deephaven (1877).
Unwanted political spam texts
Daring Fireball has a suggestion about how to stop them.
Advertisements for myself
The Trump campaign is paying for TV ads to soothe Donald Trump.
Got Better Cotton?
Actual label text: “By choosing our cotton products, you’re supporting Walmart’s investment in Better Cotton’s mission. “This product is sourced via a system of mass balance and therefore may not contain Better Cotton.” I’m not surprised to discover a page about Better Cotton and greenwashing.
The Blogger comment form
Google has tinkered, unannounced, with the settings for the Blogger comment form. Thanks, Google.
Domestic comedy
“His /ant/ or /ahnt/ was there — I’m not sure which.”
A transcription tip
Just write down the first letter of each word: o b o e w s c o b w i t g n o e i a y n f p o t u s Which you can then expand into: “On behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on earth, I accept your nomination for President of the United States.”
Actual NYT opinion column
“Trump Can Win on Character”: it’d be funny if it weren’t sad.
Recently updated
A lost Clipper: now with 1950s film footage of the strangely shallow building on Doyers Street.
Curb your introductions
An imaginary Wanda Sykes confronts Larry Dvaid: “Why’d you go and introduce that little girl to that anti-vax worm-eaten bear-pranking whale-beheading no-account plug-ugly drug-addict conspiracy-ass Trump-flunkie?”
Clickbait
I am baffled by the way macOS dictation capitalizes Clickbait.
A lost Clipper
The China Clipper Restaurant and the mysterious disappearance of its owner.
Today’s Saturday Stumper
“Capital an hour’s drive from Vienna.”
Pocket notebook sighting
Aleksandr Ivanovich Luzhin (John Turturro) uses a tiny datebook as a notebook to record chess games (or, at least, lines of play). From The Luzhin Defense (dir. Marleen Gorris, 2000).