Elaine’s A Tunes
Elaine’s A Tunes: Capricious Pieces for Beginner Violinists just appeared at Amazon. She is, as she says, “engaging in commerce.”
Orange Crate Art
The Blackwing clamp, 100 years old
Pencil Talk notes the March 29, 1921 filing of the patent for the clamp that became a distinctive feature of the Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602 pencil.
Making it plain
A witness in the Derek Chauvin murder trial: “I always see the police, they’re always messing with people. And it’s wrong and it’s not right."
Mary Miller and trans rights
Her first bill would require sex-segregation in school bathrooms and locker rooms and on sports teams, with sex defined as “biological sex, not gender identity.” No friend to trans rights — in other words, human rights.
Separated at birth
Markku Luolajan-Mikkola, baroque cellist and viol player, and John Malkovich, actor and director.
An EXchange name sighting
As Sidney Falco prepares to beseech his god.
Domestic comedy
“As such” and “at that.”
The one that got away
One more crossword clue, and an Oliver Goldsmith–T.S. Eliot connection.
Today’s Newsday Saturday
Beverly Cleary (1916–2021)
Fellow kids-at-heart, I encourage you to read Beverly Cleary if you haven’t.
False prophesying in the Times
“Prophesied” seems very odd in the newspaper of record. “Falsely prophesied” seems odder still.
Don Heffington (1950–2021)
I heard Don play with Van Dyke in Chicago and St. Louis. So I can agree with his Lone Justice bandmate Marvin Etzioni, quoted in Variety: “Like Ringo, he didn’t play drums, he played songs.”
Write this down
“A study of Japanese university students and recent graduates has revealed that writing on physical paper can lead to more brain activity when remembering the information an hour later.”
Vaccination
It makes me happy whenever I hear that someone I know has received a COVID-19 vaccine. Yay, says I, every time.
“In the lighted bookshop windows”
After the death of the writer Bergotte, a simple, solemn memorial.
“A little patch of yellow wall”
In Proust’s The Prisoner, the writer Bergotte dies after after gazing at “a little patch of yellow wall“ in Vermeer’s View of Delft. Is there such patch in the painting?
Heather Cox Richardson on the NRA
In today’s installment of Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson, historian, offers a brief history of the NRA’s shift from “sports” to “gun rights.”
Pocket notebook sighting
Two of the (many) creepy things about the gossip columnist J. J. Hunsecker are his little pocket notebook and his little writing instrument.
A Walser talk
Soon: Susan Bernofsky talks about Robert Walser with the poet Eileen Myles.
In Illinois-15
Representative Mary Miller’s response to mass murder: to retweet Lauren Boebert and Ben Shapiro.
Ralph Kramden’s list
Ralph Kramden’s bad points and good points, by Ralph Kramden.
Small pleasures
Hearing “cameo” pronounced correctly, once in our living room, twice on on TV, and getting a lesson in pronunciation that will stick.
Mystery actor
The guy on the phone: recognize him?
“?”
Bill Griffith channels Carl Thomas Anderson.
“A Dance to Shpring”
Patrick McDonnell channels Jules Feiffer.
Today’s Newsday Saturday
“It depends on oral interpretation.”
“One rancid corn dog”
Proustian dreams.
Acorn 7
Acorn, an image editor for macOS, just received a major update.
Recently updated
Chris Miller, censured by the Illinois House.
Insurrection
A chilling episode of the podcast Criminal : an account of an 1898 coup in Wilmington, North Carolina. Draw your own parallels.