Twelve movies
From 1932 to 2015.
Orange Crate Art
“This is an awful man”
Episcopal clergy talking about the man posing on television yesterday, holding a Bible and standing in front of an Episcopal church.
“Will History Stop Repeating Itself?”
A short film by Spike Lee.
“With a cheap cigarette”
A passage from Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet. Highly Proustian.
Auto detailing
The seat belt is broken.
Trump* the dom(inator)
Tony Schwartz: “Like many other Trump critics, I believed that he was driven by an insatiable narcissistic hunger to be loved, accepted, admired, and praised. That remains prima facie true, but it deflects attention from what drives Trump more deeply: the need to dominate. His primary goal is to win at any cost and the end always justifies the means.”
Rant? Tirade? Harangue?
You decide. It’s Donald Trump*’s conference call with governors.
A president speaks
“If we want to bring about real change, then the choice isn’t between protest and politics. We have to do both.”
“A headache and the universe”
A passage from Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet.
“Art is Cinderalla”
A passage from Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet.
“People pushed to the edge”
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, writing in the Los Angeles Times: “What you should see when you see black protesters in the age of Trump and coronavirus is people pushed to the edge, not because they want bars and nail salons open, but because they want to live. To breathe.”
Not this time, lady
She yelled at me, or at no one: “I will run over you!” This poor old woman must have been suffering from the delusion that she’s George Wallace.
John Loengard (1934–2020)
I’ve posted a number of Loengard photographs from the Life Photo Archive, mostly of Louis Armstrong.
Some Mutts
In today’s Mutts, “some rocks.”
André Watts on musical mistakes
“It is always a learning experience, even when you’re unhappy about the fact that you made a mistake. It has a positive side.”
Minneapolis and Denmark
A friend in the city and lines from Hamlet.
From a BuzzFeed “grammar” quiz
I’d say that neither you nor I can trust this BuzzFeed grammar quiz. Or “grammar” quiz, as most of the questions have to do with idiom, spelling, or punctuation.
“Good practice”
Behold, an American president who sees the Secret Service as a violence-hungry death squad and fantasizes about massacres on the White House lawn.
Today’s Saturday Stumper
“Key carried by salesclerks.”
Donald Trump*’s rhyme
Donald Trump*’s rhyme — “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” — has a history.
“The man of action”
A passage from Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet.
Same as it ever was
remember talking on the telephone with my dad about the death of Amadou Diallo. My dad put it simply: “If he’d been white, he’d be alive.” That was 1999. And now again, with the death of George Floyd, as with so many other deaths: If he’d been white, he’d be alive. I think it really is that simple.
“Vote as if your life depends on it”
Tony Schwartz, Donald Trump*’s ghostwriter: “Understanding what we’re truly up against — the reign of terror that Trump will almost surely wage the moment he believes he can completely prevail — makes the upcoming presidential election a true Armageddon. “Vote as if your life depends on it, because it does.”
Peer review
Yoel Roth: “Somehow, regularly being told by internet strangers that I’m a soulless corporate shill is still less harsh feedback than I got from anonymous peer reviewers in my past academic life.”
Semi-anonymous Mongols
Three Mongols making a little extra money in this advertisement for an all-in-one sharpener.
Eyes, inwardly turned
A passage from Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet.
Soylent 2020
“Human capital stock is people!”
Verbal comedy
“A verb is the only part of speech that can express a full thought by itself.” True, or false?
Flo Garner?
Does this shot of Flo, from a new Progressive Insurance commercial, owe something to the cover of Erroll Garner’s album Concert by the Sea (Columbia, 1955)? It’s not a reach to wonder. It’s a celebrated album.
From Clark Terry’s address book
I like that the D s begin with Duke.