“The lower fishbody”
From “Mermaid Fever.”
Orange Crate Art
Heather Cox Richardson today
In the latest installment of Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson writes about what would likely happen in a second Trump term. Short answer: a dictatorship.
Hodwy
I for one hope that hodwy acquires some currency.
Robert, Jack and Jill, and others
Details culled from Brother Robert: Growing Up with Robert Johnson, by Annye Anderson, Robert Johnson’s stepsister.
Pocket notebook sighting
From Four in a Jeep.
More 14th Street
Going down the block and seeing changes.
Recently updated
Fired faculty members suing at Emporia State.
Today’s Saturday Stumper
“Starting point.”
“So thick with phantoms”
From “Phantoms.”
Zippy under the El
With Dana Andrews, Victor Mature, Ida Lupino.
Jigs and gigs
Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC this afternoon: “The gig is up.”
“The deserts of the night”
From “We Others.”
Lester Young speaks
“Little Tinky Boom? One stick, you dig?” And other expressions.
Stephen Sondheim’s dictionary
A Merriam-Webster’s Second on his dictionary stand. The three thumb-notches at the front of the volume — clear signs of a W2.
Pocket notebook sighting
From L’Innocent (dir. Louis Garrel, 2022). If there’s a criminal plan afoot, there’s gotta be a notebook.
"Their own interpretation of happiness”
Lou Sullivan (1951–1991), transman and activist, writing as a teenager: “I wanna look like what I am but don’t know what someone like me looks like. I mean, when people look at me I want them to think — there’s one of those people that reasons, that is a philosopher, that has their own interpretation of happiness. That’s what I am.”
Homer in four translations
In The New York Times, Emily Wilson, who has now translated both the Iliad and the Odyssey, writes about four translations of a speech by Hector from Iliad 6.
Ten movies, two seasons
L’Innocent and others.
Attics
From “We Others.”
Revising again
One more addition to How to e-mail a professor, now that I can get through to ChatGPT: Don’t ask AI to write an e-mail for you. At least not if you want your e-mail to sound like the work of a human being.
Joyeux anniversaire, M. Proust
“My seconds in duels can tell you whether I behave with the weakness of an effeminate man.”
Revising
I took a look at How to e-mail a professor the other night and noticed three sentences that needed revision.
Recently updated
Adding a working link to Balzac’s hair-raising essay “The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee.”
Clarence Thomas and Horatio Alger
The Alger success story is, really, a story of patronage. One might even call it a story of affirmative action, practiced not by institutions but by individuals.
Retail density
106 East 14th Street.
Hi and Lois watch
Problems with architecture.
Today’s Saturday Stumper
“Cambridge unit selling through Amazon.”
Wind the clock
Here’s a letter from E.B. White to, it would seem, a one-off correspondent in despair — despair over the state of the world, I would guess.
Beginning the day
From “Getting Closer.”
With Clint Eastwood
I went to the register to buy three sloes and found the cashier beside himself. “Clint Eastwood is in the store,” he said.