I’ve just seen a face
On a wall.
Orange Crate Art
When writers go on strike
DeSantis and Musk: that’s the kind of laughably crappy storyline you’re left with when writers go on strike.
Mimestream out of beta
Mimestream, the great Gmail client for Mac, is out of beta.
“The three-ring kind”
Pretzels turn up here and there in Steven Millhauser’s fiction: rods, sticks, and (elsewhere) three-ringers. I think of them as a marker of mid-century American life, like plaid thermoses and transistor radios.
Alembic, humph
I thought that alembic would be one of today’s pangrams. “Not in word list,” says the NYT Spelling Bee. Humph.
“Reachable by rowboat”
The New Dressler is no ordinary hotel.
A word of a day: gamut
An amazing origin.
Horse fail
In the aftermath of the Preakness Stakes, many references in the news to a horse failing a drug test. To my ear, that’s like saying that a car failed a sobriety test.
Grim, grey, unaffordable
Parts of a Brooklyn block.
Today’s Saturday Stumper
“Earned C’s.”
Great Lives: Terry Hall
I’ve been following Great Lives for more than three years. This episode is one of the best I’ve heard.
Turn on your hazard lights, &c.
If you’re driving on a highway and the traffic suddenly slows or stops, and the vehicles behind you are at some distance: 1. Turn on your hazard lights. 2. Leave significant space between you and the vehicle in front of you. 3. Keep checking your rear-view mirror. 4. After someone has come up behind you, turn your hazard lights off.
Rapture
From Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer.
Turn off YouTube voiceover
Press the up arrow on the remote twice and move to the right — Channel, Captions, Like, Dislike, Save, Settings. In Settings, choose Audio tracks and change “English descriptive” to “English original.” Then watch the movie in peace.
World of string
A world in which all kinds of packages were tied up with string.
“It’s a tall city”
From Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer.
Some grades
They’re Nancy’s: B, A, D.
FSRC: annual report
The Four Seasons Reading Club, our household’s two-person adventure in reading, has finished its eighth year. A full report follows.
“The power of good penmanship”
From Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer.
Seltzer
The New York Times visits the last seltzer works in New York City.
A coal-hole cover
From Ephemeral New York, the story behind one coal-hole cover.
School Trip grandparents
I think they’re drawn to look unmistakably like Logan Roy and Gerri Kellman of Succession. Am I right?
A new book from Jerry Craft
Drew: “You know, never really see kids like us traveling in books and movies.” Maury: “I wonder why that is.” Jordan: “Hmmm . . .”
Mother’s Day
My mom, not yet a mom, 1954.
Today’s Saturday Stumper
“Soft hail.”
Einstein Plumbing
“If I would be a young man again and had to decide how to make my living, I would not try to become a scientist or scholar or teacher. I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler.”
.mov and .zip
Google has created eight new top-level domains, including .mov and .zip. Imagine the hilarity when someone clicks to open what appears to be a .mov or .zip file and gets taken to a sketchy website. Taken, indeed.
Recently updated
The Honeymooners: Van Dyke Parks played Tommy Borden, not Tommy Manicotti.
Lollygagging
Beetle Bailey looks up a word.
Portuguese canned fish
A website: Portuguese Canning Industry Digital Museum.