Domestic comedy
“Pasta aglio e olio is my signature dish. Pasta with tuna and lemon is my initials dish.”
Orange Crate Art
TCM world
“I live in TCM world”: Charlie Watts, on his taste in clothes. From a Desert Island Discs episode.
Bloomberg, sheesh
“Throughout the process, Neal’s more cautious approach to his investigation has grated some of his more progressive colleagues.”
Three passages from Michelle Obama
“Any time your circumstances start to feel all-consuming, I suggest you try going in the other direction — toward the small.”
NYT Letter Boxed fail
GRIMPEN.
Terry Hall (1959–2022)
Terry Hall, best known as the lead singer of The Specials, has died at the age of sixty-three. The Guardian has an obituary and a life in photographs.
Referrals
Here come the criminal referrals, as announced by Representative Jamie Raskin (D, Maryland-8).
Sally’s collectibles
Bicentennial merchandise.
Chess Story adapted
Stefan Zweig’s novella Chess Story has been adapted for the screen by Phillip Stolzl.
Density and amenities
I like urban density. The southwest corner of the intersection of East Fordham Road and Jerome Avenue was full of it. And look at all the amenities: a mailbox, telephone booths, and public transportation.
Today’s Saturday Stumper
“Supermarket checkout staple.”
Dots and forms
It’s oddly reassuring to see that our trash pickup still bills with a dot-matrix printer and tractor-feed forms. But this year: no side perforations on the forms. Times, changing.
Luddite Club
In Brooklyn, teenagers have formed a Luddite Club. They meet to draw, paint, read, talk. Their mascot: Arthur from PBS.
NYT Spelling Bee fail
Aporia. Propitiatory.
Me, reading
Bryan Garner asked panel members to send photographs of themselves reading entries they commented on for the now-published fifth edition of Garner’s Modern English Usage. So here, or there, I am.
Word of the day: niche
Is the English word “niche” related to “nicher” ? Maybe, possibly, maybe, perhaps.
Free COVID tests (again)
Again.
Words and money and adjunctdom
“Words like ‘equity,’ ‘inclusion’ or ‘care’ should be used with consideration for what they really mean,” says Matthew Spiegelman, who teaches photography at the New School’s Parsons School of Design. “The more they get used in conversation and not acted on, the less they mean anything.”
Jean who?
Shepherd.
Woolworth’s
Night. We were standing in front of a Woolworth’s. We hadn’t been inside one for years. A month’s page from a calendar hung from a string in front of the store. It looked just like a month from my homemade calendars.
Recently updated
“Woman”: another word of the year.
New to me: decadal
I would just say decade-long.
Free months from Backblaze
Now through January 31, 2023.
Coot collective
I thought it appropriate to devise a collective name: codger. “A codger of coots” sounds right to me.
Image correction
I think that keeping a blog is a way of converting time into space. The space is always expanding, even as time runs out.
Mondegreen of the day
“Strumming my face with his fingers.” “Strumming my fate with his fingers.”
A 100-word blog post
Generated by ChatGPT in response to the prompt “write a 100-word blog post.” It’s fourteen words short.
I’m sorry too, ChatGPT
A couple of days ago Elaine was a celebrated pianist who had performed with orchestras around the world. Hot damn! And I was a writer who had won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. $100,000! But now it has no info about us.
Flatiron
The Flatiron Building has always been ready for its close-up.
Red Pen
The first episode (forty-four minutes) is ostensibly about who and whom, but it’s really two friends talking, and their talking goes all over the place: Christopher Columbus, bad reviews of the Sistine Chapel, commercialism at Egypt’s pyramids, a Geocities fan page for Rage Against the Machine, Jay McInerney’s tweets, and looting at Duane Reade stores, with none of those topics touching upon who or whom.