Got twine?
Here, under the El tracks, is the Culver Paper Co.
Orange Crate Art
Today’s Saturday Stumper
“Mystic contemplation of one’s navel.”
A 2023 calendar
Free: a 2023 calendar, in large legible Gill Sans, three months per page
Elizabeth Cotten in the news
She’s being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as an Early Influence.
Recently updated
Adding hot sauce to chicken soup.
Local weather
A few minutes ago a TV meteorologist said “Holy moly!”
“Total privacy”
A telephone booth, in Dorothy B. Hughes’s The Expendable Man.
Past and future
From President Biden’s speech last night: “We must vote knowing who we have been, what we’re at risk of becoming.”
George Booth (1926–2022)
The New Yorker cartoonist was ninety-six.
Washington Post, sheesh
In a piece about the hazards of permanent daylight-saving time, another inapt “similar to.”
Tele-Rest No. 300
I’ve had a Tele-Rest No. 300 sitting around for many years, purchased (in the 1990s?) from a going-out-of-business office-supplies store. I bought this item only for its box, which predates ZIP codes.
Words of the year
From the Collins Dictionary, permacrisis, “a term that describes ‘an extended period of instability and insecurity.’”
NPR, sheesh
“Similar to [a defeated former American president], Bolsonaro,” followed by some verb.
Domestic comedy
“It’s a good book. Its pages are good. It feels good to read it.” “Good.”
An unforced Halloween error
We have thirty-seven cups left over.
Halloween count
Early turnout: in one hour and three minutes of trick-or-treating, we’ve had six children call at our door, already matching our 2015 total (over three-and-a-half hours).
Mary Miller’s silence
From Politico: “Rep. Mary Miller (IL-15) is the only member of the state’s Republican congressional delegation not to condemn last week’s violent attack on the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.”
A sharpener sharpener
From Zits: a pencil sharpener-sharpener. Or a pencil-sharpener sharpener.
Masks
From a Brinks robbery, maybe?
Reaching out
This morning I have had a president, a vice president, and an undefeated former president reach out to me, one of them “personally reaching out.”
Gender and evaluations
From Inside Higher Ed: “Two new studies show how bias against women in student ratings operates over time, worsening with critical feedback and instructor age.”
Yet another letter to Mary Miller
She’s scaring parents about fentanyl in Halloween candy.
SHELL
A Brooklyn gas station, c. 1939–1941.
No[,] hurry[!]
A former Miss Hong Kong almost died because of a doctor’s unpunctuated text.
Today’s Saturday Stumper
“Heavy metal instruments.”
Mary Miller, on it
Representative Mary Miller (R, IL-15) continues to use her official Twitter account to warn parents about the danger of fentanyl in Halloween candy. But the fear of fentanyl in Halloween candy is, according to a toxicologist and addiction specialist, “a moral panic.” And a scholar of urban legends calls Halloween fentanyl just that — an urban legend, like razor-blade-filled apples.
How to improve writing (no. 105)
“Writing should be regarded as an activity that necessitates critical thinking, an aspect that is necessary to all good writing.”
Guernica wear
In today’s Zippy, Griffy notes that museums sell Picasso everything — mousepads, T-shirtscoffee mugs. “What’s next?” he wonders. “Guernica bedsheets and party dresses??” I wouldn’t have believed it. But you can find a Guernica skirt, complete with Picasso signatures along the waistband, front and back, at Etsy.
Really bad handwriting
Mine.
Finding you well
Never to begin an e-mail with “I hope this e-mail finds you well.” Or “I hope this email finds you well.”