Halloween recap
Twenty trick-or-treaters. A new record!
Orange Crate Art
“I sure love garlic”
Nancy does.
A WPA Halloween poster
A roller-skating carnival.
An honest editorial
From the Las Vegas Sun: “Americans from both sides of the political spectrum should be alarmed by Trump’s words and behavior. The nation must confront the fact that beyond his hateful character, he is crippled cognitively and showing clear signs of mental illness.”
An apostrophe in the news
Supporter’s? Supporters’ Or no apostrophe at all.
“A child's stupid longing”
From Guy de Maupassant’s Alien Hearts.
A musical Illusionist
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s next musical is titled The Illusionist, inspired by the movie The Illusionist, itself a very loose adaptation of Steven Millhauser’s story “Eisenheim the Illusionist.”
To-do
I like the prospect of a president with, as Kamala Harris says, a to-do list. Not an enemies list. And certainly not a Project 2025.
Truncated? No
On NBC Nightly News tonight, Lester Holt spoke of Kamala Harris’s “truncated campaign.” No. “Truncated” is about the end, not the beginning. If you start late and run the course, your effort has not been truncated.
Goodbye, George Washington’s signature
Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland is changing its logo to something more readable. So it’s goodbye to George Washington’s signature.
How to hibernate
An illustrated guide.
Things I learned on my fall vacation
“We may be lost, but we’re making good time”: Yogi Berra.
An October surprise
In today’s installment of Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson writes about Madison Square Garden rallies, past and present.
Here’s a compelling use of sound and image
“You’ve heard Trump say these things before. But not like this”: an ad from the Lincoln Project.
Base indeed
Watching choice clips from today’s Madison Square Garden gathering, I can reach only one conclusion: Donald Trump suspects that he’s going to lose the election and is thus doing all he can he to stoke the rage of his base so that violence may follow.
Zoom!
I found this photograph by chance (swear), closing my eyes and clicking the mouse. Was the photographer more deliberate, wanting to catch this car in motion? Or did the driver just zoom into the frame?
Recently updated
“Do not obey in advance”: Timothy Snyder posted a short video in which he comments on the Los Angeles Times and Washingon Post in light of this first lesson.
Amazon for searching
Use Amazon as a search engine; buy elsewhere.
Zounds
I just figured out what my New York Times and Washington Post subscriptions have been costing me.
“Do not obey in advance”
From Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2017): Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.
Today’s Saturday Stumper
“Idly.”
An editorial cartoon
“Democracy Dies in Darkness” is the newspaper’s motto, appearing on the masthead.
No endorsements
Shameful. And shameful.
Duce redux, redux
From a post I wrote in October 2016: I said in a letter to a friend today that Donald Trump has reinvented American presidential politics as neo-fascist entertainment. I remembered that post today.
Extraterrestrial replaces Anderson Cooper?
I think he’s been replaced by an extraterrestrial of the sort that once haunted the pages of the Weekly World News.
“I’m listening”
A tree with an ear.
Donations by ZIP code
From The Washington Post (gift link), a ZIP-based guide to online donations to the Democratic and Republican candidates for president. In my little town: 312 donations to Harris ($60K), 125 ($20K) to the other.
“The Department of Everything”
In “The Department of Everything,” Stephen Akey writes about working in the Telephone Reference Division of the Brooklyn Public Library.
The Gospel of Thomas and John Lee Hooker
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” Boogie chillen.
How to remove Blogger comment justification
I’ve wanted to remove the ugly full justification that Blogger applies to embedded comments. So I asked about it in the Blogger Community Forum — and I got the answer.