Yes!
Go Letitia James!
Orange Crate Art
“Brainless beef!”
From Anna Karenina. Count Aleksey Kirillovich Vronsky is entertaining “a foreign prince.” The count is not having a good time of it.
In the great green room
One of the great moments of grandparenthood (so far): reading Goodnight Moon to a granddaughter who pulled it from the shelf at bedtime and said she didn’t understand it.
A letter to “my” representative
I don’t expect an answer. But I take pleasure in writing to “my” representative. She won’t read it, but someone in her office might. And might then have something to think about.
Sheiks
The music that runs behind the opening credits of A Face in the Crowd (credited to Tom Glazer) is more or less a version of the Mississippi Sheiks’ “Sitting on Top of the World.” An apt choice for the story the movie tells.
Advice from one who’s been
You do not want to get the bivalent COVID booster and this year’s flu vaccine at the same time. You just don’t.
Recently updated
Jack Delaney’s: Now with a 1960 advertisement and a Tack Room.
Infuriating
Infuriating to find PBS bumping the second episode of The U.S. and the Holocaust for a ninety-minute recap of QEII’s funeral service.
Recently updated
Jack Delaney’s: Now with a menu.
Anna meta
“She says you’re a real heroine out of a novel.”
The U.S. and the Holocaust
I wonder if anyone ever imagined that this documentary series would begin airing four days after a governor lured refugees onto buses with promises of employment and housing, and one day after a crowd raised their right arms to the defeated former president in an index-finger salute. We dismiss such cruelty and madness at our peril.
Recently updated
MSNBC royal hierarchy: Guess who’s in London?
Jack Delaney’s
A Greenwich Village restaurant with a horse (not a real one) and cart on the roof.
“Hyphen killer”
Henry Furhmann (1957–2022), the Los Angeles Times editor who pushed to end -American constructions.
“Reverse Freedom Rides”
Did you know about this? “Sixty years before migrants were sent to Martha’s Vineyard, there were the ‘Reverse Freedom Rides’” (NPR).
Today’s Saturday Stumper
“Case workers.”
Coffey, comma, ay caramba
Who gives a darn about an Oxford comma, as The New York Times might ask? That would be Thérèse Coffey — Liz Truss ally, head of the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care, and punctuation peever. Coffey hates the Oxford comma, is unashamed to say so, and wants it removed from her department’s written communications.
Recently updated
Man who threatened Merriam-Webster pleads guilty.
Abyssinia
I had a pleasantly disorienting moment while doing yesterday’s Newsday crossword. The puzzle was by Stan Newman; the theme, “Famous Last Words.” 28-A, nine letters, “Last word (1920s).” The answer: ABYSSINIA.
Cursive at Harvard
In The Atlantic, Drew Gilpin Faust says that her students can’t read or write cursive writing.
Emporia, firing
From The Chronicle of Higher Education: “Emporia State University got permission on Wednesday to fire employees, including tenured professors, for any of a host of reasons, including “current or future market considerations.” Many faculty members there object that the plan essentially suspends tenure. The cuts have already begun.”
MSNBC royal hierarchy
I’d be willing to bet a nickel — no, make that a whole quarter — that it’ll be Andrea Mitchell who’s there for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth.
Toothache
From Anna Karenina.
Rep removal
I did a change of address for my mom’s healthcare and discovered that my dad is still listed as someone who could speak for her, a so-called policyholder representative. But he died in 2015, I told the rep, a point verifiable from the company’s records. It would be nice if you could speak to my dad, I said, though it may be tough to reach him.
Headline
Do better, WaPo.
Doorbell
A boy stood on the other side of the storm door, three feet tall, roundish, wearing a mask.
Theory of dairy farming
Cows, turning food into milk.
Positive anymore at the pump
“Lot of rigmarole just to get fuel anymore.”
A Ted Berrigan event
At Magic City Books, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Defeated former president in D.C.
The defeated former president flew into Washington, D.C., wearing a brown jacket, white polo shirt, and what appear to be golf shoes. Oh — and pants.