On Duke Ellington’s birthday
“Jack the Bear.”
Orange Crate Art
Slipshod logic
Zeynep Tufekci writes about the slipshod logic behind delays in authorizing vaccines for children.
Dictation failure
“Mowed exclamation point mowed exclamation point” Mode! Mode!
Not lonely, not a bird
A ploughman speaks. From Ronald Blythe’s Akenfield.
“I began in a world without time”
From Akenfield.
Days
“Oh boy, another one of those exciting days.”
Salinger in Ohio
Real headlines.
Birx’s merch
Dr. Deborah Birx has a makeover and a book. As she makes the rounds of ��the shows,” her praise of the defeated former president in 2020 renders irrelevant whatever she says now.
Is it Christian nationalism yet?
Samuel L. Perry, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Oklahoma offers a helpful ten-point checklist: How can we spot #ChristianNationalism in the wild? I score Mary Miller (R, IL-15) as an eight, possibly nine, of ten.
A pocket notebook sighting
From the 1951 remake of M.
An EXchange name sighting
From the 1951 remake of M.
Twelve movies
Chicago Calling and eleven others.
“My Dusty Mellow Self”
Jack Nicholson was making a music video for his song “My Dusty Mellow Self.” The storyline called for him to ring the bell of a church’s basement door. He rang and rang. No answer.
Mutts rocks
“Some rocks.”
Outtakes (11)
“Uptown, it’s Alexander’s.”
“Asperger”
“Asperger’s syndrome” is a fraught term, as an episode of the podcast The Allusionist explains.
Threatening the dictionary
What made him pick his targets?
Today’s Saturday Stumper
“It fell from a horse long ago.”
Potlatch, anyone?
Ian Frazier, writing in The New Yorker about cabin fever, recalls a time, forty years ago, when he lived in the rural isolation of northwest Montana.
Mingus centennial
I cringed last night hearing an NPR tribute characterize Mingus — straight off — as “the angry man of jazz.” I find it difficult to imagine NPR referring to anyone as the angry man of chamber music, dance, film, painting, &c. Sigh.
Our tube
Seen while flipping channels: Tom Fitzsimmons and George Petrie, as doctors, young and old, in the One Day at a Time episode “Julie’s Operation” (February 8, 1977). Familiar faces in new arrangements: one of the pleasures of television.
Lassie and Ted
“Remember the time Murray told you, just before the news, that Lassie was three different dogs?”
From the Poetry Project
The Library of Congress has made available 420 recordings of poetry readings at the Poetry Project, St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery. And that’s just what the Library calls “the first round.”
Masks
From The New York Times: “Does My Mask Protect Me if Nobody Else Is Wearing One?” The short answer: Yes, but make it a KF94, KN95, or N95.
Banned books, free
For a limited time, the New York Public Library is making four often-banned books available to borrow in digital form anywhere in the United States.
Salinger in Ohio
A genuine headline, not from a dream.
Gratitude
An event was held at 6:00 a.m. to honor New York City EMTs, who attended on their own time. Mayor Eric Adams gave each EMT attending a cup of coffee and a donut, “as a measure of the city’s gratitude.”
The Girl with the Pilates Mat
A certified Pilates instructor who began posting workout videos to YouTube during the pandemic. Rachel’s great — her channel now has more than twelve million views.
Mary Miller, lying
Congresswoman Mary Miller (R, Illinois-15) is a proponent of The Big Lie. But she has lies in all sizes. Analisa Trofimuk of PolitiFact fact-checked one of them: “Rep. Mary Miller says White House is encouraging kids to take ‘castration’ drugs, undergo surgeries.”
Jane Lynch for Illinois
Jane Lynch has directed a series of TV commercials promoting Illinois tourism.