How to improve writing (no. 98)
“Hypothetically speaking, would you be in support of or not in support of an exception to the Senate’s filibuster rule with regard to legislation involving voting rights?”
Orange Crate Art
The best book of the past 125 years
Yeah, right.
Gorgias in our time
“The orator need have no knowledge of the truth about things; it is enough for him to have discovered a knack of persuading the ignorant that he seems to know more than the experts.”
Graphs!
Steven Pinker needs to understand that no one lives life in the aggregate.
NPR, sheesh
“Commiserate” for “commensurate.”
Word of the day: tragus
Why is this body part likened to a goat?
Well, or not
A Balzac character writes about life as a mother.
Pronouncing omicron again
Improving a sentence from The New Yorker.
“Book-wrapt”
In its real-estate section, The New York Times hypes the idea of being “book-wrapt” in your “bookroom.”
The Watts Towers at 100
The Los Angeles Times reviews their history.
Noir filter
When I browsed the phone’s filters to turn the picture black and white, I found that the filter I wanted is called Noir. But I think it could just as plausibly be called Horror.
Zippy’s thesaurus
In today’s Zippy, a prehistoric thesaurus.
Today’s Saturday Stumper
“Reasons to ask, ‘What was I thinking?’”
Christmas 1821 in 1921 in 2021
Christmas shopping, described in the New York Times. Includes a blurb for a grammar book.
Sondheim with a Blackwing
From the documentary Original Cast Album: “Company” (dir. D.A. Pennebaker, 1970), Stephen Sondheim with an Eberhard Faber Blackwing pencil, his pencil of choice.
Domestic comedy
“She has the same glasses. But they look better on me.”
Streets
The PBS NewsHour, tonight, in a seconds-long obituary: “He rose from the streets of working-class Brooklyn,” &c. Ah, yes, “the streets.” A cheap — not to mention insulting — cliché. Not even the sidewalks?
Joan Didion (1934–2021)
From “On Keeping a Notebook.”
A pocket notebook sighting
From Young and Innocent (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1937).
A Hamilton House menu
Quite an array of choices, for an earlier American palate.
Bounce, no bounce
We better leave before I bounce him like a rock,” the man said, loud enough for me to hear. But I didn’t hear a thing.
EXchange names on the screen
From Nocturne (dir. Edward L. Marin, 1946).
“How to draw a snowflake”
Olivia Jaimes is exceptionally inventive today.
Hagar in the Oval Office
Joe Biden has a framed Hagar the Horrible strip in the Oval Office.
Recently updated
It turns out that spaniels have a history in sales.
Solstice
It’s my sunset, and I’ll post if I want to.
Advertising 101
A spaniel selling spark plugs.
Q & Q & Q & A
From Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book.
From the department of irony
I walked into CVS this afternoon. Two employees were standing at the register, each with a mask hanging from one ear. I asked if the store had COVID rapid-test kits available.
Verizon, grr
Disappointing but not necessarily surprising: Verizon might be collecting your browsing history. With directions for opting out.