Distraction-free devices
In The New Yorker, Julian Lucas wonders whether “distraction-free devices” can change the way we write. I was distracted by errors of fact about Ralph Ellison and Frank O’Hara.
Orange Crate Art
The Greek alphabet and us
A Washington Post article about the Greek alphabet in our time.
A gang of six
Andy Biggs, Mo Brooks, Louie Gohmert, Paul Gosar, Jim Jordan, and Scott Perry: fascists at work.
From the carny world
In The New York Times, Brooks Barnes writes about Nightmare Alley and his life as the child of carnies.
Almodóvar in the Times
“To find his American equivalent, you would have to imagine that the director of American Pie went on to make American Beauty and then a film that touches the ugliest aspects of the American Civil War.”
Yikes
Our own Mary Miller ((R, Illinois-15) made the PBS NewsHour tonight. An unmasked Marjorie Taylor Greene sat behind her.
Domestic comedy
“Pepperidge Farm forgot.”
Frank Cook (1942–2021)
He preceded Adolfo “Fito” de la Parra as the drummer for Canned Heat and later became a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst.
Mary Miller, troublemaker
In office for nearly one year, Miller hasn’t done a damn thing for the people of her district — except make us look like idiots to the world beyond “east-central Illinois.”
“Mandit”?
An NPR reporter pronounced mandate that way, three times in one story: “mandit.”
“Some rocks”
Imagine if Robert Frost had been out walking: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / When all at once I saw some rocks.”
From the PBS NewsHour
The house had a trick floor, with a small section of one floorboard that was held to the rest of the board by a metal pin at each end.
Recently updated
A Brooklyn candy store with a Saturday Night Fever connection, or almost.
Another Brooklyn candy store
I remember buying reprints of old comics at Mary’s, including one with a hero who discovered his superpower when pulling baked potatoes outta the fire for the gang.
Today’s Saturday Stumper
“What follows a successful shakedown.”
Here in downstate Illinois
We had strong wind and rain, but the closest tornado (quite close) bypassed our town, or nearly all of it. Other places were not nearly so lucky.
Shadows
From Johnny O’Clock (dir. Robert Rossen, 1947).
Night and the city
From Johnny O’Clock (dir. Robert Rossen, 1947).
Barry Harris (1929–2021)
Pianist, teacher.
Giant telephone
From Life magazine.
Telephone FTW?
James Surowiecki suggests that the world of work bring back the telephone.
Overheard
“Oh, it’s jazz. All they do is improvise.”
A mail chute in the movies
This mail chute filled the screen.
Doris Miller and democracy
From the December 7 installment of Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American.
Pronouncing omicron
From The Wall Street Journal : “However You Pronounce ‘Omicron,’ You’re Probably Saying It Wrong.”
Chock full o’Nuts sighting
In Street of Sinners (dir. William Berke, 1957).
The non-breaking hyphen
One exists.
Recently updated
Another word of the year: allyship.
Heebie-jeebies
“The geek — he’s got the heebie-jeebies again”: a great line from Nightmare Alley (dir. Edmund Goulding, 1947).
Hallmark Holiday Movie Bot
Some are funnier than others, but for some reason, they all follow a pattern.