Language Follies 14

Today is Wednesday, June 26. Two days ago, on Monday evening, June 24, at 10:53 EDT, the National Hockey League concluded its season on ice in Sunrise, Florida, where the temperature reached 89 degrees during the day. Makes perfect sense, right? 

I am a great hockey fan, but I had had enough before the last puck was dropped. We are in an era of sport bloat, wherein leagues, conferences, international associations expand tournaments, add new teams and new exhibitions, and generally do their best to make their sport a yearlong, practically non-stop business. 

And we, the poor public, are asked to support the bloat by purchasing a + or two. You know what a + is: it’s a sign that a streaming network wants your money. A few months ago, New York magazine pointed out that if a diehard New York Yankee fan wanted to watch his team’s next four broadcasts, he would have to have four different subscriptions. Certainly not a + for his wallet. 

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On the Fruit Front 

(A) Peach

How would you like a Peach Orchard Punch (hey, it’s on sale, too)? 

Except it’s not so peachy—check the ingredients!

B) Pineapple

What does this pineapple stand for?

The answer: nothing.

OK. What does this pineapple stand for?

The answer:

Obvious, wasn’t it?

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Today’s Wisdom of the Wall

“Payments Unlock Futures”

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Perhaps you’d care for another fruit punch

I don’t know what you get with this $29.99 bunch of beets, but it ain’t borscht. 

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Here is perhaps the final word about casting actors outside of their ethnicity

From The New Yorker review of the movie version of The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960):

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And over to Broadway in 1960 . . .

Here’s an example of what The New Yorker would call “The Clouded Crystal Ball”:

From the review of Gore Vidal’s The Best Man (April 9, 1960)

  

Spaced-Out

In 1960, when I had to write an essay answer on the English comprehensive examination for my master’s degree at Columbia University, I chose the topic that was related to Space (I do not recall how it was worded, but that’s neither here nor there). I began my essay by pointing out that by calling what is beyond Earth as “space” we imply that there is an emptiness there. However, I went on, in past times humans thought that “space” was inhabited by all sorts of beings—gods, angels, and what Alexander Pope called “The light militia of the lower sky.”*

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Space has, over the years been a testing ground for outrageous conspiracy theories. Perhaps the one that is most familiar to us Americans is the imputation that the United States never landed a man on the moon—that all the supposed moon landings were elaborate, expensive hoaxes, perpetrated by NASA, with the desert in Arizona or New Mexico substituting for the surface of the Earth’s satellite.

Moon landing conspiracy theories  claim that some or all elements of the  Apollo program  and the associated  Moon landings  were  hoaxes  staged by  NASA, possibly with the aid of other organizations. The most notable claim of these  conspiracy theories  is that the  six crewed landings (1969–1972)  were faked and that  twelve Apollo astronauts  did not actually land on the  Moon. Various groups and individuals have made claims since the mid-1970s that NASA and others knowingly misled the public into believing the landings happened, by manufacturing, tampering with, or destroying evidence including photos,  telemetry  tapes, radio and TV transmissions, and Moon rock  samples.**

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I bring this up today because I have just discovered the following in my research into old New Yorker magazines. Responding to the first manned orbit of the Earth by the USSR’s Yuri Gagarin. the columnist David Lawrence wrote a disputatious article in the New York Herald Tribune under the headline 

REDS' SECRECY RAISES QUERY:

DID GAGARIN REALLY ORBIT?

Was the Soviet stunt in outer space, as announced officially from Moscow, a hoax?

Granted that something went around the earth, was a man really in it, or did the astronaut merely make a separate flight similar to that which an American airman, Joseph Albert Walker, recently made in an X-15 rocket plane at an altitude of 32 miles? These questions are being asked by scientists because there are some obvious discrepancies in the boastful account of his trip given by Major Yuri Gagarin.***

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So, yes indeed, there are humans who believe in the emptiness of Space and that nothing human could penetrate it. 

Meanwhile, the Chinese claim to have sent a rocket to the dark side of the moon to collect rocks there.

Do you believe that?

I have bridge to sell you.

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* Though I didn’t know of that reference then.

** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories

*** Quoted by A. J. Liebling in his article “The Wayward Press” in The New Yorker, April 29, 1961. Liebling with the utmost sarcasm calls Lawrence 

Language Follies 13 (I Can See Clearly Now)

Do You Trust the Hathaway Man?

Commercial Craziness

I hate television commercials. I always turn the sound off when one looms. Generally, I also avoid looking at the screen until, by a glance, I see that my show (usually a sporting event) has resumed. However, in my peeping at the tube, I have noticed a strange trend relating to SUVs. It appears that their only purpose in life is to be driven to the edge of a cliff.

Advertisement Craziness

I have no idea what this means:

Banality of the Day

“If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

(What if life neglects to give you sugar also?)

Lost to History

People have been making lists of formerly-ubiquitous items (like dial telephones and typewriters) that have outlived their usefulness or have been superseded by other inventions. Add to your list traveler’s checks (even American Express no longer issues them).

No Present like The Times

After many years of subscribing, I had to give up getting the daily paper many moons ago because of erratic delivery in my portion of Ultima Thule. Before the hard copies stopped coming, I sensed that the paper was edging away from me. There were two portents in the Styles section. First, there was an article extolling the merits of wearing designer Band-aids—even when not scratched or bleeding. Second was the search by a contributor who was keen to discover his “signature scent.” 

This week I was given reason to wonder if the paper was edited for any real human beings. The object of my concern was an article entitled “$2 Million Homes in Buenos Aires.”*  The article described three interesting housing options in the capital of Argentina. Now, here’s where the Times lost me. How many people eager to uproot themselves to the Southern Hemisphere, I wondered, had 2 million smackers underneath the sofa pillows just ready to plunge them down on property in Buenos Aires? Did the Times first survey its readership to determine if there are numbers of such dissatisfied (rich) persons itching for a change? At a production meeting did the discussion go as follows?

“Let’s see: we have 15 readers who would like Montevideo; 37 for Rio; 69 for Buenos Aires; and 13 for Lima.”

“Then it’s Argentina for us. Geoffrey, get someone in Real Estate to dig up some apartments—make ‘em fancy. Kinda like Soho-ish.”

Ahead of the Times

Probably no group of humans are more prescient than cartoonists. Here is a drawing by James Stevenson for the November 16, 1960 issue of The New Yorker—and a picture of the automobile Elon Musk shot into space on February 6, 2018.

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 * https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/realestate/2-million-homes-in-buenos-aires.html?campaign_id=301&emc=edit_ypgu_20240531&instance_id=125056&nl=your-places%3A-global-update&regi_id=84409848&segment_id=168375&te=1&user_id=5604655212f4529172fd380b16fc901d

 

Salvation and Destruction

And so the ballots for Miss Rheingold were saved!

But, in 1959, safety for the populace wasn’t assured. Indeed, even the beer was a threat, on-going open-air nuclear testing having produced fallout of strontium-90(1)

And, of course, there was the continuing Cold War confrontation with nuclear-armed Soviet Union, although the greatest danger of a nuclear holocaust was still three years in the future—the Cuban missile crisis. 

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I have been monitoring coverage in The New Yorker of the threat of nuclear destruction during the late 1950s. The magazine itself inaugurated a feature during 1959 called “These Precious Days.” 

Here is an excerpt from one of those columns:

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Here are some cartoons and other material The New Yorker published during the years from 1956 to 1959. The excerpts below range from the fatuous to whistling past the graveyard. 

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And lest we think that 65 years later we are no longer dwelling under the volcano, there’s this cartoon by Barbara Smaller, published just 3 weeks ago:

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(1) Strontium-90 can be inhaled, but ingestion in food and water is the greatest health concern. Once in the body, Sr-90 acts like calcium and is readily incorporated into bones and teeth, where it can cause cancers of the bone, bone marrow, and soft tissues around the bone.

https://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclide-basics-strontium-90

 

Protest the Rigged Election

I refuse to accept the result of the 1959 Miss Rheingold contest!

I have multiple reasons to object that rigged election. Here are some of my reasons:

1. The election was conducted in bars and other premises that serve or sell alcoholic beverages. Which meant that any DRUNK could cast a ballot unopposed.
2. There were no provisions for keeping people from voting MORE THAN ONCE.
3. There were no provisions for keeping drinkers of OTHER BEERS from voting.
4. The ballot boxes were UNSECURED and could be tampered with overnight.
5. The ballot itself was FLAWED. The eventual winner, Robbin Bain, was optimally placed—top row, center—to attract voters. 
   
   
   
6. To further indicate that there was a major conspiracy involving Miss Bain’s candidacy, she was hired by NBC—MAINSTREAM MEDIA—after completing her tenure as Miss Rheingold.*

If Rheingold beer was not extinct, I would urge you to join me in a nationwide boycott of the brand.

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* “Robbin Mele Gaudieri, who, as Robbin Bain, embodied traditional women’s roles as the winner of a beauty contest designed to promote beer in 1959 and later as the “Today Girl,” handling fashion and beauty segments on the popular NBC-TV morning show . . .”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/04/business/media/robbin-bain-dead.html