Jeffrey's Gallimaufry 11.10.23
A cabinet for storing specimens of mosses and lichens
Last week I was out running in Bed-Stuy. When I looked up to admire the screaming yellow leaves on a small sidewalk tree, I saw a fat wasp’s nest hanging from one of the branches. Its roundness and wrinkling seemed so perfectly sculpted that I was sure it was a fake. Then I remembered that a few months back, during high summer, when I was walking my dog near our apartment, I got annoyed at a guy straddling an electric bike in the middle of the sidewalk, talking to a young woman. I tried to squeeze past him beneath an overhanging bough, but he signaled me to walk on the other side of them. I shrugged beneath my headphones and turned to pass the woman in the sidewalk. As I looked back, the guy pointed to a fat wasp’s nest in the tree I almost walked under. Later that night, walking by with Hope, I wanted to point out the wasp’s nest, but it was gone - the only sign of where it had hung was a garland of screaming yellow caution tape identifying the spot. I can’t tell you that both wasp’s nests had the exact same roundness and wrinkling, but it seemed that way in mind.
Last week I mentioned Prague Full of Ghosts, an illustrated compendium of the Czech capital’s haunting spirits - here’s a taste of some of the less racy images. (Dash picked it up from my side table at one point and then dropped it like a steaming Necronomicon after flipping past a brothel image.)
The new Lydia Davis collection - Our Strangers - is a perpetual delight. Worth noting: it’s the first book in the new imprint series from Bookshop.org, the online alliance of independent bookstores, and is unavailable for sale via Amazon or chain stores. (I took my copy out from the NYPL.)
One piece, called “Pardon the Intrusion,” is one of the longest stories in her long career of very short stories. It’s a 30-page collection of entries from what seems to be a college-town listserv, and each one reads like a comically banal riff on Hemingway’s famous “baby shoes” bit. The full effect requires reading them all in a row, but I can’t help highlighting a few of my favorites.
Trusty iMac available. It’s working fine. Articles just write themselves.
Pork butts claimed. Thanks, guys!
Greetings. I’ll be going out of town in early August and my turtle is interested in paying someone to stop by 3-4 times to drop some lettuce off with him. Please contact me on his behalf if you know someone who might be interested.
Pardon the intrusion, but I and the Professor have a surfeit of borage. Any suggestions?
Thank you for all your input regarding the gastroenterologist.
We are missing a package that was sent to the archivist. It contains a photograph of the South H. Drinking Society Farewell Party. (Francis is with the clock and the pipe.)
Wanted: Rubber ducks. I will pick up.
Seeking somewhere to move into that is along a stream somewhere. I don’t mind inconvenience.
My son dropped (or more accurately, threw) his cell phone and it no longer works. Does anyone have a used, working, Verizon cell phone to sell?
Does anyone have a recommendation for a competent, non-charlatan podiatrist in the area?
We are letting go of yet another bed.
Thanks! Fake turkey found. Come see “Oliver,” the weekend of March 24th!
Seeking old-style card file cabinet with drawers - inside width of drawer must be slightly greater than six inches (this is for storing paper packets containing specimens of mosses and lichens).
Hello all, from a notary: I am a notary in need of a notary that can notarize a quit claim deed.
Does anyone have six clean bricks?
I was very intrigued by this post from Dynomight that speculates about the motivations of “tunnel man,” a man who is, well, obsessed with digging a tunnel underneath his property. What at first appears to be a cautionary tale turns out to be a surprisingly wholesome endorsement of ostensibly unproductive recreation. I’m not sure whether Freud would agree with Dynomight’s characterization of tunnel digging as the opposite of pornography, but this accompanying chart, which categorizes human activities according to their optimized by either evolution or engineering, is a fascinating way to consider how we choose to spend our time.
Last weekend we visited a farm to pet some animals and met a small clergyman.
The Roebling Principle: the volume of tourists crossing the Brooklyn Bridge at any time will expand to fill the entire width of the path
I found Henry McCausland’s 2020 graphic novel Eight-Lane Runaways fantastic in every sense of the word. It’s the sort of book that is more of an experience than a story, following a series of characters as they race along an endless track that wends its way through a forested world of surreal vignettes. A disarming sense of emotional longing emanates from its goofy details. It’s hard to describe much of what happens, but the world it takes place in feels alive. Here are a few pics.
In light of what I wrote about earlier this week, this feels like a work of “pure imagination,” very much in contrast to the observation-illuminating imagination that Lydia Davis exemplifies above. And yet, I find both delightful! I have no idea what I’m talking about most of the time.
It turns out Toni Basil’s iconic “Mickey” video was originally part of a 30-minute special recorded for the BBC sometime between 1981 and 1983. The whole thing is tremendous - weird, wonky choreography and great use of character dancers. For my money, the highlight is her cover of Devo’s “Be Stiff,” but there’s plenty of other good stuff in here. Also, Toni Basil is 80, which makes me feel 80.
Just a little late for Hallowen, the indispensable Public Domain Review shared images from a 1692 Japanese manuscript with a delightful array of cavorting skellingtons.
The reality behind the work is both less antic and more fascinating than the images themselves - it purports to be a printed version of a hand-drawn manuscript by the 14th-century Ikkyū, a royal bastard, gleeful libertine, haunted ascetic, poet, artist, and philosopher who took the pen name “Mad Cloud” and consorted with the equally evocatively named “Hell Courtesan.” It’s worth reading the short essay on his life and then scrolling through his images of lively death.
One of the unexpected pleasures of living in a largely Hasidic neighborhood is the sirens. Every Friday evening, two sirens blare across the area - one a half-hour before sunset, and one at sunset on the dot. Stowed away inside their devotional message is a secular capitalist one: Put away your work, prepare for your rest. Whatever time it says on your phone, it’s five o’ clock right here.
Happy weekend, everyone!