“Is this the same morning, 
or a different morning?”
Count ’em. One diner: [5117 4th Avenue, Sunset Park, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections . Click for a much larger view.] And right across the street, a second: [5116 4th Avenue, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections . Click for a much larger view.] Look closely to see the Y and D design next to the Yankee Diner’s entrance, “Colored…
I caught by chance a minute of Jeopardy! yesterday. New episode? Old? No idea. Here’s what got my attention: The category: American Poetry. The answer, for $800: Poems by him include “Crowing Hen Blues,” "Po’ Boy Blues,” & “The Weary Blues” No one buzzed. See also Black Jeopardy Misses , a YouTube compendium of similar fails. For instance: The category: That Is the Question. The answer, for $800:…
Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper , by David P. Williams, is “Extremely” (18-A, six letters) difficult. I left 1-A, eight letters, “Top drawer” alone and began with 60-A, eight letters, “Siege that named an SUV.” How do I know that? A source of unhappiness in this puzzle: 24-A, six letters, “Cesky apoštol.” Printing the puzzle to fill a letter-sized page left apoštol looking more like apositol . So…
[A Zits cigar, modified.] I decided to make the cigar in today’s Zits look more cigar-like. But my son Ben went me one better. Well done, son. As Ben reminds me, Walt Duncan has sometimes been seen with a cigar, as in this 1999 strip . A related post Is this a cigar that I see before me? (Today’s Zits ) [Post title with apologies to Sigmund Freud.] You re reading a post from Michael Leddy s blog…
Elaine and I have been made honorary characters, at least on paper, in the world of Animal Crossing . Elaine’s clothing: green sweater and dress. Her catchphrase: “Isn't that cool.” Her personality: sweet. My clothing: polo shirt. My catchphrase: “You always need a pencil.” My personality: smug. These attributes were chosen for us, with the exception of smug , which I chose when presented with a…
[ Zits , August 14, 2026. Click for a larger view.] It looks a bit like a vaping device, but the puffs and the red suggest a cartoon cigar. At least Walt is setting his bad example outside the house. Notice the shirt: Bucyrus is a town in Ohio, the Zits home state. There is no Hard Rock Cafe there. Jeremy Duncan has (or recently had) a summer job at Pipkin’s, a Cincinnati grocer. There is an HRC…
Via Daring Fireball : tech developer Simon Willison offers observations and advice about blogging . Willison’s advice for someone getting started: Just start. It’s so easy to get caught in the trap of obsessing over the design of your blog, and planning for content that you never actually get around to writing. As long as each entry has a date on it and a permanent URL, it counts as a blog.…
From Merriam-Webster, an introduction to bean soup theory . (Wait — should that be bean-soup theory? Nah, don’t overthink it, Michael.) Here, from TikTok, is the recipe that prompted the theory. My favorite joke complaint: “What if you can’t eat solid food yet because you’re a newborn.” And from Delish, some further context . You re reading a post from Michael Leddy s blog Orange Crate Art . Your…
Miss Mowcher bids goodbye to David Copperfield and James Steerforth: Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (1850). Related reading All OCA Dickens posts (Pinboard) You re reading a post from Michael Leddy s blog Orange Crate Art . Your reader may not display this post as its writer intended. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 License .
From NPR : In California, tech billionaires are ramping up spending to defeat a wealth tax in the state. Google co-founder Sergey Brin has spent more than $100 million to blanket the state in ads and commercials condemning the ballot measure. The measure, known as Proposition 40, would impose a one-time 5% tax on California residents worth more than $1 billion. If passed, the tax would fund…
That’s Robert Reich’s phrasing . An excerpt from his essay: I find it deeply troubling that faux centrist groups are declaring war on progressives in the pages of The New York Times , without the Times revealing who they really are. If you bother to look at the funding sources of Third Way — those that have been made public, that is (Third Way is structured as a 501(c)(4) social welfare…
I finally called the toll-free number to ask about Silk Soymilk, which has been missing from (as they say) my grocer’s shelf for several weeks. Yes, there's a supply-chain problem. But what the Silk rep didn’t mention is that a plant in New Jersey has been shut down “amid broader struggles for the plant-based milk category in the US.” It’s not clear to me whether changes in European sourcing of…
[ Hi and Lois , August 12, 2026. Click for a larger view.] I don’t go looking for trouble: it finds me . I defy any close reader to make full sense of the background in this panel from today’s Hi and Lois . The looming black triangle is a standard Hi-Lo Amalgamated feature — I cannot object to its appearance here. The blue must be a wall; the green, the floor of a room devoid of furniture; the…
[“Be Seated.” Zippy , August 11, 2026. Click for a larger view.] Today’s Zippy offers a catalogue of diner delights. What do I like most about diners? Their democratic hospitality. Venn reading All OCA diner posts : diner and Zippy posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard) You re reading a post from Michael Leddy s blog Orange Crate Art . Your reader may not display this post as its writer intended. This…
From The Chronicle of Higher Education : “These Professors Are Retiring Early. Al Was the Last Straw.” An excerpt: Many of the faculty members who told The Chronicle they had retired or planned to retire earlier than anticipated expressed frustration with several aspects of their jobs. All of them, though, said AI loomed large in their decisions. They described feeling overwhelmed by the task of…
This alligator rules! [Context here .] You re reading a post from Michael Leddy s blog Orange Crate Art . Your reader may not display this post as its writer intended. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 License .
Venu Govindaraju, Distinguished Professor, Chief AI Officer, and Senior Vice President for Research, Innovation and Economic Development at SUNY Buffalo, calls the oral examination “the gold standard of evaluation and assessment” in academic life, as in a doctoral candidate’s dissertation defense. He envisions oral examinations at all levels in university life. And AI, he says, will be able do it.…
Méadhbh McIvor writes about AI and an online asychronous course: “My Students Weren’t Human. They Were Ghosts” ( The Chronicle of Higher Education ). An excerpt: Whether or not they had really done the work, I took it for granted that both Jeffrey and Adam were flesh-and-blood human beings — thinking, feeling people with the kinds of busy, unpredictable lives that sometimes prevented them from…
From The New York Times (gift link): “Students Skinned a Bear in a Dorm. Cornell Realized It Should Ban That.” A perfect time to invoke the alligator rule . You re reading a post from Michael Leddy s blog Orange Crate Art . Your reader may not display this post as its writer intended. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 License .
[518 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections . Click for a much larger view.] Finally: out of East Williamsburg , and not only are there sidewalks — there’s a diner. The Kellogg Diner opened in 1928. The photograph captures the installation of a neon sign — a momentous occasion for any concern. (Recall The Best Years of Our Lives , in…
Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper , by Matthew Sewell, was for me pretty joyless — difficult in ways that sparked no delight. If you had told me I’d be able to finish it, I would have pointed to 24-A, eleven letters, “Disbeliever’s hyperbole.” But I did finish, and I didn’t say 24-A. Some clue-and-answer pairs of note: 1-D, three letters, “Venerable entertainment threesome.” EMI? NBC? RCA? I took a…
A kiddo’s mondegreen : Now with an explanation of “Barn Sesame Seeds.” You re reading a post from Michael Leddy s blog Orange Crate Art . Your reader may not display this post as its writer intended. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 License .
A song heard at camp, requested at home: “Barn Sesame Seeds.” Can you figure out the real title? I couldn’t. But my daughter did. Leave your guesses in the comments. I’ll reveal the answer later today if no one has it. * The song is Terry Gilkyson’s “The Bare Necessities,” from the 1967 Disney film The Jungle Book . And who did the arrangement? Van Dyke Parks. Related reading All OCA mondegreen…
The New York Times (gift link) has a long article about the blue and the green: “How the Reflecting Pool Came to Mirror Trump’s Washington.” An excerpt: Many of the details of the saga are reported in this article for the first time. They show that the pool, which was supposed to reflect the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, became a striking reflection instead of the second Trump…
“Is this the same morning, or a different morning?” “A different morning, several months later. You were asleep for a couple of months.” Related reading All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard) [Context: I fell asleep during one morning scene in the pleasantly dreadful movie Please Don’t Eat the Daisies and woke up during another.] You re reading a post from Michael Leddy s blog Orange Crate Art .…