#Brooklynese

[laskinpublishing]

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Now: Don Laskin’s Uncalled for Commentary on Just About Anything That's Often None of His Business

Even More Tales of The Pine Center

Back in the Forties through the Fifties, in the foothills of the Catskills in Upstate New York, my family owned The Pine Center, a small hotel in what the city people called “The Mountains”. These are their stories.

The Soda Magnate

I was cute. I mean REALLY cute. Well, at least that was the consensus among female hotel guests who couldn’t help pinching my cheeks till they were rosy red…and swelling to the size of watermelons. I exaggerate...cantaloupes.

Worst of all were the two-fisted pinchers. They’d take a cheek in each hand, twist my little head so I’d be looking up at them and squeeze thumb to forefinger on each cheek exclaiming in roughly transliterated Yiddish,” Zaya-a-shane-a.. Zaya-a-kloogeh”, which my limited anglicized understanding translated to “handsome; and so smart.” Still holding fast, they’d add in English, “Ooh, I could just eat him up.”  Fearing there was that possibility, the instant I felt their fingers loosen I was gone.

As it happens, I was exotic as well as cute. These people had never seen a real live country boy with an accent as foreign to them as their Bronxite and Brooklynese was to me. Example:

“You a native?” the kid asked me.

“Uh-huh”

“I’m from Nuh Bronx.”

“New Bronx?” I asked for clarification.

“T-H-E”, he spelled out, adding, ‘”Bronx,” then put it all together, “Nuh Bronx.”

I can’t remember if I’d learned to spell yet, but I got the gist. Eventually, however, we natives and the invaders from New York were able to converse. And once a trading language was established, I began my first tentative steps in the business world selling soda at dinner time and ice cream in the afternoons.

Now our guests literally feasted from morning till night. After a breakfast of orange juice, eggs, bagels, herring, toast, French toast, pancakes, and more, there was a slightly lighter lunch a few hours later to tide them over till a dinner that started with fruit cocktail, cantaloupe or honey dew, followed by chicken fricassee or chopped chicken liver. Then came barley, corn or possibly chicken noodle soup. A main dish of roast beef, pot roast, roast chicken or steak came with a number of sides. Topping things off would be dessert like my Mom’s lemon meringue pie and cookies filled with raisins, cherries and nuts.

The price of the food was included in the accommodations. So no one could really complain about a kid charging a paltry ten cents for a bottle of soda. Also, did I mention that everybody thought I was really cute?

Of course soda wasn’t the only available beverage. We didn’t have a liquor license, so no beer or hard liquor. However, there was hard water. Pumped fresh from our well, the minerals dissolved in it made for lousy lathers, but a unique flavor people raised on city water couldn’t get enough of.

While ice cold well water may have cut into my profits, I made out pretty well — well enough to keep me in bubble gum baseball cards and every issue of Classic Illustrated I could lay my hands on. These comic books were adaptations of literary classics such as Les Misérables, Moby-Dick and Hamlet and proved an invaluable time and energy saver in my later academic career. But, I digress — As I said, I was making out pretty well, so well in fact though I can’t say I remember it happening, it became family lore. It seems that when my pockets got so heavy with change that my dungarees sagged (no jeans in those days) threatening to go down and take my shorts with them, I purportedly told people I had enough money and they didn’t have to pay. Since I am admittedly a rotten businessman, there could be some truth lurking in the retelling.

HOWEVER, the following incidents I remember well. Now, diet soda was a fairly new thing back then, so new that our soda distributor didn’t carry any. At dinner when I went around taking orders, a thin lady with thin lips, a thin face and thin aquiline nose asked me for diet soda. Informing her I didn’t have any, she told me about a store where I could buy it for her.

Everybody in a service business knows the customer’s always right. Naturally however, this doesn’t apply to a kid on summer vacation whose priorities run to swimming, playing hide and seek, climbing apple trees to get to the fruit, building a club house in the woods, reading comic books, collecting bottle caps, catching Monarch butterflies, etc..

The next day when the thin lady with thin lips, thin face and thin aquiline nose again asked about the diet soda, I replied, “I don’t have it,” adding under my breath, “but you sure could use it.” Yes I know. She was already thin. But I was a kid without a fully developed sarcastic vocabulary.

“What did you say?” she called after me as I made my escape pretending not to hear. “Little boy! Oh little boy! Come here little boy!”  Somehow I managed to avoid the thin lady with thin lips, thin face and thin aquiline nose for the rest of her stay.

That story reminds of this one. My father had turned off the water to one of our bungalows to repair a pipe. When he was done, he asked me to run over and make sure the water was on again. Now the top of the door had four panes of clear glass at my eye level. When I knocked, a stark naked lady came to the door. Caesar said, “Veni. Vidi. Vici.” (“I came. I saw. I conquered.”) Donny said, “Veni. Vidi. Cucurri.”(I came. I saw. I ran.”)

Okay, I never said it, but I sure did it. Bolting off the bungalow’s tiny porch I headed out full speed as the lady called after me, “Little boy…little boy…come back, little boy.” No, it was not the same lady as in the diet soda affair. As a matter of fact I distinctly remember this lady as being pleasingly Rubenesque. What she was thinking I couldn’t guess.

Oh, the water was on.

A PERSONAL NOTE:

If you followed my posts (and surprisingly some of you do), you know I tried to get one out every week or so. This is my first one since the end of August when I had a spinal stenosis flare up (translation: damned nasty back ache). I was allergic to the drug I was prescribed causing more problems including a couple of weeks of withdrawal and was likely a contributing factor to a fall that damned near broke my kneecap.

Dorothy Parker said, “I hate writing, but love having written.” Writing is a painful process. Add a dose of physical pain and…well that’s what’s taken so long.

Best,

Don

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[cityoftheangelllls]

Mario Movie Predictions I Have So Far!

There's going to be some joke about Mario's full name being Mario Mario. Some character in the Mushroom Kingdom is gonna question it, I'm sure, and if would be funny if Mario explained that it was an error on his birth certificate or something.

Bowser's going to have a musical number!!! (I'm 99% sure this is going to happen since Jack Black hinted at Bowser having a musical side)

Mario and Luigi are going to be Italian American and have Brooklynese accents like they did in the DIC animated series. I think it's gonna happen since I heard a slight accent in Chris Pratt's Mario voice based on the few spoken lines he had in the trailer!

Donkey Kong is going to do the Seth Rogen laugh

There's going to be a bunch of references to older Mario media, such as the three animated shows by DIC, and, if we're lucky, the 1986 anime movie!!

If there's a reference to Mama Luigi I will die

Luigi's Mansion reference!!!!!

DAISY!!!!!! (Paget Brewster would be a perfect fit for her voice)

Luigi having a brave moment!

At least one brother hug between Mario and Luigi! I haven't stopped thinking about it since I saw the trailer since I'm weak for those heartwarming moments! I want to see Luigi scoop up his "big little brother" and swing him around in his embrace, I just want the FEEEEEEEELLLLLLSSSSS

Also they BETTER NOT DO MY BOY LUIGI DIRTY

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Mae West in Diamond Lil, which she also wrote, at the Royale Theatre, April 1928. The actor in center, who plays a singing waiter, is Frank Wallace. Diamond Lil, about a racy woman in the 1890s, was West's first major Broadway success, and was the basis for her character Lady Lou in her 1933 film She Done Him Wrong.

Her admirers come back to see her after the show, and for two hours after the final curtain Mae is in the costume of the bad lady of the nineties, wig and corset and tight-fitting gown. The gown is immensely becoming in spite of its grotesqueries. If the evening is warm she’ll take off a couple of outer garments as she laughs over the foibles of the day, adding comments in her husky, Brooklynese drawl, always the Little Queen.

“People want dirt in plays, so I give ‘em dirt. See? They can be dull at home, but in the theatre they want excitement. They want to feel, not think. Know what I mean?” . . . “Love, say, what I could tell you about that! But I would have to take a couple of days off to do the subject justice. Know what I mean?”

     —from "Mae West, the Queen of New York" by Thyra Samter Winslow, in the November 2, 1928 issue of The New Yorker

Photo: Associated Press

[freakartack]

I know you base your art around the Smooth Moves style (right? Am I right? uuuuhh…) but what about the voices in your head?

Er, I mean their voices. The character voices. For instance, do you prefer to hear Jimmy as a disco king bass from the older games, or a smooth talkin baritone like in the newest games?

You are right LOL my favorite warioware art style (and game) is twisted but for the most part the timeframe of all my comics is encompassed by a nebulous "smooth moves era". The first warioware sets the game in "200X" and that's pretty much my mindset writing these. The voices in my head (LOL) pretty much reflect that with few exceptions - for jimmy i definitely still imagine his deeper voice from his glory days, although i do appreciate how expressive the new voice is. My one notable exception to this rule is spitz, because........

try as i might i cannot get myself to imagine his lines in this voice. The closest i can get is if i imagine him sounding like shriek from catdog? But it's not something i can naturally get my brain to do without thinkin about it. But i don't even really imagine his new voice either. I have been trying to put a finger on what the voice i do imagine for him comes from for quite some time and I honestly think it's just meowth. Not a 1:1 meowth - i think of spitz as sounding a little deeper-voiced and less nasally - but after much soul-searching i really think that pokemon was just so seminal to my brain development that it set the standard for all other brooklynese cats in my life. Sorry spitz.

[kylo-wrecked]

@silverjetsystm sent :// "' Politics is a dirty game.' [Music!Ben, Lockley.]"

from { this meme }

— ☾ —

Autumn is late, and The Village is July-hot, a pressure cooker of weather like Satan's asshole and unchecked rage. The Twilight Zone declarations in Brooklynese, the high, gliding vowels of Gothamist resignation, cooperative overlaps of "fuckinbirlinherebutwaddayagonnado" and "moida" beneath preemptively changing leaves. 

Ben is late meeting Lockley. Fashionably late. He's wearing a well-fitted, if bland, designer tee with never-wash Dussaults and shoes from Fluevog's flagship store. A constellation of broken blood vessels threads the lower right corner of Ben's mouth, where the cabbie clocked him two weeks ago during their tete-a-tete in the back seat. Esquire would have called it toothsome, electric. Ben took a photo of the bruise.

He doesn't bother to hide the flask when he approaches Lockley in Washington Square Park. The first thing he does is take a swig, thumbing the cracked leather sheathe. The aperitif inside tastes like grape juice; Ben stops himself from making a crack about Manischewitz. 

"I've dealt with politics cleaner than the back of your car." 

Ben sucks in his grin, molding his face into a work by Schiele, tests the waters with a cant of the head, a measure of Lockley's height and gait, his general shape. Oh yeah. He kind of wants to keep his teeth. 

"Joking," Ben says, his lips about as drunk as he is, loose and soft. "Joking. But, you know. Jake? Yeah, Jake. Listen, Jake. You're a smart cookie, man. You're fire on the BQE. But what do industry politics have to do with wherever the fuck my phone is?" 

Now he grins, big, flashy. His tongue lolls. Ben invites Lockley to do his worst, so he can sit back and enjoy the fucking show. 

[croaken-the-oaken]

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie 2023” Review: It Wasn’t Mid

***1 or 2 spoilers but not really***

Another video game movie. And this time, it’s starring Mario Mario, Mr. Video Game, himself. The Internet is shook. Nintendo, teaming with Illumination. It could very well set the standard for video game movies to follow. One thing is clear, all eyes are on this movie. 

My sister was especially excited for it. Me, I told myself I was watching out of obligation, since I didn’t want to miss out on the newest of the turbulent fancies of the Internet.

A number of doubts mixed with potential had settled in. Adapting movies from video games isn’t a terrible concept. It depends on the series. But this is Mario, what does he bring to the table? A colorful world and character list and, for two things. Then there’s the studio that infected the world with Minions. While Illumination falls back to safe tactics when it comes to storytelling and humor, they do have the talent in animation, and I knew the looming eyes of Shigeru Miyamoto-san would not allow the Mario movie to be less than amazing.

With all the factors to consider, my expectations were firmly set to “mid, at least.”

After watching, my conclusion is “Better than mid. Dare I say, good. Great, even.”.

It’s a movie. Actually, no, it’s a MOVIE! You got character arcs and motivations. You got worldbuilding. You got colorful graphics and settings. You got references sprinkled on like it’s a cupcake, even down to the background music. You get to see Mama Mia and Papa Pia!

It takes the loose bits and pieces of Mario canon, strings them together and retools them to make another thing, old but new, as is to be expected. Brooklynese Mario, brotherly bonds, Bowser’s love life, action Peach, power-ups as a power system, Kong society, etc. The narrative never strays far from its roots, and no one was asking it to.

On the off-chance someone has never heard of “the Super Mario Bros.” what are they left with? A quick romp through peculiar kingdoms and bright setpieces and nonsensical architecture, the adventure of a determined everyman searching for his bro, a corny yet actively threatening villain, a kart-racing monkey tribe, and a classic moral theme of not giving up so you can say your kid learned something from this experience.

Also, the more typical Illumination-esque quirks are few and far between, and it’s tolerable. The pop-music? Fine. Passable. They fit their moments well enough. The jokes land more often than not and don’t rely on cheap tactics. When the water started bubbling around Mario and Donkey Kong, I completely expected one of them to say “it wasn’t me”. But they didn’t, and I appreciate that. Nihilistic Luma was a bit forced, though.

The movie is fast-paced and doesn’t linger too long on characters’ low moments. It keeps the momentum going, but it doesn’t allow the more dramatic parts much time to sink in. I didn’t find it to be overwhelming, though I imagine this could be off-putting for some. I propose this kinetic pace is a byproduct of its source.

Miyamoto’s general philosophy of “gameplay-first, story-second” is a big contributor to Nintendo’s success—it makes good games. The problem is a lot of people mistake “second” for “last”. The neat part of the video game medium is that gameplay and story needn’t always grow at the other’s expense. One can reinforce the other. The man knows this, and this philosophy carries over into the Mario movie.

Rather than adapt a minimalistic-story game franchise into a movie, they adapted the movie into a game of how many secrets you can find in a given shot as the story progresses. We’re tugged along a guided tour of Mario legacy, and the world invites us over to be active participants and challenges us to eyeball every reference poking out from behind each corner.

It helps that it’s one of those good movies where the references and cameos have a reason to exist beyond being there. Is it a backdrop? That’s certified worldbuilding, baby. Is it at the forefront? It probably serves a primary purpose in the scene. It means the difference between respecting and insulting the viewer’s intelligence, and the film respects its viewers, whether a reference manifests as a generalized fun moment or as a reward for long-time fans.

They set out to create a lighthearted run through Mario’s world with emotional beats as checkpoints, and that’s what they made. It has its quirks, but I enjoyed myself, and it made my sister happy.

If one thing is true, it's that it is indeed the Super Mario Bros. Movie.

Rating: A Mario Time / 5

[whileiamdying]

Mae West, the Queen of New York

If you’ve seen Mae West on the stage in “Diamond Lil,” running eight months now, and tickets on sale for New Year’s Eve, or in “Sex,” which ran eleven months last year, you’ve probably pictured her as a large woman—a bit gross-looking. She’s neither large nor heavy, almost slight, except in personality. At that, she is probably the only woman in America who doesn’t want to look thin. She feels that curves are far more appealing than angles, and won’t accept photographs that do not show her a bit more voluptuous and rounded than the slim silhouette the modern woman has succeeded in making popular.

Mae West, who writes her own plays and then stars in them, is one hundred per cent good showman. Her showmanship is apparent always, natural, inborn. She may have added to it, learned a trick here and there, but her ability to put herself over and her delight in doing it is a trait that could not have been acquired.

Mae knows that a star still in the make-up of the play is far more interesting, even to those who know the theatre, than an overdressed little woman in street clothes. Her admirers come back to see her after the show, and for two hours after the final curtain Mae is in the costume of the bad lady of the nineties, wig and corset and tight-fitting gown. The gown is immensely becoming in spite of its grotesqueries. If the evening is warm she’ll take off a couple of outer garments as she laughs over the foibles of the day, adding comments in her husky, Brooklynese drawl, always the Little Queen.

“People want dirt in plays, so I give ‘em dirt. See? They can be dull at home, but in the theatre they want excitement. They want to feel, not think. Know what I mean?” . . . “Love, say, what I could tell you about that! But I would have to take a couple of days off to do the subject justice. Know what I mean?”

Critics, and writers on the lesser Broadway publications, old actors, and the rather smart crowd that likes to know the newest professional success, drop in for a glass of near-beer from the bar in the old-fashioned saloon right on the stage. They tell her how good she is and Mae is courteous, amused, always optimistic, glad to see everyone, dropping fairly good, though somewhat trite, epigrams, peppered with bad grammar and made important because of her drawl and her insinuations. She ends her sentences with “Know what I mean?” or “See?”—sometimes combining the two.

Mae West has little interest in anything outside the theatre. Her reading is confined usually to Variety or any occasional newspaper. She does not even know the names of important theatrical figures unless she has come into direct contact with them. The other night Ina Claire came to see “Diamond Lil.” When Mae West was told she was out front she said, “All right, bring her in. But who is she?”

Clubs and cards and outdoor activities do not amuse her. The things that interest most people are of the utmost indifference to her. She is a bit interested in the occult and in spiritualism, has attended a séance or two, and is “considering” attending others. Even on days when there are no matinées she goes to her dressing-room around two or three to plan her next play or think about some of the intricacies that are beginning to engulf her, that make life so much less simple than when she did a “strong act” or was a blues singer in vaudeville. She is most professional around the theatre, is very particular about lighting effects and about noises in front that might affect a big scene.

A handsome, middle-aged admirer or two can usually be seen around the theatre, keeping away unwelcome interviewers and making themselves generally useful. Sometimes there are other younger men in attendance. Mae says she’s not in love, and hopes she won’t fall in love for a while—until she has more time for it. Of course she’s always been interested in men, she’ll tell you. “Just infatuations, though. Know what I mean?”

Mae is secretive, almost to the point of mystery, about her family, her past—a curious secretiveness. Her success has made her a little afraid. Old acquaintances wouldn’t look her up if they didn’t want something—if she were a failure, now, would they?

Excepting the dates, however, the main events of Mae’s life are not entirely shrouded in mystery, but since her prosperity she is building up a very pleasant past, much as we all build up pasts when success overtakes us, smoothing out events here and there, adding glamour to those that were not glamorous, deleting where deletion seems necessary. She admits having a father, a mother, a brother, a sister. She is a bit vague about them. Her sister is Beverly Osborne, the girl in “Diamond Lil” who plays the young innocent who gets sent to South America. Beverly is married to a Russian, Count Treshatny. She was in vaudeville in songs and sketches until Mae’s success provided her with an opportunity on the legitimate stage. Mae’s brother has an automobile exchange. Of her father Mae says, “His name is Jack West—J. E. See? He used to be a prizefighter. He’s a doctor now, practicing medicine in Richmond Hill.” The Jewish publications claim Miss West as a member of their faith, but she says that her grandmother was a Copley and claims Harry Thaw as her relative. Her mother is a plain, comfortable, kindly woman. Mae’s age is one of her mysteries. The record at Blackwell’s Island shows that she was born in 1900, but there might be a mistake in the entry, of course.

Mae’s early days, she said, were spent in her rich grandmother’s home in Greenpoint. “In Greenpurnt. See?” Then the family moved to Bushwick Avenue near Linden Street.

Mae had very little formal education. She went to a Brooklyn public school until she was eight or ten. Then, with long blonde curls, she appeared at amateur nights. A darling, I’m sure, with some of the same personality and energy she has today. She did imitations of Eva Tanguay, George Cohan, Eddie Foy, and the others of the period who served best for mimicries.

So good was her act—or so attractive and forceful her personality—that she got all the prizes. This led to an engagement with Hal Clarendon’s Stock Company at the Gotham Theatre in East New York. Here she became a child actress, playing in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” as Little Eva, in “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” “For Their Children’s Sake,” “The Three Courtiers,” “The Moonshiner’s Daughter,” and “East Lynne.” And when the bill didn’t call for a child actress she sang songs between the acts, in the olios. She sang “That ’Cello Melody,” “The Robert E. Lee,” “Barber Shop Chord,” “The Piano Man,” and “Oceana Roll.”

From the Clarendon Stock she went into vaudeville, the usual next step. She included weight-lifting in her act and she says she can still carry four men on her shoulders. Even then she was self-centred, a bit greedy for the spotlight, optimistic, eager for success, frank, amusing, calm, cold and warmhearted in turn.

Broadway became Mae-West-conscious when she was a vaudeville headliner. She was on the Keith circuit and played the Colonial, where she was the first to put on the shimmy. She achieved the Palace, too, and always had a good act. She always had her own accompanist—“So-and-So at the Piano.” She picked these accompanists because of their personality—and discovered half a dozen celebrities. Harry Richman, one of her discoveries, was sent to her among twenty pianists, and she picked him out “because of his personality.” His name was Reichman then. She couldn’t pronounce it.

“Do you mind changing your name?” she asked. “You’re not so prominent. Change it to Richman. It will be easier for me—and a better name for you, too.” Vincent Lopez was another whose talents she recognized at a tryout at Charles K. Harris’ office.

Jack Smith, at one time her pianist, was sure he couldn’t sing when she asked him to.

“Just whisper it,” said Mae. “It’ll get over all right.” He did whisper it, and became well known as Whispering Jack Smith. Another of Mae’s discoveries, Barry O’Neal, had had a small part in “The Dark Angel” until Mae made him her leading man.

When the shimmy went out Mae went on to Higher Things. In a Shubert revue, in a number called “Shakespeare’s Garden of Love,” she was elegant as Cleopatra. Earl Carroll wanted to star her.

She read plays, looking for a part she liked. Since she could find no suitable star parts for herself, Mae wrote “Sex.” People thought it vulgar, ridiculous, or funny, or a perfectly terrible play, laughed—and sent their friends to see the show.

When “Sex” had been running eleven months New York became strait-laced over night, and “The Captive,” “The Virgin Man,” and “Sex” were brought to task. The first two plays closed before the trial. Mae, however, stood trial, was sent to Welfare Island for twelve days, got a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of free publicity, made friends with everyone on the place—and a few months later returned as a guest of honor, with a dozen clubwomen, who were putting on a publicity stunt for the Woman’s National Democratic Club and the Penology and Delinquency Division of the New York Federation of Women’s Clubs.

Then she wrote “Diamond Lil,” which became a hit instantly, one of the smart things to see.

Without Mae West, the play would be a faintly amusing caricature of a rough and interesting phase of American life, Chatham Square of thirty years ago—a rather tawdry melodrama. With Mae West it becomes important, amusing—curiously enough, almost a bit precious. She is slow, rhythmic, insinuating. She moves with almost feline intensity, a curious sort of wiggle, inside her corsets of the nineties. Her voice is low, husky, magnetic, and when she sings “Frankie and Johnnie,” carefully expurgated, it’s a big moment in the theatre.

There has been much pow-wow as to who actually wrote “Diamond Lil.” The program says “By Mae West, suggested by Mark Linder.” The real facts seem to be that Mr. Linder wrote a play concerning Chatham Square. Mae read it, found it had a masculine star rôle, and rewrote the play, using neither the situations nor the lines that Mr. Linder had used. She did use the setting and some of the plot.

When “Diamond Lil” closes, Mae will star in another of her plays, “Men,” which Carl Reed, who sponsored “Pleasure Man,” will produce.

Miss West writes her plays on bits of paper, sometimes between the acts of another play. Now she has taken to using a dictaphone.

“When all my notes are put together and typed I have a play. See? I put in the real stuff at rehearsal. Know what I mean? I let the actors write a lot of their own lines. I pick them out for types, and then let ’em talk. You can’t tell how lines will go over until you try them out on the stage. You have got to hit an audience hard, keep ’em interested every minute. If the action starts to get dull I lift a scene from another act and put it in. See? I sold my new play from the outline. I said, ‘You’ll have to judge this by my other plays. I can’t write the words until the rehearsals start in.’ ”

Mae’s eyes are large and as true a violet color as I’ve ever seen. Her skin is soft and fair. Her nostrils are wide, eager, trusting, her nose small, with a pert turn-up. Her mouth is a bit voluptuous, firm at the corners. She is seemingly frank, with a frankness that tells nothing. She is interested only in things that concern her, sieved through her own personality.

I have no idea how far Mae West will go, whether she will fade out to “that little place on Long Island” all good vaudeville people long for, or will write, year after year, hokum, melodramas, and sex thrillers to shock the worthies of the town, but I don’t think “Diamond Lil” is her last success. She is real, understandable, an interesting and amusing product of this generation—hard, clear-headed, a bit cynical, vulgar where her rôles call for vulgarity. I like her. She is afraid of a thousand little things, of people getting a hold on her, of grafts, of attacks because she has succeeded, and she has real courage.

“After ‘Sex,’ they wanted me to play a nun,” she said. “ ‘Show ’em you can be a good woman!’ they said. I did ‘Diamond Lil,’ just the opposite—gave people what they wanted. Once show people you’re afraid and you’re through. See?”

For a long time, then, Mae West won’t be through. Know what I mean? ♦

Published in the print edition of the November 10, 1928, issue, with the headline “Diamond Mae.”

[thewordwideweb]

New to the dictionary

Instead of our usual Word of the Day today, let me introduce you to four of the newest entries in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. These were all added just last month. All definitions and quotes were taken from the Merriam-Webster website.  

janky (informal. First known use, 1989): of very poor quality, junky. Also: not functioning properly or adequately, faulty. "My family had medical debt, because we live in the jankiest medical system in the developed world." -  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

lewk (slang. First known use, 2009): a fashion look that is distinctive to the wearer and is noticeable and memorable to others. “And yet, the secret to nailing an airport lewk is easier than one thinks: It's all in the travel bag.” – Christian Allaire

adorkable (informal. First known use, 1999): socially awkward or quirky in a way that is endearing. “Fifteen years after Zellweger first charmed the world as adorkable…Bridget Jones, she's returning to the beloved character created by author Helen Fielding.” – People Magazine

yeet (interjection, slang. First known use, 2007): used to express surprise, approval, or excited enthusiasm. “Instead of saying "cool" when something good happens, he would say "yeet," which in slang can mean anything from "yes" to expressing excitement or approval.” – Mary-Jo Tohill 

Also: yeet (verb. First known use, 2017): to throw especially with force and without regard for the thing being thrown. “When it comes to Twitter features, number one on the wish list of the platform's heaviest users – apart from a Super Mega Block option that instantly yeets a nasty user into the sea – is the edit button.” – Caitlin Welsh

I’m pretty sure Merriam-Webster is missing another use of “yeet” that I can attest has been around for more than a half-century, at least. Here’s *my* definition, complete with quotation example:

Yeet (interrogative, Brooklynese. First known use, circa mid-1950s. Alternate spelling: “Jeet”): Shortened form of the question, Did you eat? “Yeet yet?” “No, Jew?” “Nah, let’s getta slice-a pizza.” – Everyone I grew up with in Brooklyn

C’mon, Merriam-Webster, your definition of yeet is janky. You’ve gotta fix that oversight.

[buddygoodboyesq]

Picture, if you will, the theatre after the show. Sweepers clean the popcorn and candy boxes left by the crowds. A grey rabbit dangles his feet from the stage and crooks a gloved finger at you. You follow the rabbit onto the stage and he puts an arm round your shoulder. He’s shorter than you imagined from your seat in the audience.

He rasps quietly in a smoker’s Brooklynese and tells you a secret.

“Dignity can’t be bought. The sugar-glass replicas the rich and powerful buy and display ain’t the real thing by a long shot.” He opens a cigarette case, lights one, and offers it to you. He smokes it himself.

He continues. “How you respond under pressure, under the hunter’s rifle sights, that’s who you are. And you should always take a swing at the mug holdin’ the gun.”

You cough at his secondhand smoke. You want to tell him it’s unhealthy, but he’s rolling.

“There ain’t nobody,” he says, ‘but nobody, so big you can’t laugh at ‘em. Go forth and do ye likewise, doc.” He pats you on the back, stands, and clomps away on his big feet.

That’s all, folks.

[darkmaga-retard]

The only way to stay sane in this line of work is to chant a little sutra to yourself, This all is maya and illusion / This all is illusion and maya / The king is pink with confusion / For the jack has been proven a liar. It’s not exactly what you’d call arya, and it doesn’t really work unless you read it in Brooklynese, but it generally wards off the wild-goose chases that get a journo all red, mad, and personally invested in a news cycle. There just aren’t many things that matter much. 

Presidential debates aren’t an exception—usually. Polling changes following debates tend to be small and transitory.  Most recently, the 2020 presidential debates, particularly the first one, did not change the campaign’s momentum so much as confirm what was already evident, an electorate that was sour on Trump and exhausted by the double chaos of Covid and the summer of Floyd. 

Tonight’s affair may be different. This year of grace 2024 has been an annus mirabilis, with the first presidential debate ending President Joe Biden’s candidacy and launching the Democrats on the most daring political adventure since the Roosevelt era: Can a tabula rasa candidate beat a sufficiently unpopular opponent? Are there elections in which you can in fact elect a yellow dog?

This comes to bear on why tonight’s debate may change the race’s momentum. Kamala Harris’s lone interview since becoming the face of the Democratic ticket, a CNN-hosted affair which she shared with her running mate, Tim Walz, drew 6 million viewers; while she made no catastrophic blunders, the shoddiness of the production, absence of real statements about policy, and the conspicuous friendliness of the venue made it a much less splashy media launch than it might have been. By contrast, the ill-starred Biden–Trump bout of June 27 drew 51 million viewers; their first debate in 2020 drew some 70 million. This will simply be the first time since becoming the candidate that Harris will reach a double-digit percentage of the American voting public. 

[tonreihe]

Louis Zukofsky reads his translation of Guido Cavalcanti’s “Donna mi prega,” done into Brooklynese.

[elegant-fleuret]

I really liked your latest rocket story!! I found the premise of wanting to have your needs met and waiting for them to read your mind painfully relatable. I was glad they came to a resolution quickly in mutual concern for the other after the initial (hilarious) confusion. It was really sincere and sweet. You always hit a sugar spice and nice (with chemical x) balance of rockets personality traits (and brooklynese speech xD) Your last two fics are my favorite rocket stories(esp kerosene am absolutely in love with his psycho side) but this one is also up there, it's just so sweet!

THIS IS SO NICE thank you

i am super critical of how i write rocket's speech (i have a boston accent and it's very hard to write, uh, normal dialogue?? with that bias) and take after bradley cooper channeling joe pesci for it.

here, anon, you can have a bucket of my happy tears because i am SOBBING

(please share the bucket of happy tears with the other commenters and kudo'ers)

[allmusic]

AllMusic Staff Pick: Jeru the Damaja The Sun Rises in the East

DJ Premier's first album-length production outside of Gang Starr was his best by far. Where Premier's productions hadn't shone underneath the cracking, over-earnest vocals of Guru, with a superior stylist like Jeru these tracks became brilliant musical investigations with odd hooks (often detuned bells, keys, or vibes), perfectly scratched upchoruses, and the grittiest, funkiest Brooklynese beats pounding away in the background. Of course, the star of the show was Jeru, a cocksure young rapper who brought the dozens from the streets to a metaphysical battleground where he did battle with all manner of foe. - John Bush

[lunchmonkey64]

say "P.S.D.S"

You've just said "Pierced Ears" in Brooklynese

[newyorkthegoldenage]

We speak Brooklyn here: one of the first cars to enter the Brooklyn end of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel hands policeman his ticket, May 25, 1950.

Paul Bernius for the NY Daily News via Getty Images

[hansbekhart]

So I was reading your "How to Brooklyn" masterpost, and I have a question about the use of the word "to". It seems like there's a lot of relaxed pronouciation in the Brooklyn dialect. I feel like when "to" is used after an word ending in "t", they're generally combined ("got to" becomes "gotta", etc.). I'm writing out the phrase "how we meant to", and I feel like I should be combining "meant" and "to" in some way, but I'm not sure how to write that out. Suggestions?

Hello friend!  Thanks for reading.  “Meant to” is fine.  It’s not so much that T words combine - more like New Yorkers tend to pronounce T’s more like D’s, and also rush through their sentences like they’re late for the train.  You might hear the sentence come out as “we meant ta” or “we meanna” (where the T is swallowed up entirely), but since “how we meant to” is sort of by nature a more formal phrasing, I think the T separation would survive.

But I wouldn’t get too bogged down in it.  There’s so much inaccurate dialect used in fic that it’s sort of become its own distinct language (New Yorkers can’t really be said to drawl, and “ain’t” is not white Irish Brooklynese, even though it pops up in just about every Stucky fic.  You do hear New Yorkers saying “ain’t,” but they ain’t white).  I'd recommend listening to some youtube videos of James Cagney, and focusing in on the rhythm of what makes up the classic Irish-Brooklyn accent, rather than faithfully transcribing every mumbled and swallowed syllable.