Disambiguation—Melanie Griffith edition

Stephen M. Clement III, who heads the all-boys Browning School on the East Side, said that “many of the early childhood programs are getting much more academic,” and as a result, “our curriculum has probably increased in its pace as well.”

“You meet the boys where they are,” he said.

But other schools hold fast to their slow approach. Melanie Griffith said her daughter Emma was reading chapter books at 4, but when she entered Calhoun, she was restricted to sing-alongs and teacher-led story time.

At times Ms. Griffith, a fitness instructor, said she and her husband wondered, “Are we doing her a disservice because she is so capable, by not putting her in a situation where they are challenging her more?” —NYT

Disambiguations™ for November 18, 2010

I. Levi on Stephen King's Christine! (Ed Trivia: Christine was the first King book I read.)

II. Jenny ends her excellent-quote-reproducing musing on Life with an intriguing parenthetical: "Vision of alternate universe in which Sylvia Plath encountered Keith Richards that winter."

III. Reading this NYT obit for Baby Marie Osborne, I was surprised to see an exclamation point...and then a double exclamation point...and then a triple exclamation point!

In 1933, as her first marriage deteriorated, Ms. Osborne took a job in a dime store. It was a low point. Then came an astonishing call from the superintendent of the Colorado Children’s Home, who informed her that she had been adopted as an infant by the Osbornes! And that a man who said he was her real father, H. L. Shriver, had become a tycoon!! And that he had left her a substantial inheritance!!!

IV. And you can't talk about exclamation points without thinking of...Harry Stephen Keeler! A fresh (2 days old!!) intro to the one-and-only "Paper-blackener of Bagdad on the Lakes" by none other than HSK Society head honcho Richard Polt, at The Chiseler!!!

Disambiguations™ for March 12, 2010

I. Least promising title of folder on my desktop: "Unfinished semifictional scraps"

II. Great idea for an essay over at The Millions: "On Epigraphs."

(I haven't read it yet...does that matter? I can just post stuff here to read later.)

III. Via The Second Pass, some love for Buffalo and Talking Leaves bookstore, and some thoughts on where the East Coast ends and the Midwest begins:

Upstate New York is tricky. The better I’ve gotten to know the western NY region, the more I think that it really is better thought of as the eastern edge of the Midwest. Buffalo absolutely has many of the attributes (and problems) of the Great Lakes cities I know well, like Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago and my own Milwaukee. People “seem” Midwestern in a way that I rarely sense on the east or west coasts (though I occasionally feel the Midwest vibe in Denver, which maybe has some Midwest attributes as well)

As I move east toward Syracuse and the Finger Lakes however, things feel a little less clear. These places are still far from the east coast, yet they don’t read Midwestern in the way Buffalo does. When I’m in Ithaca I feel pretty firmly out of the Midwest.

My east coast colleague, Adena, and I sometimes puzzle over NY state geography. A new store appears in an unfamiliar town. She sells Albany, I go as far east (theoretically anyway) as Binghamton, so we’ll call each other and say “is this yours or mine?” The line in New York and Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh! also Midwest!) is fuzzy.

IV. Levi: "Surely the Germans have come up with a word for lying about your plans to blog?"

What about Archie Bell?

For several years, I was under the impression that Chris Bell, of Big Star and "I Am The Cosmos" fame, was the son of the man who created Taco Bell. I even used to enjoy sharing this bit of false trivia with people, helping to spread my own inadvertently created rock'n'roll "urban legend".

I only recently learned the truth and realized the cause of my confusion. Somewhere along the line, I had taken two pieces of accurate but incomplete information - Bell's father owned a restaurant and Taco Bell was founded by a Mr. Bell - and put them together. In fact, Chris Bell's father was a restaurateur, but his place was called the Knickerbocker. And the founder of Taco Bell was named Bell, but he was from Southern California, not Memphis, and was apparently no relation.

—The Selected Ballads, "Disambiguation of a Bell"

Wall to wall

Best Foundation Ed Park.

—Daily Post North Wales

Disambiguations for July 29, 2009 (late edition)

From Lincoln Michel at The Faster Times: A new DFW story. (Click to get the PDF from the TFT site.)(Initials—gotta love 'em!)

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Heard shouted from the street:
Male voice: I love you!
Female voice: No you don't.

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Don't miss David Cairns on Spellbound: "Mogo on the Gogo"!

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What was I going to say...?

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ED'S MOVIE PICKS: In the Loop
REVIEW: It was good, and I liked not knowing who the actors were. (The only one who looked familiar was James Gandolfini—does he always sound so nasal? I liked the nasal effect.) And I didn't realize until later that it was Anna Chlumsky in the role of the State Dept. aide.
VERDICT: A must-see.
AMPERSANDS: Five out of five ampersands (&&&&&)

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That wasn't what I was going to say...Hmmm....