Well, the old couch is no more. When I left for work yesterday morning just before 8 a.m., it was still sitting on the sidewalk in front of the house. I called the council's large item disposal office when I got to the library about half an hour later, and asked if they were coming to collect it that day. There was some hemming and hawing and keyboarding, and then the woman said, "This shows it's been collected. It was picked up at 8:02 a.m."
So literally minutes after I left they must have shown up. That's great. We didn't have to look like the Beverly Hillbillies all day.
Otherwise, yesterday was busy but uneventful. I did get some texts saying my UK passport application was accepted and it's been printed and is on its way back to me. Woo hoo!
Oh, and I got a funny call from an 80-something-year-old author who was trying to track down a New Yorker cartoon from decades ago. She wanted to include the cartoon in an upcoming book and she knew she'd need copyright permission, but she didn't have enough information to approach the company and ask. She only had a vague memory of what it said and a belief that it ran some time in the mid-1960's.
This woman wasn't affiliated with our school but she called us because she thought it likely we'd have a New Yorker subscription. We would have, a couple of years ago, but we cut it from the library budget. We still get it electronically through our e-book provider but that doesn't include online archives. We do have all the old issues through about 2000 on CD-ROM, though, so I told her I'd try to help.
My boss and I tried to search the CDs, which of course are antiquated technology and turned out to require some special program that we didn't have and which wasn't even compatible with our modern Macs. I was also skeptical we'd be able to search cartoon captions. So we abandoned the CDs.
Instead, when I got home, I logged in with my personal subscription and went to the online archives. And lo and behold, I found the cartoon! It appeared in 1977, not the mid-60's, and this is it:
I'm not sure why she is fixated on this particular cartoon, but one person's hilarious cartoon is another person's head-scratcher. Anyway, I sent it to her, and I haven't heard back yet but I was pretty freaking proud of myself. (Credit really goes to The New Yorker for having such well-indexed archives. All I needed to do was search for the word "truthity," which the author remembered, and it popped right up. Captions are searchable after all!)
On the way home from work I stopped at Waitrose and bought...
...two exotic little Portuguese dessert cakes. (That's mine above. Dave got the other one, of course.) I'd never seen these before but they were good -- white cakes with lemon filling and lemony icing, made at least partly from rice flour. They were like a triple hybrid of vanilla cupcake, rice pudding and lemon meringue pie. I'd buy them again!
(Top photo: A sticker on Finchley Road.)
I hope that lady author gets around to thanking you for tracking down the cartoon.
ReplyDeleteI like the sound of your lemon rice cakes!
I would appreciate a note in her acknowledgements section!
DeleteTruthity truth? sounds like something someone un-named would say. The cake looks delicious.
ReplyDeleteIt definitely does sound "Trumpian."
DeleteNever a dull day in The World of Reed! Nice to hear that you worked cooperatively with Big Boss Woman on the "truthity" case. Today you will be able to brag to her that you solved the mystery singlehandedly... "Take that BBW!"
ReplyDeleteBBW and I are in detente with each other.
DeleteOoh, tat bolo de arroz looks so good.
ReplyDeleteThat’s not a New Yorker cartoon that’s would stick in my head. Hmmm.
If it weren’t for the typos, that would have made sense!
DeleteHa! I understood you. :)
DeleteI love librarians. They seriously can find anything.
ReplyDeleteBut can they find the Epstein files? LOL
DeleteHa! I'm not THAT skilled, Marcia!
DeleteI do hope she is prolific with her thanks once she sees the rather odd cartoon. People often aren't, but don't stop from helping people again in the future.
ReplyDeleteI think we could do with Waitrose in Australia. Upmarket supermarkets have been tried and failed. I think Waitrose would know how to set up a profitable store here.
I'm surprised you don't have any! Is there a Trader Joe's, or a Whole Foods?
DeleteGood job, Sherlock Holmes Reed! You found the cartoon! And the council took the couch away and you're getting your passport. Man, what a great day!
ReplyDeleteAnd the lemon cake thing sounds wonderful.
There is a lot happening all at once!
DeleteAs people might have said back in the mid-60s, "you're a good egg" for tracking the cartoon down.
ReplyDeleteAnd your Dessert Reward looks wonderful.
It WAS good, and probably had "good eggs" in it!
DeleteWell done you for helping the lady author. I'm sure she'll appreciate it.
ReplyDeleteApparently this book really is happening, through a commercial publisher. Woo hoo!
DeleteNot all search engines are equal. I know the one I sometimes use to obtain wood plans from a subscription I have is very difficult to work with. Just coming up with the search word is the most difficult part!
ReplyDeleteThat dessert looks right up my alley!
Yeah, it's all in the search terms, for sure. Thank goodness that author remembered the word "truthity" -- otherwise I'd never have found it.
DeleteThat dessert looks and sounds yummy. Glad your old couch is gone.
ReplyDeleteI am glad too. It was long past time.
DeleteI love your sleuthing job! I hope she's appropriately grateful. And that dessert looks amazing!
ReplyDeleteShe was very grateful and even invited me over for a glass of wine! (I declined!)
DeleteYou're a regular online Sherlock! I hope that woman puts you in her book acknowledgments! It's a pretty topical cartoon these days! Oh my -- you had me at lemon. That little cake looks fantastic. I hope if I make it back to England next spring, they still have them!
ReplyDeleteI hope I get into the acknowledgements too! I've never had that happen before, as far as I know.
DeleteWell done you for finding that random cartoon, where there's a will there's a way. Would you now like to be referred to as Sherlock or Miss Marple? :-)
ReplyDeleteOr Hercule? Monsieur Poirot?
DeleteHurray for you! I love a challenge like that. That dessert sounds delicious - I love all lemony desserts!
ReplyDeleteWe don't often buy such desserts but this just seemed like something unusual that might be good.
DeleteWell, October 1st and our ridiculous government is shut down because those a-holes can't agree on anything! Fun times in the old U.S.A.
ReplyDeleteI heard about that. More chaos from our broken political system.
DeleteI do miss the availability of oddball little things like your fancy dessert from Portugal living out here in the wasteland but not enough to move back to the city.
ReplyDeleteGood job finding the cartoon.
Yeah, treats like that are pretty much an urban phenomenon, I suppose!
DeleteIt's surprising what you can find if you are a good searcher.
ReplyDeleteI did get somewhat lucky because she remembered that unusual word. But even I was astonished it turned up.
DeleteExcellent job finding that cartoon. I can't imagine why it would have stuck in that lady's mind all these years. And it's good hear that the couch was picked up.
ReplyDeleteThat little cake/dessert looks delicious.
I know, that's what's funny. What is it about this cartoon that it stuck with her all that time? It's cute but it's also forgettable, at least to me.
DeleteYou've had a winning day. Everything went right!
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, back at the ranch (US) we went into shutdown.
The cake makes a nice end of the day treat. It looks delicious.
Yeah, the shutdown situation is a mess. I'm glad I don't work for the federal government but I feel sorry for all the people who do.
DeleteSo the cake celebrated several good things happening.
ReplyDeleteYeah, in a way! I didn't mean it as a celebration, necessarily, but I suppose it became that.
DeleteI give a friend of mine a Page-a-Day calendar of New Yorker cartoons each year. They're always good.
ReplyDeleteThey ARE always good. It's an interesting time to read The New Yorker because that old guard of cartoonists is largely gone now, and the new ones are making themselves known.
DeleteWell that type of language may be the only thing the felon would understand, once we finally get him in court.
ReplyDeleteWell, he'd know the word, but I'm not sure he knows what it means!
DeleteExcellent job on the searching! I hope the author is properly grateful. The cartoon doesn't do much for me either. Strangely, I'm not a fan of lemon to eat although I love it in soaps.
ReplyDeleteI love fresh lemons and lemonade, but I'm usually not a huge fan of lemon in other guises. I do like a lemon meringue pie, though, and this was close.
DeleteWant a job done, call Steve! "Have research skills, Will travel"....
ReplyDeleteI was frankly amazed at myself! LOL
DeleteImpressed you found that cartoon. I respect your humility about supporting her quest, but you did her a solid times 100. About the cartoon...imo, in these 2020s, co-called truths are more "truthity" than true.
ReplyDeleteYeah, "truthity truths" could actually mean something nowadays. The cartoon was prescient that way!
DeleteGood job of finding the cartoon. It's cute.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
Cute is a good word for it. Interesting that it lived in her head all these years!
Delete