RECENT HAPPENINGS AT THE U.N. and back in Washington, D.C., questioned more than Trump’s truthfulness (climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” inflation “defeated,” grocery prices … Continue reading →| Simanaitis Says
HERE I MEAN “PRIMERS” in the short-i sense; Merriam-Webster: small books for teaching children to read. And, in the fast-developing world of artificial intelligence, we’re all children needing to learn … Continue reading →| Simanaitis Says
I WAS RESEARCHING THE PASSAGE OF CASH in CAVA bags, and what better source than Brewer’s Rogues, Villains & Eccentrics? Brewer’s Rogues, Villains & Eccentrics: An A–Z of Roguish Britons … Continue reading →| Simanaitis Says
YESTERDAY, WE BEGAN WITH TIDBITS OF SIMON BANK’S ARTICLE “Terra (In)Cognita” gleaned from Opera with Opera News, the latter a part of my Metropolitan Opera membership. Today in Part 2, … Continue reading →| Simanaitis Says
MY LATEST OPERA WITH OPERA NEWS contains “Terra (In)Cognita,” by Simon Banks. He “highlights shifting attitudes towards colonialism as reflected in opera across the centuries.” Surely an interesting topic. Indeed, … Continue reading →| Simanaitis Says
TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES RECENTLY SHOWED THE BIG LIFT, a 1950 Hollywood drama centered around the Soviet blockage of Berlin and the allies subsequently successful support of the city by air … Continue reading →| Simanaitis Says
NICOLE DAVIS WRITES “Octopuses Prefer To Use Different Arms For Different Tasks, Scientists Find,” The Guardian, September 11, 2025. The creatures, Davis recounts, favor front arms for most tasks, though … Continue reading →| Simanaitis Says
YESTERDAY WE BEGAN EXPLORING A TRUMP/GATSBY TIME CAPSULE prompted by “A Short History of the Trump Family,” by Sydney Blumenthal, London Review of Books, February 16, 2017, and its linkage … Continue reading →| Simanaitis Says
IN AN ART DECO APPRECIATION about a week ago, “Art Deco, The Met, The Polish Brigade, Trump Tower and Truth,” February 23, 2017, was cited; and therein resided reference to Sidney Blumenthal’s arti…| Simanaitis Says
“THIS CAR TURNS OUT TO BE THE FIFTH ALFA ROMEO PASSENGER CAR which appeared on R&T’s cover,” the magazine recounted in September 1958. (Indeed, R&T Vol. 1 No. 1, July 1947, also featured an Alfa, though that one was a Tipo 158 Alfetta Grand Prix machine.) Above, R&T, Vol. 1 No. 1; below, Vol. 10, … … Continue reading →| Simanaitis Says
READERS OF SIMANAITISSAYS MIGHT HAVE CAUGHT ON that I love Art Deco: See, for example, “Deco Dreaming,” “Soaring Art Deco—In The City of Angels,” and even, lamentably enough, “Art Deco, The Met, Th…| Simanaitis Says
YESTERDAY’S MENTION OF ROAD TRIPS brought to mind The Negro Motorist Green Book published annually between 1936 and 1966. Perhaps it’s too much reading for the likes of Trump, what with his b…| Simanaitis Says
“ALTHOUGH IT MAY BE ARGUED,” Bounce & Bound wrote in January 1955, “that the scrutiny of a road test crew should be confined to the technical and performance aspects of a pogostick, it is diffi…| Simanaitis Says
THERE—THAT SHOULD GET YOUR ATTENTION AGAIN. Who would have guessed Boccacio’s Decameron was once described as “probably the dirtiest great book in the Western canon.” I gleaned this from Barbara Ne…| Simanaitis Says
10 posts published by simanaitissays during August 2025| Simanaitis Says
THOMAS JONES’ ARTICLE IN LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS “Lunch With Mussolini” is replete with tidbits continued here in Part 2. A Young Enzo. Jones relates that Ferrari’s first business venture was not su…| Simanaitis Says
I’M OFTEN ENTERTAINED BY THE LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS. To cite a few examples, see “Just Because I’m a Librarian Doesn’t Mean I Have to Dress Like One”—Belle Da Costa Greene,” July 4, 2025; “Wh…| Simanaitis Says
GEEZ, HOW IS SAM SPADE LINKED with Parnell Thomas?? Spade was the classic sleuth of The Maltese Falcon, The Kandy Tooth Caper, and numerous other adventures, 1946–1951, recounted these days on Siri…| Simanaitis Says
I ENJOY TWO EXTREMES IN DETERMINING WORD DEFINITIONS: the online Merriam-Webster and the microprinted Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, 1971. The M-W is only a click away; but the O…| Simanaitis Says
ART CRITIC DONALD KUSPIT IDENTIFIES THE APPEAL of Mitchell Johnson by noting this artist’s fusion of abstraction and realism. My introduction to Johnson’s oil paintings came from their occasi…| Simanaitis Says
I’VE HARPED ON THE QUEENS FELON MOB all too often at this website (I’d much rather write about my usual topics). Nevertheless, I was gratified that I’m not the only one making this observation. The…| Simanaitis Says
On cars, old, new and future; science & technology; vintage airplanes, computer flight simulation of them; Sherlockiana; our English language; travel; and other stuff| Simanaitis Says
QUITE INDEPENDENT OF RECENT BUSINESS MACHINATIONS in the A.I. industry, there still remains the inherent problem of addressing hallucinations. SimanaitisSays discussed this in “On Chatbots and Othe…| Simanaitis Says
REGULAR READERS, BLESS ’EM, ARE FAMILIAR with my rantings about Artificial Intelligence, its immense energy gobbling, its vast data scrapings, and its hallucinations. Today let’s celebrate an…| Simanaitis Says
10 posts published by simanaitissays during July 2025| Simanaitis Says
YESTERDAY IN PART 1 WE SAVORED CBS RADIO WORKSHOP and enjoyed entertaining CBS corporate suits through the R&T slalom. Today, lamentably enough, we recount CBS actions that seemingly replace fr…| Simanaitis Says
I’VE KNOWN COLUMBIA BROADCASTING SYSTEM, now a division of Paramount Global, at its best, its lamentable, and—first hand—its middling. Let’s briefly recount the best and middling of these and then …| Simanaitis Says
PERHAPS THIS TITLE BRINGS TO MIND THE ROYALE, the 12,760-cc straight-eight Golden Bug only six of which left Molsheim. No, actually these tidbits are gleaned from the British Autocar Road Tes…| Simanaitis Says
ENOUGH WITH POLITICS; THERE HAS BEEN PLENTY of great dissing in other areas. Dr. Mardy Grothe has a fine collection in Viva La Repartee, tidbits from which are offered here occasionally enhanced by…| Simanaitis Says
YESTERDAY, WE FIGURED IT’S TIME to learn more about Canada. And my Baedeker’s Travellers Guide, 1900, seemed a fine place to start. Here in Part 2, we’ve missed our train outta Halifax by confusing…| Simanaitis Says
WHAT WITH THE ACQUISITIONAL WEAVES of our Queens Felon, I thought it’s time to direct attention toward our friends to the north. And, you’ll not be surprised, I have a definitive source for this re…| Simanaitis Says
I BELIEVE ANDY BOROWITZ IS the preeminent political satirist of our time. As I noted in “The Best of Lines,” he has “an amazing way of condensing his satirical news stories into four or five concis…| Simanaitis Says
YESTERDAY IN PART 1, WE DISCUSSED THE WORLD’S FIRST CONSULTING DETECTIVE and his appearance in advertising. We continue here with thirst-quenching themes. Holmes, Gin, And What’s That Building? The…| Simanaitis Says
DR. JOHN H. WATSON HAD A CRACKIN’ GOOD literary agent Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. How else to explain the numerous ad placements about the World’s First Consulting Detective? Several of these have alre…| Simanaitis Says
LET’S APPLAUD THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION! Never has its activism been more critical. Zach Montague and Pat Grossmith’s article “Judge Blocks Trump’s Citizenship Order in Class-Action Challe…| Simanaitis Says
I’M IN GOOD company asking whether Leonard Bernstein’s Candide is an opera, an operetta, or a musical comedy. No less than the composer himself asked the same question, with his answer being essent…| Simanaitis Says
I’VE BEEN collecting thoughtful comments, or in some cases just great one-liners, from a variety of sources. Some come from movies I’ve enjoyed or books I’ve read, others from TV or radio, especial…| Simanaitis Says
I ADMIRE THE SAGACITY of ZEYNEP TUFEKCI, (“zey-NEP tuu-FEK-chee,” her given name Turkish for “precious gem” related to Arabic “fragrant flower.”) Dr. Tufekci is a Turkish-American sociologist, Henr…| Simanaitis Says
I KINDA SAW THIS COMING with Google searches occasionally offering corrupted versions of SimanaitisSays comments: “Dennis Simanaitis says Benito Mussolini and Ercole Boratto won the 1936 Mille Migl…| Simanaitis Says
“AUTOMOBILE BROCHURES,” R&T CLAIMED, “ARE ALMOST AS WELL ENDOWED WITH SUPERLATIVES as is the publicity for a Hollywood movie production, and about as accurate.” This and following images …| Simanaitis Says
THE UTTER IDIOCY OF DOGE has added yet another tooth on its chainsaw. It’s described by Drs. Iago Hale and Michael Kantar in “Why Did Elon Musk Go After Bunkers Full of Seeds?,” The New…| Simanaitis Says
BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE, FEBRUARY 2025, OFFERS AN INTERVIEW with historian Laurence Rees; his topic, “the history of the Nazi regime yields warnings—but that frighteningly few people are interested in…| Simanaitis Says
ONE MIGHT THINK THE ARROGANCE OF EGO WOULD HAVE LED ME TO ASSOCIATE Trump and Beethoven. But no, prodigious musicality seals the deal: It’s Mozart and Trump—separated at birth by 190 years! A…| Simanaitis Says
NO TYPO HERE. THE BROTHERS GRIMM: A BIOGRAPHY is a book by Ann Schmiesing given a review by Colin Burrow “Ogres Are Cool,” London Review of Books, March 20, 2025. Here are tidbits glean…| Simanaitis Says
THERE IS IRONY GALORE IN THE NEW U.S. Environmental “Deregulation” Agency having originally been established by Richard Nixon on December 2, 1970, “to protect human health and the environment” (thi…| Simanaitis Says
WHAT A MARVELOUS OPPORTUNITY FOR SATIRE: The dust is far from settled about what The New York Times, March 25, 2025, is calling “an extraordinary leak of internal national security deliberations, d…| Simanaitis Says
“THE ASTON MARTIN CYGNET,” this fabled sports car manufacturer said back in 2011, “was designed as a luxury solution to urban mobility.” A city car that’s “Elegant and distinctive whilst individual…| Simanaitis Says
THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN. TRUMP WANTS TO “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” by turning the clock back to President McKinley’s time. This, despite plenty of us having already had enough of seemingly Gild…| Simanaitis Says
KONSTANTIN KALININ WAS A SOVIET AIRCRAFT DESIGNER. His designs were unconventional, which made them controversial during the Stalin era—and also, in retrospect, interesting projects for my GMax hob…| Simanaitis Says
NOTES WIKIPEDIA, “AT THE TEHRAN CONFERENCE WINSTON CHURCHILL made his famous remark that in wartime ‘truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” By c…| Simanaitis Says
R&T SUMMED UP THE FIAT-ABARTH BIALBERO perfectly: “expressly for the discriminating enthusiast.” The magazie continued in December 1959, “This extremely small Italian car, which has the r…| Simanaitis Says
I DON’T THINK OF MYSELF AS an ornithophile, but swans, Cygnus olor, seem to get pretty good coverage at SimanaitisSays. Tidbits here have related them to cars, opera props, Ogden Nash poetry, and a…| Simanaitis Says
IN COZY ENGLISH WHO-DONE-ITS, watercress sandwiches at teatime seem to coincide with reveal of the rascal. Now according to Korin Miller writing in Food & Wine, September 12, 2024, “The C…| Simanaitis Says
WHAT WITH A VERY BUSY NEWS WEEK, victim-extraodinaire Donald Trump has been displaced by Joe and Kamala. Poor him. To counter this Trumpian ennui, today’s SimanaitisSays recounts several past Trump…| Simanaitis Says
YESTERDAY, WE VISITED an ancient movie set, a chapel in saintly red rocks, and a Czech “Fred and Ginger.” Today in Part 2 we continue trippin’ around Europe and then return to the U.S. for easy par…| Simanaitis Says
