Benjamin Dreyer

@bcdreyer.bsky.social

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abstruse in the sense of recondite

author of the New York Times/IndieBound bestseller Dreyer's English and Stet! (the game!) • America's Copy Editor® • retired Random House copy chief • he/him/his

benjamindreyer.com

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Reply to

Dan Rouse 🇵🇸

That wouldn't quite work with my desk trash bin.

I'd rather have a blatz primary.

Apropos of absolutely nothing, I think that the weird break in Compromise is hilarious.

I'll take Covers That Do Weird Stuff with Punctuation for $500.

Reply to

James Graham Wilson

I'm glad I could be of assistance. But what of June Truman herself? What was she up to?

yes, and...?

napping dog

Happy George Cukor's birthday!

our next cabinet

The Brain That Wouldn't Die '24

Reply to

Shiv Ramdas

The Brain That Wouldn't Die '24

Happy birthday to the great Shelley Duvall!

today's exceptionally random theater photo: Leo Ditrichstein, Jane Grey, William Morris, and Janet Beecher in The Concert (1910)

Happy Pat Hitchcock's birthday!

Reply to

Benjamin Dreyer

And here they are together in Long Day's Journey.

Meanwhile, on Long Island...

Well, whaddya know, there is. "Worst Comes to Worst," by Dilated Peoples (2001).

I want to know what was going on in the early 2000s when most people were apparently saying "when worst comes to worst." WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE.

*taps on sign*

The content entirely aside—because I'm TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT IT AND IT'S HOT OUT—you can't go wrong using "stanch" as the wound-related verb and "staunch" as the adjective that describes Little Edie Beale. [As always, there's much muddiness on the subject.] #copyediting

Yikes.

I hope that you're nicely on the mend. If you've yet to watch Sabotage (also known as The Woman Alone, as you can see), it's an absolute corker, and I think it tends to get overlooked.

Last night's first-time viewing was The Reluctant Debutante, in which Sandra is charming, Kay is a goddess, Angela is hilarious, Rex is lively, and John Saxon is what you might call dangerously attractive. It goes absolutely nowhere for 95 minutes, but it does it appealingly.

Margaret and Eva as the Red Queen and the White Queen, 1947.

Margaret Webster, by the way, was one of the major mid-twentieth-century theatrical lesbians, a celebrated director of Shakespeare (and regular collaborator with Eva Le Gallienne), and the daughter of Dame May Whitty.

In 1951, Pat appeared on Broadway in a play called The High Ground with, among others, Marian Seldes and Ruth McDevitt, and I mean, COME ON.

Reply to

Jeremy Millar

I'm told that a toilet is casually flushed in a 1930 comedy called Going Wild, but Psycho's flushing toilet is certainly more significant. As long as we're here, you can catch a glimpse of a toilet in King Vidor's marvelous The Crowd (1928).

dems in dish array

In 1951, Pat appeared on Broadway in a play called The High Ground with, among others, Marian Seldes and Ruth McDevitt, and I mean, COME ON.

Also, it's in my contract that I'm not allowed to mention Psycho, ever, without celebrating the great Pat.

Any and all joshing aside, not that I was joshing, the parlor scene between Leigh and Perkins is absolutely amazing acting, some of the best stuff you could ever hope to see.

In honor of Janet Leigh's birthday: my favorite prop in the entire history of cinema

Happy Janet Leigh's birthday!

The handbag and the newspaper are also brilliant, but the envelope really shines.

today's vaguely random theater photo: Anthony Perkins and Joan Fontaine in Tea and Sympathy, c. 1954