Miscellany gets jump on Shark Week

Oh, c’mon now — you know you can’t resist clicking on  “1935-2013 Map of North Carolina’s Confirmed Unprovoked Shark Attacks.”

That link comes via a New York Times account of how Cape Cod merchants have cannily alchemized  shark fear.  And of course the Times can’t pass up the opportunity to recall Mayor Vaughn’s classic line in “Jaws”:  “You yell ‘Shark!’ we’ve got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.” (If “Jaws” were being remade yet again, this time on the North Carolina coast, the mayor no doubt would declare “You yell ‘rising sea level!’ we’ve got a panic….’)

And whom did Steven Spielberg cast as the “Jaws” mayor? Why none other than North Carolina’s  Murray Hamilton, who both was born and died in coastal (Little) Washington. Hamilton’s lengthy character-acting credits also provide the answer to the eternal headscratcher “Who played Mr. Robinson?”