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Who's got the button? The Keep Homestead Museum in Massachusetts has plenty of them. They inherited the sizeable button collection of Myra Keep Lovell Moulton. Their button of the month archive only scrapes the surface of the multitude of materials and styles.
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Five things I've learned halfway through a Seattle winter
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Thursday, January 29, 2004
Every time I go to Trader Joe's I wonder who draws the pretty and incredibly detailed chalk drawings of flowers on their blackboards. The answer came in the paper this week: Kirkland artist, Malia McCabe. Using low-oil pastels, she decorates the chalkboard menus and signs of local restaurants, bars, and supermarkets. With a major in advertising and a minor in art, McCabe recreates old masters, product logos, employee portraits, and sometimes just a pretty border to hold the daily specials.
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On January 28, 1878 the world's first commercial telephone exchange opened for business in New Haven, Connecticut. A month later, 50 customers were listed in the world's first phone directory, distributed on February 21. (One of the listed businesses was the Yale Daily News, which was founded on that very same January 28, 1878.) Reading through the history of the little Connecticut telephone company's struggle to grow, it's fight against Western Union, developing the first New York to Boston line (a financial disaster that was eventually sold to AT&T), bleak times trying to raise capital with its president taking little salary, dealing with blizzards that tore down lines and poles... it makes me think back to the first struggling startups of the Internet age, some who got to the party a little too early, some who put together luck and technology to create a communication medium so useful that we are starting to take it for granted.
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Wednesday, January 28, 2004
I hadn't heard of public radio's The Splendid Table until moving to Seattle. It's a nationwide program, but it's not broadcast in the San Francisco area. Luckily, its great website is truly available nationwide (to those with Internet anyway). It contains restaurant listings from contributors Jane and Michael Stern, better known as the Road Food and Gourmet writers. There are answers for all sorts of food and cooking related questions, including a nice suggestion for a dinner to feed 10 you can prepare the night before. And the From Soup to Nuts section is just brimming over with all sorts of advice and resources. Oh, and you can listen to recent shows (in Real Audio format). (via Not Martha)
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AncientScripts has rolled by on a weblog or two before, but I only just took a closer look (thanks to LarkFarm). The various categorizations of writing systems into types, families, and regions are especially enlightening. English always seems so simplistic compared to other writing, but I suppose that has its benefits.
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Tuesday, January 27, 2004
I can't believe I just willingly watched an online video about plastic wrap. But it was worth it. I've had a few plastic wrap, shall we say, "incidents" in the past week. First there was the Saran Wrap that just would not come off the roll in one piece. Then there was the slightly bent metal tear-strip on our generic brand wrap that refused to cooperate with me. Perhaps you can understand why I just paid a visit to the virtual home of Pat & Betty, the Reynolds Home Economists, to see how the new Reynolds Plastic Wrap with EZ Slide Cutter works. It looks pretty slick but now I want to know how much more I'm going to be paying for it.
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Here are a few book suggestions for Chinese New Year (and any time of the year) yummies: for the wee ones, Yum Yum Dim Sum is a board book for ages 0-3. For the young reader, Moonbeams, Dumplings & Dragon Boats has recipes and descriptions of many of the Chinese festivals. And for us slightly older readers, Dim Sum, The Art of Chinese Tea Lunch has charming watercolor illustrations.
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Monday, January 26, 2004
At most awards ceremonies, a nameless, pretty model or two brings out the award statuettes and guides winners off the stage. At the Golden Globe Awards, which took place last night, that position is reserved for the son and/or daughter of a celebrity. Miss Golden Globe 2004 was Lily Costner, 17 year old daughter of Kevin Costner and Cindy Silva. In the past, the globes have been shuttled out by Freddie Prinze, Jr., Melanie Griffith, and Laura Dern. Some of the lesser known celebrity offspring who have recently held the position: Katie Flynn, daughter of Jane Seymour and David Flynn, Liza Huber, daughter of Susan Lucci and Helmut Huber, and Haley Giraldo, daughter of Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo.
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Some cats develop cancer at the location of their vaccination sites. In researching the incidence of vaccine-induced sarcoma in cats, I saw estimates ranging from 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 10,000 cats. And yet only one cat owner of several I spoke to had been warned about the dangers of vaccinating their pet. Of course the dangers of not having certain vaccines may often outweigh the risks of sarcoma. However, our vet in California has a policy to recommend against certain immunizations for indoor cats since they are less likely to come in contact with cats carrying disease. Cats who do receive vaccinations should not be vaccinated between their shoulder blades, as was the previous practice. The new recommendation is to vaccinate as far down the shoulders and back limbs as practical. Also, the vaccines are to be given in a recommended pattern (see the chart on the previous link), which could help narrow down, over time, which vaccines cause the most problems.
Give your kitties a periodic rubdown, behind the neck, down their shoulders and hips to check for lumps. Ours is getting a lump removed today. Needle aspirate tests came back benign, but it's at an injection site so we are not taking any chances. And she won't be getting any more vaccines unless there's a life threatening reason.
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Friday, January 23, 2004
I blame Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum for these maddening stories about Martha Stewart's handbag selection. With the jury selection for Martha Stewart's case taking place behind closed doors, the focus is squarely on Ms. Stewart's clothing, accessories, lunch, and fan turnout. Is it absolutely necessary for The Washington Post to devote 834 words to the dissection of her choice of purses? Open the jury selection to the media Judge Cedarbaum! Save us! Save the media from itself!
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If you've seen the Japanese film Totoro (and if you haven't, you should), you know what the cat bus looks like. An interactive "nekobasu" is on display at the Seattle Children's Museum. Their exhibit "Jump to Japan: Discovering Culture Through Popular Art" presents modern Japanese animation, manga (comic books and graphic novels) and traditional wood block and scroll prints.
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Thursday, January 22, 2004
I have never found room to put up my history of the chair poster which has altogether too many cool chairs across its ample expanse, but I think I've already found its best friend: the folding chairs history poster.
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I held up the Seattle Times' food section in front of my husband yesterday and said "we're not in the Bay Area anymore." He, nicely, did not say "duh." I continued "there's nothing about the Chinese New Year in here." No reminiscences about sweets and auspicious foods. No recipes redolent with five-spice power. For New Year's food coverage from a local paper, I need to head over to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer where their food writer Hsiao-Ching Chou has the perspective to wax nostalgic over Lunar New Years past spent within a vibrant Asian community.
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Wednesday, January 21, 2004
To celebrate the Lunar New Year, it seems altogether appropriate to make a pilgrimage to the site of our favorite little terry cloth monkey. Join him in his preparations to celebrate the Year of the Monkey.
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"When I see three oranges, I juggle; when I see two towers, I walk."
There is a special poignancy to this year's winner of the Caldecott Medal. The Caldecott is awarded each year by the Association for Library Service to Children to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children. 2004's winner is The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein. It tells the story of a Frenchman who, in 1974, strung a wire between New York City's Twin Towers and danced across. Philippe Petit spent six years preparing for his illegal performance. His research included posing as a journalist to find out all he could about the towers. He and his accomplices spent all night installing his performance stage and he took to the wire on the morning of August 7, 1974. Fighting against criticism and potential financial ruin, the Port Authority welcomed the unexpected stunt which succeeded in endearing the bleak looking towers to the public. Petit was awarded a lifetime pass to the south tower's observation deck and he published his own telling of the event called To Reach the Clouds.
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Tuesday, January 20, 2004
It's hard to believe, but the supermarket strike in Southern California has affected the sales of national magazines. Apparently Southern CA grocery shoppers buy a significate amount of magazines at the store. Some estimate a 20% sales drop in monthly magazines like Glamour and also trashy tabloids like the National Enquirer. Time Inc. says that the region accounts for 6.5% of their sales. Wholesalers and magazine distributers are suffering the most. Regional magazines are actually not suffering as much because their readers are largely subscribers. (via Romenesko)
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When she was eleven, Beverley Birks retrieved her grandmother's collection of custom-made clothes from the trash. Thus began what eventually grew into one of the largest private collections of 20th Century haute couture. Until the 1980s she had little trouble acquiring vintage couture for reasonable prices. But a Christie's auction in 1979 woke up the appreciation and thus the market of old Chanels and Diors. Restoration costs also ate into Birks' pocketbook and she eventually quit her job as an art dealer to become a dealer in her main hobby, selling a percentage of her always growing couture collection to museums and other dealers. A partial database of Birks' collection is available for searching online. There are also pages of representative images from her vast trove. (source: Architectural Digest, Oct 1994)
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Monday, January 19, 2004
Miniature Books! There's a Babylonian cuneiform tablet, circa 2047-2039 B.C., artistic modern miniatures, and much more in between from all over the world. (via Yahoo Picks)
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Think a Steinway's first sounds are a classical melody? The first melodic tones from Steinway No. K0862, which the N.Y. Times has been following in a series of articles, were that of the Simpsons' theme song. After a slack tuning (to go easy on the new strings), the instrument was pounded on by a machine to break the key mechanism in evenly. Prior to the Simpsons and pounding, a 400 pound cast-iron plate was attached to the frame, and then the sound board was installed by the "bellyman", so named because part of the process of attaching the board involves lying on your stomach on top of it. A drilling machine and a string twisting machine aided two workers in placing 243 strings. The "action" which holds the hammers and other parts of the striking mechanisms were then attached to the frame. 71 dampers were installed along with the damper pedal (the one on the right). After the Simpsons tuning and machine break-in, the middle sostenuto pedal was placed. The longer this series of articles stretches on, the more curious I am to see if we will discover at the end who now owns this instrument.
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Friday, January 16, 2004
There's nothing too surprising in this article about the use of casino loyalty cards, but the scope of the results of their data mining was beyond what I imagined. Like grocery store membership cards, these loyalty cards not only function to accumulate rewards for their holders, but, in addition, the masses of data collected about gambling habits informs the casino's marketing programs. Harrah's has 90 market segments identified and can target customers according to their gambling patterns almost immediately. The results: "revenues from customers who carry a Total Rewards card have increased 9% year on year."
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In case the Mars rover gets hungry, it can use this web page to figure out how to convert Earth recipes to the Martian atmosphere. It's a school assignment though, so it'll have to do the math, but maybe it can spare some extra processing power or get some help from the smart people that got it up there. (via KIPlog)
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Thursday, January 15, 2004
Limes limes everywhere!
Coca-Cola is introducing Diet Coke with Lime. The marketing verbiage promises "a taste that blends contemporary sophistication with familiar refreshment." Diet Coke with Lemon is being reformulated with a lighter lemon flavor.
The N.Y. Times reports on changes in the U.S. lime industry as Mexican imports dominate the market. Florida trees were ravaged by Hurricane Andrew and destroyed to prevent the spread of canker disease. 200 acres remain of the previous 6,700. 98% of the lime market is imported. But there are small growers of exotic varieties doing well selling to farmer's markets and gourmet buyers. Demand is rising for kaffir limes and their leaves and finger limes.
And have you heard about the limequat? It's a lime and kumquat hybrid, advertised as tasting exactly like a key lime. Back in my little citrus-unfriendly climate, the lime tree I brought up from California dropped all its tiny fruit but then decided to bloom again last week. The Meyer Lemon tree dropped all its fruit save for one, which is expanding at a rapid pace.
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Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Cute recent news photos: cat and horse say hello in Hungarian snow, and a little baby chick tries to clear the curb with Mom coming over the help.
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The S.F. Chronicle printed a nice introduction to Chinese winter greens. It's not as easy finding them in the suburban supermarkets where we now live near Seattle, compared to California. But at least there is an Asian market out in the 'burbs, though sometimes we make the trek down to the closest 99 Ranch.
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King County, which contains Seattle and surrounding areas, keeps an up-to-date list of restaurants closed by the Public Health department. Re-openings are also listed.
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Here's a refreshing new wedding idea. Make your wedding cake a blank canvas for your guests to decorate. This couple provided flowers, gumdrops, sprinkles, and other candies. One guest brought action figures to represent the newlyweds. Wet naps were also provided for sticky fingers.
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Tuesday, January 13, 2004
William Calvin, who writes engagingly about the brain and evolution, has a new book coming out in March. He's a theoretical neurobiologist and most recently has been thinking a lot about the role of climate in evolution (his last book was A Brain for All Seasons). The new book, A Brief History of the Mind pulls together his previous themes of cultural change, climate shifts, and physical evolution into a journey through 7 million years of human thought, and even beyond.
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Orchestras in European Union member countries need to begin protecting their musicians from sounds higher than 85 decibels, which is a reduction from the prior 90 decibels regulation. Depending on what instruments musicians have the (mis)fortune to sit in front of, they can experience sound in the 130 decibel range. The EU law allows for averaging of weekly exposure, and there is a transition period for adjusting to the regulation which began last year. Special earplugs, plexiglas screens, and alternate seating arrangements are among the possible solutions. Some European orchestras have formed "noise teams" to propose ideas. Repertoire changes are, of course, another way to reduce noise, but skipping the loudest pieces isn't the ideal solution. Meanwhile, over on this side of the Atlantic, OSHA doesn't deal much with the hazards of the musical workplace, but orchestras easily conform to the allowed 90 decibels over an 8 hour day, and a 97 decibel limit over 3 hours with their short bursts of peak blasts and limited rehearsal time. (source N.Y. Times)
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Monday, January 12, 2004
Now there's scientific proof that opera supertitles should probably be used for all languages, not just foreign ones. Researchers in Australia published findings last week which demonstrate that as sopranos sing higher, their pronunciation becomes distorted. The techniques they use to project the high notes, tuning their vocal tracts for the best resonance, come at the expense of their vowels sounding similar. There are other reasons for unintelligible lyrics, most notably, designing the reverberation of a music hall for both orchestral and vocal performance involves compromises. With non-supertitled opera, it's best to just enjoy the beauty of the music and make sure to read up on the plot beforehand. (via Andante)
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With winter in full swing, it's an ideal time to visit the world of snowflake photography. Wilson Bentley was the first to take magnified photos of a snowflake crystal, and he published his technique for others to follow. Current pursuers of the fascinatingly beautiful art are nature photographer Mark Cassino, Caltech physics professor Ken Libbrecht (sometimes he grows his own flake designs in the lab) who published a book with photographer Patricia Rasmussen, and scientific photographer Ted Kinsman. The variations in the crystals are astounding with some surprisingly simple and of course the amazingly complex.
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Friday, January 09, 2004
Seattle's Finest Exotic Meats sells your more familiar exotic meats like frog legs, lamb, venison, and rabbit, and also truly exotic items (for mainstream America anyway) such as snapping turtle, rattlesnake, llama and kangaroo. (via larkfarm)
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Feast your eyes on the beauty of the Fabergé Imperial Easter Eggs. Fifty are believed to have been made, and nine of them are in a Forbes collection which will be auctioned off by Sotheby's in April. Ten are in the Kremlin Armoury Museum. Eight are unaccounted for. The Forbes collection includes the elegantly simple Hen Egg, the first to be commissioned. It has a plain white exterior with a gold band. A gold hen sits inside. The subsequent eggs feature much more ornate detailing. One takes the form of a miniature orange tree sitting in a fancy planter, roped off with jeweled chains. My favorite, in terms of theme, is the pink egg encircled with lovely lily of the valley sprays. Estimates for the various eggs range from $3 to $24 million. Will they join their brethren in other collections of Imperial eggs, will they each go to a different new home? Will the missing eight ever show up?
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Thursday, January 08, 2004
The Vos Pad is "the world's first apartment solely lit by LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes)." The NY Times wrote up a feature on this cleverly lit abode and speculated on the future of LEDs as replacements for incandescents. There's more than LEDs to this high-tech Pad. Designed by Marcel Jean Vos, the apartment's floors are cleaned by the Electrolux Trilobite, LCD screens are embedded in walls, the kitchen has sleek Neff appliances. Of course there's a plasma screen television, computer controlled lighting, and a multi-room audio system. The 360 L.E.D. arrays and 20 yards of glowing semiconductors use the same energy as four 100-watt incandescent bulbs. Of course the cost of the lighting itself is still beyond practicality, but it's still pretty slick.
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Stonyfield Yogurt has been my favorite for a while. Back in October, Corby Kummer took a look at Stonyfield's recent history, particularly their emphasis on organic ingredients. I had been concerned that Danone (Dannon)'s stake in the company would lead to some negative changes, but it seems that company head Gary Hirshberg is steadily working on his goals. The company has concentrated on creating market share in order to support sustainable, organic farming for both their dairy suppliers and even fruit growers. Instead of bending consumers tastes to a more natural, tangy yogurt, Stonyfield evolved bacterial cultures that were milder, less acidic. They are keeping in line with America's sweet tooth, offering dessert-based flavors. It's a pragmatic approach to coaxing our food manufacturing into healthy results and sustainable processes.
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Wednesday, January 07, 2004
We had a rare snow day in Seattle. Cross-country skis, sleds, and tire chains appeared. Snow angels abounded. The UPS truck made it, but our mail didn't arrive. The USPS doesn't consider the famous inscription on the Post Office Building in New York to be an official motto. But I think in areas of the country more accustomed to the harsh elements, it's an aspiration that often holds true. "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." UPDATE: Sometime between evening and morning, our mail did arrive. They made it through snow, rain, and gloom of night!
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Don't let the bedbugs bite. MicroAngela has a collection of views from an electron microscopes at the University of Hawaii. Bugs, bacteria, parasites, and a, uh, termite playing the guitar. OK, that last one may have involved PhotoShop. (via Sennoma)
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The life of reclusive, but well-known professors, is partially revealed in this article on privacy-conscious Princeton faculty members such as Joyce Carol Oates, John Nash Jr., Andrew Wiles, and John McPhee (one of the few who permitted an interview for the article). Although they protect themselves from unwanted publicity, these teachers receive high marks from students for a devotion to their other craft of guiding the next generation.
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Tuesday, January 06, 2004
A couple weeks ago we took our first trip to the Seattle Cinerama. It is the movie theater around these parts, so we were told. The screen did not disappoint. The seats are comfortable for old style seats, and are supposedly upholstered in mohair, but my posterior missed the new fangled wide seats, especially towards the end of the lengthy but very enjoyable Return of the King. The sound was excellent; they're THX Certified, something most theaters in our previous community neglected to pursue. The 90-foot-long, 30-foot-high, curved Cinerama screen actually sits behind their regular 68-foot-long movie screen and its soundwall, so it takes some work to convert the theater to Cinerama screenings. There's also a special second sound system to match the true Cinerama audio experience. But I'm perfectly satisfied to continue to view mere modern films on the smaller screen in THX.
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"You Gotta Believe."
Many will remember Tug McGraw as a superlative reliever for the Philadelphia Phillies, but New Yorkers remember him as the New York Met who coined their rallying cry "You Gotta Believe." He helped hugely in their 1969 Word Series season and their 1973 National League championship season. Both winning seasons were unexpected, shocking even. McGraw died on Monday at the age of 59 from brain cancer. You always knew when he had had a good inning; he'd bound off the mound with his glove bouncing merrily on his thigh. He did that a lot. (NY Times obituary)
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Monday, January 05, 2004
In a role reversal of sorts, we enjoyed balmy 50 degree weather during our holiday trip to Connecticut and were greeted with a couple inches of snow and freezing temperatures upon our return to Seattle.
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Catching up on pre-Christmas news... it is becoming impossible to acquire dragees, those little silver balls used to decorate baked goods, in California, thanks (or perhaps no thanks) to a lawyer who filed a lawsuit about the matter. He doesn't know anyone who has actually been hurt by the silver sprinkles, but wants them off the market because of silver's toxicity. Time to go for the gold. (thanks Zail!)
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From Ain't It Cool News, an amusing bit from Q&A with Joss Whedon at the L. A. Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention:
When someone mentioned that both Whedon and Edlund had worked on the "Titan A.E." script, Whedon groaned and remembered that, on the way home from the "Titan" screening, his wife told him to "say something funny so I’ll remember that you are."
Whedon had to be the one who put in the line about naming the planet "Bob."
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