A genetic study of cats has shown that felines were domesticated in "Fertile Crescent" of the Middle East at around the time agriculture began. They liked our rodents. We didn't. It was a perfect match. The study comes to us from the Cat Genome Project.
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Some YouTube highlights from this year's Glastonbury Festival ("the largest greenfield music and performing arts festival in the world"): Dame Shirley Bassey wraps up her set with 10 minutes of pure diva power (and this diva is 70 years old!). Bjork and her killer all-female brass band perform Hunter. The Who, always amazing live, energize Who Are You? while sheets of rain pour down on the crowd. The oddest of the bunch, Rufus Wainwright and his band dance along to his cover of Judy Garland's Get Happy. And if you want to see the sea of tents and mud that was Glastonbury 2007, catch a few minutes of "Getting out of Glastonbury 2007 in 5 minutes" wherein a coupla blokes video their drive out from the festival grounds.
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Thursday, June 28, 2007

The Julliard Manuscript Collection is a Flash-based online library of original manuscripts, sketches, engravers proofs, and first editions from folks like Mozart, Bach, Brahms, Wagner, Mahler, and yes, Beethoven.
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Here are two Muppet items resulting from the San Francisco "Muppets, Music and Magic" event. First, Gonzo and "friend" (puppeteer) Dave Goelz answer a few audience questions captured in this 3 min 42 sec video. Second, the Chronicle took the opportunity to take a look back at "The Dark Crystal" and "Labyrinth." Both movies have risen above their box office failures as fans return via DVD to visit the dark and complex world that Jim Henson envisioned in the style of the Brothers Grimm.
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Wednesday, June 27, 2007

DIY glass milk bottle lamp. Don't just recycle, re-use.
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A parking meter that calls you when your time is almost up? Next up, crank calls from a parking meter.
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Tuesday, June 26, 2007

FlavH20, a flavored water, has been out for a few years. BevNet updated their review to cover some new flavors and I noticed the unique plastic can. It's got a plastic bottle body with an aluminum flip-top. Coca-cola tried out a similar "recyclable plastic can" in the 1980s. A few others have used the packaging since then but it's an eye-catching differentiator rather than a trend.
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Photos from the South Lake Tahoe fire from the San Francisco Chronicle. The Tahoe Daily Tribune's continuous coverage page charts the devastating facts. Approximately 2,500 acres burned, 225 homes and structures destroyed, and 1,095 men and women fighting for full containment, currently estimated for July 1.
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Monday, June 25, 2007

When architect Philip Johnson passed away in 2005 his New Canaan, Connecticut property became, by prior agreement, a part of the National Trust. The Glass House, in which Johnson lived and died, and the other structures on his 47-acres are now open to the public. Completed in 1949, the modern Glass House is complemented and supported by the Brick House which holds the mechanical systems for the clear, minimalist structure. Visitors are compelled to consider the carefully planned landscape and their own part in the transparency and reflection of the architect's own home. Tours are already sold out for 2007, but tickets are being sold for next year. (sources: AP, Connecticut Post, Stamford Advocate, Washington Post)
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Saturday, June 23, 2007

Tugboats have a certain romantic appeal. They pull ships out of trouble, stabilize crafts in storms, take barges to distant destinations and guide giant vessels in and out of port. Powerful little tugs are dwarfed by their much larger charges. The 170 year old tugboat industry has been "sleepy" since a tax-sheltered building boom in the 1970s. Now the N.Y. Times reports that demand for new tugboats is booming. Shipyards are at capacity with a two-year wait for a new tug, and towing companies are building their own boats to keep up. Smaller, more powerful tugboats are needed for larger container ships and the new mandate for double-hulled petroleum barges. And "Moran Towing is trying to lure young crew members by equipping its new tugs with DVD players, flat-screen televisions, high-speed Internet connections and more comfortable beds."
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Friday, June 22, 2007

There is now actual data to back up the known fact that moms have been purchasing digital SLR cameras in order to effectively capture their speedy toddlers. Yup, we've realized that "point and shoot" is actually "point...wait...oh SHOOT I missed it."
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Muppets, Music & Magic is now at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Running until July 1st, the program originated at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and has been hosted at various venues around the U.S. It consists of the Muppet films you know and love along with behind-the-scenes footage and other rare programs from the Henson archives. In August it travels to Long Island (Huntington, NY) as part of Cinema Arts Centre's Puppets on the Sound, an international puppet festival.
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Thursday, June 21, 2007

Who wants edible gold messages floating in their coffee? Certainly not the millions of Starbucks commuters who never see what they're drinking out of that spill-proof cover. But perhaps a trendy restaurant would consider adding the Tsukioka Company's pure gold words into customers' after dinner drinks.
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At Shorewood High School, just north of Seattle, Bev Anderson runs a Culinary Arts program which can boast of alumni in several of the area's fine dining establishments. Besides teaching her students the basics of cooking, Anderson brings in local chefs and local produce, and brings the kids out to local restaurants. She also connects her students with jobs, giving them the opportunity to discover what life is like in the kitchen. Two students are currently interning at Seattle's legendary Canlis.
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Tuesday, June 19, 2007

More proof that laughter is good for you: "Breastfed babies with eczema experienced milder symptoms if their mothers laughed hours before feeding them." I would've watched a lot more TV while I was nursing if I had known that!
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Wow, the Redwood Symphony, where many of my Silicon Valley musician friends play or played, was briefly mentioned in The New Yorker! "Who would have guessed that the Redwood Symphony, a volunteer orchestra in the Silicon Valley area, has played all of Mahler’s symphonies?" Yup, that's them all right.
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Monday, June 18, 2007

Officials at Milan's Linate airport captured 57 hares and 4 rabbits in a daytime raid meant to reduce the bunny population. The event happens twice a year, usually at night, but the large numbers of hares this time necessitated a more productive daylight capture, though the airport did need to be closed for a few hours. (Bugs Bunny fans note the filename in the URL.)
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Their numbers may be dwindling but the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose lead upbeat lives. An observer who seeks to join their ranks observed: "the sisters... were the freest women she knew. They weren't preoccupied with makeup or clothes, with how they measured up against other women." The women pursue their eclectic hobbies, one plays the electric guitar and has both a myspace page and a blog, another does yo-yo tricks. There are seven women preparing to take their final vows at the convent. And the sisters trust that "if sisters disappear, God must be making way for a different kind of religious life for women, something reconfigured and updated for modern times."
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Friday, June 15, 2007

A Pepsi flavor we'll never see in the U.S.: Pepsi Ice Cucumber. It's a limited edition on sale in Japan. Pale green cucumber cola... will Coca-Cola even bother considering a competing flavor?
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Andrew Lloyd Webber's kitten climbed into his digital Clavinova piano and destroyed the score for his new musical Phantom in Manhattan. Brad summarizes the news in the best musical lolcat ever.
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Thursday, June 14, 2007

I still love my 1997 Subaru Legacy Wagon and it will probably last a few more years and miles, but I've started thinking about a new car. The question many Subaru owners ready for a replacement have nowadays is "when will Subaru have a hybrid?" A concept vehicle was displayed in Detroit early last year. After Toyota, of the Prius, bought GM's 8.7% stake in Subaru parent company Fuji Heavy Industries, speculation pointed towards a hybrid 2008 Legacy using Toyota's technologies. But Subaru has recently stated that they decided to first put their resources into a diesel engine, with those models expected to roll out next year. Subaru owners ready for an upgrade will have to decide whether they want to stick with that mid-20s mpg for another long Subaru lifetime.
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Back in March I mentioned that a play about the Iraq war at my ol' hometown high school had been canceled because of its controversial content. After N.Y. Times coverage of the situation got out, the New York theater community came calling. The play, “Voices in Conflict,” has performed to packed houses at two prestigious Off-Broadway venues and a final show on Friday at the Public Theater is sold out. The student performers have juggled finals, college applications, A.C.T.s, and now graduation events to make it into New York for rehearsals and the shows.
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Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Connecticut's Mystic Aquarium has acquired a rare blue lobster captured in the Thames River in New London, Connecticut. A genetic defect causes the blue coloring, a result of an excessive production of protein combining with a red caratenoid molecule, astaxanthin. Blue lobsters are one in a million but they still turn red when cooked. This one has escaped that fate.
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With the Mariners visiting the Chicago Cubs for the very first time, Seattle Times sportswriter Larry Stone took the opportunity to wax nostalgic about Wrigley Field. They may have added lights, a few ads, and 1,790 seats, but there's still a hand-operated scoreboard, the absence of Jumbotron and Diamond Vision, and the echoes of a long-suffering but passionate fan base who've been waiting since 1908 for another title.
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Tuesday, June 12, 2007

In March, Matt pointed to a photo of a Target knock-off of the LikeABike, a wooden "walking" bike for toddlers. I told my husband, who conveniently works near a Target, and he bought one which is now hidden in our garage, waiting for a 3rd birthday to arrive (our toddler's currently plenty happy pedaling his tricycle around and careening it down little hills just to shave years off of my life). This past Sunday's Target circular listed the bike on sale, but I still can't find it in their online store. It's a "Play Wonder Walking Trainer bike" and it's $39.99 this week (that's 10 bucks off). While I was searching the Target site I did find recumbent tricycles for 4-6 year olds made by Triker.
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It took 10 days, 7 people, and 300 truck-loads of sand to create the world's largest sandcastle in Myrtle Beach this month. Gadling has gathered photos and video of the 49.55 foot tall castle along with other unique sand sculptures from around the world. A long time ago I helped with Mont St Michel in the sand and also the Sphinx but they were tiny in comparison.
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Monday, June 11, 2007

Ask Playbill.com got the lowdown on cast album royalties from Kurt Deutsch, president of Sh-K-Boom Records. Royalties are typically $1.50 to $2.00 per album with 60% going to the writers (composer, lyricist, book writer) and 40% going to the producers of the show. 15% or 20% of the producers' share is split between the performers. However, royalties don't kick in until the sum of the royalty portion (the $1.50-$2.00) of all albums sold goes over the album's production & marketing costs. So if an album with a $2 royalty cost $500,000, then 250,000 copies would need to be sold before royalties were paid out. Few cast albums sell enough to make royalties. However, the songwriters do make a "mechanical royalty" on every album (around eight cents a song) and the performers are paid well for their recording time: one week's salary for an 8 hour recording session and the same rate for every additional hour (1/8 a week's salary / hour). (via Amazon's Daily blog)
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Saturday, June 09, 2007

"The world’s largest operating musical instrument" is in a Macy's in Philadelphia. Now with 28,543 pipes ranging in size from an inch to 32 feet, the original (still massive) configuration helped to bankrupt the Los Angeles Art Organ Company who created it for the St. Louis International Exposition in 1904. Purchased by the Wanamakers for the store they opened in 1911, the organ passed through several changes in store ownership and became Macy's property last year. With a curator and organist on staff, Macy's takes full advantage of this showpiece in their local marketing efforts.
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Friday, June 08, 2007

If you've got a Concorde airplane sitting around that might need some servicing, an auction of spare parts will be held in Toulouse in September. Proceeds go towards the creation of a museum park featuring the history of Concorde maker Aerospatiale Toulouse (which became Airbus).
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One of the dresses in designer Hussein Chalayan's fall collection features Swarovski crystals and LEDs. It glows and sparkles.
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Thursday, June 07, 2007

Bob Barker has filmed his final episode of The Price Is Right. He signed off as he's always done, nothing special. So get those pets spayed or neutered folks!
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The Martin guitar company, C. F. Martin & Company to be precise, is still run by the family. Christian F. Martin IV is the sixth generation of guitar makers and, the N.Y. Times points out, "the first to worry about the availability of the distinctive woods needed to build Martin guitars." The company banded with other guitar makers to raise awareness after Greenpeace brought them the news that, at current logging rates, the Sitka spruces they depend on for their soundboards would be gone in 6-7 years. Instrument makers are a minor consumer of wood compared to the building industry, but they are in a position to rally support and publicity from their celebrity customers. When the time comes, the current C.F. Martin wants to be able to hand off a viable business to his 2-year-old daughter, Claire Frances, the next C.F.
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Wednesday, June 06, 2007

It's one thing to get a "behind the scenes" look at a show or concert, but this almost-stream of consciousness recap of a concert from the perspective of Stewart Copeland, drummer for The Police, offers particularly unique insight. Was it really a disaster show? Only the musicians know what was really supposed to happen. (via Now This)
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DeBeers, the diamond company, in partnership with LVMH, the world's largest purveyor of luxury goods, has launched an ecommerce site on debeers.com. A carefully selected range of diamond jewelry, from $500 and up, way up, is ready for your mouse-click. The priciest items are not for sale online, but you can arrange an appointment to see them in person. I'll venture a guess that Blue Nile isn't too worried yet about this entry into online diamond retailing, but it depends on how aggressively DeBeers pushes it as a way to buy engagement rings. The company doesn't do much retail directly to the consumer, but LVMH is managing to keep up eLuxury.com (you can buy a $40 Dior baby bottle and $45 pacifier online!) (via Luxist)
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Tuesday, June 05, 2007

I was reading about the London Olympics logo debacle and had a silly idea so I registered a domain for it at 11:45pm. By 1:15am I had a site live on Tumblr including RSS and stats from Feedburner. That's an insane turnaround time. I suppose that's why the Internet is full of ridiculous sites like what I just coughed up: LOL LOGOS. It began with this one and I know you all can do better, so send 'em in to the address on the site (or don't and let it die the peaceful death a good meme deserves).
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Hey Buffy fans! Is the sing-along "Once More with Feeling" Tour coming to a town near you? It will be in Seattle at the Egyptian on June 29th and 30th. Get your evil bunny costumes dusted off and ready. (thanks Jonah!)
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Today I learned about apple butter and red-eye gravy. I'm not from the South. I'd heard of apple butter before but I assumed it was a regional term for apple sauce. How wrong I was. Apple butter is apple sauce cooked down until the sugar in it caramelizes. So it's spreadable like a butter and, I can imagine, pretty sweet! My red-eye gravy education began with Kathryn's photo of some lovely ham at Momofuku Ssäm Bar. I asked what the condiment was in the photo and her response was "Red Eye Coffee gravy." So I immediately turned to Wikipedia for the lowdown on red-eye gravy. It is made from the drippings of the pan-fried ham, mixed with water or coffee, sometimes thickened with flour. And it reportedly "packs a punch."
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Saturday, June 02, 2007

Violins need to be played. I hate to see a superb instrument get snapped up by a collector who merely displays it instead of lending it to musicians. In Cremona, Italy, where the legendary violinmakers worked their magic, the city hall's violin museum is home to a small group of instruments that would be the envy of any collector. And Andrea Mosconi, the city's musical conservationist, has a job would be the envy of any violinist. He is paid to play the museum's three Amati violins, two Guarneris and three Stradivarii. There's also a Stradivarius cello, but Mosconi contracts that job out to some lucky young cellist. Every day except Sunday and August vacation, Mosconi exercises each of the eight violins with equal care -- he claims to have no favorite. (NY Times article)
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Friday, June 01, 2007

Are you gamer enough to make Tetris ice cubes? How about a Tetris bookshelf? (via DS Fanboy)
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When Martha Stewart announced plans to trademark the town name "Katonah" for use on her company's products, some residents complained. Now the name's origins have brought forward another protest. The town was named after Chief Katonah who led the Ramapough Indians in the 17th century. Katonah residents who have organized a campaign against Stewart announced last week that the Ramapough Lenape Indian Nation has added its support to their effort.
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