“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.” –George Washington

“…As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy” –Abraham Lincoln

Industrial parks can spring up overnight around here, and during the boom times it seemed that you could sprinkle a few concrete seeds in an empty lot, add water, and instantly grow raw square footage ready for the cubicle installers. Tilt-ups are the weeds of which I speak. These rapidly built, but artistically maligned buildings are now prettied up with decorative flourishes and used for museums and churches. Tilt-up construction is just that. After the floor is poured, the concrete walls are formed on-site and tilted-up. It’s fast and the logistics are simple. But does easy up mean easy down? The results of Northridge (400 tilt-ups out of 1,200 damaged) and Loma Prieta on tilt-up construction was disturbing. Modern steel-frame buildings have a better safety record. The connectors between the tilt-up walls and roofs are key. Older tilt-ups used nailed wooden connectors. Newer building codes require steel connectors, and even those codes have been recently enhanced for stronger steel. Some tilt-ups have been retrofitted, but not all will be. It appears that we may have to wait for architectural evolution to take its course. (Also check out tilt-up.org with its top ten construction list. Largest square footage? 1,650,000 square feet, Rooms-To-Go Distribution Center, Lakeland, FL. Tallest panel? 91′ 7¼” Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, Nassau Bay, TX.)

Reader Marc sent in news and extra links regarding the Leblanc factory fire in the Normandy region of France which destroyed 1,400 clarinets and the entire stock of spare keys. The news item mentioned that the Leblanc Corporation of Kenosha, Wisconsin had taken over the factory which was formerly called Noblet and had been founded in 1750. The history before that acquisition, pulled from various web sources, is fascinating. It begins with Denis Noblet of the original firm granting his family business, as he had no heirs, to Georges LeBlanc, his best employee. The LeBlanc family set up the first full-time acoustical research laboratory for wind instruments in Paris and hired master acoustician Charles Houvenaghel. They produced a wide range of highly regarded clarinets.

Over in the U.S., Kenosha, WI to be exact, a young boy, Vito Pascucci, became interested in instrument design and repair work. Called to serve in WWII, Pascucci took his repair tools with him and worked with the Army Air Corps Band, led by none other than Glenn Miller. Having made plans to visit the famous instrument makers of Paris with Miller, Pascucci pressed onwards despite Miller’s death in a plane disappearance. His tour of Leblanc was conducted by Léon Leblanc, son of Georges. The two became close friends and Pascucci continued to visit the factory, learning their manufacturing processes. After Pascucci returned home, he was entrusted by Leblanc to set up distribution for their instruments in the U.S. The clarinets, still manufactured in France, were reassembled in Kenosha after the wood had acclimatized to the different environment. Pascucci grew the U.S. business over many years, acquiring other companies such as Martin Band Instruments. In 1989 he acquired majority interest and management responsibility for his mentor’s European business. And that’s how a famous French clarinet factory came to be owned by a company in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Wander into the Oddmusic Musical Instrument Gallery and take a look at sound-producing contraptions such as the Bikelophone, the Sarrusophone, and the Octavator. (thanks salt!)

The library of Port Townsend, Washington took ten years (1902-1911) of their local paper’s microfilms, had it scanned by OCLC Preservation Resources, and then indexed by library staff and volunteers. The results are online and searchable. What wonderful ads there are: “Mothers who perceive the evidences of functional derangement in young girls should promptly have them begin the use of Dr. Pierce’s Pleasant Pellets.” and “The Pantorium: Pants Made to Order” or how about “Genuine Syrup of White Pine and Tar for Coughs and Colds.” Yummy yum yum. Someone is going to laugh at all our cellular phone ads one day, aren’t they? (via larkfarm)

Fish Out of Water
Dr. Tom Lessl of the University of Georgia studies Speech Communication. For three years he studied the fish outlines that people put on their cards. Well, more precisely he studied why people put the fish outlines on their cars, and he especially wanted to know about those who displayed the legged Darwin and evolution fish. He left surveys whenever he spotted one. You can read some of their responses in this news item on the study. Quickly after Darwin came the Truth fish devouring the Darwin fish, and the dead, legs up Darwin fish. Many other parodies followed. As the NY Times put it: “While natural selection drives biological change, the evolution of car fish seems to have been driven by ideological one-upsmanship at first, and then by market forces and irrepressible silliness. The newest species is the Sushi fish, a truly odd symbolic development in which the fish actually represents a fish.” (buy ’em here, another fishy article)

Sign Nostalgia
Let’s revisit something I wrote in December of 1999:

One of those questions that often enters my brain as I am sitting in traffic has finally been answered: just how much does it cost to rent a billboard on 101 in Silicon Valley? Apparently ten times more than it did five years ago. Prime spots are going for $100,000 a month, according to an article in the Mercury News [the article is no longer available online]. And if you want one, you’d better plan ahead. There’s a waiting list. Or perhaps you’d prefer a sign on a barge floating in the bay by the Stick (yes, I know it’s actually called 3Com Park; what an expensive billboard that was!). Those open at $35,000 for two weeks. Nice to know that my eyeballs have such expensive taste.

Three years later, the billboard landscape looks much different. Billboard advertising salespeople are waxing nostalgic over the days when they could make one or two phone calls and spend the rest of the day with their 18 holes. Prices are at $20,000 and $40,000 per month, down by at least half. And there are blank billboards, sitting and waiting. Billboard ads are less about the dotcoms and more about movies, clothing, IKEA, and pharmaceuticals. There are still tech companies in the mix, but the arrival of a new month no longer brings the same expectation I used to feel as I thought “what will they do next?” I still miss the green topiary vines which spelled out garden.com.

The Washington Post has a fascinating, in-depth look at the creative process of writing greeting cards. As most writers know, skillful brevity is the most difficult creative task. For their talents, greeting card writers get ranked below romance novelists by fellow writers, but at least they are on salary. The greeting card business is nothing to sneeze at; the companies have their own lobbying group. Card creators try to respond quickly to tragedies and changing sentiments. Ultimately, the writers want to give people a way to communicate their true feelings. The author learns how successful that can be when he visits his mother at the end of the piece. (via Pop Culture Junkmail)

Before the new wave there was New Order and before New Order there was Joy Division. According to synth-pop myth, it was a Sex Pistols concert in Manchester that triggered the genesis of Joy Division. It was the same event that eventually led to the formation of Manchester’s Factory Records, which signed Joy Division. And it’s that journey, taken by Factory founder Tony Wilson, that is “docudrama-ed” in the movie 24 Hour Party People. Directed by Michael Winterbottom, the movie has just been released on DVD. If you lived within the airwaves of Long Island in the 1980s and listened to WLIR (it’s back now, by the way), this may be the movie for you. (thanks Mena)

You want some Steinbeck with that?
What we did not buy at the 36th California International Antiquarian Book Fair:
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone First UK edition, signed by J.K. Rowling, $25,000
Atlas Shrugged First edition, signed by Ayn Rand, $12,000
Eloise First edition $800
A few M.F.K. Fisher signed first editions, $400 and up.
I didn’t look much at the truly ancient books and maps, but my husband saw prices of $200,000 and up. What did we buy? Nothing. But we thought very hard about a couple of personally meaningful things in the $100-$200 range.