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.

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.

DIY glass milk bottle lamp. Don’t just recycle, re-use.

A parking meter that calls you when your time is almost up? Next up, crank calls from a parking meter.

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.

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.

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)

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.”

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.”

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.