Picked up at Costco this weekend: 2-DVD sets of “The Best of The Muppet Show” for $12.99. They don’t have all of them, but it’s a great price if you want to pick up a few. Time-Life does currently have the entire collection at sale prices online.
In a sure sign of an impending cultural apocalypse, Perrier is now available in a plastic bottle.
The two men involved in originating the bugle call Taps had different remembrances of its genesis. Their recollections and a well-researched theory of the call’s creation has been put together by bugle historian Jari Villanueva. Bugler Oliver W. Norton and General Daniel Butterfield created Taps in 1862, revising a portion of an existing Tatoo into the now familiar “lights out” melody. There is also an untrue, but romantic, story of how Taps came to be.
Yes, there really is no postal service today. But you want a Reagan stamp, dontcha? According to the guidelines for the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee, “Commemorative stamps or postal stationery items honoring individuals usually will be issued on or in conjunction with significant anniversaries of their birth, but no postal item will be issued sooner than ten years after the individual’s death. The only exception to the ten-year rule is the issuance of stamps honoring deceased U.S. presidents. They may be honored with a memorial stamp on the first birth anniversary following death.” Seems a safe bet that we’ll be getting a new stamp on February 6, 2005.
The Coca-Cola Bottling Company of New York has rolled out a 1.5 liter “Smooth Serve” bottle. It’s touted as being easier to handle than the 2 liter bottles, because of its shape, and the reduced amount of soda is supposed to entice consumers to try and buy other soda flavors and also reduce the amount of flat soda sitting in the fridge. Observant customers will realize that although they pay less for the 1.5 liter bottles than the 2, they are paying more per ounce of soda. Unfortunately you may not have to be very observant to notice that the 1.5 liters are supplanting the 2 liters in shelf space, making this introduction work more like the common industry trick of reducing the size of a candy bar without changing the price. Will “Smooth Serve” eventually take over the rest of the U.S.?
Forget puny carats, the Millenium Sapphire weighs a hefty 28 pounds. It was discovered in Madagascar in 1995 and its group of owners decided to have it carved into a work of art. The gem now sports 134 carvings of various human achievements, artists, composers, scientists, leaders. Princess Cruises is naming its 116,000 ton Sapphire Princess in Seattle today, and displaying the Millenium Sapphire as part of the celebrations. It’ll be the first cruise ship to be christened in Seattle.
The music folks at the Pulitzers are seeking more entries from the worlds of jazz, musical theater and movies, declaring a “strong desire to consider and honor the full range of distinguished American musical compositions.” Boiled down, the Pulitzer Prize Board wants to widen the field from just classical compositions. The actual change in wording runs thus:
Old: “For distinguished musical composition of significant dimension by an American that has had its first performance in the United States during the year.”
New: “For a distinguished musical composition by an American that has had its first performance or recording in the United States during the year.”
The removal of “significant dimension” is meant to broaden the field of entries. A score is no longer necessary for entry, though it is encouraged. That change allows for improvisational work. And the jury pool has been altered to include more roles from the music world.
“The author will make every effort to attend the funerals of her words.” Progess on Shelley Jackson‘s publication of a 2,095 word short story is continuing (this topic made the weblog rounds late last year). The Seattle Times published an article about the work on Sunday. Each word of the story is to be tatooed on a willing volunteer’s skin, in an appropriate book font. The story is never to be published elsewhere and only the participants will be told the complete tale. About 400 words remain to be assigned, but Jackson has more than 3,500 candidates to choose from.
The funny Kathy Najimy and Mo Gaffney (aka “Kathy and Mo”) have a new production opening in New York this week. The N.Y. Times has an excerpt of a funny new scene that conjures up a support group for mothers of Disney characters. They’re mostly dead, of course. Dumbo’s mom, Bambi’s mom, Nemo’s mom, Snow White’s mom, they all meet to commiserate over their terrible fate and how poorly Disney treated their children.
After two years of closure as a result of construction, Caltrain has reinaugurated its weekend train service with two weekends of free rides between San Jose and San Francisco. As the purpose of the construction was to enable its new “Baby Bullet” trains, the express service is debuting today with five runs each, morning and evening, stopping at six stations. Advertised time between SJ and SF is 57 minutes, 39 minutes faster. The track upgrades allow for a top speed of 79 miles an hour and added passing tracks for express routes.