“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.

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)

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)

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)

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.

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.”

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)

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.

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.

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.