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August 2003 Archive
31 August
Maxine, one of our Museum Kittens
With the generous technical assistance of the Washington Grove Pacer Farm, we're transitioning to an excellent program, ConquerCam, to run our Museum Kitten Cam. The motion detection on ConquerCam is superior to our old software, which means that one may expect enhanced kitten action. Although the page automatically updates every two minutes, interested viewers may wish to refresh their browsers manually when kittens are in view.
29 August
Ancient Vedic aeronautics, from Har Har Mahadev, 1974
Of course, the ancient Indians flew a couple of thousand years before Wilbur and Orville. It says so here, too. A lot of people think it's true. So why are we celebrating the centennial of the so-called First Flight? What about Gustav Whitehead? Or Richard Pearse? Lots of people - mainly Brazilians - think Alberto Santos-Dumont is the Father of Aviation. How about Clement Ader? Preston Watson? Or these guys?
Why worry? Just enjoy Taunton Paine's thrilling online comic, Dirigible Days, made possible by the Washington Grove Pacer Farm's generous Artist-in-Residence Program.
And if you feel like an excellent book on the early history - the real history of flight, try Richard Hallion's Taking Flight: Inventing the Aerial Age from Antiquity Through the First World War. Full disclosure: Dick is an old friend of The Janus Museum.
24 August
The Absinthe Drinker, after Manet
My nephew, Robert Szégy-Légy, recently returned from Europe and generously brought me a bottle of absinthe. Although this legendary wormwood-infused beverage may not be sold over here, it turns out that it's legal to carry it back into the States when purchased elsewhere. I've always been curious about absinthe, the favorite of Lautrec, Verlaine, and Van Gogh, who may have done his ear thing while zoned out on absinthe. Myles na gCopaleen's take on absinthe was featured here back in March. Oscar Wilde had this to say about La Fee Verte - "After the first glass you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally you see things as they really are - and that is the most horrible thing in the world..."
So I had to try it, of course. The classic way to take absinthe is to pour a measure of the stuff into a special absinthe glass. One places the special absinthe spoon on the glass. A lump of sugar goes on the spoon, and then one trickles water over the sugar. The water turns the absinthe milky. One drinks it, repeats as necessary, and then falls into the absinthe revery recorded by artists like Manet (above), Daumier, Degas, and Picasso. Or one can write a poem on the experience. I borrowed a spoon and a pastis glass from my brother-in-law - not quite the same as an absinthe glass, but close enough for experimentation. I charged my glass, and then did the sugar and water ritual. The stuff went milky, and I had a sip - very anise-flavored, as I expected - and bitter; the sugar was very welcome. I have to confess I didn't care for the taste much, but kept at it out of respect for the artistic-literary-ear slicing heritage. Disappointingly it had absolutely no effect on me, except that after a bit I found that I no longer needed the subtitles on Har Har Mahadev (Dara Singh stars as Shiva) the Indian DVD I was watching. Oh, yes - I heard colors in the music in the film, too. I was well on my way to Bollywood Nirvana, but fell asleep on the sofa instead, festooned with the Museum Kittens. This morning I find that I no longer can understand Hindi, and I have
something of a headache, too.
23 August
A storm blew through north of us last evening; we got much wind and a little rain. After it passed I stepped outside to marvel at the strange yellow light. Having lived in the midwest for a number of years, it reminded me of tornado conditions. Very pretty, slightly sinister. I snapped a picture - the blur is from the longish exposure combined with my panic-stricken trembling. The picture doesn't quite capture the weird light, but it may give some idea of the strangeness of the moment. No tornado arrived; I returned to the carriage house and calmed myself with a restorative dram of Gosling Black Seal Rum. Today the weather is cool, less humid, beautiful. But I have a headache.
17 August - Art Appreciation
A Carousing Couple with a Cat, Plate 79 of Adriaen van de Venne's 1626 Album
Most of our docents are away on vacation, so I found myself manning The Janus Museum's information desk yesterday. Since potential museum visitors seemed to be on vacation elsewhere, I had the place to myself. I grabbed a book from the art history reference shelves, and, fascinated, found myself transported back to the Netherlands of the 17th century. The book is Adriaen van de Venne's Album by Martin Royalton-Kisch. Executed in 1626, de Venne's album of one hundred and two exquisite miniatures of life at all levels of 17th century Dutch life, from princes and courtiers to the peasantry. De Venne (1589-1662 was a sharp-eyed observer of everyday life, but these images are also quite involved allegories. In the picture above, the man wears the woman's cap and jacket - the jacket worn back-to-front. The woman wears the man's cap and jacket and pulls her skirt between her knees. And the cat, according to Royalton-Kisch's commentary, confirms that the artist intended to convey a sexual meaning. Since the cat is throwing up, "...the viewer was undoubtedly also meant to react with a degree of censure..." À chacun a son goût - my opinion is "Go nuts, you wild and crazy 17th century Dutch persons!" And any cat owner will tell you that the meaning of a cat vomiting is a hairball, rather than censure. Excellent book.
A Pikeman, Plate 2.
Very similar to Jacob de Gheyn's illustrations in The Exercise of Armes.
15 August
Documentation from the Janus Museum Circle Cam of a Low Altitude Feline Release Test. The test subject, Maxine, landed safely and resumed napping activities.
Advances in the study of cetacean flatulance.
Apologies for the postings gap - we've been on the road a lot, helping raise funds for The Janus Museum's centennial of flight exhibit. Since there are already several reenactments planned of the Wright brothers' first flight of December 17, 1903, we're going to attempt to reenact the first unsuccessful attempt of December 14.
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