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Please Buy a Copy A Cat Compendium DVD by the Museum's Video Unit  |
February 2010 Archive 28 February - Trials of the Day  Here's another fine image from the collections - a stereoview published by the Littleton View Co., 1889 - Trials of the Day are Over, a quote from Thomas Louis Haines and Levi W. Yaggy's inspirational book The Royal Road of Life, 1882. Oh, just one more stereoview:  ... A dog in a smoking cap, with a pipe - "Say, Give Me a Light" is the hilarious caption. No date, but probably from around the same date as the other stereo. Perhaps one evening soon we'll have a jolly old-fashioned evening in the Fellows' Common Room, passing the old stereoviewer back and forth, and reciting Longfellow. That should go over very well. link home 27 February - An Ambrotype From the Collections, and the Lure of Time-Expired Oysters  Can't recall when last we had something posted from the Janus Museum's superb collections, so here's a fine ambrotype of a gent in a nicely decorated bib front shirt. It's a 1/6 plate ambrotype - a collodion positive on a glass plate - circa 1856. Would love to know if the decorations on the shirt signify something, or are just for the swank of it - nice either way, of course. The great radio journalist John Hockenberry read a letter of mine the other day on The Takeaway, an engaging news magazine program. I was responding to a story on the dangers or lack of dangers involved in consuming time-expired foodstuffs - I had once been tempted to buy a jar of shucked oysters, only slightly bulging, offered at a very advantageous price at the local Food Lion. Here's Mr. Hockenberry reading my moving story - I used the nom de lettre "Ponto": ... Which reminds me of one of the Museum's great treasures, the painting entitled The Bad Oyster. link home 18 February - Grits for Art's Sake See, this is what I'm talking about when I wonder aloud why the Museum even has a Video Unit. There I was, stirring my frugal pot of grits the other evening, when six guys from the Unit barge into the kitchen and start setting up about a ton of equipment. Five hours later, my grits are ruined and I'm starving, but the guys have the raw footage for what's shown above. I have to admit that it's kind of soothing to watch; almost hypnotic. And the music's nice - it's a Piva from the album The Renaissance Lute, played by Ron McFarlane. But was it worth the aggravation, and my ruined grits? Pardon me - my polenta, as the head of the Unit, Josh Sackville-Cohen, insists on calling it. Why polenta? Easier to get the film into international festivals, he says. link home 18 February - Renard's Community Service  Poor Renard the Fox performs his community service - "More bread crumbs, varlet, and then another lap around the pond!" From All Things Amazing, via Martin Klasch. And this song, Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night, shows the sort of thing that got him in trouble in the first place. Sung by the fabulous Custer LaRue with the Baltimore Consort from the album The Daemon Lover. Am very pleased that the Baltimore Consort will be appearing in Washington Grove on March 14 as part of our fine Mousetrap Concerts - and there will be meatballs. link home 15 February - Star-Crossed Bivalves  Here's a sad poignant though uplifting story of love triumphant that occurred right on my stovetop on Valentine's Day: I had steamed some mussels in preparation for dinner - pepper sauce mussels on pasta - and I was removing the critters from their shells. I had reached the bottom of the pot, and pulled out the last shell. In it, I found two mussels, nestled together in steamy garlic and white wine-infused mortality. The story was obvious to me - as the heat in the pot increased, a young mussel realized that death was imminent. With the last of its strength, it crawled from its shell to that of its lover - it entered the shell, and with the last of their strength, the lovers embraced. I wept, briefly, and then made the sauce, which is pictured above; the lovers are in the little yellow circle. Death could not part them, and they ate very well. link home 14 February - Valentine's Day in the Collections  I'm a curable romantic, I guess, but today being Valentine's Day, it seemed like a good opportunity to post some selections from the collections, including a couple more from our famed Cherubs' Pose collection. Above, a rare German wartime valentine. The inscription reads "Happy Valentine's Day from the Western Front".   A couple of superb lighter-than-air related valentines. And next...  Not a valentine, as such, but a fine tintype of a fond romantic couple, c.1875. And now, the cherub poseurs...  These young ladies had several tintypes made of their pose - very unusual to have found them still together instead of dispersed into separate albums.  Another pair of young ladies have a go - our collection mainly features young ladies doing the Pose, by the way. And yet...  ... We do have one extremely rare coed example. Fabulous stuff, this. link home 13 February - Herb  I'm very pleased to report that our old friend Herb Grossman, conductor, raconteur, wit, assistant to Toscanini, father to Tsarina Lisa, etc. etc. - is now feeling much better after a long - too long - stint in the hospital up in New York. Long may he wave! Here's a recording of The Shepherds' Dance from Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, conducted by Herb; from the LP of the original NBC production. Tales of Herb: Toscanini's Guilt Trip Toscanini's Blinding Glare Toscanini's Soup Toscanini's Watch The New York Philharmonic Mafia link home 12 February - Drama in the Drifts; the Anthroapology  Vast piles of snow, plus handy snow trenches mean enhanced cat ambush possibilities: In other snow-related news, our missing maintenance man Gus, lost in the blizzard when he went to fetch the newspaper, has turned up. He was found holed up in the local watering hole. I was rather hoping he'd been caught in a glacier, and would finally turn up in a thousand years or so to puzzle anthropologists as some sort of primitive comedic throwback - a sort of faux-magnon music-hall Ötzi. Of course, I had to do the shoveling while the Iceman was on his bender. link home 10 February - Another Generous Donation  I'm delighted to interrupt the weather bulletins to announce another fine donation to the Museum's collections - this time for our ethnographic collection. It's a superb Tibetan Xamo Gyaise (golden thread) hat, here modeled by Gus Norbeck, our maintenance man, prior to his disappearance in the blizzard this morning. Tibetan men typically wear the side and back flaps tucked in the hat, leaving only the front flap out, like a cap bill. But Gus said the hat was a bit snug, and wore it with all flaps out, as the elderly are said to do. Anyway, with Gus under a drift somewhere, maybe I'll get to wear it - every blizzard has a silver lining, it seems. Many thanks to Friends of the Museum Ann Briggs and Alice Negin for the fine donation. link home 10 February - Weather Update  Here's an update of conditions at the Janus Museum - staffer Martha Norbeck-Wallingford found our camp stove, so we'll be ready if we lose electricity, except that I put the propane canister away and don't remember where. Above, Cat Nutmeg braves the tempest, briefly. Gus is still missing in the drifts after going for the paper, which would be very funny, except that now I have to do the damn shovelling. We're streaming the Circle Cam live for a bit. And in other weather-related museum news, I've heard a report that one of the buildings at the National Air and Space Museum's Paul Garber Facility in Silver Hill, Maryland has been damaged by the weight of snow. Some of the side and roof sections have buckled on Building 21, used for artifact storage, but the damage is thought not to be severe. Hope Gilmore is all right... I just had a strengthening bowl of red beans and rice. link home 10 February - More Weather  I can't remember in which of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels the line appears; but in one of the books, after a severe storm, Captain Jack Aubrey comments that he can't recall a commission that had so much weather in it. That's the situation here right now as we're having our second snowfall of the week. It's snowing steadily now, and the wind's picking up - we all fear the trees, laden with snow, if it comes on to a blow - falling trees being a well-known hazard around here - and we're worried about the electrics, too. I have found the little propane canister for the camp stove, in case we lose power; but can't find the camp stove. We sent out Gus, looking very much like Capt. Lawrence "Titus" Oates of the Scott Expedition, to bring in the newspaper - haven't seen him since, haw haw. I stepped out on the front porch - very briefly - to snap the harrowing photograph shown above. Here's another intrepid explorer:  Cat Nutmeg, as snapped by the Bittersweet Cottage Circle Cam. She struggled through the drifts to visit her particular friend Maxine, and is now safe in the Fellows' Common Room. One may also keep an eye on the weather with our own Circle Cam. By the way, the Janus Museum is still closed. We look for a re-opening sometime after the thaw; maybe around Memorial Day. link home 9 February - Report from Mount Soma  I have to head out in a bit to lay in more batteries, beans and brandy in preparation for our impending snow event. But first, a report by B. Jeffrey Price of our sister organization, the Leib Hornbostel Institute: Dear Janus Museum Rescue Archaeology Clearing House: Workers under contract to the Hornboestel Institute have just recently completed repair work on the Mt. Soma snow shrine complex. Very hard working chaps, I must say.I'm off; must get back quickly so I can polish Natasha's pickelhaube. link home 8 February - Reenactments for Felines  Cat Natasha takes advantage of the snow and the shoveled trenches with a moving reenactment of the famous 1914 Christmas Truce. Don't know why Natasha isn't wearing her überzug. link home 8 February - Museum Closures  The Circle, Washington Grove, during the Great Blizzard Perhaps I ought to have mentioned that the Janus Museum is closed today, due to the Great Blizzard of '10. Actually, we were closed on Saturday and Sunday, too. Will probably be closed tomorrow, what with the additional expected snowfall. And things are beginning to look kind of iffy for the big Spring Wallowing Season Opener in March. Funny story - when we cancelled Saturday's Annual Groundhog Day Catwalk, we thought we had notified all of the various bus tour groups that were planning to come that the event was off. Evidentially, we missed one group - a Pittsburgh cat club; and they started for the Museum early Saturday morning. Well, they never made it, of course, and no one has heard from them since Saturday afternoon when they stopped for gas in Breezewood, Pennsylvania. I wonder what happened to them? Oh, well... link home 8 February - A Generous Gift, with Pickelhaubes  Am very pleased to show off a generous donation to the Museum made by our old Friend of the Museum, the eminent photographer and collector Rodger Kingston, whose Forgotten Photograph collection has appeared here from time to time. Rodger's generous contribution is shown above - a postcard showing German troop train preparing for departure, probably at the beginning of the war, July 1914. The caption, translated, says "Departure for the Theater of War". Many of the soldiers are wearing their pickelhaubes, which are fitted with fabric field covers - an überzug, it was called. The others wear their round caps - feldmützen, or krätzchen. Wonder how many of the chaps survived the war? link home 7 February - After the Snow  Awfully sorry to report that I'm too exhausted to give a full report on our snowfall of the last two days - our so-called "maintenance" man Gus called in with a "bad back", so guess who was called upon to do shovel out the Museum? Really, it's all I can do to weakly lap up a glass of cheap Fellows' Common Room brandy and make this inadequate entry. Above; at least Nutmeg (front) and Natashsa enjoyed themselves. More snow is expected on Tuesday, by the way. link home 6 February - Our Man in Havana  I've seen Our Man in Havana (1959, from Graham Greene's novel) before, of course, but somehow had totally forgotten its pickelhaube content. Burl Ives (with the world's worst German accent) as Dr. Hasselbacher dons his old kurassier uniform - and thoughtfully provides an extra helmet for a guest. He mentions at one point in the film that he's from Munich. So perhaps he served in the Bayer. 1. Schweres Reiter-Regiment Prinz Karl von Bayern which was raised in Munich; or conceivably in Bavaria's other kurassier regiment, the Bayer. 2. Schweres Reiter-Regiment Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand von Österreich-Este1; it's not actually vital to the plot, though. At any rate, he wouldn't have worn those odd comic-opera epaulettes in either regiment. Also appearing, Alec Guinness as Wormold, the vacuum cleaner salesman turned spymaster, Ernic Kovacs, Maureen O'Hara, Noel Coward and Ralph Richardson. An excellent film, if one can get past those epaulettes. 1. Information courtesy of The Kaiser's Bunker, an invaluable site. link home 5 February - Cancellation Due to Weather Conditions  Cat Natasha checks the current conditions at the edge of the Janus Museum Forest Preserve as the snow comes down. Local reports of the storm are practically apocalyptic - I swear I heard a news report claiming a chance of a snow zombie onslaught. Anyway, we were forced to cancel the annual Groundhog Day Catwalk scheduled for tomorrow - most disappointing - always a popular event - had to call off a couple of busloads of paid participants. Here's video of a previous Groundhog Day Catwalk: One may keep an eye on the catastrophe on the Museum's Circle Cam, if one is so inclined.  Oh, one more shot of the Forest Preserve, before I hole up in the carriage house for the duration. link home |
