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June 2007 Archive 30 June - In the Trenches  I found another extremely fleeting cameo appearance of myself in film taken at Yorktown many years ago (previous appearances noted here). That's me, in blue, with the yellow halo. I remember that it was hot and dusty, and I had a headache. How I wish that Yeast-Vite had been invented. link home 30 June - The Pirates of Penzance  Major General Stanley's excellent smoking cap is only one of the pleasures of this hilarious take on G&S's The Pirates of Penzance (1983) with Kevin Kline as the Pirate King, Linda Ronstadt as Mabel, Angela Lansbury as Ruth, George Rose as the Major General, and a practically boneless Tony Azito as the Sergeant. I snagged it off the TV; the version available on DVD is from a live performance in Central Park in 1980 with the same cast (minus Angela Lansbury), which I'll probably have to break down and buy. Kline is first-rate; a welcome antidote to that Jack Sparrow sort of pirate. link home 29 June - Nature Red in Tooth and Claw with Bonus Nudity I don't know why the documentaries on Animal Planet and Nature can't be more like this one, as conceived by Jack Handey in this week's New Yorker. Also in the New Yorker is another fine illustration by Friend of the Museum Richard Thompson. By the way, the archives of his fabulous Richard's Poor Almanac are now available on the Washington Post's site. And you'll also want the book, too. Trust me. link home 29 June - Poetry Corner From Friend of the Museum qoq comes this brief but evocative poem: Smoke, 1984More poetry on the site: Make the Pie Higher by George W. Bush La Flor de la Canela in Winter Ode on the Tragic Flight of R101, 5 October, 1930 link home 29 June - Yet More Swag  Gremlin Gus and Pilot Officer Gus from Roald Dahl's The Gremlins I was touched and pleased to receive a parcel containing a jolly assortment of books from Friend of the Museum Terry - a very kind birthday present. One of the books is a fine new edition of Roald Dahl's The Gremlins, illustrated by Disney artist Bill Justice. Above, Gremlim Gus and Pilot Officer Gus take to their brolly after Jerry prangs their kite. Oh, all right - one more:  It's the lovely Fifinella, later adopted as the mascot of the WASPs. Terry also sent this curious little British paperback magazine, Pie, from 1948:  It has lots of amusing little stories, cartoons, feuilletons, and a section of old comic engravings. I especially like the advertisements:  Poor Mum must have been on a hell of a bender last night, or perhaps it's from an overindulgence of Mrs. Peek's Tinned Pudding. Here's more on Yeast-Vite, including another Shattered Mum ad. Yeast-Vite's still available, by the way. Must lay in a supply for the slivovitz aftereffects. Also included in Terry's fabulous parcel were copies of Beryl Markham's West With the Night and Saint-Exupery's Wind, Sand and Stars. It was a very, very nice parcel - thanks, Terry. Thanks also go to the Friends of the Museum who recently made purchases from Amazon through one of our convenient links. Any time you click through one of the product links, like this one for Animals Aloft, and make a purchase (even if it's not for the linked product), the Museum gets to dip its beak in aid of our various and unspecified educational activities. Thanks again, Friends. link home 25 June - Architeuthian Fashion Notes  And now, for your viewing pleasure, a giant squid (Architeuthis dux) in a smoking cap. The cap's elegant lace patterns, Cat's Paw and Janus are shown to advantage in this portrait. Many have doubted that a blog entry combining "squid" and "smoking cap" could ever be written. I can't believe I just give this stuff away. link home 24 June - Just Browsing  Cat Leroy samples the micro greens at the salad bar earlier today. He prefers it without dressing. link home 24 June - More Swag  As mentioned below in the list of my birthday swag, here is the aviation-themed Syroco piece given me by my dear friend and colleague Martha Norbeck-Wallingford - it's a l'il weather station with thermometer and weather indicator. The aircraft is a sort of stylized Consolidated B-24 Liberator, backbone of the USAAF bomber force during World War II. The object's very rare, and makes an excellent companion piece to the Museum's B-25 remote control holder. link home 23 June - Circle Kitten Update  Kitten Nutmeg takes a moment out of her busy schedule of tormenting the other Circle Cats for a bit of meditation. She got stuck on the roof of the porch of the Historic Cottage the other evening and had to be rescued with a ladder. It was very exciting. link home 23 June - Birthday Swag  I've made it to another birthday, and I received some excellent swag from friends and relations. From old Friend of the Museum Lisa Grossman, the Tsarina of Tsocks, I got the fabulous handmade embroidered smoking cap that our maintenance man Gus models, above. Here is the description which accompanied the cap: Detailed photographs and a fuller narration of the process are to be found on Lisa's blog. The Janus lace pattern is in honor of the Janus Museum, of course, and the Cat's paw... well, I'm not sure where that came from. It's the finest thing, and it blows Gus's and Bob Hoskins's and Max's smoking caps out of the water (Lisa is famous for her fabulous gifts). So far, I've found three distinct ways to wear it. Above, Gus shows the Zouave style.  And, now, Kalimafi style. Rather dignified, I think.  Finally, Gus displays the rakish Fifty Mission Crush style, somewhat reminiscent of the old bonnet de police, mentioned previously. Also received: a selection of fine Wisconsin cheeses from my brother Granville, and a couple of bottles of superior booze from my sister Flavia - Framboise Sauvage, and an old Grand Champagne cognac. And from my dear colleague Martha Norbeck-Wallingford, a superb aviation-themed Syroco object, a companion piece to an earlier gift - I'll post a snap of it later on. All in all, a pretty fine haul. But it's not too late to send me a prezzie, you know. link home 22 June - Cuteness of the Deep  This l'il Peeps-like octopus may just be the cutest cephalopod in the world - always excepting Archie Architeuthis, of course. Via Cute Overload. Surprisingly, the TV deal mentioned previously is still breathing. More details to come. link home 21 June - The Joyful Return  Beg pardon for the week-long gap in posting. All charges have been dropped, but they never could have made them stick, anyway, since I always remember my old Mum's advice. In other news, Kitten Nutmeg is now being allowed to roam free and leashless in the Circle, and is terrorizing the other Circle Cats - Natasha, usually so fierce, runs from her! It should be an interesting summer. link home 13 June - Cumulus Effect  A very fine traveling exhibit of clouds rolled through today; no exciting thunderstorm yet, though. link home 10 June - Waschbaerkampf  Friend of the Museum Rodger Kingston alerted me to this odd story of a lingering vestige of Germany's dark past: in 1934, Hermann Goering, acting in his role as chief forester of the Reich, allowed the release of a couple of American raccoons from a fur farm. It was meant to give German hunters something else to shoot at. Not to be overly critical of the skill of German hunters, but enough raccoons survived and did the fruitful and multiplication thing so that they're now, 73 years later, a serious European menace. An estimated one million raccoons (called Waschbaeren or "wash-bears" for their habit of scrubbing their grub) now live in Germany and are spreading past its borders. They're very destructive, you see, according to this Washington Post article: Five years ago, a family of raccoons scratched and munched their way into a house belonging to Ingrid and Dieter Hoffmann of Kassel. The brood settled into the Hoffmanns' chimney and -- despite efforts to smoke them out -- ruined their roof, which cost tens of thousands of dollars to fix. The Hoffmanns also spent about $1,300 to raccoon-proof their residence with electrified gutters and other countermeasures.See also this terrifying Times article. Say what you will of the Nazi leadership, generally regarded as not very nice people, they did have an interest in ecology - see Hitler on frogs. The story reminds me of my own personal struggle with raccoons. I used to live in Kensington, Maryland; very close to the Washington Temple (Wiki) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - the Mormons. One morning, I was picking up garbage on my lawn after a raid by (I suspected) the neighborhood dogs. An elderly neighbor, Mrs. Wallingford, was passing by and stopped to chat. I ventured a remark about "these darn dogs" and Mrs. W. became agitated - "It's not the dogs," she cried, "It's the Mormons!" Now, I'm always ready to think the worst of my fellow man, but even though I'm still sore about the Mountain Meadows Massacre, I thought that suspecting the Mormons of roaming Kensington and knocking over garbage cans was a bit hard. I said something like that to Mrs. W., and she became even more agitated - "No! No! Not the Mormons! The raccoons!" At that point I thought I had had a mild stroke; but eventually, Mrs. W. got her theory out: before the Temple had been built, the site had been unspoilt forest. When the Mormons arrived and leveled it, the raccoons, who had lived there undisturbed for aeons, descended on Kensington in their wrath and smote our garbage cans. So, you see, the Mormons really are to blame. You think it's a silly theory? Just wait - I installed a little sign at raccoon level by my garbage cans that stated We Are Not Mormons - and my cans were never bothered again. Except by dogs, who are famously non-sectarian. By the way, the Wiki article on the Temple cited above also mentions the famous Temple graffito - the best graffito I've ever seen. link home 9 June - Lost, But Not Forgotten  Via Airminded comes the bittersweet news that the great Hammer Films studio once conceived of a film so brilliant in its conception that it would have been an immortal classic, had it actually been made. In Zeppelin vs. Pterodactyls, A German rigid airship is "blown off-course during a bombing raid on London and winding up at a 'lost continent'-type place". A place jammed with angry pterodactyls, of course; and probably pro-British pterodactyls intent on avenging the execution of Nurse Cavell. Oh, how I wish it had been made... would be an excellent project for Peter Jackson, though. link home 6 June - Chance Encounter on the Road; Dream Statistics  Going down Rt. 29 on the road to Charlottesville, I found this sublime meeting of a flamingo and a steer. A bear ignores the conversazione. In the latest of a series of strange but nerdish dreams, I dreamt the other night that I had a job interview at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Why the Bureau of Labor Statistics, I have no idea - statistics confuse me, I try to get away with as little labor as possible, and I don't even have a bureau; I keep my socks and undies in paper bags. I didn't stick around to see if I landed the job, in my dreams. Other Dreams Noted Previously: Teddy Roosevelt Dreamlink home 2 June - Dancing in the Dual Monarchy  Was there ever such an antic empire as the Austro-Hungarian? Here's a group of K.u.K. officers performing a sprightly dance, 1912. I think the written caption "Tatínek Fanouš" means "Daddy Fanous"; can't make out the caption on the left of the image. And we have the pilots of Flik 27 making with the bunny ears plus the tender chin-scritch of the Oeffag test pilots - it's no wonder that during the war, the Germans thought their allies light and frivolous. link home 2 June - Falls Church  The latest in our series of my own moody and hauntingly beautiful images is this shot of an odd statue in a cemetery in Falls Church, Virginia - no one's memorial, like Grief; just a statue. Nice, though. link home 2 June - Aunt Honorata's Cats  Here's another superb cat-related ex voto now on offer on eBay; the auction ends on June 7. Once again, the Museum's Collection Committee has refused to try to acquire it, just like all the other superb cat-related ex votos. Yes, it's tragic - we could now have one of the finest collections of cat-related ex votos in central Maryland. Anyway, here's the translation of the inscription: My aunt Honorata made me its only heiress with the condition of take care of her cats. I had never liked cats for what I consented unwillingly, but I give thanks to the Virgen de Guadalupe because I realized that these animals are very affectionate and clean, and now I have not only more money but also three cats that make me company.Yeah, right. If I was one of Aunt Honorata's cats, I'd keep my back to the wall and eat all my meals out. link home 1 June - Passport to Pimlico  Pigs fly - or at least descend gracefully by parachute - in the classic Ealing Studio comedy Passport to Pimlico (1949). Pimlico, a London neighborhood, is muddling through the rationing and shortages of the grim post-war period. The explosion of a previously unexploded Luftwaffe bomb reveals a buried medieval treasure-trove, including a parchment scroll. Professor Hatton-Jones...  ... played by the wonderful Margaret Rutherford, reveals that the scroll reveals that Pimlico was once part of the Duchy of Burgundy, and, in fact, still is Burgundian territory - not part of the United Kingdom, actually. What ensues? Hilarity. The first act of the Burgundians is to abolish early closing of the local pub, and then to tear up their ration books. Thousands of spivs, wideboys, and costermongers descend on Burgundy and turn it into a wild no-holds barred free trade zone. Whitehall is alarmed - negotions between Burgundy and HM Government go nowhere, and a state of siege is declared. Charmed by the spirit of Plucky Little Burgundy, Londoners flock to its aid - "Bundles to Burgundy" is the inevitable headline. A Berlin-style Airlift is mounted, and the pigs descend, as shown above.  And a Bell 47B delivers milk to the benighted Burgundians. This copter, G-AKCX, was the first helicopter to fly in Switzerland (at Zurich-Wallishofen), by the way. Also featured in a brief cameo is a de Havilland DH.89 Dragon Rapide, possibly G-AJXB, which we saw in The Maggie. Stanley Holloway is also featured, and a bunch of those excellent English character actors that makes IMDB.com so worthwhile. An excellent movie, very jolly - part of the Ealing Studio boxset that includes The Titfield Thunderbolt, Whisky Galore! and A Run for Your Money. link home |
