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November 2008 Archive 30 November - Dial G for Gazebo  Here's another cat noir moment over at the gazebo, taken during a recent catwalk - Cat Van Beek (right) questions chat fatale Natasha. But he didn't get nothing out of her - Natasha; her half-shut eyes reveal nothing - she knows how to keep a secret. link home 28 November - Coffee Break I was under the impression that we couldn't afford luxuries like an espresso machine for the staff kitchen, but our facilities manager hinted that he got ours with a five-finger discount, that it had fallen off the back of a truck; I'm not asking any questions. For some reason, Gus the maintenance man was told off to make the first cup, possibly because there was a risk of a short circuit - the terrifying process was shot by our video unit, and is shown above. The machine made a fairly decent crema, though. link home 28 November - The Museum Bookshelf  Here's a useful feature for the holiday shopping season - I'll be mentioning recent books by Friends of the Museum, available through the Janus Museum Museum Shop, that are certain to delight friends and family members, and bring a wan smile to their worried depressed preoccupied faces. Of course, purchases made from the Museum's Museum shop, or through one of our handy Amazon.com links, aid the Janus Museum in these parlous times - we get to dip our beak, to use the vulgar low cant expression. I'm very pleased to inaugurate this useful feature with long-time Friend of the Museum Richard Thompson's Cul de Sac, the first collection of his excellent comic strip of the same name - it follows the adventures of the Otterloop family, especially the two Otterloop kids, Alice and Petey - Alice, an elemental force of nature, with the emphasis on mental (watch out for her when she's got hold of the talking stick at Blisshaven Academy preschool); and Petey, a repressed bundle of anxiety, who also happens to be the 17th most picky eater in the world. My favorite supporting character is Mr. Danders, the well-spoken Blisshaven guinea pig - or is he really a teacup pitbull?  Maxine reads Cul de Sac to Gus, our maintenance man - they love it, too. See also Richard's collected Richard's Poor Almanac, a weekly feature of the Washington Post, often mentioned here. Richard's other claim to glory is his editorship of the immortal Make the Pie Higher. Oh, and don't neglect Richard's blog, too. link home 27 November - Buck Stops Here  A handsome young buck peers out of the Museum's forest preserve, confident in the knowledge that hunting isn't allowed in the Museum's forest preserve. link home 27 November - Death, with Stuffing, from Above  And now, a turkey in a biplane, on his way to bomb a certain Alaskan turkey ranch. For my sins, I'll be on the job today, getting the Museum Shop in readiness for Black Friday. Once again, the entire Janus Museum site may be blacked out for the rest of the month due to overloading our measly bandwidth allowance. If it happens, see you in December. link home 23 November - Our Latest Acquisition  Many thanks to Friend of the Museum Maureen Neumann for her generous gift of the fine vintage 5 cent cigar tin advertising sign, now temporarily on display in the staff kitchen with some of our other tin signs. The Museum's maintenance man, Gus Norbeck, commented when he saw the sign - "Someday I hope to be able to afford five cent cigars..." Gus smokes El Lucifer Stenchos exclusively. link home 22 November - Check it Out  Roscoe Turner, Gilmore the Lion, and Don Young, from Animals Aloft Well, a little PR is better late than never, I guess - Air & Space Smithsonian magazine has a nice slide show of images from Animals Aloft - remember that? - on its web site - check it out. This is as good a time as any to remind readers, as I'm told to do at regular intervals, that copies of Animals Aloft make splendid presents for the entire family, old friends, mere acquaintences, and total strangers. I'm also told to I must mention that one must buy new copies only, as used books are known carriers of hideous bugs of all sorts - people sneeze in their books, and then flog them on Half.com - people get sick from used books, you know. No, no - the wisest course is to buy a spanking sterile new copy from Amazon, preferably through this link, which enables the Janus Museum to dip its institutional beak in those sweet sales. By the way, many thanks to those Friends of the Museum who have been making Amazon purchases through one of our links, or in the Janus Museum Museum Shop - we appreciate it. link home 22 November - Sheep of the Week  I'm appalled to realize that I haven't posted a photograph of an Accokeek, Maryland sheep in almost a week. Very sorry for the oversight. link home 21 November - Cat Unavailable I thought a little catwalk would be a good way to walk off the dumplings and noodles from our dim sum lunch at New Fortune, so I rigged up the Catcam - the video Catcam, not the Max Gray Catcam - and tried to enlist the local cats. Disturbingly, Natasha ran from me - absolutely refused to join the program or get with the plan. I shot it anyway, ending up with a moving document of estrangement and loss. Lighnin' Hopkins helps out, though, with his Come Back Baby on the soundtrack. As ususal, Natasha uses her nom de cinéma. 21 November - Lluray Llamas Now Onlline  Llandscape with Llamas at Shenandoah Homeplace Suri Llamas Pleased to announce that the Taylor Family Llama Farm of Luray, Virginia - now known as Shenandoah Homeplace Suri Llamas, is now online with a superb web site executed by old Friend of the Museum Mark Taylor. One nice feature of the site is that one may view the llamas currently on sale. Me, I've got my eye on...  Kopy Right's Red Baron, who is... ... a lustrous red suri male, with show ring presence. A big boned, handsome guy. Without question, a future grand champion and senior herdsire.I'm sure that Museum visitors will love him, especially if we can avoid the Berserk Male Syndrome thing, and the spitting. Regular readers (if any) may recall that I've been a frequent visitor to the Lluray llamas - Previous Lluray Llama Coverage: The Arrival of the Llamas The Blessing of the Llamas ... And a previously unreleased llama video: link home 19 November - Švejk and Lola Commentary Two comments by Friends of the Museum on recent posts have come in. Jeffrey Price, generous donor of fine artisanal spirits, suggests an interesting theory on the vexing question of the signature of the Museum's presumed portrait of Frantisek Strašlipka: I believe that the scrawl you have magnified from the Portrait of Frantisek Strašlipka is actually an aide memoire the artist jotted down... something to do with a bar tab at U Fleků, an ancient beer joint over in the Nové Mesto district of Prague. 17 koruna, he spent? An astronomical sum at the time. I cannot think he earned nearly that much from the portrait.Jeffrey must refer to the image of Švejk as immortalized by Josef Lada:  Švejk by Josef Lada Image borrowed, with thanks, from the wonderful BibliOddyssey site. It's worth stating, though, that Jaroslav Hašek, the author of The Good Soldier Švejk, died before seeing Lada's illustrations and didn't actually authorize them. The serially published booklets that were published while Hašek was alive show a very different looking Švejk:  He's nothing like a dead ringer for our supposed portrait of Frantisek Strašlipka, of course; but it does imply that Hašek didn't necessarily see Švejk as the jolly fat man of Lada's illustrations. More of Lada's Švejk illustrations are here; See also the fascinating Švejk Central site.  By the way, Gus, who modelled the Strašlipka field cap, doesn't look much like Švejk, either. But he does put me in mind of another character from the novel:  ... Baloun, the ever-hungry glutton from Švejk's unit, the 11th March Company. Baloun has a lovely speech that movingly contrasts the blessings of peace and the horror of war: "Oh, that was a pig," he said with enthusiasm, squeezing Švejk's hand in a powerful grip when they parted. "I raised it on nothing but potatoes and was amazed myself how well it put on weight. I soaked the hams in brine and, I tell you, a nicely roasted piece of pork, taken out of the brine and served with cabbage and potato dumplings and sprinkled with cracklings, is the finest treat you can have. And then a lot of beer afterwards. A chap's so satisfied. And the war's taken all that away from us." The other comment comes from John Drouot, long-time survivor of the terrifying Littlebourne Beast; he sent it using our new comment feature, but it didn't actually appear on the post. On the subject of the Wallingsfurt Pocket Tank , John ponders my attribution of the tank's nickname, Lola, to the famed danseuse and courtesan Lola Montez: Her Imperial Majesty may have the right of it but I wonder if the name Lola reflects a degree of sexual ambiguity as in the Kinks song [Youtube video]I confess that I wasn't familiar with the Kinks' song Lola, which is about a gentleman who meets a lady who turns out to be another gentleman, and the confusion that ensues. I wonder if von Wallingsfurt would have been familiar with the song in 1917, but John may have hit on something significant - in World War I, the British classified tanks as being either male or female, as mentioned here last year. See, the male tanks were armed with cannon, and the females with machine guns. Maybe von Wallingsfurst envisioned a sort of hermaphrodite tank armed with both? Our picture of Lola makes it look kind of small to be so lavishly equipped, but stranger things have happened in the annals of warfare, you know. link home 19 November - Devils and Milkmen  Two fine new cat-related ex votos - devotional objects that commemorate a miraculous intervention - are available now on eBay. Here's the seller-provided translation of the ex voto shown above: I lived happy with my cats company but some times we suffered hungry because my salary was low and also some times I felt the need of a man's love, I thanks to the Virgen de Guadalupe because I met Jose who's a milkman and he ask me to marry him and he's a good man and he gave us a home, and now I have his love and my cats are not hungry anymore because they have fresh milk every day.And the second ex voto, much more diabolical:  There's no translation of the inscription provided, but I think it must be something like this: I lived happy with my winged demons but big weird colored cats come in who bother my winged demons and the lavender cat who wouldn't leave me alone and throw up lavender-colored hairballs all over my simple adobe hut. I ask St. Francis for help and he turn big weird colored cats into Demon Chow, so we got that working for us, which is nice. Previous Cat-Related Ex Votos: Kitten Rescue Miracle Saved by Perseptive Cats El Regreso del Gato Brave Cats/Ugly Cat Miracles Miracle of Feline Augmented Literacy Pretty Hairy Kittens Miracle Demonic Fear of Kitties Cat Scratch Fever Miracle Miracle of the Cat Husband The Miracle of the Embarrassed Cats Tragic Love Canción de los Gatos San Pascual's Cat Aunt Honorata's Cats The Perfect Cat Storm Cat Pi Milagro Greedy-guts Miracle Cat link home 16 November - Down on the Farm  And now, a sheep with a Muscovy duck, Accokeek, Maryland. link home 15 November - From the von Wallingsfurt Papers  I came across the curious image posted above in the Lothar von Wallingsfurt Collection - had not been aware that Lothar also dabbled in tanks during his eventful military career. But according to the file that the photo was contained in, Lothar came up with his M.III PZ-R Lola*, nicknamed the Taschepanzer ("pocket tank"), as a possible solution to the German "tank panic" that resulted from the surprise introduction of tanks by the British on September 15, 1916, during the battle of the Somme. So far, I haven't found any proof that Lola ever saw combat - possibly due to its tendency to fall over in a light breeze, or that the crew requirements of eight gunners, loaders and drivers severely taxed German army manpower levels. There were only so many midgets serving in the army, it seems, and none of them volunteered for service in the Taschepanzers - or could be induced to volunteer. Lola was the only Taschepanzer to survive the war; it appeared from time to time in postwar German Shriner parades. *Named for Lola Montez, perhaps? Previous Lothar von Wallingsfurt Posts: Lothar the Ace Lothar's Parasite Lothar in Uniform A Lothar beer stein The Flight of Lothar von Wallingsfurt (midi file) by Michael Starke link home 14 November - The Good Soldier, Maybe  Portrait of Frantisek Strašlipka, c. 1917. Artist unknown. Oil on canvas. Janus Museum Collection I'm sort of pleased to announce the Museum's latest acquisition, a collection of artifacts connected with Frantisek Strašlipka, the real-life inspiration of Jaroslav Hašek's Josef Švejk, the eponym of Hašek's immortal The Good Soldier Švejk. The collection includes the portrait shown above - "said to be" a portrait of Strašlipka himself. Also some bits of Austro-Hungarian uniform, "said to be" Strašlipka's, including an M1908 field cap in pike gray (hechtgrau) wool...  ... Which Gus kindly models for us in front of the Austro-Hungarian flag. I say that I'm sort of pleased because the collection's provenance is - how can I say this nicely? - is crap. Not surprisingly, the Museum's Collection Committee didn't agree with me. Oh, and the cap is in surprisingly good condition for a ninety year old cap. But, of course, I'm not an expert, as the Collection Committee kindly reminded me. Sod them.  Oh, here's a detail from the portrait of "Strašlipka" - the artist's signature, but no one here could make it out, and our library lacks decent reference books for the period. Can anyone help? If so, please leave a comment. Very sorry to have missed a mention of Armistice Day - the ninetieth anniversary of the end of the Great War - the Collections Committee had me locked up in the attic on Tuesday. Frank Woodruff Buckles of Charles Town, West Virginia, the last of the doughboys, is still with us. Friend of the Museum Tico, who is acquainted with Mr. Buckles' daughter, said that he's had a cold, though. There are four British veterans left. The last French, German, Austro-Hungarian and Turkish veterans all died this year before the anniversary. Here's a medley of songs of the war (streaming MP3s). link home 10 November - On the Side of the Big Cat Battalions  Leroy, Nutmeg and Milkshake on the historic six cat catwalk Little did I realize, when I whistled up the cats for a catwalk in the Museum's forest preserve on Saturday, that we would be making history, of a sort. Leroy, Natasha and Nutmeg formed up as usual, but then Milkshake and Buddha Minor fell in, and then Peake joined up - we had a six cat catwalk on our hands - the woods crawled with cats. Tragically, I wasn't able to get a group shot with all six cats, 'cos it was fairly chaotic, as catwalks go - Milkshake, a bit of a princess, actually dared to hiss at Natasha, who jumped up a tree in alarm:  But Milkshake and Buddha soon peeled off and went off on their own. Peake, who can be something of a bully, dashed at poor Natasha, who hid briefly. Nutmeg also went aloft:  Then Peake did a vanishing act. So the catwalk ended with the usual complement of Natasha, Leroy and Nutmeg. Taken on its merits - what with the hissing and the lack of small unit cohesiveness - I confess that it wasn't the best catwalk we've taken.* But I have great hopes that with practice and discipline, I'll soon have them marching like guardsmen - will have to equip them with little wee pickelhaubes. And it has to be some sort of record.  Leroy during a rare quiet moment on the historic six cat catwalk of November 8, 2008. *It would take a stronger man than I am to resist citing Dr. Johnson at this point: It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all. link home 9 November - You Know, For Kids  A Sackbut One of the Museum's fellows, an authority on early music, has what sounds like an excellent idea for making gobs of money with a new computer game. He asked me for my advice, but my knowledge of the marketing of computer games is practically nonexistent. So I said I'd throw it out to the readership and ask for opinions. So, use our convenient comments feature and let us know - is Sackbut Hero going to be the monster hit we think it's going to be? link home 9 November - The Squid/Cat Meme  Friends Alice and Larry Brown sent me the charming postcard shown above; it's from SquidFire, a squid-related emporium up in Baltimore. It's the latest example of the popular Squid vs. Cat meme, previously explored in our Video Unit's two productions, Giant Squid vs. Cat and Giant Squid vs. Cat II. Alice and Larry, a fine, generous couple, also gave me this superb messenger bag, also from SquidFire - very, very nice of them. link home 9 November - Arrangement in Gray  Duet for Gray Cats, performed by Leroy (top) and Buddha Minor. The tableau cries out for a musical offering - how about Uncle Dave Macon's Grey Cat on the Tennessee Farm (streaming MP3)? It's from an album of Uncle Dave's hits, Go 'Long Mule. link home 8 November - Glenn Perry  Glenn Perry. Photograph by Rob Shelley, National Gallery of Art The Washington Post had a nice article on Friend of the Museum, neighbor and artist Glenn Perry and the marvelous trompe-l'oeil work he does at the National Gallery of Art for their exhibitions. His fine art is part of the Janus Museum's permanent collection, and he himself has featured in these pages from time to time, too. And our Video Unit had a rare interview with Glenn when his painting of the Historic Cottage was exhibited at the National Gallery:  ... And Glenn was hung recently at the season's first Mousetrap Concert in Washington Grove's McCathran Hall. His beautiful new work was hung, that is. Hanging's not too good for the work of Glenn Perry. link home 8 November - Late Election Night Coverage  The flag waving was a bit inexpert at our spontaneous celebration here on Election Night, as if the flag wavers were somewhat out of practice, but it was amazingly enthusiastic. We had been watching the coverage at a neighbor's house, and when Senator Obama's victory was assured, we spilled out into the street and marched to the town hall - the town bell was rung - songs were sung - champagne was consumed - fireworks were fired. I brought over the Museum's flags, and the inexpert though enthusiastic waving took place.  Neighbor Alice Negin (she of the famous Mousetrap Meatballs) channels Gericault's Liberty Leading the People in the smoke of the fireworks - too cold to go topless, though.  Our maintenance man Gus Norbeck came, too - wearing the Museum's campaign button collection, I noticed. He's obviously feeling no pain, despite the fact that he had voted, as always, for Gus Hall. Here's a slide show of Election Night coverage. And it's been very pleasant to read the international opinion on the election, like this editorial in the Guardian: They did it. They really did it. So often crudely caricatured by others, the American people yesterday stood in the eye of history and made an emphatic choice for change for themselves and the world...America once again astonishes the world - this time in a good way. Pardon me while I go wave the flag some more. link home 2 November - Out with the Cats  The fall colors being at their height, the weather being brisk, and the stew already in the oven, it was a good moment for a brisk catwalk out in the Museum's Forest Preserve. Above, Leroy in the foreground, then Natasha, and Nutmeg in the back. At our companion site, the Circle Cat Club, a couple more snaps - including a bit of deer-stalking. link home 2 November - The Continuing Death of Nelson  Too late for inclusion in our coverage of the anniversary of Trafalgar, but possibly still of interest to readers, is this painting, another interpretation of the Death of Nelson, with Cat.  Some very curious interpretations of the scene are on view at the fascinating Circusmuseum site (previously mentioned here); from Circus Busch's Lady Hamilton drama - one of those acts I'm very sorry I'll never get to see. In the poster shown above, Nelson wears his red coat, but not his brown trousers. link home 1 November - An Imperial Occasion  A very happy birthday to a dear Friend of the Museum, her highness Lisa Grossman, the Tsarina of Tsocks, author and generous giver of superb prezzies. Wish I could be up by the waters of Babylon, New York to celebrate with her, though I doubt I could take another hangover like last year's. link home 1 November - Off the Beautiful Wicomico  Allen's Fresh Run is a small bay of the Wicomico River way down in Charles County, Maryland, not far from Robertson's on Popes Creek - a fine place for a crab feast. When I took the moody and extremely beautiful photograph shown above back in 1983, I was actually thinking about the Robertson's fried oysters I was on my way to. link home 1 November - Update  Pleased to be back following our end-of-month hiatus. Sadly, the major occurrence during the interruption was a fire next door to the Historic Cottage. I had noticed that our webcam was showing that a mysterious fog had descended on The Circle - went out to investigate - realized it was smoke, and that the smoke was coming out of our neighbors' house, and then heard the sirens. The fire department was soon in action, and damped things down before the conflagration became general. Thankfully, the family was out, and the cleaning lady and Cats Milkshake and Buddha Minor got out without injury. The cause of the fire is still being investigated. We asked Buddha and Milkshake to stay with us while their house is under repair.  Our maintenance man Gus Norbeck carved the pumpkin for Halloween - a fairly inept job, though somehow the pumpkin ended up looking more lively, alert and intelligent than its maker. Gus is wearing the Museum's recently acquired pickelhaube - our second pickelhaube. This one is also said to have been worn by the famous Theo von Wallingsfurt, much like the medieval cathedral that claimed to own two heads of John the Baptist - the one removed on Salome's request, and also the Baptist's head as a child. link home |
