|
April 2006 Archive 28 April - Airborne  The high point of my recent trip to Oshkosh was a fabulous ride on the AirVenture Museum's beautifully restored Ford Trimotor. I got to tag along on a check flight for the museum's pilots - lots of exciting crosswind touch-and-goes, including one on the museum's grass strip. Oh, it was noisy and stuff - breezy, too - kind of bouncy, too, actually.  Here's is the starboard engine, showing off the fine engine turning. The flight was great fun - check it out and take a ride next time you're in Oshkosh, or during the big Trimotor Tour. Oh! Here's a video (with stills) of my excellent ride. link home 28 April - Excellent Poor Almanac now Online  The Washington Post has finally realized that the common good requires that Friend of the Museum Richard Thompson's Richard's Poor Almanac be featured on their online edition. Here's last Saturday's, which features some helpful suggestions for the Smithsonian Institution to help mitigate their current budget woes. I tell you, times are rough, there - the last time I visited a Smithsonian office, most of the lights had been turned off, there was no hot water in the lav, and members of the staff were shaking down tourists for handouts, outraging the usual scrum of Hare Krishnas and Moonies - very squalid. But at least some Smithsonian employees are doing all right, thank goodness. And don't forget to buy copies of Richard's Poor Almanac for all of your friends and relations. Here's our review of this valuable volume. link home 26 April - Maternal Advice  This is my Ma, Edmina Benish Szégy-Légy, with Dog Snow. I'll never forget the advice that Ma gave me one evening: we were watching the local news on the telly, and the big story was that a desperate bank robber had been captured after a number of daring heists. It was revealed that the alleged perp had been busted while carrying a gun, and that the gun had been tied to his bank jobs, so that the authorities had the fellow dead to rights. My Ma nodded sagely, turned to me, and said - "Always ditch the piece." "I will, Ma," I said to her, and I've always kept her loving advice to heart. Ma was never convicted, and I haven't been, either, yet. Ma died twelve years ago today - still miss her, and her always useful advice. link home 25 April - More Trip Snaps  And now, for your viewing pleasure, a stuffed goat in an elegant wagon.  It was a very beautiful arrangement, what with the fiberglass kid and rocks and all. Same location as the superb giant fiberglass flamingo. link home 24 April - Royal Reading  HRH Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana in the National Air and Space Museum shop. Her Royal Highness Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana of Thailand displays her superb taste in reading matter while visiting the National Air and Space Museum shop yesterday. HRH Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana, granddaughter of the king of Thailand, recently won a gold medal in badminton at the South East Asian Games. She is also the toast of the Thai fashion community. Dunno if she actually bought a copy of the book, though. By the way, a copy of Animals Aloft would set HRH back Thai Bahts 854.29, unless she has a membership in the Smithsonian Associates, in which case it would be Thai Bahts 768.86. I may not get any royalties on the book, but royalty sometimes gets me. link home 24 April - M2 + 3  Happy birthday to our intrepid Museum Cats, Max and Maxine, who are three years old today. I believe a celebratory ambush and scamper are planned. Maybe a wallow, too, if the wallows dry out in time. link home 23 April - Travel Snaps  I'll post a few snaps from my trip to Oshkosh over the next few days - this is a superb giant fiberglass flamingo, maybe twenty feet tall. How I wish I could have brought it home with me - would look swell in the Janus Museum gardens. Shot at the same fabulous place that had the superb giant fiberglass moose pictured below.  A superb model of the Lawson Airliner at the EAA AirVenture Museum. The Museum is great - well worth a trip. link home 22 April - The Happy Return  Roadside Moose, near Oshkosh I'm back from Oshkosh; had a fine time - the talk went off fairly well, met some very nice people, got a fabulous ride in a vintage aircraft; didn't get any bratwurst though. More later. link home 18 April - Going West  I'm off to Oshkosh; back in a few days. Meanwhile, feel free to contemplate this beautiful but terrifying picture of the rare elusive dangerous Gray Dire Cat, lurking near the Olde Footbridge. link home 16 April - Sur le Pont  Unfazed by her close encounter with the alien space cat (below), Natasha is relaxed but alert on the olde footbridge during this afternoon's catwalk. link home 16 April - The Cat from Another Planet  On her guard, but mostly unafraid, Cat Natasha lays an ambush for a terrifying alien space cat. Natasha sprang the ambush, but the alien space cat didn't flinch at all, as if it was made of stone, or cement - most strange. Natasha, having gained the moral victory, continued her catwalk. link home 15 April - Final Cat + Daff Snap  The local daffodils are getting pretty ratty at this point, so this beautiful shot of Cat Natasha lurking in a patch in the Sacred Circle will be absolutely the final cat/daff shot of the season - that's it; no more. Oh, all right - one more:  Leroy on the historic marker, among the daffs. That's it. I mean it. link home 15 April - The Squire vs. the Anger of the Gods  Ex Voto Hank Burchard, an old Friend of the Museum and occasional contributor to these pages, AKA the Squire of Pecker Wood, had a narrow brush with death yesterday down at Pecker Wood in Tappahominy County, Virginia. A mutual friend, Casey Quinlan, sent this report: The Squire has barely survived a lightning strike on his house, his well-head pump, his laundry machines, his computer, one of his phone lines, his greenhouse, and his person. Good lord, he's one lucky squire. Now if only Hank was a blogger, he could take advantage of sound artist's Ed Janus' famous aphorism: "That which does not kill me goes on my blog." link home 15 April - Another General Joins the List  Gen. William T. Sherman Photograph by George N. Barnard. Janus Museum Collection Another retired general has joined the growing list of former officers called for the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. William Tecumseh Sherman (Lt. Gen., ret., deceased), who commanded Union forces in the "March to the Sea" from Atlanta to Savannah in 1864 and once famously remarked that "War is hell", issued his first public statement since his death in 1891: I thought Stanton [Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, 1814-1869] was a cold, interfering, imperious, nit-picking son-of-a-(expletive), but at least he was halfway competent in his job and occasionally listened to what a fellow had to say. By God, sir; in my day we would have cashiered a rascal like that [Rumsfeld] - I might have set him to cleaning the latrines, but that's about the summit of his military genius." link home 15 April - Oxonian Photography  Peter Feldstein in downtown Oxford, Iowa Photograph by Jason A. Cook for The New York Times There was a fascinating article in the New York Times last week on Peter Feldstein, an old Friend of the Museum, and his Oxford Project, a photographic documentation of a small Iowa town. Peter lives in Oxford; he started photographing his neighbors back in 1984: At the time, Oxford, a town in eastern Iowa, had 676 residents. Last year, Mr. Feldstein picked up his camera again, beginning a new series of portraits of the same people — or, at least, those who had not died or moved away. Peter tells me that his Oxford Project may become a Smithsonian SITES (Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service) exhibit - I'm looking forward to seeing it. Oxford isn't far from Iowa City, where I once lived, and which was hit by a tornado yesterday. So far, I haven't found out if my old hovel on the banks of the Iowa River was damaged, though a Dairy Queen nearby was destroyed. link home 14 April - Art Imitates the Army Pigeon Training Center  Thrilling interception scene from Valiant Back in November, we mentioned the US Army's plans, on the eve of World War II, for an anti-pigeon force of hawks. They were meant to deal with the expected onslaught of waves of Nazi messenger pigeons, you see. There's a brief mention of the program in a recent book, Animals Aloft, in which it's revealed that the Army Pigeon Training Center at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey actually trained a red-tailed hawk, a sparrow hawk, and a prairie hawk named Maizie as pigeon interceptors. They probably never saw combat, but a recent animated film, Valiant, revives the concept to great dramatic effect. The film portrays the exploits of a spunky band of misfit British messenger pigeons in World War II. The hero pigeon, Valiant (voiced by Ewan McGregor) volunteers to bring a vital message from French resistance mice back to Pigeon HQ. On the flight, he's intercepted by a fiendish leather-clad Nazi falcon (Tim Curry)! I won't reveal the shattering climax, but I like to think that the strategists at the old Pigeon Training Center would be pleased to see their anti-pigeon concept brought to life, or at least to the animated simulation of life.  Here's one of our own heroic pigeons and his pigeoneer, 280th Signal Company (soon to be renamed the 280th Pigeon Company), Camp Claiborne, Louisiana. Wish I had one of those cool pigeoneer tee shirts. link home 14 April - Hollywood on the Potomac; More Security  It's always so terribly exciting when Hollywood comes to boring old DC to make one of those little cinematical entertainments. I was downtown a few days ago and came across a massive effort down on First Street at the edge of Capitol Hill - tons of equipment, trucks, a legion of extras and a horde of flunkies. I asked a flunky what was doing, and he said they were filming a scene of what sounded like Heaven Almighty. I spotted an actor who looked a bit familiar:  Later on, I looked the movie up on the Internet Movie Database and discovered that it's actually called Evan Almighty, which is a sequel to something called Bruce Almighty. The actor is Steve Carrell. Although I was once much admired in the role of Dr. Einstein in the Montgomery Players' production of Arsenic and Old Lace, I did not put myself forward for a role in Evan - I just don't do sequels.  While downtown, I admired the new security bollards outside one of the Smithsonian museums on the Mall. Quite handsome in a spare brutalist way, they are simple steel tubes filled with cement. Each bollard is sunk 80 feet into the bedrock beneath the street, I'm told - must have cost a mint of money, but at least the museum is safe, now. link home 11 April - Special Bonus Cat + Daffs Snap  Leroy relaxes in the daffodils in the Sacred Circle, near the historic marker. This is a special bonus cat/daff shot, and there is absolutely no obligation on your part. link home 8 April - Separated at Birth?  We watched Chronicles of Narnia last night; very nice flick - beautifully photographed, fascinating special effects, a lovely parable with deeply moving symbolism and all that; but the thing that struck me most forcibly was the uncanny resemblance between Aslan, the Christ-like computer-generated lion, and my buddy Gilmore, the lion mascot of aviator Roscoe Turner:  Oh, wow. A stunning likeness, isn't it? Come to think of it, if we were to take good old Cat Leroy...  ... and give him a blond makeover, I bet he'd look a lot like Aslan, too. A somewhat baffled, worried looking Aslan. As to the question of the film's Christian symbolism that I dimly recall was discussed when it was in the theaters, I thought it could be construed as Christian only as far as Christianity's rampant borrowings from the myths of Baldr (C. S. Lewis said that he "loved Balder before Christ" - God In The Dock), Mithras, and Osiris are admitted. There was even a touch of the Hindu, when little Lucy heals the wounded Edmund with a magic elixer:  ... Very reminiscent of Lakshman, Rama's brother, being healed by the Sanjeevani herb, brought by Hanuman, in the Ramayana. But I don't intend to set myself up as a theologian, though. It was a nice enough movie; didn't need any additional baggage. link home 8 April - Springtime at Soggy Bottom  Many thanks to Dr. John Herrera of the famous High Speed Triumph Research Laboratory, Myersville, Maryland, who sent these snaps of the arrival of Spring at Soggy Bottom, the estate that houses the lab. Above, the Residence at Soggy Bottom, with forsythia, daffs, and tulips in bloom.  Felix Holstein meditates by the old Japanese Footbridge. It's a very nice footbridge, but it's not as picturesque as the Janus Museum Forest Preserve's Olde Footbridge, I think.  Felix wallowing. It looks like the Soggy Bottom wallows are sandy and a bit pebbly, not like the fine red clay wallows in the Washington Grove Circle. But I'm sure that they're very nice, too, in their own way. link home 7 April - Lighting out for the Territory I'll be at the EAA AirVenture Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin on April 20, talking about the book and signing copies, in case anyone actually buys one. Admission's free, so if you're in the area, come on by, maybe have a beer and a brat afterwards. While I'm around, maybe I'll make a pilgrimage to the University of Lawsonomy over in Sturtevant. link home 7 April - Rain Delay  Cat Natasha sullenly watches the rain from the carriage house porch - her catwalk is delayed! She commands the rain to stop, and it does:  The sun comes out, and the catwalk takes place - Natasha, 1; Canute, 0. Above, Natasha and Leroy on the old Excellent Climbing Tree. We had a fine walk, and now it's raining again. Natasha allows it, as her walk is finished. link home 4 April - Glimpses of Wildlife  For some reason, Animal Planet never answered our proposal for a weekly series on the varied and exotic wildlife to be found in the Janus Museum Forest Preserve - their loss. Gus, who has a pith helmet, was to be the intrepid host. Here are a couple of the stills that we sent in with our package; above, a doe. Below:  ... the rare elusive dangerous Gray Dire Cat. I risked my life to get this amazing image and does Animal Planet even say "Gosh! Nice Shot!" No, sir; they don't. link home 2 April - Not so Cruel, April  What with the balmy temperatures and the change to savings time, today feels much more like an actual spring day than yesterday did. Above, Leroy relaxes on the Olde Footbridge in the Janus Museum Forest Preserve. Compare the above shot to this below shot to measure the ongoing greenup. With spring comes the urge to put meat on a grill:  Here's the fresh ham I'm slow-cooking for tonight. I started it cooking two and a half weeks ago. It's dry-rubbed with brown sugar, garlic powder, onion powder, cardomon, celery salt, celery powder, chili powder, cumin, curry, Jamaican jerk seasoning, mace, sage, powdered star anise, thyme, theriac, smuggled paprika from a troubled Hungarian enclave in Romania that I'm not at liberty to divulge, and wormwood. It's being smoked over rare Amazonian hard woods. Ought to be pretty good. link home 2 April - Rare Asian Spit-Take  Continuing our survey of the spit-take in world cinema, here's a recently discovered Chinese example from Book and Sword (2002). Here's a full review, though the spit-take isn't mentioned, for some reason. Other spit-takes we've featured here. link home 2 April - Cat + Daffs  And now, for your viewing pleasure, our annual cat with daffodils picture. Previous cat/daffs images. link home 1 April - Suspicious Photographic Behavior Mirrorball, a DC photographer who posts on Flickr, had an encounter with the Secret Service today while photographing in bucolic Rock Creek Park, which runs through Washington: I feel so special. My first run in with the Man while taking photos. I went down to Rock Creek Park, near Woodley Park, to snap a few photos.So - nowadays, the light at the end of the tunnel is a police car. Regular readers of these pages, if any, may recall my own reluctant conversations with the authorities, especially the notorious Blimp Incident back in '04. link home 1 April - Catwalk like an Egyptian  A Friend of the Museum who wishes to remain anonymous has generously given Cat Natasha her own superb Egyptian cobra crown, or diadem, or tiara - Natasha models it in the picture above, with Leroy struck dumb in worshipful admiration. There is, of course, the possibility that Natasha is a reincarnate of an Egyptian queen, possibly Nefertiti, or maybe the current avatar of Bast, the Cat Goddess. Later, Her Majesty doffed the headgear and took a ladylike wallow in the North Wallow, with Slave Leroy as her attendant:  Since we're in the Orientalia mood, I have to admit that the above scene strongly echoes this famous painting in the Museum's collection. Cat Natasha, she is magnificent. link home |
