29 July - Take a Bollard



Welcome again to visiting shipmates from

27 July - Also From the Collection



A taut family drama from exotic Bali - husband and wife retire for the night to the conjugal bunk bed - husband, feeling frisky, announces that he's on his way up the ladder for a little nocturnal conjugal activity - wife Jane deftly pulls up the ladder and tells him, in effect, no way Ray 'til you've had the vasectomy. A simple but effective tactic of family planning, unless the guy's a pole vaulter. Are bunk beds common in Bali, I wonder?

I shot it as part of

20 July - Feline Aesthetic Ecstasy



When I mentioned last week that Cat Leroy is

If you're anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line
as a man of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms,
and plant them ev'rywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases
of your complicated state of mind,
The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter
of a transcendental kind.

And ev'ry one will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
"If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me,
Why, what a very singularly deep young man
this deep young man must be!"

19 July - From the Collection


A Forest Duel, Washington Grove. Oil on canvas by Adolphus Norbeck, c.1885.

As I mentioned earlier, one of my current assignments is to update the photography of the Janus Museum's paintings. Here's a superb Adolphus Norbeck canvas I shot yesterday: the splendidly antlered elk stag, having vanquished his rival, trumpets his triumph as the sleek does stand at the edge of a pond, gazing admiringly. Or, alternately: the stag comes across his old buddy prostrate, unconscious due to the large quantity of drink taken, and bellows for help. Depends on your outlook, I guess.

Other Works by Adolphus Norbeck from the Janus Museum's Collection:

19 July - My Beautiful Socialist Galosh


Rezenotrest Galoshes

There's

I thought this poster was deeply moving, too - luscious Socialist weiners to nourish the Revolution. Would there be any Socialist mustard, too, do you think?

19 July - Another Recent Acquisition



Here's another superb oil the Museum recently acquired - At Pasture by Marcia Montagna, 1990. Love the Holsteins, of course, and the detail in the wild flowers is something amazing; have not been able to find any biographical information on the artist, yet. I photographed it along with our other recent acquisition, Ralph Mosher's

18 July - Swag Report



Friend Terry, who sent me

... This superb

... From noted historian and free-lance hand-gonner

I could swear there was a cat involved somehow, too. Probably security services of some sort, which would explain why there is no photographic record.

15 July - More Cinematic Rapides



Raquel Welch's stunt double

14 July - Jour de Fête



A jolly band of hurdy-gurdies and bagpipes greets the brave volunteers of Marseilles to Paris in Jean Renoir's La Marseillaise (1938), part of

13 July - Collaboration Cartoon



Here's an astounding French collaborationist cartoon from World War II - Micky Mouse, Donald Duck, and Popeye man B-17s on a bombing raid over innocent France. Above, Micky confirms his navigation.




Donald confirms, and issues his cruel order. I had never seen Micky take orders from Donald before - has the world gone mad?




Popeye poses his own question. The tank with the baby bottle nipple hanging from the hook contains "wisky". Also in the cartoon is Goofy as a turret gunner, and a particularly nasty anti-semitic caricature. See the entire cartoon

13 July - Hot Walking



Preliminary to yesterday's catwalk in the Museum's Forest Preserve, Leroy contemplates a delicate bloom from the vantage of

The cats stepped out briskly enough, at first - Natasha on point, then Leroy and Nutmeg, but...




... But the heat, the humidity, and the thick fur coats required frequent stops for cooling flops. Above, Nutmeg served with greens. I flopped a bit, too, and contemplated the bottles of pale ale in the Fellows' Common Room Fridge. This healthy exercise caper gets old very quickly in July.

Later, I had recovered sufficiently to have

13 July - Rare Sighting



It's always a treat to get a look at the very rare and extremely elusive Wallingford's Toad (Bufo wallingfordiensis), a species found only in the central Mongomery County region of Maryland - this chap was found on the bank of Wallingford Creek.

12 July - Early Grovian Research


Miguel Roderigo Gonsalves y Norbeque Discovers Wallingford Creek

Friend of the Museum and noted handgonner

Questions regarding the visit to the Grove by Miguel Roderigo Gonsalves y Norbeque and his party in 1609 have been laid to rest. It happened. Senor Gonsalves was pursuing Capt. John Smith up the Rock Creek Valley at the time (It was a bum steer, given him by some Native American with a puckish sense of humor).

Unhappily, the excessive humidity the Gonsalves group encountered that summer in the lower Rock Creek valley had long rendered their half-dozen arquebuses inoperable, and the party was armed only with lances and light crossbows by the time they reached The Grove.

... Can't remember if I ever told you about this. A couple years ago on Independence Day we had six guys with muskets lined up to salute the raising of the USA flag.

Captain gave commands for each step, from charging the barrel and pan through final discharge.

All six of us raised the loaded muskets, and in front of close to 1000 people, captain gave us the command to fire.

All six misfired. All six! Not even a flash. Six pitiful metallic clicks. One guy muttered "... Did that really happen?"

Men make plans. The gods just laugh. So did the audience.

6 July - Recipe Corner 2.0



It was pretty difficult, but I was able to save some char siu - Chinese barbeque - from

6 July - Recent Acquisition



The Curator has asked me to post the glad news of a recent major acquisition to our paintings department - Moorea, an undated Tahitian scene by Ralph Mosher, son of the better known artist Theodore Mosher. It's quite lovely - the effect of the moon behind the clouds is particularly sublime. I'm pleased to say that its purchase was made possible by

6 July - A Dog in a Kepi



And now, a dog wearing a policeman's kepi and chewing on a leg of lamb, from the superb 1907 Pathé film La Course des Sergents de Ville (The Policemen's Little Run), a proto-Keystone Kops comedy - a dog steals the leg from a butcher's shop and is pursued by increasing numbers of truncheon waving gendarmes all over Paris. They corner the thief; the brute turns on them and chases them back to their station - il est extrêmement drôle! Watch

5 July - The Rattle of Musketry II



Friend and neighbor Ernie Kawasaki kindly sent this fine snap of

5 July - Sing-Along


Washington Grove's Muskrat Band

Old friend

Washington Grove on the Fourth of July

Words and music by Fred Tippens

Washington Grove on the fourth of July
See the Muskrat Band marching by
What if it's ninety-five in the shade
Everybody join the parade.
Come to the picnic, get into the game
Let’s let freedom ring.
And when I hear the band down at the gazebo,
I’m so happy I could fly,
In Washington Grove on the Fourth of July!

if you put a cat by a squid not to big it will attak and eat the squid b7ut if the suid catches it it my call out for help from other cats by howeling and morwe cats will join and attack the squid

4 July - The Rattle of Musketry



I'd really like to be able to say that I knew that Gus, the Museum's maintenance man, had it in him to defy the odds and actually get his musket to fire an honest salute during the town of Washington Grove's Fourth of July celebration, instead of his traditional misfire or flash in the pan - but it would be a lie. I confess that I really didn't think the old boy had it in him. But he and his buddy William Van Camp got off a perfectly respectable feu de joie during today's festivities, and one could hear the sound of the onlookers' jaws dropping over the rattle of musketry. Well done, thou good and faithful servant.



Here's the Museum's Video Unit's full coverage of the celebration - the volley takes place at 2:40, if you can't wait. The parade segment is narrated by Josh Sackville-Cohen, the Unit's cinematographer.

Later on,