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Please Buy a Copy A Cat Compendium DVD by the Museum's Video Unit  |
June 2011 Archive 28 June - Wacht am Rhein, mit Küken  Very pleased to announce a generous donation from an old Friend of the Museum of a set of fifteen superb German and Austrian postcards from c.1900 through the Great War. Above - a detail of marching be-pickelhaubed chicks from an Easter postcard - look, the chicks are goose-stepping! Will post more of the set over the next couple of days - fabulous material! link 26 June - Booper  I'm deeply saddened to report the passing on the 16th of Cat Booper, an old friend and occasional subject on this site - he was seventeen. I thought of Booper as one of the Wise Cats - never combative, unlike some other cats I could mention - always affable, patient with kids, always pleased to see you. Booper always showed up for the annual Washington Grove town meeting, and was frequently a strong write-in candidate for mayor. I miss Booper. Goodbye, old buddy.   Here's a set of tunes that, somehow, remind me of the old boy; the way he would just boop along - thus, his name - Field Tantzen, from an old album, For Borgere og Bønder, by Hans Olav Gorset and Anon Egeland. link 20 June - Pickelhaubes and Pâtisserie  Here is the latest acquisition to our growing Pickelhaube and Popular Culture collection, the generous donation of a good Friend of the Museum. It's a lithographic tradecard, c.1870, and on it we observe gents in pickelhaubes and their fine ladies being served delicious looking baked goods, presumably prepared with Rumford Baking Powder. Chaps in fezzes watch the proceedings from stage left. Curiously, the ad copy on the reverse of the card is devoted to another product of the Rumford Chemical Works...  ... Horsford's Acid Phosphate, which one notes is very good for dyspepsia, headache, wakefulness, urinary difficulties, indigestion, and derangement of the secretory and nervous systems. Also - bladder and sphincter paralysis and tendencies to gravel and spermatorrhea. Oh, and acute mania and hysteria, too. So ask your GP, gastroenterologist, nephrologist, proctologist and psychiatrist if Horsman's Acid Phosphate is right for you. The stuff was also used at soda fountains for decades as the basis for phosphates, and is currently enjoying a revival with the cocktail crowd. Oh... how about a nice chilled Pickelhaube Phosphate? Jägermeister, acid phosphate, and a pickle spear. link 13 June - The Cat, With Banjo, Who Got Away  Very sad to report that the bidding got away from us during the auction of this superb Cabinet card, circa 1880, of a cat playing a banjo - clawhammer style? The final price was not quite up there with Cindy Sherman's 3.8 million dollar self-portrait, but it quickly outstripped the Museum's slender - anorexic, really - resources. Too bad - wonder if he could play The Cat Came Back? Here it is... ... Played (on the fiddle) by Fiddlin' John Carson. From the album Fiddlin' John Carson: Volume 1 1923-1924. link 12 June - Champagne Ballistics  Opening a bottle of champagne with a saber while wearing a pickelhaube in 3D (red/blue glasses req.) Generally speaking, the combination of alcohol, sharp cutting implements, and the Museum's maintenance man Gus Norbeck are a very bad idea: somehow, he learned of the manly art of sabrage, the technique of opening a bottle of champagne with a saber, and he was all a-fire to give it a whack, as he put it. I blame the Museum's Video Unit for egging him on - "borrowing" the collection's rare Emerson & Silver Model 1860 cavalry saber and filching a bottle of Moldovian bubbly from the Fellows' Common Room. Naturally, he had to wear the Museum's priceless von Wallingsfurt pickelhaube during the operation. Here's the video - please put on your red/blue specs: I stood by with the phone ready to dial 911, but, as the video shows, everything came off safely and with a satisfying pop. The 3D effect could've been better, but the video crew directed Gus to aim away from the camera, to avoid hitting it with the cork and/or a spray of the champers. Sharp-eyed viewers will note the romantic placement of two glasses; Gus drank down both, then killed the rest of the bottle. Then he started waving the saber around and singing Jine the Cavalry and Garryowen. Things got badly out of hand and we had to taser him yet again. The video's soundtrack is the Quadrille from Offenbach's Geneviéve de Brabant, played on a barrel organ (artist unknown). Previous Activities Carried Out While Wearing a Pickelhaube: Firing a Flintlock Musket Getting Out of a Deck Chair Carving a Pumpkin Riding a Folding Bicycle Performing Household Chores link 10 June - Cat Bugler  Continuing our trawl through the Museum's files in search of Cats of War images; came across the superb photograph posted here - a bugler of the Rutland Fusiliers with cat, both wearing snappy Kilmarnock caps, circa 1880. However, old Friend of the Museum John Drouot has a different identification: I suggest that this man is not a bugler at all, but rather a lance bugle holder with the Duke of Rockingham's Feline Light Infantry. It is the cat who is the bugler. Previous Cats of War: Secesh Cat at Gettysburg Bashi-Bazouk with Cat Cats of the Great War Dragoon Cat, Lincoln's Cat, Christmas Truce Cat Previous Bugle Related Post: Trumpeter Landfrey link 5 June - Leroy's Leap for Life  This superb image, highly reminiscent of works of the Futurist School, portrays Cat Leroy, represented by the long gray streak in the foreground, running for dear life from the razor claws of Natasha. The picture is also available in stunning 3D; red/blue glasses required. link 4 June - Anna  This is Anna, maybe the sweetest kitty in the world - Booper's mom. Goodbye, Anna. link 4 June - Giant Pretzel  This here giant pretzel, located on Independence Avenue in DC, would make a very fine artifact for the Janus Museum, but I have so far not been able to convince the vendor who owns it to donate it to the collection. It would go very nicely with this artifact, if I had been able to grab it. By the way, the half-smoke is Washington's one contribution to the World of Sausage - it's a pork and beef mix, bigger than a hot dog, slighty spicy, not always smoked. The definitive version is to be found at the famous Ben's Chili Bowl over on U Street. This beautiful image may also be viewed in 3D - red/blue glasses req. link 4 June - Revisionist Revere  Apologies to Copley, via Boing Boing That resounding smack you're hearing is Paul Revere's facepalm up in heaven, on hearing the news that former half-term governor of Alaska S. Palin thinks he's a bloody Tory loyalist or something. link |
