24 March - More Adolphus



Just back from the conservation lab, here is another superb canvas by the great Adolphus Norbeck - The Boring Old Soldier (Scene in a Washington Grove Tavern). Notice the use of cats. I just don't understand why the Metropolitan, or the Art Institute, or the Smithsonian American Art Museum aren't clamoring for the loan of our Norbeckiana for a landmark blockbuster exhibit. It just doesn't make sense.


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

24 March - Memento Morion



Boy with Toy Grenade and Morion.

Yes, the Museum has acquired an extremely rare 16th century

24 March - See What Kitty's Brought Home!





Not to put down Atget, or W. Eugene Smith, or Josef Sudek, or any of the other greats of the medium - but I contend that the picture pictured above is the finest photograph ever made. Photographer unknown; found it on

23 March - Glorious Opening of Cat/Daff Season



Well, I couldn't very well let

24 November - Imperskaya Aviatziya Koshki (Imperial Aviation Cat)



Yes, it's been an unconscionably long time since my last post - I can only plead the lack of spare time due to the press of duties here at the Museum, plus my court-mandated community service. It's been in my mind to call it quits, I confess, but can't quite pull the trigger. So it'll be the dreaded hiatus for Panabasis for now. But the good news is that our intern Zoe told me about Tumblr - all the kids have Tumblrs nowadays, she says. So I've

30 September - On Little Round Top



Yesterday being very nice, I motored up to Gettysburg and spent some time on the battlefield. Above, the view from Little Round Top; South Mountain can be seen in the distance. And beyond, barely visible: the Blue Ridge, the Appalachians, Allegheny Front, the Alleghenies, then a flat bit, then the Rockies, the Cascades, a wet bit, and finally China.




Also on Little Round Top,

23 September - Snake and Cats in the Grass



I realize that the reporting of cat activity here during the summer past was pretty spotty, what with the very limited updates posted. Shockingly, this terrifying encounter between the Museum Cats (Felis Museo catus) and a black snake (Pantherophis obsoletus) took place back in August. The cats were jolly interested, though cautious; the snake - not so interested.




The snake was big - about twelve feet long, I estimate.




Max (right) and the snake discuss the current rodent situation. I got the protesting cats back into the Fellows' Common Room, and when I returned to the Circle, the serpent had wisely fled. Haven't seen him since.

3 September - Cats of the Artillery



Here's a detail from a superb cartoon showing a well-equipped Great War cat in a wittle

5 August - Balto Cop with Headache Stick



This superb image, the latest in our series of portraits of Baltimore police officers by an unknown photographer, shows a young copper already the master of the tools of his trade. It calls to mind Max Beerbohm's Kiplingesque "Police Station Ditty":

Then it’s collar ’im tight
In the name o’ the Lawd!
’Ustle ’im, shake ’im till ’e’s sick!
Wot, ’e would, would ’e? Well,
Then yer’ve got ter give ’im ’Ell,
An’ its trunch, trunch, truncheon does the trick!

Oh! I remember that I have posted

4 August - Bears Beat Olympics



It didn't have an over-the-top opening ceremony with

4 August - Another Baltimore Cop



Here's another portrait from our collection of Baltimore cop photographs, shot by Anon. I wonder if this chap might be a security officer at a city building? He looks a bit - I don't know - down-trodden to be a cop.

Ex Voto of the Smiling Cat Among the Canaries



Here's a superb ex voto by the great

I forgot to close the cage's door and my canaries they flew out, I ran fearing that the cat ate up them or that they escaped by the window, but the cat just saw them and he smiled and they didn't fly very far away, they only flew around by the room and later they returned to their cage. Now I let open their door so that they can leave to give a flight time to time. I thanks to San Francisco for this amazing miracle.

31 July - The Balto Cop Project



Here's what I was working on before the Museum was shut down by the Great Derecho: scanning a collection of negatives by an unknown Baltimore photographer, the great majority of said negs are portraits of police officers. Above, a wide-eyed Harbor Tunnel patrolman. Will post more.

31 July - Back Again, Sort of (Take 2)



The local cats group themselves artistically near the Circle's sole

2 June - Rare Encounter of a Coelacanth and a Space Shuttle



I mentioned back in April that I was lucky enough to have been seconded to the National Air and Space Museum as a supplementary photographer when

31 May - Easing Back into the 3D Thing



My recovery is now sufficiently advanced so that I may once again attempt a bit of 3D cat photography. Natasha and Leroy kindly consented to pose briefly for me.

31 May - Down by the Tracks, Again



Continuing my healthy hiking and Instagrammic photography: a stroll down to the tracks in time to view the return of

30 May - Down by the Tracks



A brisk therapeutic walk down to the tracks. Soon I'll be well enough to cross the tracks and go to

30 May - Back Again, Sort of


Cat Leroy in Approaching Storm

Gad, has it been a month, already? Very sad to have missed the following important occasions during my absence:

29 April - Blog, Interrupted



And now, a sublime view of Venus contemplating Cat Natasha.

I'll be away from my desk at the Janus Museum for a bit, having a bit of an overhaul at the hospital; hope to be back soon.

22 April - More Shuttle Snaps



Seconded to the joint Smithsonian/NASA photo pool for the arrival of Discovery, my particular brief was to do people shots. This chap got closer to the shuttle than the rest of us did.




Lots of people set up jolly nice picnics. It was one of the most cheerful mass assemblies I've joined in.







I extended my brief to include shuttle-watching dogs. Beulah Bulldog was having a delightful time.

21 April - Snapping the Shuttles



It's been one busy week - the Museum lent me to our sister institution, the National Air and Space Museum, to serve as one of the pool photographers for the arrival of

8 April - Sturm und Peep; The Easter Bomber



Sorry, we're tarnation busy gearing up for

30 March - Miraculous Striped Faticidal Cephalopod Encounter



Here's a superb octopus-related ex voto - an expression of gratitude for a miraculous intervention -

When I was swiming a huge octopus caught me with his tentacles, I felt I'll die drowned and I ivoked the Virgen de Guadalupe and suddenly the octopus liberated me of his fatidical hug and I could swim up to the surface and breathe, I thanks to the Virgen.

24 March - Continuation of Coelacanth/Daff Season



The Museum's coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) has a

17 March - Miscellaneous Masterpieces from the Scanning Queue

11 March - Highly Fraught Cat/Daff Season Opener



The daffodils in Washington Grove's Sacred Circle having opened, Cat/Daff Season is now go. As always, we begin with the official Cat/Daff Day Parade of the Circle Cats - Natasha first, followed by Nutmeg, and then Leroy. Sure, it's a noble sight.

5 March - Cat/Daff Pre-Season Opener



The daffodils are beginning to bloom, but it's still too cold - snow flurries and all - for an official declaration of

4 March - Miracle of the Poultrygeists



It was a bit unnerving to come across

With a lot of frequency I prepared dishes with chicken for my family because they liked a lot and I knew that they were very nutritious. But one day that I was very tired and I was slept in the kitchen, I dreamt of all the ghosts of the chickens that had cooked and that they looked at me with sadness and in an accusing way. I thank to San Francisco because now that I only cook fished I no longer have nightmares with chicken ghosts.

4 March - Carry On Coelacanth



See, this is exactly the wrong way to pick up and carry a coelacanth. Because you could cut your hand on the coelacanth's teeth and the resulting infection could turn you into a werewolf, and that would be bad, especially for your pretty lab assistant, who you would kill horribly. That's what happens to Prof. Donald Blake (Arthur Franz) in

26 February - More Coelacanthiana



They laughed when he sat down to play.




Sometimes the lion lays down with the lamb, and sometimes the coelacanth chats with the cat.




And finally, a dramatic tableau in 3D - a coelacanth in the act of evolving.

20 February - The Long-Lost Brother, Maybe



No holiday here at the Janus Museum: I was working through a stack of misfiled documents and photographs, and came across the image shown above. Scrawled on the back, I can just make out, is the inscription "Florian, Antwerpen, 1916." Could it be a portrait of the third von Wallingsfurt brother, Florian - elder to Lothar and Theo? The hefty chap in the photo certainly has the family features and looks a bit older than the images we have of the younger brothers. And we do know that Florian von Wallingsfurt served as a cook (Feldkoch) in a field kitchen of a reserve battalion, operating

19 February - Your Annual First Crocus Sighting, Now in 3D



Very pleased to be able to offer the annual first crocus sighting in glorious 3D (red/blue glasses required) with bonus

19 February - Cosmos Community Theater


Twelfth Night as performed by Earthlings

Had a curious dream last night - I was part of an alien exploratory mission sent to Earth as a peaceful goodwill mission. We were fairly humanoid in appearance; and, to put the human race at ease, we decided to mount a production of Twelfth Night by Earth playwright William Shakespeare to air live simultaneously on all Earth channels - also available on Netflix, Hulu and Boxee. Because of my skill in modulating the volume and pitch of my aural communications, I was cast as Feste, the Clown, who has several songs.

Production started out pretty well - we were psyched to put on a good show, of course. But we quickly started to run into problems. We were, of course, multi-dimensional entities, so the concept of "stage left" and "stage right" was confusing to us - we tended to make our entrances in dimensions that Earthlings could not conceive of, or else a thousand years too early. The gender-swapping element of the play didn't make any sense to us, either, since we aliens each had four different sexes. When Viola, appearing on stage as the page Cesario, naturally released pheromones to indicate her status as a level 2 male, we discovered that the pheromones were toxic to our test Earthling audience - most frustrating.

Also, the Supreme Commander of our expedition, sadly miscast as Sir Toby, just could not memorize his lines. And there were the inevitable problems with set, scenery, costumes, etc. As opening night approached, we were getting more and more nervous.

So we canceled the production, and destroyed Earth, instead. Maybe we should have done The Odd Couple.


Previously Reported Dreams:

12 February - On the Anaglyphic Riverside



Just standing on the corner of Potomac and Vine; not much happening, except in 3D.


Previous Potomac Posts:

11 February - The Look of Wonder in a Young Coelacanth's Eyes



Coelacanth's first snowfall...


Previous Coelacanth Encounters

29 January - Fluff Update

22 January - On the Trail



It's been getting tougher to get the cats interested in a walk in the woods nowadays, but Natasha and Nutmeg did agree to accompany me for a bit of a hike the other day. Above, Natasha in the fullness of her winter ruff -

16 January - Der Frontfliegerkatze



I thought I knew the von Wallingsfurt collection pretty well, but I just found another photograph that had been mistakenly filed elsewhere - here is the great ace Lothar von Wallingsfurt himself, standing by his

14 January - Sugarloaf, Painted


Ascent of Sugarloaf, Frederick County, Maryland by Adolphus Norbeck, 1887. Oil on canvas.

Should've recalled, when I posted previously on the 3D summiting of Sugarloaf Mountain, that the Janus Museum actually possesses a canvas by the great Adolphus Norbeck commemorating an expedition of a team of Washington Grove men in 1885, led by the noted soldier and explorer Captain Thaddeus Wallingford, who also appears in Norbeck's

2 January - On the Summit



It's becoming a tradition, my skipping the traditional New Year's Day journey to beautiful