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November 2005 Archive 29 November - Of Mice and Millers Friend of the Museum Lisa Grossman was struck that we were taking our mice to "Miller's Crossing"; she reminded me of another rodent/miller conjunction - in the Aubrey-Maturin novels of Patrick O'Brian. In H.M.S. Surprise, "millers" is a name for the other other white meat, rats. The rats would often be found in the ship's hold, covered with flour, just like a dusty miller. Hungry midshipmen catch and eat 'em, do you see. There's even a delightful recipe for Millers in Onion Sauce in Lobscouse and Spotted Dog, the culinary history and cookbook based on the O'Brian novels written by Lisa and her mother, the late Anne Chotzinoff Grossman - an essential companion to the O'Brian canon. Being conscientious authors, Lisa and Cookie actually made the dish:  Here are the millers, "...neatly skinned, opened and cleaned, like tiny sheep..." just like it says in the book.  ...And here's the finished dish. Lisa says it's delicious. I guess one could substitute mouse for rat, though it wouldn't really be millers in onion sauce, then. But now I'm all out of mouse - since the nocturnal mouse event reported below, we've had no further mouse attacks. Could this be the end of the current Mousening? Many thanks to Lisa for the snaps and for the quote from H.M.S. Surprise. Have a look at the Lobscouse and Spotted Dog site, why don't you? 29 November - Intransparent Language Dunks of the Planet Earth Globe Emerson Chu, our Hong Kong airship correspondent and an extremely thinky geopolitician, has sent us the latest in a series of meditiations on the current situation: the biggest problems in ambush military battles in Iraq lies in the thick fog (the intransparent language dunk) between two mountains at the bottom of the low valley not high up in the skiesInteresting that Emerson should theorize that al Qaeda may be using message pigeons for secure communications. A recent book, the excellent Animals Aloft by Allan Janus, mentions that the U.S. Army Signal Corps set up a pigeon interceptor unit consisting of hawks and falcons just before World War II, though it was never deployed overseas. link home 27 November - Nocturnal Mousening  Midway the path of life that men pursue I found me in a darkling wood astray, For the direct way had been lost to view. ...And I had another damn mouse with me. Just before closing up the Historic Cottage for the night, I checked my trapline and found the above wee, sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie. Just one - that's the beastie's sleekit reflection in yon photograph. Out, in the cold, to Miller's Crossing with him. I just hope that his colleagues don't infest the fixings for the famous Janus Museum Fruitcakes, which are now in full production - don't forget to place your order early, before the mice get into them. link home 26 November - Thoughts on Japanese Naval Laundry  Japanese naval officers and men display beautifully laundered uniforms We're pleased to present another in a series of fascinating readings from history. In this episode from World War II, a deep-thinking Japanese naval analyst, Commander Hayashi, presents a very cogent report on the problems of naval laundry; obviously the results of considerable study, as reproduced in Battle Report: The End of an Empire by Captain Walter Karig, Lieutenant Commander Russell L. Harris, and Lieutenant Commander Frank A. Manson (1948): CONCERNING THE SOILING OF NAVY MEN'S CLOTHINGWith minds like his opposing us, how did we ever prevail? link home 26 November - More Mousening  Another mouse is taken for a ride to Miller's Crossing. It's now officially a plague, though not yet of Biblical proportions- a secular, non-scriptural plague, I guess. But they say that there are no atheists in a mousetrap. link home 26 November - Book Signing  Yesterday was the big book signing for Animals Aloft at the National Air and Space Museum. Above, Gus (wearing the marketing geniuses' ISBN cap), appearing as "Allan Janus", with Lorenzo Lion, appearing as Gilmore, the famous lion mascot of Roscoe Turner.  The sales staff put out some generic plush lion cubs meant to represent Gilmore. Very cute.  And then Gus sat, and waited... Here are his comments, recorded at an after-action debriefing: I was seated at the entrance to the shop, and I watched a steady stream of glassy-eyed humanity roll past, ignoring me. I felt like an aluminum siding salesman at the county fair. I had a nice chat with Ignacio, the shop staffer working the register. A museum staffer brought me a candy bar. One lady paused in passing and laboriously made out the title - "Animals Aloft", she proudly said. I wasn't sure if I was meant to compliment her on her reading comprehension or not, so I just smiled and nodded. She walked on.  Gus and Lorenzo continue to wait. I later found out that his water bottle contained slivovitz. We ended up selling thirteen copies. link home 24 November - Sweet Mystery of Love at Last I've Found You  Museum Cat Maxine has fallen deeply for Lorenzo, a handsome and dashing plush lion, borrowed from Friends of the Museum Kathy and David Kahn, who will be standing in for Gilmore at today's Animals Aloft signing at the National Air and Space Museum. link home 24 November - First Snow, with Cat  Cat Natasha contemplates the snowfall in the Janus Museum Forest Preserve earlier today. She could also have hunted for exiled Historic Cottage mice, but didn't. In other cat-related news, Friend of the Museum Lisa Grossman has announced that the kitten formerly known as Kitten Grossman is now known to all as Ptolemy. 24 November - The Mousening, Part II  Regular readers, if any, will recall that back in April the Historic Cottage endured a plague of mice. Well, they're back, lured in by the warmth and by the rich pickings in the Fellows' Common Room kitchen. They're suckers for peanut butter (the mice, not the fellows), and can't resist a morsel of bread and peanut butter in one of the wee humane traps we lay out. So we've been escorting a steady stream of mice in traps back into the fastness of the Janus Museum Forest Preserve - it's a scene strangely reminiscent of the moment in the Coen brothers' film Miller's Crossing (1990) where Gabriel Byrne as the highly principled gangster Tom Reagan takes John Turturro as the slimy double-crossing rat Bernie Bernbaum on a one-way walk into the woods:  Turturro noisily begs for his life and Byrne nobly spares him. See, in the Janus Forest version, I'm Gabriel Byrne and the mouse is John Turturro. Sometimes I even hum some of the splendid Carter Burwell music from the soundtrack - here's a short bit (streaming Real Audio). After I hum a bit, I spill the mouse out of the wee trap and he makes his way back into the Cottage within minutes, I bet. Museum Cat Max is jolly interested in watching the mice, but hasn't quite picked up on our suggestions that he lend a paw to solving the problem. link home 23 November - Watch the Skies for Turkeys  A Turkey Aviator, c.1910 Happy Thanksgiving to all of our regular readers, if any. I'll be working the counter at the Janus Museum gift shop tomorrow, for my sins. What a life. link home 20 November - Press Notes There's a brief mention of "Allan Janus" in Big Media today - in the Washington Post's Literary Calendar under November 25. It's for next Friday's book signing at the National Air and Space Museum shop. In a previous entry on the signing, I had mentioned that it hadn't been decided who would actually appear as "Allan Janus" - me, the actual author; or Gus, the Janus Museum's maintenance man, who had posed as "Allan Janus" for the book's flyleaf author photo. Well, the decision is in - it's going to be Gus, because he has a tweed jacket with leather patches. I'll just have to try to remember to brief old Gus that "Allan" is spelled with 2 A's, 2 ELL's, but only 1 EN. 'Cos he's liable to forget and misspell it, or to sign his own name is big idiot ill-formed block letters. Not that I'm bitter. link home 20 November - Nature Red in Tooth and Fluff  We had one of our more ferocious catwalks this afternoon - great ambush, feint and attack action in the usually quiet Janus Museum Forest Preserve. Above, Natasha pursues Leroy following a successful ambush.  Leroy prepares to pounce on Natasha. What followed is too disturbing to describe on this family blog. Then we all came home for a snack and a nap. link home 19 November - Terror from the Sky  Just catalogued this interesting shot of the famous ace Lothar von Wallingsfurt in the front seat of a Hans Grade Monoplane, c.1915. Wallingsfurt tested the aircraft for use as a parasite fighter for airships. link home 19 November - Porcine Flight  A flying pig in pewter by Billy and Charlie I was trying to find a lovely and thoughtful souvenir to present to the publishers and to those who helped on the book, and I came across the estimable Billy and Charlie, maker of excellent reproduction pewter medieval goods, including these brooches and pins. I instantly hit on the fine flying pig seen above. So appropriate, since there's an actual flying pig in the book:  I don't know the intrepid pig's name, but the chap at the controls is Hugh Theodore Cuthbert Moore-Brabazon, later Lord Brabazon of Tara. Their 1909 flight was reported in the French journal Revue de l'Aviation: The English aviator Moore Brabazon ... had the rather extravagant idea to fly with a little pig which was perched in a wicker basket with this inscription... "I am the first pig to fly."Fact is, for a while we were thinking of titling the book I am the First Pig to Fly, but Animals Aloft finally prevailed. And continuing with the subject of flying pigs:  ... Here's a superb trade card from the Janus Museum's files, part of our collection of parodies of Raphael's cherubs. Getting back to Billy and Charlie's fine products, take a look at their handsome heraldic brooches, and especially the odd adult content carnival brooches. Wonderful stuff - highly recommended. 16 November - Unseasonableness It's been unseasonably warm in the Washington Grove area, lately - 65º at 10 last night on a stroll to the gazebo to gaze at the full moon. And, of course, there are those flamingos that now winter over at the Reflecting Pool in DC:  ...and there are those who doubt that global warming is real. But a front moved in this afternoon, and the rain is coming down, and the temp is falling at last. link home 14 November - Arthurian Architeuthis  Yesterday's episode of Prince Valiant featured a thrilling fight between a giant squid (Architeuthis dux) and a trireme, and things look bad for the trireme - real bad. Here's the caption: "No, the maelstrom is not the worst of it, for within its briny grasp hides the horrid Kraken, whose league-long tentacles and clashing jaws make short work of careless sailors and brave warriors alike!"Well, gosh, it doesn't have jaws - it's got a beak, but let it pass. And why are they fighting in a giant vat of pea soup? But I'm glad to see Val's hair is still looking lovely, though, after all these years. Lovely. link home 13 November - Relentless Onslaught of Fall Colors Continues Unabated  I took a quick noncatwalk earlier into the fastness of the Janus Museum Forest Preserve. Beautiful day for a walk, even without cats. link home 13 November - Drill-Book Dreams  Temple of British Worthies, Stowe Regular readers, if any, may recall that I mentioned a strange dream I had the other night in which the 1st Maryland Regiment, a reenactment group I once had the honor of belonging to, was ordered off to Afghanistan for present duty. Antique military matters seem to still be on my mind, 'cos last night I dreamed I was having a fascinating conversation with another fellow on the different national styles of 18th century infantry drill, like the von Steuben drill, you know. I remember mentioning In the dream that in the Prussian army during the time of Frederick the Great, the shoulder arms had been brought to such a state of perfection that witnesses raved about the sublimity of the movement.  Above, the position of Shoulder Arms, from The Exercise of Arms in the Continental Army by Ernest W. Peterkin When I awakened, I wondered if I could have imagined such an odd fact, or if it has some historical basis that had bored itself, leech-like, into my brain. After a bit of rooting about in the Museum library, I found it in Christopher Duffy's excellent The Military Experience in the Age of Reason, which I read years ago. Duffy quotes J. C. Müller in Der wohl exercirte Preussiche Soldat (1759): "The movement appears miraculous and well-nigh impossible to those who have not seen it before, until I tell them how we do it and give a demonstration." Finding the quote was bittersweet - happy that I have such perfect recall of historical detail; sad that I'm such a dweeb even in my dreams...  The Prussian Step, from The Norfolk Discipline, 1759 The Duffy book also has this interesting factoid, that "the notorious goose step was an unauthorized aberration on the part of some Prussian drillmasters which was eventually accepted as the parade step of the German army at the end of the nineteenth century." So Basil Fawlty's famous version of the goose step could be viewed as a natural progression of the Prussian drill, one that open-minded Prussian drillmasters, if there are any, might actually approve of - makes you think, it really does. link home 11 November - Vets  Wallingford Experimental Helmet, 1917 The flag's flying outside the Historic Cottage today in honor of the veterans, both the old sweats and those serving in the present conflict. But as the last vets of the Great War depart, it's important to remember that the holiday began as a commemoration of the end of that war. There aren't many World War I veterans left - I photographed a very cheery crew of Iowa vets back in 1973; they're all gone, now. There are eleven Great War veterans in Britain, according to this Telegraph article. One of them, Henry Allingham (109 years old), saw action at Jutland and also in the terrible Ypres Salient. To what does he owe his long life? "I really don't know - cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women!" Friend of the Museum Hank Burchard, the Squire of Pecker Wood, sends this reminiscence of a Veterans Day past: It says here that fewer than half a hundred American veterans of WWI survive. I would not have thought time's arrow had spared so many, since they all must be well over 100. Years ago I covered [for the Washington Post] a Veterans Day memorial service at Arlington Cemetery. It was a drizzly damp November morning, and the grizzled old vets, many wearing their Great War uniforms, shivered as they sat on the metal folding chairs arrayed around the USS Maine monument. Update - Friend of the Museum Gibbons Burke alerts me to this CNN story on the vets of World War I, including Lloyd Brown, 104, of nearby Charlotte Hall, Maryland. The article mentions that there are now 6 Poilus, French vets, remaining; last year, we noted that there were 15 left. The BBC has a good site on World War I, including an interesting reappraisal of the much-derided British high command during the war. And here are a few links from an earlier entry on these pages. 6 November - Stately Autumn Day  The Maryland flag looks especially splendid on a fine autumn day, even if we neglect state law and do not use the gold cross bottony on the flagstaff (Chapter 862, Acts of 1945; Code State Government Article, secs. 13-201 through 13-204).  Cat Leroy watches the leaves fall from the Historic Cottage's porch. link home 6 November - In My Dreams  The 1st Maryland Regiment, Paris, September 1983 I occasionally report here on what transpires in my dreams, and last night's was strange enough - I dreamed that my old Revolutionary War reenactment group from Bicentennial days, the 1st Maryland Regiment, had been reactivated due to the continuing War on Terror. Although we're a group of middle-aged, overweight, nearsighted guys armed with unreliable flintlock muskets, we find ourselves, in my dream, in an unnamed desert region - maybe Afghanistan. I quickly become separated from my comrades, and find myself wandering alone in the desert, dressed in cocked hat and blue regimental coat and armed with my untrusty Charleville musket. I can't get my bayonet out of its scabbard. In a respectable dream, I would, at this point, be surrounded by bloodthirsty Pathan tribesman and done up a treat, to wake screaming and bathed in sweat. Instead, in my dream, I meet an charming Indian fellow and we have an interesting discussion about the famous Amul butter ads. Amul is an Indian dairy brand, and for years their ads have featured the Utterly Butterly Girl, a cute little mop-top munching on delicious Amul butter and commenting on aspects of life in the subcontinent - politics, movies, cricket, world events like the election of the Pope, and even tragedies which you might not expect to help butter sales, like Tianammen Square in 1989. Gad, even Monica and the Michael Jackson trial... so we have our little chat, and then I wake up. I blame the six dollar bottle of scotch I had been sampling before bedtime. link home 6 November - Les Chats d'Automne  Fall's invigorating atmosphere brings out curiously different responses in the local cats. Natasha, above, dashes about briskly and races up trees where she keeps a sharp and merciless outlook for prey. On the other hand...  ...Leroy prefers to hunker down in a cozy leaf pile and get some shuteye. link home 5 November - Deceptive Cephalopod Cinema I fail to understand what the big deal about The Squid and the Whale is, and why it's been getting such rave reviews, when it's not even about squid. And The Calamari Wrestler is practically unknown. Where's the fairness in that? link home 5 November - Our Recipe Corner I'm attempting to wean myself from my diet of Kraft Macaroni Dinner with something more in the healthy veg. line. Here's something I saw in the Washington Post recipes a few weeks ago, and it's become an unlikely favorite in the Old Carriage House kitchen. link home 4 November - Advances in Absinthe Research  The Absinthe Drinker, after Manet I haven't taken much note of research into Absinthe following my own gaudy work on the subject a couple of years ago. But Friend of the Museum Gibbons Burke alerted me to a fascinating Wired article on current advances. And here's another recent article, a review of Hideous Absinthe: A History of the Devil in a Bottle via Arts & Letters Daily. link home 4 November - Breaking News; Cats Resume Catwalking  Contrasting strongly with the other day's catless catwalk, we were actually attended by cats during a delightful catwalk in the Janus Museum's Forest Preserve yesterday - the weather was balmy, the colors are beginning to be superb, and the sound of cats scampering through the fallen leaves was charming. Above, Leroy (left) and Natasha playing Billy Goats Gruff on the historic olde footbridge. Peake also attended. We also ran into young Dylan being walked on a leash, who we hope will eventually join the Catwalk Club. link home 1 November - A Catwalk without Cats  For some reason probably having to do with Global Warming, the autumn colors aren't as advanced as this time last year or the year before, but the Janus Museum grounds are still lovely. Above, the Temple of Juno.  Nice day for a walk in the Museum's park. Strange - no cats around. link home 1 November - Halloween Snaps  Halloween is celebrated with some style in Washington Grove. Above, the Incredibly Little Hulk.  A Dire Wolf and a Harry Potter.  Oh, this is so cool - this mask is, like, bleeding and stuff, but the blood is, like, inside the mask, so the blood and stuff dosn't get all over your costume and candy and stuff. I gotta get me one for next year.  A very saucy Lady Pirate. Insert bawdy reference to doing something with a peg-leg here.  Gus, the Museum's maintenance man, with Martha Norbeck-Wallingford, our director of Planned Giving. Gus once again dispensed candy from his ammo/candy belt. Martha is looking very stylish in a British Tropical Service Helmet. Gus seems to have finally removed the aluminum foil from his fez. Everyone had a very nice time. link home |
