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October 2008 Archive 28 October - Sea Side I have to confess that not much happens in this video of the shore at Rehoboth, which I shot during a break in the ALTGEM meetings previously referred to. The mean temperature of the sea in the picture is rising alarmingly, but you really can't tell from the video. A fishing boat is about to sink as a Coast Guard helicopter hurries to the rescue, but that's about 380 miles north of the viewfinder. Pirates menace a cargo ship, but that's even farther off, in the Red Sea off Somalia. A ragged army of Greek mercenaries is stumbling up to the shore, shouting "Thalassa! Thalassa!", but that's far off and about 2500 years ago. No, nothing happens in this damn video, but it's very peaceful and meditative and all. Just don't worry about the plot. link home 27 October - By the Sea  Yes, yes; I was shocked to see that, due to global warming, penguins can now be found as far north as Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. I was there last weekend for the annual ALTGEM meetings. The current crisis in the economy has hit us small museums heavily - the shock and fear among my fellow small museum professionals was quite evident, but was somewhat assuaged by the heavy drinking - I had assumed that the penguins were a symptom of slivovitz poisoning, 'til I saw that they actually showed up in my camera. I thought that the most interesting session was Build Your Capital Fund Through Money Laundering, closely followed by Enhanced Interrogation Techniques as a Tool for Fund-Raising.  But it wasn't all meetings and heavy drinking and giant penguins. I strolled a bit, and photographed the Silver Lake gazebo, which I had last snapped in the fog in the wee hours of the '80s:  Had a nice time, from what I can remember. link home 21 October - Trafalgar Day  The Death of Nelson, with Cat Today being the 203th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, it seemed a likely moment to recycle our thrilling counterfactual tale in which we explore what might have happened if, on the day of battle, the French fleet had deployed World War I biplanes, and if Nelson had had a cat. Oh, and here's a tune - Lord Nelson's Hornpipe and Enrico, played by the Mellstock Band from their album Under the Greenwood Tree (streaming MP3). link home 21 October - Lion Looking Out  Aslan and I both have colds, and can't come out. link home 21 October - Wild Wallingford Park  A doe in the Museum's forest preserve, glimpsed during last Friday's catwalk. Since my brush with Lyme disease, I prefer that the town deer keep their distance, unless they're actually on my plate. link comment home 18 October - New Work by Max Gray  That exciting young photographer, Max Gray, is back in action after a summer mostly spent panting under the porch. I think his new work is very strong, and - yes, edgy - very edgy. His shot of Bittersweet Cottage and the Historic Cottage, above, shows an intriguing new interest in non-linear spatial arrangements. I admit I helped Max with his Photoshop work, though - tragically, his lack of thumbs limits him in that part of his workflow, somewhat. Meanwhile, Max continues his portrait work:  The feeling of anomie is quite evident in Max's recent portrait of Nutmeg and Gus. Heavy stuff, in fact. link home 18 October - Therapeutic Value of Highland Cattle  Kyloe, near Newmarket, Maryland Tensions are on the rise as election day finally nears, and as savings evaporate - the value of my miserable retirement account might possibly secure me a halfway decent gutter for my golden years, now. But I find that looking at photographs of kyloes - Scottish highland cattle - has a calming, lenitive effect - just try it; see if you don't feel better. Very pleased to acknowledge the anonymous Friend of the Museum for the generous donation - if you'd like a commemorative fridge magnet, please drop me a line - refdesk at janusmuseum dot org. Nice to know, in these parlous times, that the Museum has such good Friends. Another Possible Service Interruption We've already received the dread "excessive" bandwidth usage message from our cruel heartless grasping hosting service. If the lights go out, we'll be back in November. link home 13 October - Flagging Spirit  I must have been thinking of this famous photograph of 1864, a soldier displaying the battle-torn flag of the Washington Grove Militia, when I snapped Gus showing off the Museum's new flags - I frequently channel Mathew Brady. link home 13 October - The Shortest Way with Dogs From our companion site, the Circle Cat Club, comes this instructive video: Leroy demonstrates a simple and highly effective way of dealing with the dog problem. link home 12 October - Early Resistance to Government Financial Interference in Music  Old John Webb in Salem Gaol Popular resentment with government financial meddling is nothing new, it seems. In old colonial times, actual money was scarce, and Spanish coins were in wide circulation - Spanish dollars and pieces of eight and so on - and Parliament tried to replace it with various issues of paper currency, called tenors. Around 1731, a new tenor was ordered to replace the old tenor. One John Webb, mint-master in Salem, Massachusetts, refused to issue the new tenor, and was jailed. Known thereafter as Old Tenor, Webb was freed by his friends. A jolly musical account, Billy Broke Locks - also known as The Escape of Old John Webb survives - here it is (streaming MP3), performed by the excellent 97th Regimental String Band from their album Battlefields and Campfires, available through CD Baby. link home 10 October - Deliver Us From Octopi  The octopus-related ex votos just keep coming over on eBay. This one, painted by Victor (Miguel Hernandez), has a fine minimalist quality to it - a lady, mysteriously imprisoned in a table, is menaced by a single tentacle.  This example looks like it was done by the same hand that painted some of the other cephalopod-related ex votos featured here - I think of him as the Master of the Octopus Ex Voto. The inscription describes the usual miraculous intervention, but with a romantic twist: I saw a ship coming and I went swiming to wave to the handsome sailors, but suddenly I felt caught and I saw that an octopus had me grabbed by the feet with its tentacles and I saw that other one came closer with bad intentions, I invoked the Virgen de Guadalupe and thanks to her the octopus left me free because he went to met to the other octopus, love at first sight I supposes, and I returned to the beach the most quick that I could... Previous Octopus-Related Ex Votos: My Husband's Octopus Heroic Octopus Graciela and the Octopus Octopus by Moonlight link home 5 October - Up in Baltimore  Today, over on our companion site Panabasis-Photo, there's this poor little colt snapped at the arabber stable on Retreat Street up in Baltimore. Several other arabber shots are posted there; oh, and one posted here back in June '03. link home 4 October - A Voyage around the Historic Cottage  Through the miracle of Microsoft's Photosynth software, we present a Historic Cottage walkabout - the Photosynth viewer is required (Windows only). Ample evidence of the need of our expensive Cottage Restoration program is displayed. link home 4 October - Taking the High Ground  Breaking news over on our new companion blog, The Circle Cat Club: Natasha displays her superior tree climbing skills during this afternoon's catwalk. link home 4 October - Penzance, Still Smoking  I think I can safely claim that these pages hold the most complete survey of smoking caps used in movie versions of The Pirates of Penzance to be found on the internet. Above, Derek Metzger in his fine coordinated cap and dressing gown ensemble in the 1994 Australian production mentioned below. Behind him are his daughters, portrayed by the fabulous Fabulous Singlettes. The production borrows freely from the Ronstadt-Kline version, but it has a manic energy all its own. Here's Metzger's take on I am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General: Previous Cinematic Smoking Caps: Keith Michell in the 1982 Ronstadt-Kline Penzance live performance George Rose in the 1983 Ronstadt-Kline Penzance John Bolton-Wood in a 2006 Penzance Bob Hoskins in Cousin Bette John Gielgud in A Dance to the Music of Time Peter O'Toole in Bright Young Things link home 3 October - Put Out More Flags  Our staff vexillologist, Peter Dobberfuhl (known around the Museum as Blue Peter), has asked me to announce that he's acquired two replica historic flags to bedeck the Historic Cottage. On the left is a 38 star US flag. It was adopted in 1877, so it's highly appropriate for Cottage bedeckment purposes, the Cottage having been built in 1879. On the right is the curious Guilford Courthouse flag, said to have been carried by a North Carolina militia company at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse (1781). The 1st Maryland Regiment distinguished itself at Guilford Courthouse, repelling a charge by a redcoat Guards regiment. In the photograph, our maintenance man Gus Norbeck displays the unique arrangement of stars on the canton of the US flag. Leroy looks on with interest. I understand that most small museums, especially those with horrendous crippling chronic budgetary problems, do not find it necessary to employ staff vexillologists. Just saying. link home 3 October - Yet Another Cat Blog  Nutmeg, Leroy and Natasha on the new blog I was getting whiny and fretful during last week's bandwidth hiatus, so our Intern Zoe kindly set up another blog to keep me occupied: it's The Circle Cat Club, and its mission is to detail the activities of the local cats, rather like I've been doing on these pages for years. You are asking - does this mean that there will no longer be any cat content here? I answer - no, it does not. And please to remember our other blog, Panabasis - Photo. link home 3 October - Another Superb Smoking Cap  As we return from our tragic bandwidth hiatus, I'm pleased to post the latest in our continuing series of cinematic smoking caps, Pirates of Penzance sub-class. Here we have John Bolton-Wood as Major-General Stanley wearing the customary smoking cap at the beginning of Act 2, flanked by a brace of daughters. From an excellent Opera Australia production - a much more traditional staging than the beloved Linda Ronstadt - Kevin Kline version, or another Australian outing, the wild 1994 production with Jon English as the Pirate King. The one modern take in this Pirates is that Anthony Warlow as the Pirate King channels Captain Jack Sparrow most amusingly. Previous Cinematic Smoking Caps: Keith Michell in the 1982 Ronstadt-Kline Penzance live performance George Rose in the 1983 Ronstadt-Kline Penzance Bob Hoskins in Cousin Bette John Gielgud in A Dance to the Music of Time Peter O'Toole in Bright Young Things Not, strictly speaking, cinematic, but always worthy of mention, is my own superb smoking cap made by Tsarina Lisa. link home |
