Here is a site chock-full of scanned goodness! Why is the old stuff soooooo interesting??
[Link from Typographica]
February 2005 Archives
Tonight I finally finished assembling my Sardi books for an artist's book swap. I'm quite pleased with the results, but this is the first time I've played with this group and I'm a bit intimidated after seeing pictures of some previous swaps. The theme was "Ancestry" so I decided to tell Nana's story about getting the sardines from the corner store when she was first married and living with her mother-in-law, who didn't speak English.
[Long, with lots of pictures!]
Continue reading Making Books.
Somebody left a Jack-in-the-Box antenna ball on a twig of our pyracantha hedge.
Memorial Park is full of horsies. In all the years I've been here, I've yet to see actual Trailriders en route. Everybody I know is full of complaints about the traffic snarls, and I only ever see the horses chilling out in the park. (Of course, now that I've bitched about it, I'll spend hours waiting at horse crossings every February for the rest of my life.)
I had already planned to submit a picture of Sal for the Carnival, since the rules clearly state that RFOACs are acceptable (rule 3), and Sal is really just a cat in a dog-suit. However, rule 9 even more clearly sez "No dogs." Luckily, this week's Ark is dogbloggers vs. catbloggers, so I can post Sal with a clear conscience. I think he counts for both.
Photo by me, but Sal belongs to Prime Time Lou.
This picture is from last weekend when we all had a good laugh exploring the Chronicle's special 3-D section. (Really it was all about seeing how goofy we looked wearing the glasses.)
This morning we had a lovely rainstorm. It was just coming in when I woke, and I stayed in bed for a while to let its arrival wash over me. The light of a morning downpour is an indistinct glow. You can't really identify the point when it ceases to be dark. The brightening haze creeps in, limpid and blue. At first the thunder was unaccompanied by lightning--too far away--and I told the cats to calm down, it was just Mildred bowling up there.
From that, I conjured an image of a Paul Bunyan-sized grandma, striding across the clouds, hurling a ball spitting sparks of static which grew into lightning bursts celebrating strikes and spares. What would she be knocking down? Pins would certainly be too prosaic. Demons perhaps, toppling them back to the devil. Yes, that works. It's a whole new way to enjoy Mother Nature's elemental cannonade!
This evening I stumbled across Fragments from Floyd, which is chock-full of beautiful photography (just take a look at this, for example) and thoughtful writing. Try it, you'll like it :-)
...the mouse will watch Turner Classic Movies.
Last night, The Best Years of Our Lives. Tonight, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Woohoo!!
This is an update to a previous post about Lise Aagaard's BeadLiner, which doesn't seem to be available any longer.
Lapidary Journal published an article by Susan Silvy in June 2001 titled "Silver Core Lampworked Bead". I'm not sure if this is the article I remember reading (I don't remember that particular magazine cover) but I suspect it is about how to do this manually: http://www.lapidaryjournal.com/archive/jun01toc.cfm [Click on BeadLiner in the left column, then on the top left black square, then on the link in the word "here" to the right of the big missing picture.]
Mid-Atlantic Glass Beadmakers have a brief description of capping and lining a bead in their April 2004 Meeting Minutes: http://www.sgb-midatlantic.org/minutes/minutes_Apr_2004.htm [Scroll down to "Afternoon DEMOS"]
And finally, there is an archived copy of Lise Aagaard's BeadLiner instructions in the WayBack Machine (unfortunately without pictures): http://web.archive.org/web/20031005204558/www.liseaagaard.com/index.asp
For the curious, I'm also posting a picture of my BeadLiner and the "curving tool" mentioned in the above instructions:
(The ruler goes with the top picture, not the bottom one!)
I found the tool to be very persnickety about the size of tubing (diameter and wall thickness), but other than that it works well. Most of my beads were made on a much smaller mandrel, so it takes some time with a bead reamer to get them ready for coring. Learning to do it by hand would probably be more flexible, but I seem to remember the article warning that you should be prepared to break a few beads in the process....
Jeanne, hope this all helps :-)
Yea! This font fanatic is doing the legwork for us! Fontleech is a blog dedicated to uncovering and pointing to the best free fonts on the net. It's brand-spanking new (only two days old!) and already has some good pointers. Keep it up, my fine fonty friend :-)
Photo by Prime Time Lou
The Ark (all sorts of critters) is up at Modulator and the Carnival (cats and rfoacs) will be up tomorrow at The Flying Space Monkey Chronicles. Melvin and Lorax are making individual appearances this week :-)
Update: The Carnival is specifically here.
Who the #$% is Michael Damian and what idiot allowed him to do a lame-ass remake of Rock On?
Update: Okay, they redeemed themselves somewhat by playing Yello's Oh Yeah. Beautiful. Even more beautiful....
I had to laugh (and then take a picture of my foot) when I read this article in the WSJ today:
I had no idea I was so fashion-forward! According to the story, there are folks out there who think it's perfectly reasonable to fork over $1,190 for a pair of sandals (that black Manolo on the left was carved from one very high-society alligator). I'm not one of them, but it does make me feel a little bit better about how much I paid to have my favorite pair resoled last year.
(Yes, it's February, and yes, I'm wearing sandals. I wear sandals all year. Because I live here. No snow for this southern chickee.)
of Lorax....
Lorax is not impressed.
Today I suffered through one of those horrible female rituals that is borne alone, in silence, with a forced smile on one's face. Yes, I bought a purse.
Egads, what torture. I despise purse-shopping with only one less ounce of my being than bra-shopping. (I have it on good authority that a boob job relieves the stress of bra-shopping, but I'm just not willing to go there.) Anyhow, as you may know, my current purse was ripped asunder during a recent dining experience. I have been holding it together with a big safety pin, but today that last-ditch effort finally gave way. The shopping trip could be postponed no longer.
I had been entertaining thoughts of a slightly larger bag this time around, as my current (oops, now previous) purse might be more accurately termed "pocket on a string." It can hold either my cell phone or my Elph, but not both. Ever since the Chester Cheeto incident[1] I've wanted to regularly carry my camera with me. But I am so not a luggage-bag person. Moving up from the index-card footprint is a Big (get it?) Decision.
Now, you also need to know that I'm a cheapskate when it comes to buying things I wish I could do without. The most expensive purse I've ever owned still came in well under $100, and I agonized for days over that purchase. I'm also clueless about this particular facet of fashion. (Some might extend that description to wardrobe in general, but I'm ignoring that for now.) So, with leaden heart, I headed to Marshall's to see what there was to see.
It turns out that discount-store handbags come in three flavors right now: lime, cotton candy and bubble-gum. (And why is bubble-gum blue? I never did understand that.) Once I got over that shock, I had to deal with the shapes du jour. These are: grocery sack, triangle and dachsund. Admittedly, the grocery sacks come in all sizes, from Trans-Atlantic Checked Baggage to Lipstick, but still, one false move and your used tissues and that-pink-plastic-wrap-isn't-fooling-anybody feminine necessaries are all over the floor. Being prone to false moves, that option was out. Some of the triangular bags were aesthetically pleasing, in an abstract sort of way, but the main problem with those is one of physics: teeny-tiny opening, capacious storage facility. Nope, it can already take me five minutes to fish my keys out of a bag that holds only one other item. That left the dachsunds. You know what I'm talking about. Sausage bags. Very "in" right now (or last week, at least) but very not me. The Fastest Lawyer in Houston? Yeah, she can carry anything from a dachsund to an emu and she looks fab. Me? Not so much.
So what did I end up with? I found an orange (let's just say ORANGE) triangle with a big mouth. Does it shout "me"? Well, no, but it does hold my cell phone and my camera, and not much else. We'll see how it goes.
[1] I recently installed some software that tracks referrer search strings, and one of the first hits was "Chester cheeto logos". That had me puzzled til I figured out that at one time, my index page included all of the following: references to my M1, a grackle, and the word blogosphere. I'm sure that's not what the searcher had in mind. This is why Google lets you use quote marks in your search terms.
"Software Art." Okay, now make it react to the music from my digital music channels like an MP3 visualization, and maybe we'll talk....
Happy Anniversary (soon), Sweetheart!
This morning's surfing landed me at the Designologue. Officially,
A designologue is a conversation between two designers in the medium they understand best - design. Comparisons can be made to Coudal's Photoshop Tennis where two designers alternately modify the others image using Photoshop.But instead of one designer versus another, the two converse. No winners. No losers. Just good conversation.
and the cool part is that the conversation is public, so those of us who wish we knew how to do such things can participate vicariously.
Select a DSNLG (yes, much shorter) to view (I liked this one), either by clicking a thumbnail (what is it about a slice of an image that is so appealing? it's a great shape for thumbnails in this case) or selecting from the drop-down on the front page. Now you can follow the progression of images and the commentary that goes along with them. It's a very attractive interface, and I suspect it was a lot of fun to code :-)
This would have been enough fun all by itself, but from here I discovered Threadless. There is simply no reason to ever wear a lame t-shirt again. I want this one!
Now I have to go find out what Coudal Photoshop Tennis is. The Coudal Partners Fresh Signals feed is already in my FeedDemon list....
Of course every dork and their brother is going to link to this one and in retrospect, I guess that's kind of stupid because if you don't read the dooce regularly, this post probably isn't quite so funny, and if you do read her regularly, you will have already read it.... Oh well. I'm linking anyway because it made me laugh out loud and that's always worth sharing, even if nobody else gets it.
During discussions with the M.O. about the Red Fall exhibit at The Station, I speculated that if an equally blatant "right-wing" exhibit were mounted, detractors would be howling about it, and looky-here, turns out I was right.
First off (according the article, I'm in no position to fly to the Farnsworth to see for myself) the subject matter is military, but not overtly "for" or "against" the war. It sounds like it is more documentary work than propagandistic. Yet we have a little group of protestors who want "images of civilian deaths and mass destruction."
I think the silliest objection by one of the protestors is, "The fact that he would come not dressed as an artist, but as a Marine is an affront." What the heck constitutes "dressed as an artist"? The guy is a member of the Marine Corps, right? He's a "combat illustrator." So he's a Marine, and he makes art. He makes art while he's a Marine. How is it that wearing his uniform somehow eclipses or denies his artistry? (In fact, in the photos in the linked profile, he's wearing a uniform and he's drawing at the same time! Apparently donning camouflage doesn't immobilize the limbs or blinker the eyes after all.)
The same protestor goes on to say, "The day-to-day part of war, which we can't imagine, is what we need to see. We need to see images that tell us the truth." Isn't that exactly what this guy is doing? Earlier, the author of the article states, "Fay's paintings show soldiers carrying out their daily duties while serving on hostile ground." I guess the protestor was definitely right about one thing, which is that she can't imagine the day-to-day part of war.
[Original link to news article from James Taranto/WSJ Best of the Web]
I did spin the color wheel and select new colors for the site. If you're still seeing blue-gray, refresh! Can you tell I'm ready for spring?
Three more Auntie Marge letters on the Genealoblog:
October 17, 1945
October 23, 1945
October 28, 1945
These are all from Darmstadt, Germany.
A great-great-grandparent, I guess.... (I don't know how the author arrived at the third cousin conclusion, but I figure that's my lack of knowledge rather than his, and it's a fun story nonetheless.)
[Fun facts from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter]
No more Diplomad :-( I'll have to try out the suggested alternatives and see how they fit.
Last night Mr. Oilman and I attended a Houston Symphony Orchestra show. I participated in a market research interview for the HSO a few months ago, and they gave me a pair of coupons good for any show. Knowing that M.O. is not unconditionally interested in classical music, we decided to try this weekend's fare: Brassy Gabrieli. The brass players were to be seated up in the balcony instead of on the stage with the rest of the orchestra. It seemed like a neat idea, so off we went, with M.O. looking forward to "bombast!"
The brass-in-the-balcony plan worked beautifully, I thought. There were four or five players on each side. They dimmed all the house and stage lights, so the orchestra effectively disappeared. There was a single spotlight on the conductor, who turned around to face the balcony, and so as he directed the players, we got to experience the music visually--as if he was physically pulling the sound out of the darkness--as well as aurally. The antiphonal arrangements worked well, with the theme and response bouncing back and forth from left to right, building a resonating wall of sound.
After this stirring opener, we heard a Haydn symphony from the orchestra. It was sprightly and enjoyable, but I was disappointed to realize that the brass in the balconies wouldn't be joining in. During intermission, which followed a second short Gabrielli piece, M.O. told me in no uncertain terms that he wasn't amused by the intrusion of the orchestra on his bombast.
While there certainly are pieces of classical music that bore me, these Haydn symphonies weren't among them. I don't know what you're supposed to be thinking while listening to an orchestra, but generally speaking what's going on in my head is a multi-layered extravaganza of technical observation of the music, a visual interpretation (often involving ballerinas--what a cliche!), and a narrative building the story as it progresses.
It might go something like this: [ooh, that's a nice little oboe piece, and there's the answer from the violin][ballerina in typical filmy pink dress, twirling across an ornate ballroom][here's our heroine, young girl, carefree][okay, this is definitely the theme, there's the underlying phrase, repeating][the ballroom turns out to be a smaller room, and the main party is going on downstairs, lots of people dancing][our little girl is just listening to the music, maybe she's supposed to be in bed, or maybe she's dreaming][intrusion of heavy bassoon and horn thing!][well, that's definitely ominous, must be some bad news here, let's see, her father is some sort of statesman, and he's receiving bad political news][cut to a sumptuous library with a few men arguing][oh, the bassoon and horn thing is short, but I bet it's coming back][the library and the main ballroom are side-by-side][our little girl's theme is being drowned out, so she's off to sleep][this all winds down, end of movement].
In the next movement, maybe I send the girl off to college, or out on a picnic with a lover, or whatever. The stories don't have to make sense, of course, and sometimes I find myself thinking, jeez, I should have got the love interest in earlier, I didn't realize the fourth movement would be so short, or equally silly things, but this all keeps me so occupied that I rarely get bored. This actually happens more naturally with music that I don't know, because if I know the music, I concentrate way too much on the technical aspects and what I'm hearing from the individual instruments instead of the overall feeling and sound.
Anyhow, I thoroughly enjoyed both Gabrieli and Haydn, and we even got an encore Gabrieli, with all the lights up, which was fun. Having had orchestra-level seats for two shows now (this one and Carmina Burana last year) I don't think I'm ever going to want to sit in the balcony again. It's so much more involving to be up close.
Update: Don't miss M.O.'s review of the evening!
I've just posted two more of Auntie Marge's letters on the Genealoblog. These two are from October 3rd and 8th, 1945. The first was written on board a ship, crossing the ocean, and the second is the first one from Europe. (Paris! Ooh-la-la!)
If you've ever wanted your very own LED marquee well, now you can have one. On your belly, no less!
Let's see. It could come in handy if you're waiting for someone you don't know at the airport (esp. if the lights go out). You could program it with "NO, THANKS, I'M JUST BROWSING" when you go shopping. A motivational message for yourself (in reverse, I guess) that you could watch in the mirror at the gym (maybe you'd have to install it in a headband instead!). Just remember to turn it off if you go to the movies....
[Link via Josh Rubin: Cool Hunting]
One of my "tryout" sites that is going to move into the "daily reads" section soon is Language Hat. Here's the wrap-up of a recent entry:
At any rate, what we have here is a stretch of words that begins with a capital letter and ends with a period, but it is not a valid English sentence.
Enjoy. You're welcome.
