House of the Future (in 1931)

Yankee Ingenuity

A few roses on a fleece blanket make a glamorous picture.

Some brown packing paper makes a lovely kitty corridor.

My New Eye(con)

Thanks to Chuck's aid, this eye should now brand my blog on most browsers.  The article he referred me to was useful though incorrect in claiming that an .ico file could be downloaded to your blog.  I tried it.  It didn't work.  I can recommend the Favicon Generator for turning your image into an .ico file.  Among the image hosters I recommend ImageBoo.  I tried HostAnyImage first, but after registering I couldn't find an upload button.  It was a confusing mess.
Why an eye?
This blog represents the world as seen through my eyes.  Plus I'm keeping my eye on my readers with StatCounter.
The eye has symbolized the sun, knowledge, understanding, judgement, and authority, among other things.  The ancient Romans used eye as a euphemism for vulva AND testicles.  In Latin, pupillis meant both the pupil of the eye and little child, which explains the vulva connection.  My source* offers no explanation for the testicles connection.  (I assume that the nose with the eyes reminded the Romans of the male genitalia)
The eye either symbolizes or is associated with all the major stuff.  And that's why it's my favicon:  this blog doesn't specialize; it's about everything!
*Ad de Vries, Dictionary of Symbols and Imagery, North-Holland Publishing Co.:Amsterdam. London, 1974,page 170.

Update:  The eye is not appearing in non-Firefox browsers.  We (and by we I mean Chuck) are working on it.
Update:  Problem fixed. 

Dress-Up Op

The Sunday before last  Sue, Julie, Dave, and I went to the Loeb Drama Center to see Clifford Odet's Paradise Lost, a play set during the Depression.  Wouldn't this play ring relevently true in today's economic environment?  In case our audience is too dense to figure it out, let's have the characters in modern dress (but with the 1935 dialogue) and have a couple of characters in the 3rd act wear Enron and AIG tee-shirts.  But, alas, even with good acting this stinker wasn't good enough to survive revival.

All of us, including J.B., who went on Saturday, thought the acting was good and the play weak.  (The Crimson reviewer thought different.)  But we still enjoyed going.  Something about live performance thrilled us more than movies.

This thrill is partly due to Dionysus, the divine patron of theater.  By going to a play we participate in a Dionysian rite.  Any accompanying numinosity should not surprise us.

Theater-going is also a dress-up op: a chance to wear those items too flashy or weird for work.  Of course, people don't dress the way they used to, when the whole theater stayed lit, and you could examine the audience's raiment (such as the lovely presentation gown by Worth, at the right) at any time during the evening.  In 1881 the Savoy Theatre introduced the practice of darkening the auditorium during the performance.*

Even though we aren't visible as much to our fellow theater-goers, we can dress up to satisfy ourselves and Dionysus.  We satisfy ourselves by playing a more festive alter ego, and this makes Dionysus happy.

* Judith Flanders, Inside the Victorian Home:  A Portrait of Life in Victorian England, London: HarperCollins, 2003, page 204