Floral Sleeplore?

Blooming lilac bushes reminded both Sue and JB of their Catholic school days.  The nuns would not allow them to bring lilacs into the classsroom because of their alleged soporific powers.  I'd never heard that.  In The Wizard of Oz it was the poppies that put you to sleep.

The Ad de Vries Dictionary of Symbols and Imagery says lilacs can symbolize youth, first love, spring (duh!), and mourning.  It's unlucky to bring them into the house, but there's nothing about them putting you to sleep.  Perhaps the nuns were using "put you to sleep" as a euphemism for "kill you," since they are bad luck, and one is particularly warned not to bring them into a hospital.
Please enjoy these safe flowers that will enhance your alertness!

A Pair of Horns.

Pussycat sits on a chair

Implacably with acid stare.

Those who early loved in vain

Use the cat to try again,

And test their bruised omnipotence

Against the cat's austere defense.

__________________________

In the tub we soap our skin

And drowse and meditate within.

The mirror clouds, the vapors rise,

We view our toes with sad surprise:

The toes that mother kissed and counted,

The since neglected and unwanted.

Both these poems are from Poems in Places by Edward Newman Horn, New York: Zebulin Pr., 1963.  The second one reminds me that my yoga instructor wants us (her pupils) to work on moving each little toe independently from the others.  This is hard.  Each set of four little toes move like a harnessed team of horses.  When will they go wildly in different directions?  

The first poem does seem a bit cynical regarding cat ownership.  But I liked it, and it gave me an excuse to use cat clip-art.

Redcoat University?

Harvard does not observe Patriots' Day, which fact makes me wonder if they have secret Tory sympathies.

A Poem for Spring

The Dandelion
by Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931)

O dandelion, rich and haughty,
King of village flowers!
Each day is coronation time,
You have no humble hours.
I like to see you bring a troop
to beat the blue-grass spears,
To scorn the lawn-mower that would be
Like fate's triumphant shears,
Your yellow heads are cut away,
It seems your reign is o'er.
By noon you raise a sea of stars
More golden than before.

This Recipe Rocks!

I am a mediocre cook, so when I come across a recipe that is both easy and delicious, I get very excited. This one is from 50 Thrifty Meals: A Green Guide to Living Better With Less by Ramona Hamblin.

Tuna and Tomato with Pasta

2 6oz. cans of solid light tuna in olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 28 oz. can of crushed or chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon of sugar
2 tablespoons of capers
1 lb. of tubular pasta
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley (optional)

Drain the oil from the tuna into a pan and saute the onion in oil until translucent, add tomatoes, sugar, and tuna, cook for 4-5 minutes. In the meantime cook the pasta. Toss pasta with tuna mixture in large bowl and sprinkle with capers and parsley.
[I used 3 cans of tuna packed in water and sauted the onion plus some garlic in canola oil.]

Toilet Tissue Wars (Scott and Northern Duke It Out)

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

Big Heads? Bad Idea!

In the world of old science fiction (60s and earlier) your super-advanced aliens and your super-evolved human beings usually have big heads, like Gwyllim Griffiths (top) in the Outer Limits episode The Sixth Finger or like the aliens from the Star Trek episode The Menagerie

It makes sense.  Our pre-human ancestors had smaller brains, so our descendents a zillion years from now should have gigantic brains.  But I notice that these beings pictured above still have spindly necks like the current homo sapien.  How could a neck that thin support all that extra brain and skull?  I say it couldn't.  If we want to grow bigger brains, we must concurrently grow thicker, more muscular necks.

However, there is another evolution solution.  We now know that the brain isn't the only place with neurons; just look in your gut.  The gut brain rests on a solid base and could safely grow much bigger.  This is the place for brain evolution.  Guts are the thinkers of tomorrow!

Window Dressing

 

Here are a couple of snaps looking out of my cubicle window.  On the left note the cactus candle that my neighbor Rosemary gave me after I complained about all my cactus plants dying.  On the right note the nosegay of tulips that Sue gave me for Valentine's Day.  In picture number 1 I accentuated the noted items and deaccentuated some of the background.  In picture number 2 I used the poster edges filter.

Captain Future: Wizard of Science

While catalog-surfing I discovered that Widener had a science fiction pulp magazine form the 40s called Captain Future.  I requested it form the depository and scanned some of the covers.  Recently, I decided to use the new scan and deliver service to get scans of all the covers.  The new ones are higher quality.

Fall 1940
I'm putting them all in a Picasa web album.

Give Me Liberty and Give Me Lunch!

I had been curious about the Liberty Hotel for some time.  This hotel used to be th historically significant Charles Street Jail.  My neighbor Rosemary had been at receptions there, so she suggested we do lunch at its cafe, the Clink.  We ate there today at noon.
Before we got there, Rosemary pointed out the new jail.  It looks like a hotel to me.

There's a prison-related artwork between the escalators.  What's black and white and red all over?  The Liberty!










The central lobby is surrounded by balconies.













 This is at lobby level.

Here's Rosemary at our table in the Clink.  The bricks and bars are authentic jail leftovers.  They must have cleaned off all the graffiti and hash marks.

For more pictures go to my Picasa web album.

I Used Every Photoshop Brush to Make This

Fun Things I Have Done

Last Saturday (i.e. 1/23) Sue and I went to the MFA to see the current special exhibit The Secrets of Tomb 10A.  It showed off the stuff left over after looters took all the bling from the tomb of Djehutynakht and his lovely wife.  We saw lots of wooden model boats and some excellent tomb painting.  We took the audio tour, which was fun.  All you blog-readers should check this exhibit out.
Afterwards we ate at Betty's Wok & Noodle.  Sue's pad thai was too dry, but my peanut noodle bowl was good.
I did not take my camera with me, so I have provided you with pictures of Osiris, in the upper left corner, and Anubis, to the right.

I'm Still Alive at 55

And got these cards and gifts (a gift card good for a facial and some polymer clay earrings).  Over the long weekend I visited my college buddy Brenda in Hamden, CT.  We visited Guilford, CT where I saw a flying saucer-like house among the typical olde New England houses.  I tried to find out something about it online, but could find nothing.  It was on Old Whitfield St..

 

 

Update:  After further searching I found out that this is a bunch of condos designed by Wilfred J.O. Armster in the 80s.  See this NY Times article.

Snookums's Ultrasound

It seems she has a kidney infection and will have to take antibiotics for 5 weeks.  But this is much better than having stones in the bladder, about which the vet was worried.

The Ultimate Molasses Cookie Recipe

This is from the Sofra Bakery, and it's the best I've ever tasted:

3/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup molasses
1 cup sugar, plus additional sugar for cookies
1 large egg
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1. Combine all dry ingredients, except sugar.  Set aside.
2. Combine oil, molasses, sugar, and egg in bowl of a stand mixer.  Paddle on medium speed until smooth.  Be careful not to incorporate too much air.  Mix 15-20 seconds (or vigorously by hand).
3. Add dry ingredients and mix until well-combined, about 20 seconds.  Chill dough until it reaches room temperature, about 2 hours.  If preparing dough in advance, freeze so the oil doesn't separate.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Using a small scoop, place formed dough into a bowl of granulated sugar to coat.
5. Place on parchment-lined baking sheet 1/2 inch apart.  Bake 12-15 minutes.  Cookies will appear underdone.

[I like to use brown sugar instead, and I don't bother to roll the dough in sugar before baking.]

Vending Machine Economics

You must enlarge the photo to get the full story.

Happy Birthday Sue

Photo Op Bomb

I headed out today with my small camera.  The first time I tried to use it, I realized the battery was dead.  Oh well, I don't need to take pix all the time.  So I am on the Red Line going over the Longfellow Bridge, and suddenly people are saying what is that?!  A stealth bomber was flying over the Charles.  Check your batteries people.  Here's what I missed:

Before Secret Aaaaygent Man..

...there was Danger Man starring the same Patrick McGoohan as John Drake, an agent for NATO.  (Secret Aaaaygent Man worked for MI9.)  I remember the Secret Aaaaygent Man song, but no details of the show.  Now, I'm filling in some of my childhood blanks by watching the original Danger Man.  The show had a mere half hour to present, complicate, then solve some problem of international import.  The first John Drake had few secret-agent type devices to help him; perhaps NATO had no Q-type person.  I can imagine early John Drake telling later John Drake how in the old days he had to depend on his fists, his gun, his charm, and his brain.  Nowadays, super secret agents are spoiled!  (Later John Drake rolls his eyes.)

It Was Christmas Day in the City

And everybody went to the movies...

So I knew that Sherlock Holmes had the now seemingly compulsory action hero stuff:  slow motion fights with acrobatics, bodies flying everywhere, and ridiculously loud punch-thwacks, but even so, I was surprised by its overuse.  They also had a fair amount of building destruction and explosions.  I did like Robert Downey Jr. a lot.  And the filming and computer animation was beautifully done.  Too bad there wasn't a wee bit more character development.

My apologies to Sue, Julie, and Dave.  I was going to save SH to see with youse guys.  But Mary wanted to see a movie, and she's already seen Up in the Air.

Happy Birthday Sun

Was December 25 really celebrated as the birthday of Mithras Sol Invictus?  Wikipedia says there are doubts.  But since we must celebrate it sometime, it might as well be today.