Non-Satanic Naming

Since product names came up in a recent blog post, I decided I would report on my correspondence with Bumble Bee Foods.  I was discussing Bumble Bee tuna with my office mates one day, when I wondered aloud why a seafood company named itself after an insect.  I searched their site without finding an answer, so I e-mailed them.  This was their answer:

Dear Colleen:

Thank you for taking the time to contact us about our Bumble Bee products.

The Bumble Bee name can be traced to the early days of the company. The company was originally the Columbia River Packers Association (CRPA) and produced canned salmon primarily from Astoria, OR. The company grew quickly with salmon being a staple food product in American households. The canners used separate and distinct labels for specific salmon species and runs, even for different markets and specific customers. The labels were often the names of different animals and plants like Bear and Cloverleaf. The “Bumble Bee” name eventually became the most popular of the CRPA brands.

In 1938 the packers introduced a new catch, Albacore tuna, which was found seasonally and in abundance off the Oregon coast. Soon, Albacore tuna surpassed salmon as the company’s primary product. Today, Bumble Bee has become one of the most respected premium labels for canned tuna and other seafood items in the United States, bringing more variety in the company’s offerings for shelf stable protein.

Thank you again for contacting us.

Thank you,
Bumble Bee Consumer Affairs


I had assumed that the bee's stripes had something to do with it, since the Bumble Bee spokesinsect wears a striped sailor shirt.

I had further supposed that the bee's  nectar-collecting had been seen as analogous to fishing. But no, they just slapped various animal and names on their products.  This story is as dissatifying as that of King Arthur flour, which was named after a popular musical.  And I had been wondering what King Arthur had to do with baking!

Attribution Can Be Hell (or The Web of Deceit)

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Some months ago we got an attribution question from a Professor who wanted to use the quotation above in an article or book (I can't remember which).  The internet attributes it to Leonardo da Vinci; but the internet does not give a citation.  So I looked in every quotation book and every online quotation thing, but it's not there.  I did a JSTOR search in art history titles.  No results. Then I did Google Books searches and found Leonardo's notebooks and Thoughts on Art and Life (translated into English).  But I couldn't find anything like it in there.  Finally I asked an art librarian who asked a friend of hers who is a Leonardo da Vinci scholar.  The scholar had never heard that quotation.

Widespread quotation misinformation predates the internet.  William Safire got himself embroiled in just such a scandal.  He had used a quotation attributed to Edmund Burke in a column, and then a reader wrote him a letter asking when and where Burke had said said quotation.  Safire checked his copy of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 14th edition, which placed the quotation in a certain letter.  Safire sent a reply.  The guy wrote back: he'd examined that letter, and the quotation wasn't in it.  So then Safire embarked on a fruitless quest to prove that Burke really wrote, " The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."*
The 16th edition of Bartlett's lists this under Burke as "Attributed."

Now it is possible that Leo from Vinci said something that could be translated as the above quotation and that somebody found it somewhere written down by Leo on some forgotten manuscript in a hidden archive.  So if you are that somebody, I wish you would identify yourself and cough up a citation.

It is also possible that some person has, through error or evil design, perpetrated a web-lie.  If you are that person, please fess up.  And tell the world who really said "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

* William Safire On Language, NY: Times Books, 1980, pp 224-227.

UPDATE 11/08/11 I find a reference to this problem in Wikiquote.
ANOTHER UPDATE 4/3/15 Quote Investigator did a thorough investigation!

Desk Sets

People Food

The 50th birthday of Charlie the Tuna got me thinking about the anthropomorphism of food in advertising.  This was particularly popular in the 50s and 60s...

...but it still goes on today.

So why do we like our food to look human?  Well, our food becomes a part of us, and therefore human.  Perhaps such anthropomorphism suggests that the food is already on the way to humanness, so will require less digestive work, or that it is suitable for humans--it is people food.
Eating anthropomorphic food is also a socially acceptable form of cannibalism, an ancient practice fallen out of favor in recent times.
My favorite explanation is that human-like food suggests that we will attain the qualities or states suggested by the food's form.  We shall become distinguished and gentlemanly like Mr. Peanut, as beautiful and sultry as Chiquita Banana, or as happily energetic as Kool-Aid Man. (How do they know it's male?)
I invite my readers to put forth their own theories.

Dummy v. Dummy

Barb told me about this interview on the O'Reilly Factor.  Neither Mr. O'Reilly nor the president of the American Atheism Society was listening during science class when they talked about the tides.

The Missing Pictures

I've posted the pictures I took in NYC to Picasa, but Brenda also took pictures.  Here are her pictures of me and Barb.  Note: they are not in chronological order!

 Before taking the harbor cruise, we posed in front of the Intrepid.

 Grand Central Station.

At the Met.

 At the Schubert Theater.

 Times Square.

 At Lincoln Center.

This Summer's Bunnies

I saw the first bunny nibbling at the grass near the "Roosevelt" wall outside Lamont (corner of Quincy and Harvard Sts.).  People were walking by, but the bunny was unfazed.

 This bunny was in the Dudley Garden.  It was timid and difficult to photograph.

NYC

So, I hadn't been to New York City for over 30 years.  It's always seemed so large, complex, confusing, and treacherous.  However, my college buddy Brenda has been there frequently.  So she and Barbara (another college buddy) and I took a 2-day trip to the Big City.

The New Yorkers on the sidewalks were nice people who gave directions and helped with change for the bus.  It was only the ones driving that showed tooth and claw.  We saw 2 musicals:  Memphis and Avenue Q.  We ate some good food.  We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  We took a harbour tour.  OK, maybe I'll go back.

Foot Fix

At last the mystery of my foot pain has been solved!  I turned my right foot in Rome, but kept walking on it until I got back to the U.S.A.  But all the R.I.C.E. only worked for a bit.  I'd try to do a triangle in yoga class, and the owie would come back.  Today the physical therapist manipulated my foot until she found the trouble spot, illustrated below.

The ouch bone was too mobile, and its excessive moving around caused the hurt.  The PT taped my foot in such a way to give the battered bone a rest.

Next I get to got to ankle class.

A Slow Few Days

Last Thursday I and some buddies went to Jordan Hall to hear the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra.  I had never been to Jordan Hall before, so it was a double-treat.  However, getting there was harder than we thought it would be.

First, when we descended into the Harvard Square T Stop, we encountered an enormous crowd.  The T was broken, and people had been waiting for some time.  Oh no!  But we only had to wait about 5 minutes.  Then we got off at Symphony.  We planned to eat at Lucy, a place highly praised at Yelp.com.  We had 2 hours before the concert, so we were not concerned that it was a small place with only one table left.  The owner assured us he could feed us within the 2 hours.  Well, time passed and passed and passed.  And Julie asked if we were going to get our food on time, and the guy said yes.  And then we had only a half hour, and the guy said it's coming out in a minute.  So 5 minutes later we got our food.  And it was great food!  The bread looked like sheets of sponge, but it was good.

We got to the concert in time. We heard strings with harpsichord and sometimes trumpets.  I couldn't see the trumpets from my seat.  I like Baroque music.  I like Baroque art.  I even like Rococo.  I like opera that is highly stylized and heavily ornamented.  (I'm not saying I have good taste.  I'm just saying this is what tastes good to me)

On Saturday Laureen and I went to another concert at Jordan Hall featuring the guy who played harpsichord at the first one, but playing the piano this time.  There was a victory parade for the Bruins at 11, but since the concert wasn't until 2:30, I figured we would be safe.  But I hadn't considered that as the victory parade progressed, fans would be returning to the T.  As it turned out, 1 1/2 million people showed up for the parade, and the T got swamped.  I left extra early, because Laureen and I were going to get frozen yogurt before the concert, but the train was creeping along between Park St and Copley.  We made it. 

Proof Positive!

My rose bush hasn't produced any flowers for a few years.  So why is it producing this year?  Maybe it liked all the rain.  Anyway, here's the proof.  (I confess to pumping up the color saturation, since the blooms are a very light pink.)

Romeo is enjoying the opportunity to go outside.

Im/peccable = With(out) Sin

Perhaps you read my post on the word vincible.  Well, would you believe that there is a peccable as well as the better-know impeccable?

Oxford English Dictionary | The definitive record of the English language

	peccable, adj. truetrue Pronunciation:  Brit. /ˈpɛkəbl/ , U.S. /ˈpɛkəb(ə)l/ Etymology:  < French peccable (c1050 in Old French as pecables; compare Anglo-Norman pecchable, peccable, pechable) and its etymon post-classical Latin peccabilis capable of sinning, liable to sin (9th cent.; 14th cent. in British sources), sinful (14th cent. in British sources) < classical Latin peccāre to sin (see peccant adj. and n.) + -bilis-ble suffix, after impeccābilisimpeccable adj.... (Show Less) Thesaurus »    1. Capable of sinning; liable to sin. In later use also (freq. in humorous contrast to impeccable): fallible, imperfect, flawed. 1604    T. Wright Passions of Minde (new ed.) v. §4. 210   All men by nature are sinners, are peccable, the iust offend often. 1675–6    H. More Let. 10 Jan. in Conway Lett. (1992) vii. 417   Which is wonderfull how else to understand of the Humanity of Christ, unlesse he had such a soul as other men have, of itself indeed peccable but by reason of his perpetuall Faythfulnesse, alwayes devoyd of sin. 1741    G. Berkeley Let. 7 June in Wks. (1871) IV. 272   We hold all mankind to be peccable and errable, even the Pope himself. 1833    J. H. Newman Arians 4th Cent. ii. 249   At first it [sc. Arianism] had not scrupled to admit the peccable nature of the Son; but it soon‥avowed that, in matter of fact, He was indefectible. 1857    H. Miller Test. Rocks iii. 154   Fitting and preparing peccable, imperfect man, for a perfect impeccable future state. 1900    F. Thompson in T. L. Conolly Literary Crit. (1948) 137   The sublimest teaching, if the utterance be peccable, is not worth one impeccable stanza. 1936    D. B. MacDonald Hebrew Philos. Genius vii. 141   The state‥was a divine foundation and, therefore, peccable only on its human side. 1992    N.Y. Times (Nexis) 13 Mar. c6/1   Its credentials are about as impeccable as you can find in the peccable atmosphere of Hollywood. 1604—1992 †2. Sinful, wrong. Obs. rare. 1633    W. Prynne Histrio-mastix 563   Is not the selfe same sinne as sinfull, as peccable? 1633—1633 peccable, adj. Third edition, September 2005; online version March 2011. ; accessed 06 June 2011. An entry for this word was first included in New English Dictionary

Cats and Food

Juliet likes sleeping on top of the clothes-drying rack.  This is how she looks from underneath.

Yesterday I went with Sue, Julie, and Dave to True Bistro, a vegan place in Somerville.  Above, Julie and Dave look serious.

Sue's hand gestures are echoed by the gentleman at the next table.  How artistic is that!

A salad with farro, which tasted something like barley.  Nice presentation.

Wilted spinach, smoked tofu, pecans, cranberries, red onion, balsamic vinegar.  The smoked tofu had a meaty taste reminiscent of bacon.

Housemade spaghettini, smoked tofu, English peas, blanched almonds, cream sauce.  I liked this; Julie didn't love it.

Cornmeal-crusted oyster mushrooms, horseradish/dill aioli.  You can't go wrong with fried stuff!

Black bean and plantain torte, salsa verde and sour cream. (I think I got that right.)
I generally think of vegan diets as very restrictive, but the True Bistro makes great use of plant foods.  I could be vegan, if I could eat stuff like this every day.