Rainy-Day Activities

As usual in hurricane situations, by the time it gets to me, it's just some rain and wind.  It's mostly the suburbs that get the flooding and power outages.  But I stayed indoors.  The T shut down after 8 am, I'm guessing that stores closed too.  There are always lots of things to do indoors:

One can investigate new venues and postures for relaxation.

One can replace that piece of fabric art one got tired of with some pictures of the Painting Goddess.

And one can hang out on the patio and eat bugs.

More Cute (and Educational) Cat Pictures

Here are a couple of educational shots showing the thumb placement on a polydactyl cat.

This is the Cat on my Hat.......................

........and this is the Cat on my Hat from the Back.

The cat's in the bag.

MAPS: We'd be Lost Without Them

When the Map Room mounts a display, they make reproductions of the maps they want to display.  So when they take the display down, I can take the discarded reproductions for interior decorating purposes.  I've manage to brighten up many of our boring office walls.

Here's one that takes the world's highest mountains and longest rivers out of their geological context and puts them side by side for comparison.

This map is an American product made during WWII.  It had propaganda value and was beautifully designed.

This map isn't so pretty, but it interests me.  Another American product from WWII, it is a paranoid's dream document.

You may have to click on the image to read the key.

Look how innocent New Mexico was!

But now look at Massachusetts.  Wow!

NOTE:  I fixed the links so they work now.  And I also browsed some of the other works of Joseph P. Kamp, compiler of the last map.  He was quite productive: The fifth column in Washington! By Joseph P. Kamp, It isn't safe to be an American, We must abolish the United States : the hidden facts behind the crusade for world government / Joseph P. Kamp, Behind the plot to sovietize the South, and
 many more.

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.