Colleen's Corner

Sunday, May 06, 2012

SOS Sunday

Today Rosemary and I decided to check out Somerville Open Studios. We took the T to Davis Square* for starters.

Consuelo Perez makes art out of recycled stuff. Since these 2 pieces were outside, I thought it would be OK to photograph them.

The Museum of Modern Renaissance was easy to spot.

The Davis Square neighborhood is full of huge old houses with character.

This is an especially nice bird house along the bike path.

It says "BRYANT CHAMBERS" in stone. You'll just have to trust me.

*When I moved up east, I was surprised to find out that a "Square" was an intersection and an undefined area around it. I expected a Square to be square, like a Plaza.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

A General Update

Now that it is warm again, everything is blooming like crazy. We've had such wild temperature swings: I hope these hopeful buds don't get zapped by another drop.

JB brought in a bunch of treats, including gluten-free and gluten-rich muffins. This is just what we need to get us over that Wednesday hump!

A robin built a nest in the Pusey pit tree. The best views are from Map Collection offices. The mapsters will be making videos when the chicks hatch.

JB also added to his rotted fruit sculpture, which he now claims is a totem pole. Anthropologists of the future will be puzzled!

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Reading Has Sex Appeal

Some class is having students do papers on Harvard University as a brand. This reminded me of my small collection of old advertisements for the Harvard Classics. This first one was one of the earliest, and I stupidly did not take down the source. Since then, I've used all the indexes that include ad text, but I still can't track it down. I was able to find a better copy in a book*, but the book gave no source information. I love this ad, because it touts the Classics as a marital aid.

(For a larger image go here.)

I have other, less racy examples too.

Life, September 28, 1922 page 27
(For a larger image go here.)

Life, Novemeber 23, 1922 page 27
(For a larger image go here.)

*Those were the good old days: a happy look at American advertising, 1880-1930, by Edgar R. Jones, Simon & Schuster: New York, 1959, page 310.

Sunday, April 08, 2012

Easter Parade

This Easter Sunday, Rosemary and I wanted to get an eyeful of Easter finery, so we headed out to the Anime Boston convention. (Although I don't follow anime, I respect most costume-based activities.)

We encountered these three ladies from Quebec on the Green Line.

People were happy to pose for us.

Some shots were more casual.

Check out all my photos at my Picasa Web Album.

Thursday, April 05, 2012

No Turkey

I've been searching for the turkey reported to be in Harvard Yard. No luck. But today I spotted a lovely crane.

In more serious news, JB has both a dried lime and a dried grapefruit at work. It doesn't make for a pretty picture.

Our special germ-detecting camera proves that this is a case for the Health Department.

This is one toxic fruit sculpture!

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Ghosts and Other Characters

On Sunday Laureen joined me for a viewing of the 1963 classic The Haunting. (See Laureen above with 2 of her fans, as well as Claire Bloom and Julie Harris.) In a good (or even great) ghost story, the ghost is not merely something that says "boo," but a real (dead) character with psychological connections to the other characters.
The Haunting is one of my favorite spook-flicks. Every time I watch it I notice little things I'd missed before. Of course, I can't think of an example now.

I continue to probe the mysteries of old TV shows. I just finished seeing several episodes of Biff Baker, U.S.A. featuring character actor Alan Hale (aka "The Skipper"). Though still in his early 30s, Hale's signature character had already jelled into a hearty, jolly, joking, unpolished regular guy. In this case, he was a regular guy defending American interests all over the world accompanied by his equally jolly wife. It isn't very good, but it's a source for American post-war psychology.

Of course, when dealing with Alan Hale, the question that always comes up is whether he is related to Barbara Hale (aka "Della Street"). IMDB.com mentions nothing, but nothing mentioned is not proof of nothing being there. The fact that they both appeared in The Giant Spider Invasion suggests a blood connection: why else would they act in that turkey of a flick?

Speaking of character, recently a research assistant approached our ref desk with a strange request. Her boss wanted to do some kind of scientific psychological measurement of people who had just read various kinds of literature, such as fiction with characters and fiction without characters. She needed to find some examples of fiction without characters: no human characters, no animal characters, no alien characters, and no anthropomorphized objects. No characters. Not surprisingly, she couldn't find any examples.

For the benefit of Science, I wish to fill this literary lacuna...

The House

A piece of fiction

There's a house on Maple St. with white aluminum siding and a dark green pitched roof. It has a front door in the front and a back door in the back. It has a front yard in front and a back yard in back.

Furthermore, it looks just like every other house on Maple St. This house has no character.