Victoriana, etc.

I'm reading The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime by Judith Flanders.  I picked it up because I loved Judith Flanders's earlier book Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England.  JF writes intelligent, funny, fascinating social history.  One of the more fascinating facts from TIM is that well-off Victorians collected Staffordshire figures of murderers and victims.

Potash Farm, the home of murderer James Blomfield Rush

.
The barn where William Corder (at the door) murdered Maria Marten (at the left).

The Victorians united the charmingness of porcelain with the grisliness of murder!

From Planet to Galaxy

Last Friday some buddies and I ate at the newish Veggie Galaxy.  It is certainly fancier than Veggie Planet, of which this is an offshoot.

Julie was relaxed and out of focus.

 Dave was a bit sharper.  In the background, a woman signals.

 Dave's view of me is slanted.

 Laureen approves!

Next time I'm going to have the Eggs Benedict, which Julie says is very good.  My black-bean hamburger was just OK.  The chocolate cream pie, however, was fantastic.

Off to a Better Place

Today was Vida and Ranald's last day (before retirement).  So we sent them off properly with a party.

We had pizza from Otto and cake from Finale.  Naturally, since many of us have been around for longer than we care to think about, a flood of reminiscences spewed forth.  Then Charles dropped in, and the reminiscing got really serious, since he knows the history of everybody.  He recalled many scandals and was able to satisfy my curiosity about one old one.  I had heard that a German bibliographer had gotten money from Harvard to go to the Frankfurt Book Fair and get Widener some books, but he didn't actually go, and so he got canned.  But then Jon said that wasn't true.  I wanted to know what was true.  Charles said that the bibliographer had made appointments to see all sorts of book dealers in Frankfurt; but he didn't show up for any of the appointments.  So the dealers e-mailed Harvard asking "Did this guy die or what?"  This question led to the discovery that the bibliographer had used the Frankfurt-Book-Fair money to take his family to Switzerland for a ski vacation.  He got canned.  However, this goofy behavior had not prevented him from getting high-paid library jobs elsewhere.

This is a sobering story to hear at the end of one's working life!

Better Late Than Never

As one of our office mates prepares to retire, he is clearing up various problems before he leaves.  Here's a truck of books he's had by his desk as long as I've known him.

This old book is slated for repair.

Note the date on the slip.

Olde Tyme Harpers Hooked its Readers

Steve discovered this clever advertising ploy from Harpers of the 20s and 30s.  While he was trolling the Hathi Trust site for an old cookbook, he found an example of a Harpers Sealed Mystery.  These books had a seal enclosing a portion of the last pages (said portion determined by the author).  Harper promised to refund the purchase price of any HSM that was returned with the seal intact.  I'll bet this helped loosen the purse strings of many a mystery fan.  Very few books were actually returned.

I checked the catalog and found a few titles from the series in Widener.  These 2 still have the front part of the seal.   (Larger versions of these pictures available here.)

HOLLIS record

HOLLIS Record

Mt. Auburn Animals

Last Thursday Laureen and I took a walk in Mount Auburn Cemetery.  I was especially keen to see critters.  I'd once seen a Great Blue Heron there.

Here's a baby bunny nibbling grass near a pond.

Here's a handsome hawk strutting among the tombstones.

Here's a busy mother turkey.  We met an elderly man who spent a lot of time there.  He told us that coyotes came out near evening, and he showed us a picture on his camera.  It looked something like the following:

More photos here.:https://picasaweb.google.com/113500384056871252807/MountAuburnCemetery

Happy Birthday Chuck

For more fun stuff see: https://picasaweb.google.com/113500384056871252807/ClipartAnimals

Damp Lunch

Steve, Sue, and I went to the Cellar for lunch.  Steve got me lunch as payment for my sewing up his kitchen curtains.  He also gave me some  Thymes mandarin coriander soap and hand lotion.  They smell wonderful!  It rained heavily as we walked back to work.  Sue's shoes got soaked.

Seven for Drinks Only

Last night seven of us went out to toast JB's 58th birthday.
First we went to First Printer.  Since we didn't want dinner, they said we could only sit at the bar.  We wanted a table, so we could all face each other.
Next we went to the Russell House Tavern.  Since we didn't want dinner, they said we could only sit at the bar.  We wanted a table, so we could all face each other.
Diane suggested that this was a "dry crawl" rather than a "pub crawl."
We didn't have all night: JB had said he needed to go home at 6 and clean the house and get groceries.
Steve suggested OM, which most of us had never been to.  At last we had a place to sit down.  We got an alcove of comfy benches and coffee tables hidden behind a bead curtain, just like in the movies!  We had 2 bottles of wine, and JB had a martini.  The vegetable dumplings we got were not enough to prevent inebriation.  We convinced JB that he didn't have to go home at 6.

Afterwards Julie and I went to Sue's house to wait for Dave and drink water.  Then when Dave came, he asked us how we spelled "dilemma."  I've always spelled it DILEMMA, but everybody else remembers spelling it DILEMNA.  Interesting.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!