Holy Cow! I have a blog!

A combination of new job, holiday, and spiffy weather have kept me away from the computer.

I'll be back soon.

Buying the New Yorker 1986 - page 59

You know, I never noticed this before. The old Columbia House Pop/Rock ads had all the selections listed randomly, but here we see the Classical selections in alphabetical order.

And get a load of this: Columbia House only does videos now. Their music club has been farmed out to BMG!

Time marches on!

Buying the New Yorker 1986 - page 57

Here's the synopsis from Doollee.com:

As the play begins the protagonists are twelve-year-old sixth graders. One of them, Daniel Rocket, is firmly convinced that he can fly, a belief that causes him to be shunned and ridiculed by his schoolmatesincluding the girl he adores and for whose regard he is driven to prove himself. Oddly enough, however, it turns out that Daniel can fly, although, initially he does so in secret. When, at last, he demonstrates his talent to the others, he straps on wings (although he doesn't need them) in deference to their stubborn disbelief. From then on, Daniel soars to fame and fortune and, in the second half of the play, which takes place twenty years later, he returns home a renowned celebrity. But he has also become, in a sense, the symbol of the exceptional person, the genius who has outdistanced those around him and, in so doing, has isolated himself not only from his childhood but from the simple joys and tender emotions shared by those whom he has left behind. Torn by growing uncertainty, Daniel finds his gift waning and, in the climax of the play, he suffers a fatal crashvictim both of his distrusted uniqueness and of the unwitting need of others to bring down what they cannot understand or emulate.

What American Playhouse used to do was take plays and film them completely on the cheap. They were filmed on videotape and generally without an audience. Folks who are more knowledgeable then I can (and have) fill whole books about "medium" and "process." All I know is that the way it was done took perfectly good stageplays with amazingly talented casts and sucked every last bit of life out of them.

Some tidbits that I found while trying to learn about this show:

• The Tom Hulce Ultimate Webpage has the most frightening "the server is temporarily down" message that I have ever seen in my life.
• Valarie Mahaffey was born in Sumatra. She, Hulce and playwright Peter Parnell were all born in 1953.
• Chubb is still in the insurance game. This page is where you can go get a policy on your yacht.
  

Buying the New Yorker 1986 - page 56

I think that this sets a new record for ad quantity on a page. I'm pretty sure that this is the first time I've needed four images to get all the ads in. I apologise in advance. This post is probably going to look horrific.

All I have to do is look at one of L.L. Bean's signature boots and I can feel my calves chafing. I think we have ten current Bean catalogs floating around the house now that it is the early (read: safe to order things that have to be shipped) holiday season. I would be interested to have a look at an old catalog, just to see how much it's changed. Somehow I think not so much.

The Andrews Hotel is still there, and they've done a little work on the front. Gone is the nice period canopy, and in it's place... well from the picture it looks like a slab. I don't like the new sign either. Man, I am a grump. Oh, and you youngsters in the audience: That car in the ad. It's not from 1986. Just so you know.

Generally the sign that a craft firm is really into their art is when their website has a bibliography. The James Robinson Company is just this hardcore. Their flatware is all hand-hammered, so, in addition to the quality, it can also be customized:

Most of our patterns can be altered to suit your particular taste and individuality. For instance, all three prong forks are also made with four prongs. All knives are offered with a choice of blades. Most patterns can be supplied in longer or shorter lengths to fit your needs. All patterns can have their handles turned up or down as you prefer.

I have no idea why I would need any of this, but I'm somehow quite happy that I can get it.

Yes, it's that Trapp Family. Honestly, I can't add anything to this. Go have a look for yourself.

Italia Adagio seems to currently be run by a moonlighting academic named Dr. Daniel Lesnick.

Dr. Lesnick has lived in Italy for over eight years since 1969, studying and conducting historical research on topics including Preaching in Medieval Florence, Criminal Activity in Medieval and Renaissance Todi, and Italian Microhistory.

I suspect that he's taken the business over from artist Frieda Yamins (she also seems to have done a similar setup with Hawaii) - I need to do more research than I'm really up to at the moment to find out for sure. Sorry.

What seems to go down is this: you write to Dr. Lesnick and tell him what bits of Italy you want to visit and learn about, and he whomps up a group of 15 or so people to take the trip. It sounds like good interesting fun unless one of the people on the trip has the personality of a rotting fish. Which you never see from tourists.

The Island City House hotel is the sort of Bed and Breakfast that needs to have a whole section on their website about their cats. Each cat has its own page. Here's the one for the cat named "Miss Snorkels." Don't say I didn't warn you.

Don't bother googling the phrase "canoe burgundy" if you are looking for this trip deal. You'll just get a bunch of burgundy colored canoes. I have so far found nothing on Connor Travel and their "Canoeing through France" set up, but I have to say that after all the hoity-toity barge tours I've seen in this project, the idea of doing the same routes in a canoe sounds like hilarious fun. The fact that my imagination is conjuring up images of early nineteenth-century French Canadian fur trappers is just a happy bonus.

Buying the New Yorker 1986 - page 55

I'm sure that recent advances in nano-technology and computer modeling have created advances far beyond these layered models. I felt adventurous, so I googled "pillow manufacturing research" to see what the state of the pillow art is.

The second hit I got on that search was this article.

It turns out that the hip field in the pillow business is catering to the power napping movement. And towards the end of the article look who pops up:

Today, there are napping Web sites and napping books, such as William Anthony's "The Art of Napping," a serio-comic exegesis of the all-too-human pastime. The Weehawken, N.J.-based Company Store, which specializes in pillow manufacturing, recently started offering an "Executive Napping Kit." For $89.99, you get a down-filled travel pillow (synthetic down for the allergic) and pillow case in six designer colors, a black nylon and canvas attache in which to store your pillow, and a copy of Anthony's book. They call their specialty headrest "the Productivity Pillow."

Move sixteen tons and what do you get? A coincidence!

Meet the guy with season tickets to SNL

Ironic Sans interviews "Louis Klein, audience member of nearly every episode of Saturday Night Live."

My memory from meeting you 15 years ago was that you had seen every episode live except for a few. But I guess you’ve missed more than that.

In the first 5 years I’d seen 59 out of 106. So I missed 47 shows then. To date I’ve missed I think 83. That means in the last 27 years I’ve missed 36 shows.

How many have you seen?

This is my 528th show.

Another look at that map.

So if you look really close at this map that I put up in the last post, you can see that he drew on it. It's hard to spot because it's in mechanical pencil (he was an engineer, after all).

There's a little arrow on the Victoria Hotel and a line that goes up to the Central Station and then along the tram line, finally ending on Oostenberger Gracht.

A business meeting?

Victoria Hotel Amsterdam

Here's a nice looking receipt:


I can't for the life of me figure out all the added costs beyond the room on this one. But the Victoria Hotel is still there. Here's what it looks like today:

Here's some more info about the hotel.

Along with the bill I find this delightful Art Nouveau information card:


On the back are the room rates. Looks like Great-Grandpa got the cheapest single room available:

And inside, a spiffy map:




And here is the same area in Google Maps.

Dinner on board

After the ship that Great-Grandpa was meant to have come back from Europe on was removed from the active fleet, he settled on the Oceanic. Amongst the ephemera related to the Oceanic was this piece of heavy stock cardboard.


At first I thought it was a postcard or some sort of souvenir. But closer examination showed that it flipped open, revealing a menu.


It seems that Great-Grandpa's company set him up with enough of a travel advance to go First Class.

View some photos of CBGB's being dismantled

Many years ago, a few friends and I got together and decided that it would be cool to start a bar/music venue. We looked around and found a spot that was on the market, so we started making calls and got ourselves a tour.

As part of the process of going out of business, the previous owners and their clientele thoroughly trashed the place. It was pretty ghastly from that, and had then sat unoccupied for about two years, which only added to the mystique. A small detail that sums up the experience: just as the real estate guy was explaining that the food prep area could have a decent swipedown and all the equipment would be good as new, he finds a petrified mouse in the fry vat basket.

At least I understand how that happened. If you go through this slideshow of CBGB's being cleaned out, pause yourself at photo number 17 and try to work out how that mouse came to be there.

Buying the New Yorker 1986 - page 54

I think I've made it clear from an earlier post that I'm really not that into golf, so when I found my way to the Casa de Campo website, I took a look at their coming attractions to see what else there is to do. Turns out that this weekend is the Caribe POP Festival! The daily headliners are Bryan Adams, The Rasmus, and La Oreja de Van Gogh (representing Canada, Finland and Spain respectively, but

In addition to the international stars, there will be super surprises in charge of recognized national bands. The names of the Dominican artists will be announced very soon.

They best hurry up, it's already over.


From their website:

Hamilton Adams celebrates over 50 years of providing the finest linen textiles to the American decorative furnishings trade.

furthermore:

Hamilton Adams is uniquely able to serve a broad range of markets - upholstery, drapery, bedding, tabletop, artist supply and decorative textile resources, to name but a few.

Notice what's missing? Clothes! Back in the day you can take that upholstery linen and make a snappy jacket out of it.

I've been thinking that this ad doesn't look nearly as dated as it should, and I've just realized why: the top of the model's head is out of the frame -- we can't see the full hairstyle. I'm all nostalgic now. I'll get over it.

A hat trick

I just noticed that the other day, a confluence happened in my teensy little corner of Blogger.


I made a post to all three in the same day! This is quite rare. And I suspect it will continue to be.

If you haven't been by in a while, you can visit from the links up on your right, and scroll down to see the headlines from the latest posts.

Science continues to work for you.

Good News:

Researchers at the Harvard Medical School and the National Institute on Aging report that a natural substance found in red wine, known as resveratrol, offsets the bad effects of a high-calorie diet in mice and significantly extends their lifespan.

The Catch:

The mice were fed a hefty dose of resveratrol, 24 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Red wine has about 1.5 to 3 milligrams of resveratrol per liter, so a 150-pound person would need to drink from 1,500 to 3,000 bottles of red wine a day to get such a dose.

Hotel Belgischer Hof

Hmmm. From what I can tell, The Hotel Belgischer Hof ("Belgian Yard") is (or was) in Cologne, and seems to be still operational. Judging from the photos on various travel sites, it has either moved locations or had a massive renovation - very possible as the city saw extensive bombing during the Second World War.

Here you can see my Great-Grandfather's first name (Lloyd) on the receipt, but not his last name. If I'm understanding the receipt correctly, he arrived on May 8th and stayed the ninth and tenth (at four Marks a night) and checked out on the 11th (the date on the inkstamp). The additional 6.4 is for "washing" - perhaps laundry service?

Great moments in CD reviewing

I normally don't listen to All Things Considered on NPR, as I generally commute by mass transit with my own audio, but yesterday I was coming home in my car and caught this review of the new Maria Muldaur CD. I found it quite fascinating, partly because I like music reviews on audio, particularly when the reviewer pulls illustrative clips from both the item at hand and other sources, so you can really get a sense of what is being discussed. The other reason for fascination was because I couldn't tell if the reviewer had a really subtle and odd sense of humor, or, well, not. Example:

When, a few minutes later, she reaches the strange line "Ghengis Khan, he could not keep all his men supplied with sheep," you get a whole new idea what those sheep were for.

Stay for the end, when he actually uses the word "grok."

A door closes and another opens

Today I am unemployed.

Yesterday was the final day of my old job (the one I was in the process of being laid off from), and Monday I start at the new one. I get a four day weekend to hose the old job out of my brain and get ready to be "the new guy" again.

I don't even care that it's a crappy, grey drizzly morning. I'm feeling pretty good.

Shhh, don't let him know we're following him.

It's interesting to note that I've been following the blog on Dave Gorman's website for quite a few years now. In late 2002-early 2003, there were hints as to the events that would become his Googlewack Adventure. Towards the end (Feb 20, 2003) he wrote:

If you've seen any of my other stage shows, you'll understand that there are times in my life when events take over. It doesn't leave a lot of time for other things. This is no exception. I don't write a story, a story happens to me, and right now it's still happening to me. There really isn't time to do everything that needs to be done and to stop and explain it, so for now that's all I can say. The dates are on the live dates page and when I have the chance to stop and take stock of what's been happening to me I'll put something explanatory on the site. Oh, and I'll start actually writing the show too.

It was kind of thrilling, seeing posts like that.

As I mentioned a little while ago, he is off on another project/adventure, and this time he's told us to "expect some website silence." Fair enough.

Here's the deal though: A while ago I added the feed from his flickr pool to my newsreader. He's still taking pictures! He's travelling in America, going up the West Coast. Balancing stacks of rocks.

I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of it all.