Before and After: a Professional Job
Dear Clusterflock
Today I quit on an online survey concerning a “buying experience”; the only reason I was doing it was because it kept popping up in my mail and taking it seemed the quickest way to make it go away. But I came to a question that pissed me off and made me delete the whole thing. It asked me to indicate my “position” in my household: was I the Head of household? The spouse of the Head of household? A dependent of the Head of household? and so on. Do you find yourself thinking as I do that the whole notion of there necessarily being A head of household is archaic? In my view, the whole thing smacks of that Southern Baptist insistence that women “submit” to the will of their husbands, which I find to be one of many reprehensible notions they espouse. Can’t we get past the whole Command Structure thing? Is this just me going off, or do you have feeling about this?
The death of Jermyn Street
I had just settled in my easy chair when a key turned in the lock and a nattily-dressed man in his 60s let himself in. He held a bottle of Teachers’ scotch under his arm. He walked to the sideboard, took a glass, poured a shot, and while filling it with soda from the siphon, asked me, “Fancy a spot?”
“I’m afraid I don’t drink,” I said.
“Oh, my.”
This man sat on my sofa, lit a cigarette, and said, “I’m Henry.”
“Am I…in your room?”
“Oh, no, no, old boy! I’m only the owner. I dropped in to say hello.”
This was Henry Togna Sr. He appears in a Dickens novel I haven’t yet read. I’m sure of it. He appeared in my room almost every afternoon when I stayed at the Eyrie Mansion.
—Roger Ebert, “I met a character from Dickens,” Chicago Sun-Times, February 5, 2010
(Via @davidmoldawer)
My ideas about Looking-glass House
First, there’s the room you can see through the glass–that’s just the same as our drawing room, only the things go the other way. I can see all of it when I get upon a chair–all but the bit behind the fireplace. Oh! I do so wish I could see THAT bit! I want so much to know whether they’ve a fire in the winter: you never CAN tell, you know, unless our fire smokes, and then smoke comes up in that room too–but that may be only pretence, just to make it look as if they had a fire. Well then, the books are something like our books, only the words go the wrong way; I know that, because I’ve held up one of our books to the glass, and then they hold up one in the other room.
(From CHAPTER I. “Looking-Glass house.” Through the Looking-glass. Lewis Carroll.)
Dickens’ Toothpick
An ivory and gold toothpick once owned by Charles Dickens has sold at a New York City auction for $9,150.
“It’s always six o’clock now.”
A bright idea came into Alice’s head. "Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?" she asked.
"Yes, that’s it," said the Hatter with a sigh: "it’s always tea-time, and we’ve no time to wash the things between whiles."
"Then you keep moving round, I suppose?" said Alice.
"Exactly so," said the Hatter: "as the things get used up."
"But what happens when you come to the beginning again?" Alice ventured to ask.
"Suppose we change the subject," the March Hare interrupted, yawning. "I’m getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story."
(From Chapter VII. "A Mad Tea-Party." Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll.)
Cast y’all’s votes, y’all.
Should I be the next Oprah?
Chart Showing the Aggregate Number of Idiots and the Proportion of Males and Females, White or Colored, Native or Foreign, at the Ninth Census 1870; also the increase since 1860.
Excerpted from the Statistical atlas of the United States based on the results of the ninth census 1870 with contributions from many eminent men of science and several departments of the government Comp. under the authority of Congress by Francis A. Walker, M. A., superintendent of the ninth census.
(by way of Eminent Man of Science and Art Graham Parker; entire census report at loc.gov)
This Living Hand
This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calmed—see here it is—
I hold it towards you.
("This Living Hand". John Keats.)
apostrophically speaking
Originally the peak was called “Pike’s Peak”, but in 1891, the newly-formed US Board on Geographic Names recommended against the use of apostrophes in names, so officially the name of the peak does not include an apostrophe. In addition, in 1978 the Colorado state legislature passed a law mandating the use of “Pikes Peak” only. Even so, the old name is often seen.
How Doth the Little Crocodile
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!
Lewis Carroll. From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Parody of the didactic “Against Idleness and Mischief” by Isaac Watts (“How doth the little busy bee/Improve each shining hour”).
The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction by John Sutherland
The appearance, after more than twenty years, of a second edition of John Sutherland’s The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction, is exciting news for Victorian enthusiasts, whether students, academics or readers. For the book represents a staggering achievement that is unlikely ever to be equalled. That a single scholar, working un-assisted, should undertake to synopsize 554 (now 560) novels and offer biographical accounts of 878 (now 900) novelists, as well as compiling entries on forty-seven magazines and periodicals, twenty-six major illustrators and thirty-eight (now forty-one) miscellaneous items (“Sandism”, “the Yellowback”, “The Nautical Novel”), is a feat that beggars imagination, especially since much of the work was completed before the availability of the internet and searchable digitized texts.
(via marginal revolution)
Missed Connections
a century before Craigslist or the back page of the Voice:
Will Lizzie, or Clara, or Julia, or any other handsome and agreeable young lady that was seen on Broadway any day last week, and is matrimonially inclined, send her address, enclosing photograph, to Romeo, box 144 Herald office?
If any two young gentlemen who were on Broadway any day last week are desirous of forming the acquaintance of the two young ladies who crossed Fulton ferry one day last month, they can do so by addressing either Lizzie or Clara, at station A.
(Via Manhattan Users Guide)
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A grievance
From Rudolph Delson’s1 Open Letter to Senator Clinton, December 3, 2008:
Above the Texas Montage, with its picture of cowboys and steer, appears a long quote by Lyndon B. Johnson, which concludes:
Is a new world coming? We welcome it—and we will bend it to the hopes of man
Yes! What better emblem than the beef industry for a world ecologically bent to the hopes of American men? Similarly, accompanying the image of a locomotive crossing a hill-country trestle is a quote taken from the inscription on the famous “Golden Spike,” which in 1869 completed America’s first transcontinental railroad:
May God continue the unity of our country as the railroad unites the two great oceans of the world.
Again—yes! In 2008, what better symbol for our national unity than our adamantine national railroad infrastructure?
There is only one pairing of quote and image from which I must dissent. Accompanying the Alaska Montage, with its grizzly and its salmon, is this quote from the “Thanksgiving Address, Mohawk version”:
We send thanks to all the Animal life in the world. They have many things to teach us as people. We are glad they are still here and we hope it will always be so.
I am relieved to hear that the State Department, like the Mohawk nation, aspires to preserve “all the Animal life in the world.” Still, to cite the extirpated grizzly and the decimated salmon as examples of animal species from which humanity ought to learn something? This is dark indeed.
Have you seen2—actually handled, in person—the new U.S. passports? They are outrageous. Appalling. Embarrassing. And, above all, fugly. My passport expires next summer, and I sincerely hope that the design will have been revised before then; otherwise, I may have to stop traveling overseas. People, what can we do to make this happen?
- Rudolph Delson is the author of the novel Maynard and Jennica, as well as of the very fine “An Open Letter to John E. Potter, Postmaster General” (PDF, 127 KB), which I highlighted earlier today on my own blog.
- A ray of hope, or merely another instance of institutional inconsistency? The US State Department appears to no longer include photos of the current passport design on its website. Have they become embarrassed by it? Are they in the midst of revising it to be less horrendous? Or did they just move the page and forget to update their links?
Coalfield (History on the Lam)
Coalfield Rest Area. US Interstate 55. Twenty-five miles south of Springfield, Illinois. July 4, 2009. Cam-phone photo. LG VX11000.
Twenty or so miles south of the Coalfield Rest Area on US Interstate 55 is the town of Mount Olive, Illinois, in the neighborhood of which, on July 4, 1897, coal miners struck for an eight-hour work day and for recognition of the United Mine Workers union, an event commemorated by a plaque inside the building (site of vending machines and public toilets).
Not noted on a plaque: In 1898 mine owners repudiated the agreement, and on October 12 striking miners took exception to the importation of strikebreakers and armed guards. When dust from the resulting “Virden Riot” cleared, ten miners and six guards were dead, and about thirty additional people lay wounded.
Speaking, as we were, of the circus
and of circus tradition . . .
The stone mansion at 10 St. Nicholas place in Upper Harlem, near 150th Street, was built in 1886 by circus legend James Bailey. Original, animal-themed stained glass windows decorate the façade, and inside the crumbling interior (it was once a funeral home and has fallen into decay), there is a warren of bright rooms and narrow corridors. The back garden is spacious but overgrown, and some people call it a “modern Grey Gardens.” The mansion is full of features from the original construction, but needs several million in repairs. But for a gorgeous historic stand-alone mansion that includes about 8,250 square feet of interior space, the price tag is a lot lower than you’d ever guess.
(New York Magazine via a reversecowpie tweet)
Non ferir!
Not long ago, a cardiac patient in a cardiac support group I was leading told of his response to a recent incident: He and a female friend were on the plaza at Lincoln Center after seeing a performance of Verdi’s opera “Il Trovatore” when a car nearly hit the woman. She ran after the vehicle, which was slowly moving away, and slammed the trunk with her rolled up program. The driver emerged from the car hurling expletives in her direction. The patient then hit the driver with his cane. The driver shoved the patient into a fender, at which point, the patient insisted, he had no choice . . . It was no ordinary cane he was carrying, but a beautiful 19th-century model with a sleek, sharp sword concealed within. He then insisted that the driver “apologize at swordpoint” in front of a small crowd that had gathered. The characters in “Il Trovatore,” he added, proudly brandished swords.
—Robert Allan, “When the Heart Pays the Price of Anger,” Happy Days blog, NewYorkTimes.com, June 25, 2009
Japanese pregnant dolls from the 19th century
(via marginal revolution)
Mortal Remains
We have been speaking of mortal remains.
This, the tail-end of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”, has always just shredded me.
I take it personally.
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
Y’all
I woke up to see this question in my twitter feed. I almost choked.
A1: Steak Sauce of Kings
The original steak sauce upon which A1 is based was created in 1824 by Henderson William Brand, one of the chefs to King George IV of the United Kingdom. Legend has it that the king declared it “A1″ and the name was born. It went into commercial production under the Brand & Co. label in 1831, and continued production under this label after bankruptcy forced ownership of Brand & Co. to be transferred to W.H. Withall in 1850. It was renamed A1 in 1873, after a trademark dispute between creator Henderson William Brand and Dence & Mason, who had since purchased Brand & Co. from Withall. It was then introduced to the United States in 1895 under the ownership of G.F. Heublein & Brothers. In 1931, A1 was introduced to Canada.
Con men and networks
How much does spam resemble con games of the past?
It has a certain sense of the potential of the network. The Union Pacific going west was loaded with ideological baggage: claims by its owners and the robber barons who were driving it about the promise of freedom. Ben Marks, a small-time grifter, just observed what it did. Marks ran three-card monte games on the trains and was the first person to move his con off the trains and onto a fixed point on land in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He realized that it was better to fleece a transient population as it passed in front of you than to be part of that population. That’s what spammers do as well. They develop an inadvertent map of how the network operates and create a great mass of dye in the water that can be followed to see what the machine does.
—Graham Parker, interviewed by Christine Smallwood in “Back Talk: Graham Parker,” Nation, June 22, 2009
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Pixillated Pleasures
- Main Entry:
- pix·i·lat·ed
- Variant(s):
- pix·il·lat·ed
- Function:
- adjective
- Etymology:
- irregular from pixie
- Date:
- 1848
1: somewhat unbalanced mentally ; also: bemused
2: whimsical <pixilated pleasures>
Balzacian | For Cindy
“This entire situation is both sordid and tedious,” I said to G____. “It is Balzacian.”
He agreed, adding, “It is certainly more Balzacian than Zolaesque.”
“Or Flaubertian,” I replied.
in case Cindy missed it
Snarkmarket did a nice overview of clusterflock’s trip to the 19th century last weekend.