From The Nursery Rhyme Book edited by Andrew Lang and illustrated by L. Leslie Brooke (1897) This is a funny little book– more than 100 years old, missing over 80 pages. It must have come to me by way of my dad or Dad’s family. I honestly cannot remember not having this book around. As
Today is March 31. It is the last day featuring the crappy old book, Anniversaries and Holiday: A Calendar of Days and How to Observe them, as Crappy Old Book of the Month. Appropriately, today is the anniversary of René Descartes’ birth in 1596 and of Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen’s in 1811. Descartes is, of course,
Earlier today we were talking about canceling Independence Day and Max said it was the only unAmerican thing he’d ever seen me do. We’ve known one another for quite some time. I took that as a compliment.
This little project has gotten a lot of attention lately. Max just asked me about it, and Mr. Big Food’s Mom and Mr. Big Food’s Aunt and I were talking about it just the other day. This is a needlework project I started probably 20 or more years ago. I still have the project
“Marica?” “Yes, Missy?’ “Who are those males? They are awfully nice fellows, but who are they?” [sniff sniff] “I have a distant memory… but who are they?” “rrruuuufffff.” “Max & Kyle” “ruff.” “No. I don’t mean to argue with you, but there seem to me to be two of them.” “Ruff.” “I said, Max &
They’ve come to visit Miss M. In their honor, I thought it might be fun to post a few photos of Max and Kyle from back in the crappy olden days. I am pretty sure Kyle is saluting Max, but I’m okay with a challenge on that call. Kyle has grown into a responsible young
I know I said I was growing weary of the calendar– and I am– but I feel badly that I’ve not mentioned a few items the past day or two. William Konrad Röntgen was born March 27, 1845. He discovered X-rays in 1895 and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. Here’s a
I was taken to task the other day. I stated that a sentence such as, “I talked to a committee member and they said ___ ,” was grammatically incorrect. As evidence of *my* mistake, I was offered the dictionary definition of “they” from Dictionary dot com. I have– as all citizens should– several skeptical bones
That is the title of Chapter 15 in The Romance of the Calendar (P.W. Wilson, 1937). I don’t know about you but I am growing weary of the calendar. It’s been a fun run. I think I have one post scheduled for the 31st– therefore I am–, and I thought it might be interesting to take
Miss M informs me that she does not know who Currier & Ives were. Good grief! How can this be? The only explanation is that the public school system failed her. Oh. Wait. Okay. The only explanation is that the Art Appreciation class she took failed her. We’ll go with that one. Let’s not focus
I mentioned earlier that today is Nathaniel Currier’s birthday. Currier opened his print publishing business in 1834. James Ives joined him in 1852 and became his partner in 1857. Currier was a trained lithographer. Ives was a businessman with “a shrewd insight into the public’s taste.” From that infallible source: Lithography originally used an image
Not frequently talked about, but you may recall that for what seems like forever Mr. Big Food has been putting together the– no, THE– definitive collection of American music. It’s called The Redneck Collection and in CD form it’s well over 50 CDs. That’s a lot of American music. Frankly, I like listening to the
I was going to sit down and do some serious blogging after a long productive day but I see there are only 3 basketball minutes left in this game and it’s a close one. So… BRB in 3 b’ball minutes.
Today is the anniversary of Robert Frost’s birth in 1875. When the first edition of Anniversaries and Holidays was published (1928), Frost was only 53 years old. I looked around for something a bit more obscure than “The Road Not Taken” but then I read the poem, written in 1916– ha! Ninety-nine years ago!– and
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