Fin.

Well...ta-da!

365 days (more or less) of blogging.  It was strange, it was scary, it was wonderful...hopefully you found something to interest you.

Anyway, I kind of lost track of what I was doing this whole blog thing for, and increasingly there have been times when it has been more of a chore than a pleasure, but when I told certain individuals over Christmas that I was shutting down RecAnth, those individuals got a little distraught, so I've agreed to post every so often, maybe once a week, or once a month, or whenever I come across an intriguing fact, or just when I'm feeling inspired.

And in the meantime I am going to come up with some arguably more worthwhile resolutions this time around, although I'm not going to say what they are (at the risk of my abandoning them next week).

So yes, feel free to check back whenever you like, or not, and have a very happy 2011!

Obscure 80s Weekly

It's only fitting...this should do to carry you over into the new year.

Thursday: Thompson Twins - Doctor Doctor

Friday: Kim Wilde - Kids in America

Saturday: Talking Heads - This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)

Sunday: Violent Femmes - Blister in the Sun

Monday: Men at Work - It's a Mistake

Tuesday: Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear the Reaper

Wednesday: Midge Ure - If I Was

Girly Music Science

...Okay possibly not the best title, but check out this article published not too long ago; it's called, "'Posh music should equal posh dress': an investigation into the concert dress and physical appearance of female soloists" and it is about how a number of women put on different outfits and played music and what people thought about it.

And if you don't have access to the original, here's a short review.

Idiom Du Jour

Today we have, "to pull the wool over one's eyes" - what does it mean and where does it come from?

Well the meaning implies fooling, tricking, or hoodwinking...

The origin, as always, is rather more complex, as the assumption is that the wool being referred to is a woolen wig, fashionable for men and women in the 16th and 17th centuries, but less popular in 1839, the year the phrase is first found on paper.

Silks

Washed: aka watered silk or moire, fabric with a wavy appearance caused either by the warp and weft of the weave or by a treating process known as calendaring.

Chiffon: lightweight, sheer, somewhat puckered, stretchy and rough.

Taffeta: a smooth, stiff, crisp woven fabric known for its sheen and its drape.

Noil: aka raw silk, this is the leftover short fibers from after the spinning process.

Toile: painted or patterned cloth.

Crepe de chine: fabric with either an all-silk warp and weft or else with a silk warp and hard-spun worsted weft; yeah I don't know either.

Habutai: light and sheer with a plain weave, like taffeta but more Asian.

Twill: supple drape with a medium or heavy weight and a muted luster.

Organza: thin, sheer, plainly woven, with no sheen; very similar to taffeta.

Dupioni: shimmering, iridescent, woven from coarse silk fibers and often quite stiff, with a good drape and an ability to resist wrinkles but also hold a crease.

Charmeuse: lightweight and satiny, with a reflective front and a dull back due to the uneven weaving method.

Jacquard: intricately woven and variegated, usually quite geometric or with regular organic motifs.

Brocade: heavy, woven on a shuttle-loom, patterned and colored.

Boo.

[Insert Photo of Knitting Here.]

Christmas

Yesterday's midnight mass featured a stanza from a poem by John Donne...here's the thing in its entirety: 

Wilt thou love God, as he thee? Then digest,
My soul, this wholesome meditation, 
How God the Spirit, by angels waited on 
In heaven, doth make his Temple in thy breast. 
The Father having begot a Son most blest, 
And still begetting, (for he ne'er be gone) 
Hath deigned to choose thee by adoption, 
Co-heir t' his glory, and Sabbath' endless rest. 
And as a robbed man, which by search doth find 
His stol'n stuff sold, must lose or buy 't again:
The Son of glory came down, and was slain,
Us whom he'd made, and Satan stol'n, to unbind.
'Twas much that man was made like God before,
But, that God should be made like man, much more.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve Eve

The Goose is Getting Fat

Aaaah..!

For some reason, I thought that coming home for Christmas would mean lots of relaxing...but it turns out that, while I am certainly enjoying myself, I am not finding nearly the time to complete my ever-growing to-do list that I thought I would.

There are, for instance, movie nights and hockey games, baking sessions and ravioli-making extravaganzas, trips to the thrift store and to the eye doctor (okay, to Dad's office)...I wanted to go to an art museum, the flower show, and the theater, we have family coming into town and friends staying at the house, and a number of events to attend or to host...I've got a stack of novels to read and a Christmas gift or two yet to knit and I am simply running out of time!

Several Speaking Portraits

Portrait of an Old Man
Filippino Lippi

Portrait of Anne of Cleves
Hans Holbein the Younger

Buffoon with a Lute
Frans Hals

Portrait of a Man in a Turban (self-portrait?)
Jan Van Eyck

Portrait Of A Woman
Robert Campin

...

I watched Gentlemen Broncos at long last...

...

...wow.  Truly amazing.  Life-changing, even. 

I'm not sure what my favorite bit was.  I'm going to have to think about this one long and hard.

Shelley's Heart

After he drowned in July of 1822, Percy Bysshe Shelley was cremated on a beach near the city of Viraggio.  His heart was snatched from the pyre by his friend and fellow Romantic Edward John Trelawney, and was retained by his second wife, Mary Shelley, until her death in 1851.  The heart of Shelley is currently interred with the body of their only surviving child, Sir Percy Florence Shelley.

Another interesting disembodied heart is that of the French Dauphin, son of Marie-Antoinette and King Louis XVI...but that's another story altogether.

Anatomy

Now that I'm on my holiday, it seems to be getting more science-y than ever.  But I have always been interested in human anatomical studies, and so this latest offering by Google is worth a mention, I feel.

Boom.

Unfortunately you will need Google Chrome to play around with it.

Science!

"Conclusion: Our results suggest that feet are impenetrable to the alcohol component of vodka. We therefore conclude that the Danish urban myth of being able to get drunk by submerging feet in alcoholic beverages is just that; a myth. The implications of the study are many though."

...yep, THIS is what science should be like. 

(or this:
)

Acoustic Night

Despite being less than musical (boo) I plucked up the courage to head over to some practically-strangers' house tonight (very nice strangers!) for an evening of guitar playing (plus a smattering of mandolin.  I think.).

It was pretty acoustic and folksy (so Dad wouldn't have appreciated), although there was some Once soundtrack.  And Bon Jovi.  And Flight of the Conchords.

Anyway, there was definitely some Bob Dylan...I (gasp!) managed to get us through half of "Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts", and the whole thing was started out with this little ditty:



It was quite fun...but now it is late, and I am behind on packing, for tomorrow I am headed HOME!

Darkness (or lack thereof)

Have I talked about this yet?

I'll go with no...

So it seems there were some meteors whistling around overhead these past few nights - the Geminids - that I was oblivious of...and if you live anywhere near civilization, you probably did too.  I've got a slide show to catch you up on what went down.

And here's some information on an organization that is less subversive than it sounds - the International Dark-Sky Association - whose mission statement is something I can really get behind ("to preserve and protect the nighttime environment and our heritage of dark skies through quality outdoor lighting")...although on the other hand, if it has anything to do with those crappy little LEDs like the one in my bathroom then perhaps not. 

Me, the Migraine, and a Number of Needles

It could just be the acupuncture talking, but it seems to me that ocular migraines - migraines with aura, that is - mark the times in my life that are big transitions.  I've only had two, so it's a small sample size, but they're probably the biggest transitions I've had?  The first was my freshman year of college, first semester, and it was during finals week.  I distinctly remember it being 1am and thinking I was going blind when everything started going fuzzy and spiky and colored, and then black.  And then I puked.  Good times.

Anyway the second migraine with aura I've had was when I moved into this my first apartment.

Oh right, did I mention that I had FIFTEEN NEEDLES stuck in me earlier this evening?  I was a veritable pincushion.  So a couple colleagues at work who are researching migraine had asked a few weeks ago if I wanted to give a hand with something they were working on, and I said yes, thinking it would be something small and immediate, but it turned out to be sitting in a machine while being zapped with electric current being channeled through some titanium pins firmly lodged in my skin.  Always something new.  Actually, I didn't even know I was getting any acupuncture until earlier this week, and then I didn't realize I was having multiple acupoints done until they were inserting the third needle...

Dramatics aside though, I'm glad I signed up to be their lab rat...I think it's good for researchers to submit themselves to what they intend to submit their subjects to (generally), and this definitely gave me a better idea of what acupuncture is and what sorts of sensations it evokes.  I don't think I would necessarily choose getting poked over taking drugs to fix a headache, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I was anticipating...and I have a thing about needles.  It was strangely calming...possibly because of the rush of endorphins, possibly because, like a moth mounted in a display case, it was painful to try and move.  Either way, it definitely gives me some more motivation for researching how such techniques affect people with chronic pain.  Which, conveniently, is what I'm doing.

There are photos of me as a pincushion but they're on the acupuncturist's phone so you will have to wait for the unnerving of skewered me.

Free Candy

Oh jeez I'm going back to Pittsburgh on Friday evening...and I can't get this song out of my head.

Eat Your Veg

There are a lot of crazy and exciting theories about the course of human evolution...'we started walking on two feet because we were trying to wade around in marshes' and 'we got bigger brains when we moved into cold weather' are classics...

But my new favorite theory is that people really got started on the road to success when they began to cook food over fire.  Not just any food, either...we're talking tubers!  You would think it would be meat, wouldn't you.  Apparently though figuring out how to roast root vegetables allowed early humans access to all sorts of delicious and nutritious things that can't be got at too easily without fire.  And some tongs, presumably.

Not long after evidence starts showing up that people are eating cooked tubers, brains get bigger, populations increase, and women grow to approximately the size of men...this last one is key to changes in human dynamics (they tell me), because in species where females are smaller than males, polygynous is the rule and societies are run by an alpha male.  When females and males are approximately the same size, however, pair bonding is prevalent and a more cooperative social system tends to flourish.

My guess is that the ladies figured out the fire and veg business while the men were off 'hunting' (or whatever they're calling it these days), and then traded their cooking skills for cooperation with the other household duties.  Prometheus and his fennel-stalk...so close and yet so far.

Cold Case

Word on the street has it that Amelia Earhart's last days may finally emerge from the mists of time...the final resting place of this distinguished "aviatrix" who went missing on July 2, 1937 during an attempt to circumnavigate the globe has long been debated, but now new evidence suggests that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, made an emergency landing on an uninhabited South Pacific island called Nikumaroro.

What evidence, you ask?  A finger bone...yes, that's all...still, phalanges are quite important things to be finding on uninhabited South Pacific islands, and so scientists, or discoverers, or whoever, are shipping the bone off as we speak to have it tested in some Oklahoma lab.

Anyway, here's a news article.  Keep checking back as the results come in.

And I seriously hope she wasn't eaten alive by giant crabs.

Xmas Festivities

Strangely, I've been invited to not one but two (and a half) Christmas parties this weekend...here are some things I review to get me in the spirit.

(1) A video about Christmas.


(2) A quote I've had for so long that I can no longer identify from whence it came.
Festivity Level 1: Your guests are chatting amiably with each other, admiring your Christmas-tree ornaments, singing carols around the upright piano, sipping at their drinks and nibbling hors d'oeuvres.
Festivity Level 2: Your guests are talking loudly – sometimes to each other, and sometimes to nobody at all, rearranging your Christmas-tree ornaments, singing "I Gotta Be Me" around the upright piano, gulping their drinks and wolfing down hors d'oeuvres.
Festivity Level 3: Your guests are arguing violently with inanimate objects, singing "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," gulping down other peoples' drinks, wolfing down Christmas tree ornaments and placing hors d'oeuvres in the upright piano to see what happens when the little hammers strike.
Festivity Level 4: Your guests, hors d'oeuvres smeared all over their naked bodies are performing a ritual dance around the burning Christmas tree. The piano is missing.

You want to keep your party somewhere around Level 3, unless you rent your home and own firearms, in which case you can go to Level 4. The best way to get to Level 3 is egg-nog.

So.

We shall see how the weekend progresses...

Hey Check Out This Book

You can look at more of it here.

It is called How To Tell The Birds From The Flowers And Other Wood-cuts.

And here is one page:

The Parrot and the Carrot one may easily confound,

They're very much alike in looks and similar in sound,

We recognize the Parrot by his clear articulation,

For Carrots are unable to engage in conversation.

Monumental

If you seek his monument, look around you.

...That's the inscription (loosely-translated from Latin) found on the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren in St. Paul's Cathedral in London.  As Wren was the architect of this cathedral, it's definitely accurate.  I think it's somewhat poetic, too...I'd like to go out like that (although I mayyy be in the wrong profession).

In addition to St. Paul's, he designed a chapel in Cambridge, the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, the Royal Observatory, and 51 churches in London after the Great Fire of 1666.  He also did some extensive renovations of Hampton Court and Kensington Palace.

Sir Christopher Wren was a real Renaissance man - in addition to these architectural feats, he studied medicine, mechanics, magnetism, astronomy, agriculture, ballistics, and bees (to name a few).

William Tell

Remember William Tell?  Who shot an apple off of his son's head?

What was up with that, anyway?

I checked the Wikipedia page and it appears to be entirely mythological (despite oddly specific dates being given...apparently the apple incident was said to have occurred on 18 November 1307, for instance).  William Tell, the legend goes, was a man from what is today Switzerland who defied a tyrant, was really good at archery, and became a vigilante assassin type.  His son's name was Walter.

For those who study these sorts of things, the story of William Tell has connections with similar Germanic, Danish, and Norse oral traditions (wonderfully, there is another Wikipedia page entitled "Shooting an apple off one's child's head" that will tell you all about it).  I suppose Americans these days aren't too interested in Mr. Tell and Son, but the Germans, French, and Swiss apparently find the story quite gripping...there are a lot of operas, essays, and insurrections held in the name of William Tell from these parts, it would appear.  One American was quite inspired by the Tell saga, though: his name was John Wilkes Booth, and this might explain the lack of popularity that William Tell experiences in my neck of the woods today.

A New Way of Juggling

by Paul Nougé - I cannot find a larger photo online...

Play Games, All Sorts

Here are some old games that children (and adults?) would have played in days of yore.

Prisoner's Base - basically capture the flag, but I don't think any flags are involved.

Jacks - there are some spiky things, made of metal or stone or bone, and a ball, or something, and you have to pick up the spiky things before the ball, or whatever, bounces more than once.  I had a book about it as a kid, so I know how to play very well.

Blindman's Bluff - kind of like Marco-Polo out of water, a version of tag where one person is blindfolded and the others by turns tease and elude him/her until someone is captured.

Buck, Buck - I don't get this one...someone is on someone else's back and is making them guess something, but I don't know what the point is, or how to win, and I seem to recall my grandfather telling me about this game and I think it sounded a lot more violent.

Illustrations of these and others can be found here.  (a.k.a. see if you can figure out what the heck is going on, because I definitely can't.)

Suburbs

...Interesting.

The future of music videos, perhaps?

A Different Type of Expression

If the eyes are the window to the soul, why are all of these facial expressions so defined by the mouth?

pout

sneer yeah okay "getty images" apparently owns every single image of Billy Idol sneering...but it couldn't be anyone else.

moue

simper

grimace

...and why can I not think of any positive facial expressions beyond smile?

Okay how about

beam

Ruzicka

I've found a new illustrator that I quite enjoy...by the name of Ruzicka.  Rudolph Ruzicka.  Coincidence?  You decide.

He worked primarily with woodblock engravings in the early twentieth century and depicted cityscapes and such of Chicago, New York, and Boston.  I suppose this sneaks him in at the end of the Golden Age of Illustration?

Here's one that strikes a chord:

Funny Words

One month left of this...try not to cry...

I am actually quite busy of late with work and appointments and whatnot, and so I am taking the easy route yet again and simply linking to another Wikipedia page on language.  Sorry.  Tomorrow will be better (maybe...I am going to a lecture on writing in c-shell after work so maybe not).

Here you go: Interesting English Words

And to whet your appetite (or attempt to get you to click the link)...

A large number of Modern English words spell the /ɪ/ or /aɪ/ sound with the letter y, such as rhythm, my, by, try, sky, why, wry, fry, gym, hymn, lynx, lynch, myth, pygmy, gypsy, myrrh, nymph, lymph, flyby, and syzygy.

Rhythms is the longest common word containing only y as a vowel. Gypsyfy, gypsyry, symphysy, nymphly, and nymphfly are as long or longer, but are not as common. The word twyndyllyngs, an archaic word for twin, has been cited by Guinness World Records as the longest, though it is not in OED.