Archive for May 2009
Come back to the raft agin, Huck honey…
from Sloshspot, Mark Twain Motivational Posters!
As we thank the Lord for Samuel Langhorne Clemens, we might recall that it was on this date in 1897 that Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith shot “The Burglar on the Roof ,” the first fiction film from the newly-formed Vitagraph motion picture company. Based in Flatbush in Brooklyn, Vitagraph flourished in the silent film era, introducing such stars as Rudolph Valentino and Norma Talmadge, and establishing the model for the studio system, before it was sold to Warner Bros. in 1925.
Vitagraph Studios, c. 1920 (source: Editors Guild)
The Annals of Semiology, Volume 666…
Signs of our times…
Many, Many more examples of the communications arts at SignSpotting.
As we erect our displays, we might recall that on this date in 1618, Johannes Kepler discovered the principal of planetary motion that he called “the harmonics law”… and that (however improbably) influenced Goethe in the development of his Theory of Color– a little-read and fundamentally-incorrect, but fascinating critique of Newton’s theories of light and color. In any case, a noble quest… for surely, as John Ruskin observed, “of all God’s gifts to the sighted man, color is holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.”
Say “cheesy”…
From the folks at Awkward Family Photos, an extraordinary collection of… well, exactly that:
There’s much, much more at AFP…
And to go directly to what is surely the weirdest family photo ever, click here.
As we strike our poses, we might recall that it was on this date in 1796 that the first smalllpox vaccination was administered by Edward Jenner, an English country doctor who had noticed that milkmaids who contracted cowpox were immune to smallpox. Jenner’s approach spread first across Europe, then the rest of the world, and served as a model for developing similar inoculations against polio, whooping cough, measles, tetanus, yellow fever, typhus, and hepatitis B, among other scourges.
The Annals of Pognology*…
* Pognology: the study of whiskers and associated lore
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Edwardian England was a milieu of many and often peculiar mania. Palmistry, numerology, and phrenology are well-known aspects of of the era. Less well known, was pogonomancy, or divination by beard reading, to understand character or to foretell the future.
As Will Schofield explains on his wonderful site A Journey Round My Skull, a leading example of the period,
…a 1912 pamphlet entitled Poets Ranked by Beard Weight, has become a rarity much prized by bibliophiles, and one that still stands out as a particular curiosity among the many colorful curiosities of the period. Its author, one Upton Uxbridge Underwood (1881 – 1937), was a deipnosophist, clubman, and literary miscellanist with a special interest in matters tonsorial. His masterpiece, The Language of the Beard, an epicurean treat confected for the delectation of fellow bon vivants, vaunts the premise that the texture, contours, and growth patterns of a man’s beard indicate personality traits, aptitudes, and strengths and weaknesses of character. A spade beard, according to Underwood’s theories, may denote audacity and resolution, for example, while a forked, finely-downed beard signifies creativity and the gift of intuition, a bushy beard suggests generosity, and so on…
Read on (here) for more on this scratchy fringe at the lip of World War I– and for the rankings of Rossetti and one’s other favorite poets!
As we reach for the trimming scissors, we might spare a memorial thought for James Robert Wills, who died on his date in 1975. In 1933, Bob Wills, as he became known, formed Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, incorporating jazz-swing influences into country and western– and as he attained fame, created the genre we now know as “western swing.”
Wills was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1968. He had believed his chances of winning so slim that he was backstage chatting with friends when the award was announced. When he was finally tracked down and brought on stage, he said, “I don’t usually take my hat off to nobody. But I sure do to you folks.”
Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys (source: Tulsa Oratorio Chorus)
All the news, regardless of fit…
More arresting headlines and graphics here.
As we consider what we’re losing as newspapers fail, we might recall that it was on this date in 1970 that Harry A. Blackmun was confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court. A Nixon appointee, Blackmun authored the Roe vs. Wade decision, for which he became (in)famous. He was more generally known for consistently casting votes on the side of the individual and individual liberties when pitted against government authority…
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