Archive for September 2013
Squatch Watch…
click here (and again) for larger version
Every now and then a dataset comes along that just has to be mapped. This is one of those times.
Bigfoot. Sasquatch. Skookum. Yahoo. Whatever you call it, the towering man-like ape is a folklore staple. From stories of Yeti in the Himalayas to Wildmen in the Pacific Northwest, people have been talking about and trying to find the creature for ages. Occasionally, some form of evidence – like Patterson’s famous 1967 film – emerges and either feeds our fascination or gets dismissed as a hoax. In either case, it’s easy to see why believers search for proof and skeptics remain doubtful.
Through archival work and reports submitted directly to their website, the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization has amassed a database of thousands of sasquatch sightings. Each report is geocoded and timestamped. Occasionally, even photos and videos of the alleged evidence are included. I’m not quite sure how I stumbled across this, but I’m glad I did.
After crawling the data and converting it to a more convenient format, I mapped and graphed all 3,313 sightings that were reported from 1921 to 2013…
Read Josh Steven‘s fascinating notes on “92 Years of Bigfoot Sightings in the U.S. and Canada” (and do browse the comments…)
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As we we ask Nessie if she’s seen him, we might recall that it was on this date in 1836 that HMS Beagle called at the Island of St. Michael’s (north of the Azores) for letters, then sailed for England. The ship’s naturalist, Charles Darwin, did not sight Bigfoot.
“From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it…”*
If the diagram above makes sense to you, you may have succumbed to one of the most pernicious perils of our time. Check the list of symptoms at “25 Signs You’re Addicted To Books.”
And on that subject, enjoy this lionizing of libraries…
* Groucho Marx
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As we keep up with the jones, we might spare a thought for Theodor Seuss Geisel, AKA “Dr. Seuss”; he died on this date in 1991. After a fascinating series of early-career explorations, Geisel settled on a style that created what turned out to be the perfect “gateway drug” to book addiction for generations of nascent young readers.
The more that you read,
The more things you will know.
The more that you learn,
The more places you’ll go.
– I Can Read With My Eyes Shut! (1978)
On the heels of Fashion Week…
Parisian fashion designed to protect against bombardments experienced during the “siege of Paris”, featured in Album of the Siege: a collection of caricatures published in the Charivari during the siege of Paris (ca.1871) by Cham and Daumier
The annual occupation of mid-town Manhattan by couturiers and their cohorts– Fashion Week– ended earlier this month. As New York returns to normalcy, it’s an opportunity to reflect on the sartorial splendors of times gone by…
“Habit d’Orlogeur”, from Nicolas II Larmessin’s 17th century series of engravings depicting fanciful costumes relating to the different professions, featured in Claudius Saunier’s Die Geschichte der Zeitmesskunst (1903)
Visit Public Domain Review to take “A little wander down the catwalk of time…”
Special bonus from National Geographic: “As Fashion Week Ends, Pondering the Origins of Clothes.”
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As we try it on for size, we might recall tat it was on this date in 1964 that the Paris Opera unveiled its newly-painted ceiling, the work of artist Marc Chagall. Andre Malraux, the French minister of culture at the time, had commissioned Chagall to design a new ceiling for the Paris Opera after seeing Chagall’s sets and costumes for an earlier Paris Opera production of Daphnis et Chloe. The ceiling was unveiled during a performance of the same Daphnis et Chloe. (Chagall was just getting warmed up: In 1966, as a gift to the city that had sheltered him during World War II, he painted two vast murals for New York’s Metropolitan Opera House.)
Characteristic characteristics…
Just a sample of flickerdart‘s helpful tips in “How To Recognize The Artists In Paintings.”
[TotH to Richard Kadrey]
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As we develop our discernment, we might recall that it was on this date in 1926 that James Joyce and Thomas Wolfe took the same tour of the Waterloo battlefield in Belgium. While Wolfe was too shy to approach Joyce, he recalled him as “very simple, very nice.”
Joyce and Wolfe
“See you later, alligator…”*
The original Alligator Farm dates back to 1906 and was located in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The Farm was started by Joseph ‘Alligator Joe’ Campbell and Francis Victor, Sr. The two men amassed a small fortune by capturing and putting on display hundreds of reptiles.
In 1907, Alligator Joe met Francis Earnest, a one-time mining camp cook, and they decided to move the exhibit to Southern California by railcar. They hung a banner over the side of the train advertising the Los Angeles Alligator Farm and unloaded the animals at the corner of Mission Road and Lincoln Park Avenue in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. Earnest already owned the Ostrich Farm next door…
Micechat blogger Samland tells a tale of tails… of Hollywood and reptiles…
The full story– and lots more photos– at “A Story With Bite – Remembering the California Alligator Farm“…
* Bill Haley
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As we rethink that handbag choice, we might spare a thought for Earle Dickson; he died on this date in 1961. Dickson, concerned that his wife, Josephine Knight, often cut herself while doing housework and cooking, devised a way she could easily apply her own dressings. He prepared ready-made bandages by placing squares of cotton gauze at intervals along an adhesive strip and covering them with crinoline. In the event, all his wife had to do was cut off a length of the strip and wrap it over her cut. Dickson, who worked as a cotton buyer at Johnson & Johnson, took his idea to his employer… and the Band-Aid was born.
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