Posts Tagged ‘Orange’
“Art is the only way to run away without leaving home”*…
As we prepare ourselves for pumpkin carving, we might pause to recall an era in which other fruits were ornamentally hewn. As a 1905 issue of American Homes and Gardens magazine put it, “it is surprising what can be done with the conventional orange.”
More table decorating tips at “The Art of Ornamental Orange Peeling.”
* Twyla Tharp
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As we sharpen our knives, we might pause to recall that it was on this date in 2008 that the “Sichuan Guangyuan citrus maggot event” went public; a huge portion of the region’s citrus (ornages and tangerines) were found to be afflicted by small maggot-like worms. The episode is noteworthy as an relatively early example of the power of Chinese social media: though the government did its best to support continued citrus sales by censoring any news media mention of the outbreak, BBS forums and SMS messages carried the news– sufficiently successfully (citrus sales in Beijing plummeted) that the official outlets had to relent and report the news, along with assurances that the government was responding…
“A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes”*…
Scene 3: whoops!
In an earlier post, I laid out a history of “banana peel” (and orange peel) humor, extending back to the early 1800s. Orange peel-slipping humor dates to at least 1817 and banana peel jokes to 1858. Banana peel jokes were told on stage in 1890, and Vaudeville performers may have performed banana-slipping gags on stage in the early 1900s.
When I wrote the earlier post, the earliest banana slipping gag on film that I found was from 1913. As it turns out, however, the banana slipping gag was already so old and tired by 1912, that advice for aspiring screenwriters cautioned against using it for cheap laughs…
The history of the banana peel gag, at “Peels in Film, Song and Poetry.”
* Ludwig Wittgenstein
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As we watch our steps, we might recall that it was on this date in 1956, at a party in Cambridge, England, that Fulbright Scholar Sylvia Plath met poet Ted Hughes.
…the one man in the room who was as big as his poems, huge… I screamed in myself, thinking, Oh, to give myself crashing, fighting, to you.
Her wish was granted; they were married later that same year. Plath killed herself, in London, in 1963, several weeks after The Bell Jar came out; in 1981 her Collected Poems (edited by Hughes, who oversaw her posthumous publications) won the Pulitzer Prize.
All that glitters…
In the age of Photoshop and Auto-Tune, it’s no real surprise to find that icons don’t actually look nor sound as they do in the media for which they are adored (see, e.g., here and here). Still, as this Britney Spears feed reminds us, the reality can be jarring…
Your correspondent has done his best to confirm the legitimacy of the loop. While there’s (understandably) been no confirmation from Ms. Spears’ camp, it’s included here, as he can find no meaningful refutation… rather, mostly just comments expressing no surprise whatsoever that things are not as they are meant to seem. The “T-Pain effect,” as it’s come to be known, is now so widespread (again, see– and listen– here) that it seems to be taken for granted. Indeed, readers can download a T-Pain iPhone app that will do a similar job for them… all of which must be a frustrating state of affairs for performers like Billy Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones, who actually do their own singing, unaided and beautifully.
In any case, it’s a (painful) reminder that too often these days, what glitters isn’t even nearly gold… indeed, too often it’s tin.
As we reach for the earplugs, we might recall that it was on this date in 2002 (in anticipation of the first anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon) that the TSA “Threat Level” was raised to Orange. It bounced between Orange (high) and Yellow (elevated) from then until mid-August, 2006, when it returned to Orange– where it remains to this day.
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