nate is high
eap
March 29, 2008 at 1:18 pm (lit, rare_books)
So Edgar Allan Poe’s 200th birthday is coming up this next January. People keep calling us out of the blue to see if we know about is. (“Really? Wow, I didn’t think about that. That must be why the head of the department keeps going to all these Poe meetings to discuss happenings with this upcoming year….”)
This daguerreotype, called the Ultima Thule, is claimed by every book it reappears in to be missing (the original, that is). We have a daguerreotype like this. So I have been busy trying to figure out how you make a copy daguerreotype. So far, all I can figure out is that you can only make a copy by making a copy: sort of like taking a picture of a picture with a camera. Needless to say, the copy would look terrible. This copy is probably taken with another medium: lithography pulled from the plate or tintype or something, but maybe it is also a daguerreotype. In any case, you can see the frame from the original.
I am curious as to whether ours is the original. It’s a very good daguerreotype.
Incidentally, I find Poe stuff amusing. I don’t think he’s that great and I am entertained by how obsessed people are with him.
what are we going to do?
March 28, 2008 at 6:27 am (politics)
*I* have an idea! Let’s take some of the 4.75% city-wage tax and maybe staff some of public transit with plainclothes police officers! Imagine that (at least a decade after NYC started doing it, and their taxes are a lot less and they get a LOT more in return then we do)!
sneezles and teezles
March 26, 2008 at 9:04 pm (mpw)
Mary Polly Wimberley has been sneezing up a storm. She has sneezed and had a perpetually runny nose since I got her but the vet said in the fall that if she’s eating she’s ok. And she certainly has no problem eating.
I think it’s time to investigate health insurance. The cost of a pet is what’s kept me from ever getting one before, and even if she’s fine her whole life, end-of-life costs can be astronomical. Does anyone have any suggestions for policies out there?
why can’t this just stop?
March 19, 2008 at 9:19 am (Uncategorized)
I was here, somewhere near this Tribune pic, five years ago today.
My friend Katherine and I almost got arrested: the demonstration was much larger than anticipated and made its way to Lake Shore Drive from Michigan. We were just among the thousands swept upstream: the cops hemmed us in on Lake Shore and wouldn’t let anyone off but they were arresting people for being there. We managed to jump over a guard rail near the Monroe exit, I believe, and sneak away from the scene.
I can’t believe this stupid fucking war is still going on. I saw a Family Guy episode last night where Brian and Stewie sign up for the Army and go to Iraq. It was hilarious and totally true.
this made me laugh so hard I cried
March 15, 2008 at 7:22 pm (TV)
for some reason. It’s the only bit on the Web I could find with the spider on The Family Guy smoking in a movie theater and bothering everybody.
death penalty
March 14, 2008 at 8:05 pm (politics)
From time to time, I think about an acquaintance of mine who sang with me in Chicago. She’s an amazing woman. What I know about her, I heard from others: she of course would not toot her own horn and the circumstances out of which she came to be what she is now are too delicate to bring up with her.
Her father was a well-known philanthropist in the Chicago area. Her sister and brother-in-law were murdered in a well-publicized case in the ‘burbs back in the early ’90s. Her sister was pregnant at the time of the murder. I was told that the police, it being an affluent area, rounded up all the Mexican and black gardeners and workers in the area for questioning. The culprit turned out to be a rich white kid who was strung up on drugs with a criminal background. Supposedly, my acquaintance was so disgusted by this that she turned away from her corporate law firm and became a pro bono attorney.
Thoughts of her came up again tonight when I commented on a friend’s blog about feeling the biological clock ticking: my acquaintance in Chicago had her first kid around 41 and the second around 44. Both are quite happy and healthy boys.
In any case, here is her testimonial about the death penalty. I have to say, being neither for nor against the death penalty, it’s pretty convincing against.
more conference
March 14, 2008 at 7:16 pm (Uncategorized)
Anyway. This is the Astors’ ballroom in Newport. I went to that mansion as well as the Breakers, which is the most insane place I’ve ever visited in my life. I can’t explain it: you have to see it for yourself.
There were people from all different time periods in my life at the conference (Music Library Association) and I was sad I wasn’t able to make it before this year. It showed me that I need to find a way to go every year, even if it’s expensive. I also made a realization that if I don’t get a master’s in music I am going to be screwed. Let’s hope I get into Temple.
I met so many wonderful people and made good connections. I think I made it onto a few committees, although I am going to have to follow up and see what’s happening.
Man, oh man, professional development is expensive. It’s so depressing that everyone at the conference had all their expenses paid for by their institutions. The Free Library is outrageously cheap. Plus, I just had to join RBMS so now my dues are going to be over $300 a year for all my organizations. Luckily the library often pays rare book people to go to RBMS unlike the ALA conference. (About one a year–my boss will probably go this year.)
conference
March 14, 2008 at 7:07 pm (Uncategorized)
So much happened with my ankle that I completely forgot to talk about Newport! Here’s a pic of me with one of my bosses from undergrad, who was at the Music Library Association conference. She’s known me since I was 18!
yay, avgolemono
March 14, 2008 at 6:35 pm (music, rare_books, work)
I figured out how to make avgolemono. The last time I had it was when I lived in NYC: I swear, every Greek restaurant serves it there. They don’t seem to elsewhere.
So I am now in a walking boot and on crutches. I have been back at work for a week.
Paul is in DC, playing in this gig. He’s playing both violin and viola d’amore.
Paul was VERY excited: we found our volume of Diderot’s encyclopedias and it has the construction of musical instruments from that time in it (mid-1700s). Including a viola d’amore:
Last week, I decided to see if we had any books printed by Jenson in the RBD, and it looks like we have a few. However, it’s too complicated to figure out our shelf reading without help. So I looked in the incunabula case. I haven’t spent a lot of time looking there because other things were needing to be done or looked at. A number of them have original bindings that ain’t so purdy these days (think 500-year-old white vellum). But THEN, as I was peering around, I saw in the back of one of the cases a MASSIVE book. Probably about 3 1/2 feet tall or taller, bound with what looked like wooden planks with big metal studs. It looks like a drawbridge. It’s actually a medieval antiphonal (huge so everyone in the cathedral could see it and sing from it). Whoa. I can’t wait to take it out and look at it but can’t now because I might drop it. Sigh.
