I have a good feeling about 2009.
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31Dec
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30Dec
While I decided that I wasn’t going to do any “Best of 2008″ lists for this page, I do have a reflection on someone who died this year. It’s hard to resist mentioning William F. Buckley one last time before he fades out of memory.
Buckley is the mind behind the conservative resurgence that culminated with the Reagan Revolution. Through his magazine the National Review (my first subscription by the way) and his Sunday television program, Firing Line, Buckley was a bottomless pit of conservative ideas and arguments.
He seemed like a quality gentleman despite most of his politics and was one of the only conservatives (George Will is another) I’ve respected and enjoyed hearing from. His vocabulary was legendary; he was ruthless and considered in his debating style. The sensation I got watching him rhetorically corner an opponent was like watching a lion take down a gazelle in a “cycle of life” movie. The great American conversation, the centerpiece of our democracy, is that less richer with his death.
Buckley’s death just months before the drumming the Republican Party took in November could together, in the annals of history, be taken as a symbol of the end of late 20th century conservatism. We will have to wait and see what Obama-era conservatism looks like.
I leave you with this minute from a debate between Buckley and Gore Vidal in Chicago in 1968. You should watch all of the footage if you can find it; this debate is one of the finest political exchanges in modern American history.
Please share your memories of William F. Buckley in the comments.
Tags: Gore Vidal, William Buckley
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29Dec
One of the main objectives of this blog is to share things I find with you. As a modern anachronist, you must agree that there is nothing more fun than digging around through old things whether it be housewares or comic books. I started this blog with the assumption that a series called “Found” was the cornerstone. “Found” will come in many shapes and sizes here but it will always be where I highlight the books, antiques, collectibles and stuff that I find.
I will provide links where you can buy this stuff if possible.
I’m going to get us started with books because I just had a good run of books. I did a lot of holiday traveling this past week but, amidst all the packing, present-wrapping and rushing to train stations, I still made time for bookstores. (It helped that we missed our train and had an hour to kill in New Haven.)
Alexander Hamilton Consise Biography by Broadus Mitchell / Always wanted to read more about Hamilton and, since I’m on a Revolutionary War kick these days, it seemed like a good time to scoop up this handsome, good quality 1st edition(!) with the Plasti-Kleer cover.
Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography and Other Writings / My second junk paperback of this. I feel like I’ll really enjoy reading this one day. Why do I keep putting this one off?
Folk Painters of America by Robert Bishop / Just because. Most of the prints are B/W unfortunately but more Plasti-Kleer!
American Lion by Jon Meacham / Jon Meacham is, for me, intolerable. I really find him arrogant and obnoxious. But the subject matter of this book is irresistible: Andrew Jackson. I read Remini’s biography of Jackson in college and loved it. I hope to relive it but will Jon Meacham’s voice be in my head the whole time?
American Creation by Joseph Ellis / The ideas of the revolution and the Federalist period is what I really should be reading about. I’m reading this next. My friend Allen raves about it and I trust his judgment on this. I’m really looking forward to it.
Edgar Allen Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym / Standard penguin paperback with an introduction by someone awesome and the token free short stories that are supposedly relevant. I had to get this because it’s appropriate to a - uh - art project that I’ve been working on. Okay! I’ve been role-playing the Lovecraft adventure, Beyond the Mountains of Madness, for over a year. Arthur Gordon Pym is tied into it.
The Agile Rabbit Book of Historical and Curious Maps / Doesn’t that title make you drool? The book lives up to its name. I had never heard of it before I found it displayed prominently at a Barnes and Noble. This is not a history of maps; it is a book for designers. The focus is on the aesthetic of maps. Bonus CD with high- and low-res versions of every map means I will likely be annoying with the maps in the next couple of months.
Check out this French-language map of the Pacific. Australia is New Holland. How cool; I had no idea.
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28Dec
I went for a walk with my family today in the paths at the foot of Sleeping Giant, north of New Haven, Connecticut. There has been an uncommonly normal winter with lots of snow. But today was up in the high 40s and humid. The sudden change made for a very foggy day in the woods and over the frozen parts of the ponds.
The path was a layer of fallen leaves covered with puddles giving out to patches of mud and stone. In some areas, all of the snow had melted away.
But there was otherwise a good three or four inches of wet crunchy snow. Manmade structures appear that you couldn’t see during the summer now with all the leaves gone.
Not only are all the bushes bare, but the snowcover equalizes everything just leaving the shape of the landscape. Stone patterns such as walls (and one that I believed to be the foundation for a barn or farm ) pop up everywhere.
The only greenery left out here is the mountain laurels. They have about a quarter of their leaves left.
I found deer tracks in the snow. No big deal, I know. Deer are everywhere. But give me this; I’m from the city.
Just one more picture so you can see how foggy and white the day was. The air was so still and the fog was so thick in some places, it was like breathing near the humidifier.
I’ll probably write about the paths around Sleeping Giant now and again as we have family right there at the entrance to the trails. You won’t believe it in the summertime.
PS - Sorry for all the reddish-pink in my photographs. Turns out one of the first things to go on an aging iPhone is the camera’s quality.
Tags: Connecticut, fog, Sleeping Giant, snow
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24Dec
My brother and I put up my mother’s Christmas tree on Sunday but we had the damnedest time getting it straight. I knew the problem was that he had picked out a terrible tree. He knew the problem was my inability to put the screws into the trunk right. But after putting our fraternal instincts aside and an hour of tweaking, standing back, tweaking, repeating, we realized that neither of us was the problem. It was the tree stand.
We were using probably the most popular type of tree stand on the market…
You can get these things for ten bucks on a New York street corner. You have to assemble the pieces because it folds up for easy storage. And it’s made of aluminum. My brother and I realized the problem was that our tree had bent the tree stand; the bowl was touching the floor. Our tree was like a weeble wobble.
My brother then remembered that we had “the old tree stand” still stowed out in the garage. We weren’t sure why it was up there. It must have been broken. It wasn’t broken. The old tree stand was unused maybe because it’s reputation depreciated with time. It was bad because it was old?
The old stand is made of stainless steel and solidly built. (No parts would slip out of place because I missed something during assembly.) Made in Michigan. We unfolded the legs, dropped the tree in, it stood up perfectly straight and we screwed it in place. Perfect…
You can still get Christmas tree stands as good as this old gem. But it’s going to cost you sixty bucks.
In the age of big box marts and discount shopping, we have chosen to forego quality in some places. What used to be made of wood is made of metal. What used to be made of metal is made of plastic. We skimp on quality when we see those low prices. (One of the reasons inflation has remained so manageable for two decades is our lowered expectations. Something I’ll talk more about later.) It’s why there’s lead in our toys and coal slag in our cat food. And it’s why a good Christmas tree stand is hard to find.
The truth may be that, in 2008, Christmas tree stands are supposed to cost sixty bucks. That’s the price we should expect to pay for a Christmas tree stand. When my brother and I are struggling to get the tree up for hours, well, it’s because we were only willing to shell out eleven bucks for the aluminum stand. We got what we paid for.
I’m glad this business with the tree stand came up; it was a perfect opportunity for me to raise the issue of quality. What do we consider a quality life? Can we raise our expectations? What are the obstacles to a quality life? One of my themes for this blog next year will be quality.
Oh, and do yourself a favor. Go and order one of those stainless steel Christmas tree stands. You will thank yourself for it this time next year.
Tags: Christmas tree stands
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22Dec
When I first went overseas, I was struck that foreign soda aisles were bare of root beer. Which goes to something I’ve always said: When you go away, you learn more about where you’re from. Root beer is a distinctly American (and probably Canadian) soft drink.
The frosty, foamy mug of root beer holds a special place in America’s heart. So does the root beer float. Root beer has found its way into our chewing gum. One of my favorite candies as a kid was the root beer barrel.
Root beer was first made centuries ago during the Colonial Era of America. I’ve found very little about how and when it was first made but if I learn anything, I’ll share. Root beer stayed around in some form through the revolution and the industrial revolution until Charles Hires popularized the drink in the late 19th century. It became a national staple when other sodas like colas became popular around World War Two.
The flavor of modern root beer comes from wintergreen. House Greydragon has discovered a list of ingredients (with country of origin) for Hires Root Beer in 1922.
Birch Bark - United States, New England
Dog Grass – Germany
Ginger – China
Hires special plant
Juniper Berries – Italy
Licorice – Russia
Sugar – Cuba
Wintergreen – United States, North Carolina
Chirreta – India
Ginger – Africa
Ginger – Jamaica
Hops – United States, Northwest
Licorice – Spain
Sarsaparilla – Honduras
Vanilla – Mexico
Yerba Mate, Brazil(Yerba Mate. That stuff is all the rage right now because it’s a stimulant that suppresses appetite.)
I believe there is some confusion about the ingredients of Root Beer so, if you’re a bigger root beer expert than I, please correct me. Historically, the main ingredient of Root Beer was sassafras until 1960 when the FDA banned it for the presence of safrole, a carcinogen. (Seems like a no-brainer that there would be safrole in sassafras that’s in sarpapirilla.) House Greydragon, on the other hand, has only ever seen one brand with the ingredient. 1960 may not have been that big a year for Root Beer after all.
Root beer has always been sweetened with cane sugar but that’s an exception today; you really need to go after the craft brews for a cane soda. Today, most root beer is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. Diet root beers are generally sweetened with aspartame. Root beer is almost never caffeinated.
Today, there are at least 80 root beer companies still in production: from the mass production brands of Dr. Pepper Snapple Group and PepsiCo to smaller outfits like Jones and Sioux City. My favorite root beer right now is the crisp and fresh Boylan root beer.
Tags: Root beer
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19Dec
The snow has started here in New York. Here’s what it looks like from 22 floors up, what I estimate to be 264 feet (without a 13th Floor, plus a tall lobby).
Those of us who work in skyscrapers are familiar with the phenomenon of snow blowing up, over and in circles. I’ll try and get video of it some day. This snow, however, is too wet for that and is falling straight down.
Lastly, as a friend just joked, the best part of snow from a Manhattan skyscraper is you can’t see New Jersey. (Sorry Jersey.)
Tags: snow
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17Dec
Folks take different approaches to launching new blogs. Some will jump on blogspot and start writing on day one. Others might select a template from the hundreds that wordpress, for example, has to offer. And other, like myself, devote a lot of energy to personalizing the look of their sites.
When I decided some weeks ago that, with the election over, I was going to get back into blogging, I really wanted to do it professionally. I wanted to blog… and look good doing it. But when I embarked on customizing this blog, I found myself selecting a design not for YOU, dear reader… but for myself.
So before I start prating on day after day, let me share a little about how the look of this site has come together.
I wanted to attract modern anachronists. You are everywhere. Sure, you have your iPhone and your facebook page; but you are also grounded in our traditions. You are interested in gardening, folk art, furniture, nature walks, philosophy and - for those of you who know me - our progressive political traditions.
To appeal to you modern anachronists, I thought of using for the banner one of a few photographs I took up in the Hudson Valley (near Hyde Park) back in the spring. Particularly, I had in mind this picture of an old field stone wall.
When I think of Dutchess County, I always think of these mortarless layers of field stone that seem to be everywhere, lining desolate dirt roads and shopping plazas alike. This wall was probably defining the reaches of an old estate or property line.
I think I have a personal connection to field stone walls because of the one my father laid around our house when I was a kid. I’ll have to dig up a picture of that for you some time soon. Moving on…
I also had these two photos that captured my interest because of those glares. Warm colors but a reminder that you can’t have this picture without someone using a camera (a digital one in this case.)
Lots of great color.
That little escape nestled in the woods down there was off-limits to us by the way. There was a young couple, um, making use of it when we showed up. From all the carved hearts and arrows in the trees on the path, this was a lover’s lane.
Then I had these other seemingly more generic photos. Rolling hills of the Hudson Valley. Again, these warm colors. Eh.
Lots of anachronist. Short on the modern.
I left it to my friend Jim to make the banner and invited him to do whatever he liked. And I was right to leave it to him. It came out very nicely. Having that rail bridge (the Poughkeepsie Bridge about which I’ll write more soon) extending out of the woods and over the river is pure Americana to me. Progress and beauty.
And that’s when I realized, having loaded Jim’s banner into my site, the look of this site is more important to me than it is to you. The “place” where I will write will be topped by a relaxing and subdued picture like this with an autumn color scheme to match it. It will keep me focused and force me to hone a voice of temperance.
So, anyway, I just wanted to share with you some of the thought that went into this blog before I get started. I hope you come back quite often.
PS - About that autumn color scheme? No, I’m not color blind. That sky blue everywhere will go away as soon as I learn style sheets. I hope the offensive blue-olive clash won’t scare you away forever.
Tags: banner art, Dutchess County, Hudson Valley, Hyde Park
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03Dec
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03Dec
This is a test.
