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| Near the Multi-Sport Facility on Penn State’s campus. |
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| A sign nearby warned of falling ice from the roof of the building. |
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| In our backyard -- I loved how the ice coated these leaves, and as the day warmed up the ice separated from them. |
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Ice Storm
Boston to sell off entire contents of its print shop
via boingboing“The city of Boston has shut down its 78-year-old printing office to save money, and they're auctioning off 200 lots of astounding old print-shop junk. This is a potential bonanza for fine-art printers, zinesters, and people whose idea of fun is historical recreation of pre-digital printing techniques (green eyeshade optional). The auction is being held on Feb 24 at 11AM eastern and will be simultaneously conducted live and digitally.”
Read the rest here.
Amanda Rebuck Howerter
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| My mother passed along a book that was my maternal great-grandmother’s . |
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| She would have been about 12 years old when she signed this. |
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| A great ampersand from the back cover. |
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| Although this photo was taken in 1942, this is how I remember her. She was about 63, and sitting on the front porch of her home in Pitman, PA. |
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| Amanda with my great-grandfather George Monroe Howerter in 1942. |
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| My great-grandmother Howerter passed away in 1965. She would have been about 86 at the time. My only memory of her was when she was on her death bed. I would have been 3 at the time. I remember going upstairs into her bedroom with my mother and Amanda was in a very large bed. She seemed tired, but was very happy to see me. I was wearing this Ratfink ring and was probably fiddling with it. She called me over to her bedside and asked to see it. I tried to explain to her what it was, and I recall that though she didn't really understand what I was saying -- I was 3 and probably didn't speak very clearly or make any sense -- she listened intently, smiled, and said something to the effect that she was so glad that I shared my special ring with her. |
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| Today, though the ring part is long gone missing, the Ratfink holds a special place in my typecase display. |
More ampersands can be found here.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies
Follow-up to an earlier post on Peter RabbitI purchased this copy of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies almost twenty years ago from the local library’s sale shelf.
I love the ampsersand, as well as the decoration inside of the “O’s” in Flopsy and Potter on the cover.
This edition is dated form 1937, and though the cover is in quite bad shape, the pages are lovingly worn by generations of readers.
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| This always makes me sad, and I almost feel obligated to purchase these books to save them from a landfill. |
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| How many children’s books contain words like soporific? |
Reverse Mixologist: 1920
via shorpyWashington, D.C., circa 1920. U.S. Treasury, Internal Revenue Department. Measuring the alcohol content of various libations and tonics at the start of Prohibition. National Photo Company Collection glass negative.
View full size here.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Seven Squared
Some links and ramblings on forty-nine:Interpreting The I Ching - Hexagram 49 Ko
Keyphrase: Revolution.
Formed By The Trigrams: Lake over Fire.
verview: Ko appears at a time of potential radical transformation. Although fast, decisive, action is often the best way this is not necessarily so when Ko appears. Timing is crucial. Any action needs to be thoroughly thought out and based on very solid foundations. Action should only be taken if absolutely necessary. Resist the temptation to act impetuously as that will undermine your efforts and quite possibly have a negative affect.
. . .
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 49 (Addressed to the Unidentified Young Man)
Against that time, if ever that time come,
When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
Call'd to that audit by advised respects;
Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass
And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye,
When love, converted from the thing it was,
Shall reasons find of settled gravity,--
Against that time do I ensconce me here
Within the knowledge of mine own desert,
And this my hand against myself uprear,
To guard the lawful reasons on thy part:
To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,
Since why to love I can allege no cause.
Here is what Shakespeare says, on the surface, to the young man: Suppose a time comes when my flaws become annoying to you and, as a result, you evaluate our friendship–weighing the pluses and minuses as a bookkeeper does. Suppose a time comes when you walk by, hardly even noticing me, because your regard for me is no longer what it was and you have settled upon reasons to break off our relationship. Well, if such a time does come and our relationship ends, I will still hold you in fond memory and, like a soldier, defend your reputation against anyone who criticizes you for your action. I will defend you by pointing out my faults, noting that they are good reasons for you to go your own way. With all my defects, I will not be able to make a good case for you to stay.
. . .
Atomic Number 49: Indium; InA rare soft silvery metallic element; occurs in small quantities in sphalerite. Its major uses are in low-melting-point alloys that replace mercury in thermometers, and in flat screen televisions. Indium was discovered in 1863 and named for the indigo blue line in its spectrum that was the first indication of its existence in zinc ores, as a new and unknown element.
. . .
True indigo in its spectrum, I like that.
Official Green Hornet Agent
Morgans Hotel Inspiration
via notcotMorgans Hotel Penthouse in NYC leaves The School Of Life quote postcards on your pillow. Fun, inspiring, and nice clean typography. Makes me smile.
See them here.
Matches
via Design Observer, John Foster’s Accidental Mysteries, 01.30.11“Accidental Mysteries is an online curiosity shop of extraordinary things, mined from the depths of the online world and brought to you each week by John Foster, a writer, designer and longtime collector of self-taught art and vernacular photography. “I enjoy the search for incredible, obscure objects that challenge, delight and amuse my eye. More so, I enjoy sharing these discoveries with the diverse and informed readers of Design Observer. All images link to their original source and are copyright their original owners.”
See the rest of John Foster’s Accidental Mysteries here, link to original image here.
TED: Jake Shimabukuro
This is a follow-up to an earlier post of mine;Jake Shimabukuro was recorded at TED2010, February 2010, in Long Beach, CA playing his cover of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Watch it here, duration: 7:08
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Bluebirds!
On our travels today, we saw at least two male bluebirds. Pretty exciting that we saw some of the earliest arrivals of the annual spring pilgrimage to the Northeast.
Business Cards: Page II
It was an early morning in 1979, probably around 7:15 a.m. I was walking across the newly completed Dorcas Street bridge in Lewistown on my way to high school. Lightly masking taped to the bridge was this card. I stopped in my tracks and looked around me. It felt like I was being watched as a removed the card. I quickly tucked the card in my pocket and continued to school, still feeling that I was being watched all day long.
Though not specifically listed on The Southern Poverty Law Center’s site, Mifflin and her neighboring counties have their share of hate groups.
. . .
Center card: “Bettie the Bookie”—Would anyone really go to have their legitimate bookkeeping done by someone who refers to themselves as a bookie? I like that it lists among her skills, Girl Friday. There is a term you do not hear anymore. Below her card, is “The Killers Inc” which I assume is an extermination service. The guy with the gun seems just a little too happy.
Click on the image for a larger view of the cards.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Image of the Day: Pterodactyl Ice
In our travels today we came across several of these ice-covered grape vines; they reminded me of mini-pterodactyls in flight.
First Editions of Peter Rabbit
via The Cataloguer's Desk“One of the most popular children’s books of all time, The Tale of Peter Rabbit has sold more than 45 million copies over the past century. As well as being a beloved children’s story, the book’s publication history is very interesting, with two private printings appearing before the first commercial edition. ”
Read the rest, and see more images from the private printings, here. Perhaps it is just the angled view of the pictured spread, but the expressions on the rabbits faces reminds me very much of Rosemary Wells’ series of books featuring Max the rabbit.
BBC’s Dimensions
via veryshortlist“According to its creators at the London-based BERG firm, Dimensions is a Google Map–based ‘experimental prototype’ designed for the BBC’s always-expanding, ever-impressive website. ‘We want to bring home the human scale of events and places in history,’ the designers write. ‘How far would the Titanic stretch down your street?’ You can pick dozens of structures, or other space-based things or phenomena, which are split into nine categories—Space, Ancient Worlds, Cities in History, WWII, and so forth—and lay them over your own address, or any other. Some, like the area affected by the Chernobyl cloud, are unfathomably large—much bigger than we imagined them to be before plugging our hometowns into BERG’s prototype.”
Visit the Very Short List here; the BBC’s Dimensions site here.
Topps Nutty Initial Stickers, 1967
via we love typographyNorman Saunders’ original paintings for the stickers, high resolution version here.
I remember having a few of these stickers as a child. I think that they were only like about an inch tall, came on a sheet with several others, and were in a pack of trading cards.
Cire Trudon Stink Bombs
via notcotRead all about Cire Trudon, the oldest candle company in the world, and their stink bombs here; lovely photography at the site.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Business Cards: Page I
What strikes my fancy? Font use, color choice, kitschy clip art, poor design, etc. I do not think business cards will ever go away from the landscape of America, but it certainly is a dying breed of communication.
My partner in life scanned these in for me a while back, and I’m glad they were not lost in RGBisMe’s Great Self-Created Blog Disaster.
Of note, middle card, third column: Rick Williams was the District Justice that married us in December 1984. The magenta cow above it just makes me smile. Click on the image for a larger view of the cards.
*P.S. I try not to use the “F” word nowadays, it leads to far too many tangled issues with complications beyond belief.
The Adventures of the Muddle-headed Wombat
via BibliOdyssey“[S]ome delightful scratchy illustrations from the 1962 book by Ruth Park, The Adventures of the Muddle-headed Wombat. The illustrator for this book was Noela Young.”
See more of illustrations from the book here. Nothing beats wombat illustrations from 1962. Nothing.
All The World’s A Page
via ministry of type“Once upon a time we asked ourselves a peculiar question: could you fit an entire literary work onto a single poster? Would it still be legible? What would it reveal about the hidden structures and rhythms of the text? . . .”
Visit the site, here, to see all four posters in the series so far. Image is Homer’s The Iliad two-color offset print (thunderous black / Aegean blue), printed on 120g Alster Werkdruck, typeset in 3.25pt Malaga.
Geometric Pattern
“Sheet of paper with hand-painted blue edge and crisp embossed border by Dobbs, London. Circa 1820s. This page shows how a complex shape can be created from simpler shapes working only with a compass. A companion piece on the same paper bears the watermark ‘J Budgen 1821.’ ”
Visit the site here to explore more ephemera.
100 Tips #46: Invert Your Mac’s Display Colors
via cult of mac“Here’s a fun one. Whatever you’re doing on your Mac, from any application or any document, try hitting all these buttons together: Control+Option+Command+8. Bam! Your screen colors are inverted. Don’t worry, you haven’t broken anything, and this isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. To switch things back, hit the same key combination again: Control+Option+Command+8. The same command toggles this feature on and off. The inverted colors feature is one of the accessibility tools that are built into OS X (to see more of them, go to System Preferences and click on Universal Access).”
Read the rest here.
Word On The Street: Photos Of People With Words
“Photographer Richard Nagler writes in his new book, Word On The Street, that in the late '70s, he was wandering the streets of Oakland, Calif., working on another project:
‘I came across an old building ... that had the single word TIME bolted to it in large letters. ... As I looked up, an elderly woman gazed out a window near TIME, but she quickly closed the curtain when, I thought, she saw me across the street with my camera. I was struck by the power of the scene I had just witnessed, and frustrated at not having been able to record it on film.’
Nagler went back to that very spot several times over the next few weeks trying to capture the moment. "The scene evoked in me thoughts of mortality and the relentless passages of time and life. The juxtaposition of the person and the word held a quiet poetic beauty in its pathos and sadness."
Read the rest here, see more on Nagler's website.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Xavier Antin’s Just in Time, or A Short History of Production
via printerestingI’m pretty sure that this was one of the last posts in my previous blog, but I wanted to include it in the new version as well.
“Like a waterfall of printing technologies, Xavier Antin’s Just in Time, or a Short History of Production is an installation that was used to produce a book about production. Each of the four printers is from a different era and each is set to print one of the CMYK colors. The stencil duplicator does magenta, the spirit duplicator does cyan, the laser printer does black, and the inkjet does yellow. The resulting book is like a misprinted dream (or nightmare depending on how compulsive you are about registration).”
Find out more about it here.
George VI: The Reluctant King
“The last king of England (so far), George VI was an unlikely monarch, ascending to the most high-profile throne in the world when his elder brother, Edward VIII, abdicated in December 1936. The tale of his kingship -- and of his struggle to overcome a lifelong stammer while inspiring Britons during the bleak early years of World War II -- is told in the Oscar-nominated 2010 film, The King’s Speech. . . ”
Visit Life here to read and see more about George VI. Official site of The King’s Speech, a movie I highly recommend.
Typefaces of the World
via swissmiss“Typefaces of the World is a poster Shelby White created to show the typefaces that are most commonly used in a lot of today’s design. The poster includes information for each typefaces such as the year it was made, the location and the typographer. These 50 typefaces were chosen based on popularity and usefulness in present design.”
Read more here.
Sleeping Protects Memories From Corruption
via wired“Replaying memories while people are awake leaves their memories subject to tinkering. But reactivating memories during sleep protects them from interference.”
Read the rest here.
Jake Shimabukuro: ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ On The Ukulele
via npr“Bohemian Rhapsody is high on the list of songs least likely to be covered by a solo ukuleleist. Yet when Jake Shimabukuro delicately yet assertively plucks out the opening notes of the quasi-operatic, hard-rocking power ballad, the 34-year-old Hawaiian is clearly out to show that there are no limits in the world of covers, and that even a seeming stunt can sound both musical and emotive.”
Read more about Shimabukuro, and listen to his version here.
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