Jan 28 2012
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Jan 27 2012
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“As he slept upstairs on September 8th of 1908, two young burglars entered Mark Twain’s home, took an entire sideboard into the garden and proceeded to break it open. They were eventually caught by police with a stash of silverware. The next day, with the help of an aspiring young artist named Dorothy Sturgis, Twain produced the following note for the attention of future burglars. From that day on, it was permanently attached to his front door.” From Letters of Note.
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“ Erard… begins by visiting Bologna, Italy, the hometown of one of history’s most distinguished polyglots, the 19th-century cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti. The cardinal is said to have known 45, 50, 58 or even more languages, depending on whom you ask. Victorian travelers who met him at ecclesiastical banquets reported that he affably conversed in all directions with foreign visitors in languages ranging from French, German and Arabic to Algonquin and “Californian.” (Lord Byron, who challenged the cardinal to a multilingual contest of profanities, was not only summarily defeated but walked away from the contest having learned a number of new Cockney gibes.) No less a figure than Pope Gregory XVI, in an attempt to catch Mezzofanti out, orchestrated a prank in which he secretly gathered dozens of foreign seminarians and then unleashed them on the unsuspecting cleric, all of them addressing him loudly in a tangle of languages. With much aplomb, Mezzofanti took up the pontiff’s challenge, answered them, and prevailed.
— From the New York Times review of Babel No More: The Search for the World’s Most Extraordinary Language Learners.
Jan 22 2012
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“Life is an Ocean, both extant and wide;
Man’s the Ship, that doth o’er its surface glide;
Happiness the Port, we ever strive to find;
Temperance must be the Pilot, to navigate the mind;
Reason then takes the helm, free from doubt,
To steer the course—as by Heaven pointed out.”
A map of Temperance, including the shores upon which one might beach. Published by Howe’s Sheet Anchors Press, 1846. Located in the Brown University collections, discovered via Mefi.
Jan 19 2012
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Monster Brains has a post today with images from Edward William Cooke’s Grotesque Animals (1872).
Dec 31 2011
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“Lahusen’s Tonic’s (Iron-Iodine-Liver Oil) Sinbad the Sailor c1900.” Via MONSTER BRAINS: Vintage German Advertisement Cards.
Dec 30 2011
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“ Now the staff at Townend House in Troutbeck have made a good discovery: a library book which is overdue for return by 123 years. A check on the fireside shelves in the lovely old Lake District farmhouse has turned up a copy of Good Words for 1888 which was borrowed in that same year.
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These suits are intended to mimic the effect of aging by reducing mobility, vision, and hearing. I like the idea, largely because it is intended for use by people developing services and items that will be used by older people. Found at The Daily What Geek.
Dec 23 2011
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