Christopher Street, New York City, August 6, 2009. Photo by Jeff Simmerman
Does this guy know about Dylan Thomas? (Go listen to Thomas read his own poem.) Sir Paul McCartney may want to change the lyric to “when I’m 94.”
Photo appeared at And I Am Not Lying.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Mark Frauenfelder, and Dr. Pamela Bumsted.
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Humor, Life, Music, photography | Tagged: Humor, Life, Music, photography, Rock 'n Roll | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Training adult Scout leaders always produces a few puzzled looks, and occasional passionate, fearful rebukes, when I note that a campfire gives a boy or a girl an opportunity to play with fire.
No, I don’t mean, exactly, that we should let kids play with fire. There are rules — what’s burning must be in the fire pit, is the chief rule.
There is some primal need to watch a fire, to study it, to experiment with it, and finally just to watch it go. If you camped as a kid, you probably know what I mean.
Camp fires are universal. This one was outside Bangalore.
Every kid needs to do that. It’s a part of growing up. It’s a necessary memory for healthy and sane adults.
Start a fire, and a kid will get a stick and poke the burning logs and, especially, the red-, yellow- and white-hot coals after the fire burns a while. They’ll start the stick on fire, put it out, and light it again. They’ll pull the stick out of the fire and watch the flame consume the stick. Kids will experiment with different things on the fire, to see whether, how fast, and how they burn.
Just keep it in the fire pit.
A Scoutmaster can tell which kids have been camping. A Scoutmaster knows which kids have been able to sit around a campfire and play with fire in that way. Kids who know fire are more mature, generally, more relaxed about the excitement of the stuff, and much more careful with it. Scouts who have dabbled in the campfire respect fire for what it is and for what it can do, good and bad.
What you’ll remember 20 years later, or 30 years, or (God bless me!) 40 years, and I hope 50 and 60 years, is the watching of the fire as the flames die down to a red and pulsing bed of coals.
You’ll remember some of the stories — Freddy Jonas’s often-told story of racing down the Champs Elysee in horse-drawn carriages, bribing the driver of the other carriage to go slower to win the race; the story of Rulon Skinner, the best non-swimming canoe instructor on Earth, and the big canoe race in which his opponent finally tipped Skinner’s canoe, and then yelled “snake!” to appeal to Skinner’s other great fear; the night the bear invaded the camp at Ben de la Tour, a bear later found to have antlers and four hooves. You’ll remember the s’mores, and you’ll forget how messy they are. You’ll remember the time you waited for the cobbler to cook after someone forgot to start the charcoal, or the the time the story got so good you forgot to take the cobbler off the fire, and how the Dutch oven had to be thrown away because it never would come clean.
You may remember that little fox at Camp Carter, sneaking just beyond the light of the fire and carefully circling every chair, looking for something good to eat, to steal. Or that stupid porcupine that, now that you think of it must have been rabid, heading straight for the fire there in the only stand of Ponderosa pine in Utah County, up Payson Canyon. And that will trigger the story of the night the fire wouldn’t start in the Catskills, and what seemed like hundreds of giant porcupines convened in bacchanalian festivities while campers dared not sleep in their tents.
Someone will mention retiring U.S. flags, and you’ll remember the retirement ceremony for the flag from the widow of the veteran, how she insisted that you promise the flag would be burned completely and honorably, and warned “he’ll be watching!” You’ll remember the mass flag retirement after the lifting of the burn ban at Wisdom, and how you suddenly realized lots of flags put out lots of toxic fumes — but somebody ad libbed a part to the ceremony to add time to let the fumes clear, and no Scout noticed (you hope!).
We haven’t even gotten to the singing.
I was put in mind of the power of the campfire with a remembrance from Real Live Preacher writing at High Calling:
I remember how worried we were the first time we tried to set one of those brush piles on fire. We nervously stood before a ten-foot high, fifteen-foot wide mound with a can of lighter fluid and a couple of matches. I squirted a modest amount around the bottom of the pile and stood back while Michael threw the match. That’s when we discovered that it’s surprisingly difficult to set things on fire. Now I marvel at stories of people casually throwing cigarettes out of their cars and setting whole forests ablaze. Michael and I had a hard time starting fires even when we used diesel fuel and a blowtorch.
It takes about five hours to burn a giant pile of brush and cedar, so Michael and I would start a fire, then sit on the tailgate of the brown pickup truck and talk while we kept an eye on it. Apart from the searing heat and looking like chimney sweeps, it was fun. I’m always looking for guilt-free reasons to sit around and talk with friends. I don’t suppose I’ll ever have as good an excuse as I did back then.
A guilt-free reason to sit around and talk with friends? A campfire is an automatic reason — guilt only obtains if there’s a ban on burning where you’re making the fire.
Carl Buell painted another one that took my breath away the first time I saw it. Go see it. (I’m asking permission on this one; it may take a little while. Posted below with permission.)
That’s not a photograph, you can tell because it so well preserves what you remember — better than any photograph ever could — it preserves what you remember from that campout up in the San Franciscos the night the sky was so blue so late and you could see the whole moon from the earthglow — or was it in New Mexico? Probably not Colorado because there aren’t any mountains — oh, but if he’s looking east, it could have been south of Pueblo . . . no, maybe near Albion in the Sawtooths . . . Buell works in the east; it’s probably up in Maine . . . but he lived and painted in Marin County.
Didn’t he perfectly capture that night?
Campfire, by Carl Buell. Copyright Carl Buell, all rights reserved; used with permission
8 Comments | Art, Boy Scouts of America, Camping, History, Life, Mythology, Natural history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Republicans and opponents of health care reform make Dave Barry look like the prophet Isaiah with greatly improved accuracy. You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried, as Dave Barry often says.
Included in the massive health care reform bill is some extra money to help out states and communities that have had difficulty getting effective programs going to combat child abuse. Pilot programs demonstrated that community health workers could provide a few parenting programs and dramatically reduce child abuse.
These are programs that prevent dead babies.
According to the text of H.R. 3200, “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act,” starting on page 838 is a description of a program under which states and communities can get money to fight child abuse, if they have large populations of poor families, where child abuse is a problem, and where anti-child abuse programs need more money. That’s pretty straightforward, no? [That’s a hefty .pdf file, by the way — more than 1,000 pages.]
Parenting instruction and help can be offered, in private settings, and in homes where struggling parents need help most.
Money goes to states that want it and can demonstrate a need. Parenting help programs are purely voluntary under H.R. 3200.
Who supports child abuse? Who would not support spending some of the money in health care reform to save the saddest cases, the children who are beaten or starved or psychologically abused?
Is it not true that the prevention of child abuse would contribute to better health care for less money?
This is politics, you know. Non-thinking conservatives pull out the stops in their desire to drive the health bill to oblivion, claiming that these anti-child abuse sections are socialism, liberty-depriving, and a threat to the designated hitter rule. (I only exaggerate a little on the third point.)
This isn’t stripping liberties is it, we want someone else coming into our homes and telling us how to raise our children and live our lives.
This is right out of the Book 1984. If you had not read it I suggest it.
“Right out of 1984?” Isn’t this a violation of Godwin’s Law?
Have the Heritage Foundation, and these other people, lost their collective minds? They complain about the provisions of this bill because — this is their words:
One troublesome provision calls for a home visitation program that would bring state workers into the homes of young families to improve “the well-being, health, and development of children”.
Well, heaven forbid we should improve the well-being, health and development of children!
It is fair to conclude from this report that the Heritage Foundation does not want to prevent dead babies.
Years ago, when Father Reagan presided over the Conservative Church, one of the Heritage Foundation favorite deacons, a guy named Al Regnery, was appointed to be assistant attorney general over programs dealing with youth — juvenile delinquents, drug users, etc. His chief qualifications for the job included that he was a faithful aide to Nevada Sen. Paul Laxalt, and that he toed the party line on almost all issues, including shutting down federal funding for programs that might prevent juvenile delinquency, or treat it.
Republicans controlled the Judiciary Committee under Sen. Strom Thurmond, so Regnery’s confirmation was never doubted. But as if to throw gasoline in the face of advocates of anti-delinquency programs, When Regnery drove up to the Senate office buildings for his nomination hearing, his car had a generally humorous bumper sticker. “Have you hugged your kid today” showed on about 200 million of the 100 million cars in America at the time — it was a cliché. To fight the cliché, Regnery had the anti-fuzzy bumper sticker, “Have you slugged your kid today.”
When the issue hit the news, Regnery backpedalled, and said it was just a joke sticker that he probably should have taken off his car under the circumstances, but he forgot — and Regnery disavowed the bumper sticker, as humorous or anything else.
Comes 2009, we discover that the Heritage Foundation wasn’t kidding — slugging your kid is acceptable behavior to them, and creating programs to fight child abuse, is evil — to the Heritage Foundation.
Ronald Reagan would be ashamed of them. Somebody has to be ashamed — there appears to be no shame at Heritage Foundation offices.
One wouldn’t worry — surely common sense American citizens can see through these cheap deceptions — except that Heritage has a massive public relations budget, and there is a corps of willing gullibles waiting to swallow as fact any fantasy Heritage dreams up — see this discussion board on ComCast, where the discussants accept Heritage claims at face value though anyone with even a dime-store excrement detector would be wary; or see this blogger who says he won’t let the feds “take away” his liberties (to beat his children, or the children of others?); or this forum, where some naif thinks the bill will create a federal behavior czar. Glenn Beck, whose religion reveres children, can’t resist taking a cheap shot at Obama, even though doing so requires Beck to stand up for child abuse.
Beck falls into the worst category, spreading incredible falsehoods as if he understood the bill:
This doesn’t scare me! No way. Just the crazies like Winston Smith — you know, the main character from “1984.”
When did we go from being a nation that believed in hard work and picking yourself up by the bootstraps, to a nation that wants government to control everything from our light bulbs to our parenting techniques?
This bill has to be stopped.
Gee, Glenn — when did we go from a nation that thought government was for the people, as demonstrated by the Agricultural Extension Service, or the Air Traffic Control System, or the Tennessee Valley Authority, to a nation that fights to bring back Czarist Russian government in the U.S.? Stopping this bill won’t resurrect Czar Nicholas, and it will kill at least a few hundred American kids. Excuse me if I choose living American kids over fantasies of a new and oppressive monarchy.
These people are not journalists. Beck isn’t like Orwell — maybe more like Ezra Pound, in Italy. These people are not commentators, or columnists. These people are not editorial writers. They are not, most of them, lobbyists who give out information for money, having sold their souls away from the angels of serious public discourse.
They are crass propagandists. They should be regarded more like the guy Tom Lehrer warned us about, the old dope peddler in the park, who always has just a little bit of poison for the kids or anyone else. (“Don’t worry; you won’t get hooked.”)
How many other provisions of the health reform act are being distorted by conservatives in a desperate attempt to keep President Obama from “looking good,” despite the costs to America’s children and families?
These attacks on the health reform bill fall out of the category of robust discussion. They disgrace our polity, and they erode the dignity of our democratic system.
Below the fold: An example of the type of program Beck and Heritage call socialism, 1984-ish, and dangerous.
142 Comments | children, Civil Rights, Education, Ethics, Government, Health care, History, Law, Life, medicine, Paranoia, Politics, Poverty, President Obama, Public health, Rampant stupidity, Scams, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, War on Education, War on the Constitution | Tagged: 1984, America's Affordable Health Choices Act, Child Abuse, Glenn Beck, Government, Health Care Reform, Heritage Foundation, Law, President Obama, Propaganda, Section 440, Socialism | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Americans create great colleges. Our greatest national product is higher education. Within a few decades after Europeans landed in the Americas, colleges were created to spread knowledge to keep the colonies, and then the new nations, on the cutting edge of history and science. Mostly they’ve worked well. The world comes to our institutions of higher learning to learn, and to steal ideas about how to make that process work in their own nations.
In the 20th century we saw the founding in California of the Claremont Colleges, one of the most recent and most ambitious efforts to create a community of scholarship for undergraduates and graduates. The Claremont Colleges include Harvey Mudd College, Pomona College, Scripps College, Claremont McKenna College, Pitzer College, Claremont Graduate University, and Keck Graduate Institute. Pomona College dates from 1887, but the other colleges in the community all arose after 1925 (Claremont Graduate University). Harvey Mudd was founded in 1955, Pitzer in 1963, and the Keck Institute in 1997.
Werner Warmbrunn came to Pitzer College as one of the small pioneering group of original faculty in 1963, the first year of the school. On one hand, it’s exciting to be in on the creation of a great institution. On the other hand, the philosophy of the Claremont Colleges is that faculty, though of first rate intellect, will spend a great deal of their time with students. Demands of working with undergraduates probably hinders some of the faculty from achieving the great renown they could have achieved at other universities. Students grow to love that system. Some faculty yearn for other pastures, and strike out after a while for other academic homes.
Warmbrunn stuck it out at Pitzer.
I found this press release, on his death on July 19, 2009:
Professor Emeritus Werner E. Warmbrunn Dies
Claremont, Calif (July 23, 2009) – Werner Warmbrunn, founding member of the Pitzer College faculty and founding dean of faculty, died peacefully at home on July 19, 2009 at the age of 89.
Professor Warmbrunn was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1920. He and his family immigrated to the United States in 1941. After receiving his degree from Cornell University, he began his teaching career at Putney School in Vermont. He received his PhD from Stanford University, where he later served in a variety of administrative posts for 12 years. In 1963, he was recruited by Pitzer’s first president, John Atherton.
Professor Warmbrunn helped design the academic programs for the new college in months before and after the arrival of Pitzer’s pioneer class of students. He is perhaps best known for his work in developing Pitzer’s unique community governance structure. He served on many committees, including the Faculty Executive Committee and two presidential search committees. Professor Warmbrunn ensured that Pitzer’s history would be recorded by founding an archive where papers, announcements and documents were preserved.
A passionate and committed teacher, Professor Warmbrunn was a recipient, in 1985, of the Pitzer College Alumni Association’s Academic Excellence Award. He received a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship to continue his research on Belgium under German occupation during World War II. He became a professor emeritus in 1991.
Warmbrunn’s published works include The Dutch Under German Occupation and The German Occupation of Belgium. In recent years, he was active in the Claremont Democratic Club, serving as a senior author of The Claremont Manifesto.
He is survived by his wife, Loretta; daughters Erika and Susan; his step-children Linda Schone, Wes Fretter, Dianna Davis and Cynthia Fretter; and his grandchildren Andrea, Breanna, Zach, Matt and Lindsey.
A private family memorial will be held. Donations in honor of Professor Warmbrunn can be made to Pitzer College, where a scholarship will be created in his name.
A public memorial will occur at Pitzer College this fall.
About Pitzer College
Pitzer College is a nationally top ranked undergraduate liberal arts institution. A member of The Claremont Colleges, Pitzer offers a distinctive approach to a liberal arts education by linking intellectual inquiry with interdisciplinary studies, cultural immersion, social responsibility and community involvement. For more information, please visit www.pitzer.edu.
Of course that’s not the whole story. You need more information about Prof. Warmbrunn — and you will find it in this touching remembrance at Rational Rant, from sbh in Portland, one of Warmbrunn’s students. Go read that account.
Not a class day goes by that a student does not ask, “Why do we study history?” Every good history teacher has a patterned response, sometimes including quoting Santayana, sometimes just recounting a great failure that could have been avoided had someone who should have known better, actually known history. Sometimes the answer involves a great victory or leap forward, made possible by understanding the past.
Reality is more complex. Sometimes just the study of history itself is the object. Studying history under a teacher like Warmbrunn will not be recorded in the history books per se, as the study of history. We can never overestimate the effects of such careful tutelage on the course of history, on the making of history. History flows like a river. Studying history is like fording the river — and sometimes a student needs someone skilled at fording the river to get the student across. Sometimes that river is a Rubicon, or a Vistula, or a Rhine, or Mississippi, or Delaware, or Missouri, or Colorado, and getting a student safely to the mouth or the other side, makes all the difference.
Nota bene:
And see:
Leave a Comment » | Biography, Education, Heroes, Higher education, History, History Methods and Tools, Life | Tagged: Education, Heroes, History, History Methods and Tools, Liberal Education, Pitzer College, Teaching, Werner E. Warmbrunn | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Am I the only one who sees a whiff of hopeful irony in a guitarist from Sonic Youth being gray?
From Fender: "Thurston Moore + Lee Ranaldo. Jazzmaster guitars slung across seminal shoulders. In the hands of both men, the sound of Sonic Youth is the sound of that guitar used as part paintbrush and part cluster bomb. Introducing the new Thurston Moore Jazzmaster and the Lee Ranaldo Jazzmaster guitars from Fender, releasing July 1st." Photo from the Fender site.
That’s Lee Ranaldo on the right, with the teal guitar and gray hair.
Leon Anderson played a then-vintage Fender blond-neck Stratocaster in our bands back in Utah County, and it was a beautiful machine (and he an underappreciated guitarist). I never could afford a Fender-brand bass. I played two Vox devices, one of which I still own — but they played through an almost-original Fender Bassman amplifier, whose demise I still mourn.
Fender blonde-neck Stratocaster, a lot like the one Leon Anderson played, except Leon's wasn't nearly so beat up - Guitar Village photo
Watching the Fender company bend, dodge and run with the trends over the years has been a lot of fun. One of my ex-brothers-in-law did the accounting and corporate legal work for Leo Fender way back when; as an indication of how stuffy the brother-in-law was, consider that he didn’t have any Fender guitars — or any guitars — when I knew him. How could one work with a master like Leo Fender and not get hooked on the guitars?
Ultimately the guitars are the legacy and history of the company. As with Stradivarius instruments, the music made on the guitars and the instruments themselves outshine the makers and any corporate entity required to get the instruments manufactured. Corporate owners of the Fender name and legacy don’t drive that car, but only hold on for the ride and try to keep the moving parts lubricated and clean.
Any Sonic Youth fans out there?
4 Comments | History, Life, Music, Personal | Tagged: Fender, Guitars, History, Jazzmaster, Music, Sonic Youth, Stratocaster, Well-spent Youth | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
George M. Cohan sang that he was a “real-live nephew of my Uncle Sam, born on the Fourth of July.”
Ben Davidian would have liked that birthdate, but truth be told, he wanted to savor the full day — so he was born on the third of July.
In April he was named by Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneggar to a judgeship in Sacramento.
Happy birthday, Ben. (Which is it: 39? 40?) I won’t tell anyone that secretly you’re a great fan of Joan Baez.
Leave a Comment » | Life, Point of personal privilege | Tagged: Birthdays, Judge Ben Davidian, Life, Personal | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
It’s much better than using a Jumbotron.
Go here to Tangled Up In Blue Guy. Click on “I am happy for you.”
Poster for National Poetry Month 2009 (April) - Poster by Paul Sahre for American Academy of Poets (click on image for more information)
4 Comments | Life, literacy, Literature, Poetry | Tagged: Academy of American Poets, J. Alfred Prufrock, Life, National Poetry Month 2009, Paul Sahre, Poetry | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Meow, reminding her humans that paying attention to the cat is always more important than reading Dilbert - June 24, 2008 (photo copyright 2008, Ed Darrell)
It was a dark and stormy night. A meow rang out.
That’s how she came to adopt us. Kay Lawrence was out walking, before the storm blew in. The wind was picking up. 50 yards from home, she found a sad scene: A kitten dead on the pavement. Kay got a bag to hold the body. As she was scooping it off the road, she heard a loud meowing from the bushes.
It was the sister of the dead kitten, probably. Alone in any case. Kay knew that Kathryn had studied how to save kittens, and having a large golden retriever, she thought better of taking the kitten to her own home.
With the first flashes of lightning, before the rain, there was Kay Lawrence at our door holding a remarkably flea-ridden kitten, wide-eyed and making enough noise for a litter of 12.
“We’ll find a good home for her,” Kathryn said as Kay dashed back home before the rain. I suspected the kitten had already found that home, though Kathryn was still at least mildly allergic to cats.*
That was more than 19 years ago.
We learned from Meow that cats show joy with their tails, express love by blinking, and that each one has a different personality. Some cats can ignore catnip, for example. She liked to join us in reading newspapers — or perhaps more accurately, she liked to prevent us from reading newspapers, telling us that paying attention to a cat was a better use of time.
Meow would occasionally become seriously agitated when a peanut butter jar was opened, making a ruckus until she got a half-teaspoonful of the stuff for herself. She wasn’t concerned at how silly a cat looks trying to get peanut butter off the roof of her mouth.
Meow left us this morning. For the past couple of weeks her eyesight was failing much faster — she had cataracts. For a week she bravely tried to learn how to navigate the house blind, mastering a lot very quickly.
Something else happened, though. One veterinarian said it was brain — stroke? Tumor? We don’t know. For much of the last week she was walking circles through the house, sometimes bumping into things, sometimes walking over things she shouldn’t. And in the last couple of days, the circles she walked grew smaller. She’d circle until she couldn’t, then collapse in the middle of the floor and sleep.
On the way to the vet this morning, the clouds rolled in. It grew dark. Lightning flashed, and the rain came furiously. It was a dark and stormy morning, very similar to the night she found us. Meow passed very quickly. The clouds disappeared, and the sun shines.
Down at the end of the path past the big live oak, Meow now rests with others in our departed menagerie, Maggie and Rufus the dogs, Sweetie the rat, and Katie, the other brave, one-eyed road kitten (from a different, later rescue).
We miss her. We started the year with two dogs and three cats. Now we’re down to one cat, with the two dogs. It’s a lot quieter.
Meow, winking for the camera, 2008 - photo copyright 2008, Ed Darrell
* A book we had Natural Cat, had a recipe for a food supplement for cats which, the author claimed, would alter the cat dander so it would not trigger allergic reactions. What can I say? It worked like a charm. We stopped feeding the supplement to the cats 15 years ago. Kathryn’s allergic reaction, to our cats, has not returned.
6 Comments | Family, Life, Personal | Tagged: Aging, cats, Family, Life, Pets, Veterinarians | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
You can’t buy bourbon in Dallas on Christmas day.
We planned pork tenderloin with apricot/bourbon filling. Wonderful recipe.
But we needed a cup of bourbon, and when we got to the liquor cabinet, we had only about a quarter cup left in a bottle.
We aren’t bourbon drinkers. The last time we used bourbon was the last time we cooked pork tenderloin with apricot/bourbon filling . . .
So at about 10:00 a.m. I headed out of our nearly-dry end of the county to a precinct rife with liquor stores. If any place was selling bourbon on Christmas day, it would likely be among this small city of liquor stores just off I-35, near the sinning areas of Harry Hines Blvd. and a couple of truck stops.
A mile down the road the new quickee mart was open, selling beer and wine. No hard liquor in this precinct, though.
Liquor store by I-35 near Dallas - photo on Flickr by Futurowoman (Polaroid photo?)
12 miles up the road, past the doomed Texas Stadium, I passed four liquor stores at one exit, all dark. At the next exit, the gas station at a liquor store was open. The main liquor store next door was dark, but I was hopeful.
Inside, one man with an obvious need for a hit of something bargained with one employee over the price of a can of malt liquor. Another customer queried the other counter man about where he could get a ribbon for the can of beer he’d just bought for his girlfriend, sleeping outside in the car. Merry Christmas, baby.
No ribbons. It would be an unwrapped, un-beribboned can of beer.
“What are the chances of finding some bourbon?” I asked. The guy looked at me like I came from Mars. His store was selling cheap alcohol in tiny amounts to people down on their luck, but of me he wanted to know: “What are you doing with bourbon so early in the day?”
Cooking, I told him.
“You won’t find any today. State law. All the stores are closed.”
The sauce would have been better with more bourbon, I think. What else would I be doing with bourbon on Christmas morning?
4 Comments | Food history, Holidays, Life | Tagged: Bourbon, Christmas, food, Life | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Abe Books’ e-newsletter features “Bookshelves of the Rich and Famous,” showing off a number of volumes one could purchase, if one had the inclination and a very large pocketbook.
This one caught my eye:
1st edition, Darwin's On the Origin of Species
On the Origin of Species
Charles Darwin
$179,090.31If your collection includes books on genetics and evolution, this first edition, first issue from the Father of Evolution is a must have. It was published in 1859, and in a true testament to survival of the fittest, is in handsome condition 149 years later. It’s one of only 1250 copies issued. For only $179,000 and change, it would be a fantastic addition to any library. However, if you want to study the species a little more intently, you could put your cash toward 140 life-sized, hand-finished, fully flexible model human skeletons.
The book’s 1,250 copies sold out the first day of sales. In 1859, that counted as a massive best seller.
Turns out the book is for sale in England, at Peter Harrington, Antiquarian Bookseller. That listing has a few more details:
Description: [On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,] or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. First Edition, first issue of “the most influential scientific work of the 19th century” (Horblit) and “the most important biological book ever written” (Freeman), one of 1250 copies. “The publication of the Origin of species ushered in a new era in our thinking about the nature of man. The intellectual revolution it caused and the impact it had on man’s concept of himself and the world were greater than those caused by the works of Copernicus, Newton, and the great physicists of more recent times Every modern discussion of man’s future, the population explosion, the struggle for existence, the purpose of man and the universe, and man’s place in nature rests on Darwin” (Ernst Mayr). 8vo, with adverts dated June 1859. Original green cloth, titles to spine gilt, decoration to boards in blind, chocolate brown coated endpapers, all edges untrimmed, Edmonds & Remnants binder’s ticket. Folding diagram, slit at fold. Slightly cocked, small ink mark to edge of spine, else a very nice copy with cloth bright and fresh, hinges uncracked and with no repairs. Rare thus. Bookseller Inventory # 40762
Bibliographic Details
Publisher: London: John Murray, 1859
Publication Date: 1859
Edition: 1st Edition
Nine more gems, for the rich, at Abe Books. One of them is Dashiell Hammett’s Maltese Falcon. C’mon, lottery ticket!
Leave a Comment » | Biology, Books, Charles Darwin, Darwin, Evolution, History, Life, Literature, Science | Tagged: Biology, Books, Darwin, Evolution, History, Life, Literature, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Some do, some teach, some teach and do.
Kudos to Coach Russ Henrie in Delta, Utah (one of my mother’s home towns), for knowing CPR, and delivering it at a crucial time.
Leave a Comment » | Health care, Heroes, Life, Teaching | Tagged: CPR, Defibrillator, Heroes, Life, Teachers, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
My children lived to see a Boston Red Sox win in the World Series, already in their short lives.
100-year old Cubs fan Richard Savage, who saw the Cubs lose the World Series to the Boston Red Sox in 1918, hopes to see the Cubs win a World Series - AARP Bulletin Today
More history is being written: Could this be the Chicago Cubs’ year? Their magic number is 4, after the Cubbies defeated the Brewers, 5-4, behind Kerry Woods’ ninth-inning heroics.
With the triumph, the Cubs pushed Milwaukee nine games back in the National League Central race and a half-game behind the New York Mets in the wild-card playoff race while reducing their own magic number to four.
“We just figure if we keep winning ballgames, good things will come for us,” Dempster said. “Don’t get caught up in the standings or numbers or anything like that. Just come to the ballpark and try to win every day. This is big.”
The Cubs last won the World Series in 1908.
More good news: Changes in the balloting procedures for the Baseball Hall of Fame improve the chances of previously-overlooked heroes like Ron Santo.
Now, about that Triple Crown . . . or even that one.
1 Comment | Baseball, History, Life, milestones, Personal | Tagged: Baseball, Baseball Hall of Fame, Chicago Cubs, Entertainment, History, Sports, Triple Crown | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
A few months ago I posted about a guy who issued a spectacular reply to someone trying the old Nigerian scam on him.
Yesterday that post got this comment:
Levy Says:
August 22, 2008 at 1:56 am editI have found good service for check nigerian. It’s
http://www.nigerianscamcheck.com
Go check that site out. If it’s not a scam itself, it should be. Just what you were looking for, a “good service for check nigerian.”
Especially note the certificate from the “Global School of Detectives,” the membership in “World Association of Detectives” (yes: W.A.D.), and the certificate from the California Board of Collections and Investigatives Services (P.I.s in California now are licensed by the much newer Bureau of Security and Investigative Services). (See the images of the certificates below.)
If you ever post again, Levy, I swear I’ll send your name and address to both the Latter-day Saints and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
2 Comments | Ethics, Humor, Internet, Life, Technology | Tagged: Caveat emptor, Ethics, Humor, Internet, Life, Nigerian scam, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
High school seniors should be firming up their choices for colleges to apply to in the next couple of months — early decision applications will be due in November for some schools.
Students looking for a great college should consider looking at one or more of the 40 outstanding small colleges and universities that have banded together in a group known as Colleges that Change Lives. Each is an outstanding institution that has a reputation for taking good kids and helping them transform into great people.
There are more than a dozen events planned around the nation where a score or more of the colleges will show up in one location to talk to high school students and their parents. You really should consider attending one of these events if one is close by.
We attended an event in Houston last year. Our younger son, James, eventually chose Lawrence University, a school he knew almost nothing about before that afternoon. (It appears Lawrence recovered its sanity after recruiting me to play football back in, uh, a few years ago. I didn’t attend Lawrence, and I’m greatly amused that my son will.)
Here, stolen directly from CTCL’s website, is the list of cities where events are scheduled this fall, and an interactive map. Clicking on the hot links will take you to CTCL’s site with details about the meet ups.
7 Comments | College, Education quality, Education success, Family, Higher education, History, Life | Tagged: College, College Applications, Colleges that Change Lives, Family, Higher education, Life | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 