Seductive Sins: 100 Years of Ads.

In this catalog of twentieth-century advertisements, Taschen has drawn together examples of advertorial seduction that were employed by liquor and tobacco companies over the past 100 years.

This colorful tome showcases an undeniably vibrant chapter of advertising history: highlighting trends — from the kitsch to the cliché and the classy — in drinking and smoking in America. 20th Century Alcohol and Tobacco Ads is as much a lesson in popular culture and pseudo-science as it is in advertising: see the pages dedicated to doctors testifying that smoking soothes the throat and liquor bring social success! With contemporary legislation in many countries moving cigarettes to plain packaging and alcohol advertisements to after hours on TV, the images in this publication seem almost closer to caricature than they do to real life.

You can see several more ads at iGNANT, and buy the book here.

The Medieval Method of Cooking Octopus.

Grilled octopus – photo by Alpha / Flickr.

Grilled octopus – photo by Alpha / Flickr.

“This is a vile fish of no value; therefore cook it the way you want.” ~ Liber de Coquina, a 14th century cookbook.

I’ll admit upfront that I’m a fan of octopuses, when they are alive. I don’t care for them in the least when dead, regardless of the cooking method.

Platina’s Right Pleasure and Good Health, a 15th-century work from Italy, offers these thoughts:

On octopus – The polypus has been named because it has many feet. It uses its gills as feet and hands, and its tail, which is two-pronged and is pointed, while mating. They are very pleased with smell, and they eat the flesh of shellfish. They carry everything into their house and then separate the shells from the red meat. It hunts the small fish which are swimming near the shells. You season a cooked octopus with pepper and asafetida.

Platina also has this to add: Whatever way you cook it, you will say it is bad. Doesn’t seem to much point with such a conclusion.

Meanwhile, The Book of Sent Sovi, a 14th-century Catalan text, gives this recipe:

To Stuff Octopus – If you want to stuff octopus or squid, take the octopus and wash it well, boil it, cut off the arms, and take out what is inside. Chop the arms all together with parsley, mint, marjoram and other good herbs. You can chop another kind of fish if the tentacles are not enough. Put in the best spices that you can find. Make sure that the octopus is cleaned well. Put in the stuffing, and put in raisins and scalded garlic and fried onion. Then make almond milk with the broth that has boiled the fish, and put it in a bowl or a casserole together with the octopus; in the milk you can put a little verjuice and good spices, the best you might have, and oil. You can cook it in the oven or on iron trivet with live coals beneath.

If you’re just dying for medieval cooked octopus, that sounds like an interesting recipe to work out.

Via Medievalists.

In exciting news, the Newberry has opened up access to 1.7 million historical images!

The Newberry has announced a major revision to its policy regarding the re-use of collection images: images derived from collection items are now available to anyone for any lawful purpose, whether commercial or non-commercial, without licensing or permission fees to the library.

You can read much more here.

Medieval Courses Online.

There is now a unique range of medieval and Tudor courses which can be downloaded or followed online, complete with the full text from www.medievalcourses.com – once registered students have unlimited access to study at their own pace, and can complete online quizzes at the end of each module. The courses are professionally produced in thirty minute lessons and include up to 11 hours of teaching, plus bonus materials, reading lists and links to other resources. The tutors are all established experts in their field.

The courses are all very reasonably priced. You can read much more, including a summary of the offered courses here.

Yearning for the days of patriotism, Christianity, decency, and Emily Post!

http://thecatholicladyblog.blogspot.com/2017/02/lady-day-march-8-pure-goodness-at-work.html.

True Motherhood vs Feminist Theme! Being a mother, a vessel, yes, this is the only true function of a woman. It seems that International Women’s Day is quite the thorn in catholic sides; other flavours of christianity too. The brief article extolling the virtues of motherhood is what you’d expect, but I was rather amused by how the comments got quickly derailed into a major moan about how women simply will not wear dresses. Came as a surprise to me, because I always see lots of women wearing dresses. I’ve been known to wear them myself now and then. Here’s a small sample:

I do not understand what the loud-mouthed, vulgar, disgusting, unkempt, disreputable, profane women of today are trying to achieve or prove. When I was in college, the ladies were appetizing, and the gentlemen were appealing. Today, they are slobs. When I attended a medical meeting a few months ago, about 100 people were in attendance. I sat up near the front of the audience. When the speaker finished, I turned to look back at the gathering. I was disappointed and distressed to observe that I was the only lady there who was wearing a dress. The other women wore slacks. How the mighty have fallen. When Billy Graham died, a young woman said foul, shocking things about him, because he didn’t believe in abortion or homosexuality. She was a pretty girl, but to hear such off-color utterances from her was appalling. One day, as I was entering a grocery store, a gentleman approached, at the same time, with a dowdy-looking, plump woman, who was wearing blue jeans. He said something, and seemed to be addressing me, so I inquired a la Robert DeNiro, “Are you talking to me?” He replied, in a wistful, awe-stricken tone, “You’re wearing a dress.” Gee whiz! I hadn’t realized that one of my pet peeves had irked anyone else but me. I was both amused and regretful at his attitude of having found an oasis in the desert. I wondered if his female companion had heard what he said, and if she had, what did she think. However, I did not linger to hear anything more, but proceeded into the grocery store with a polite smile. With all the trash in the movies and on TV today, I am not surprised at the terrible breakdown in morals and standards, resulting in all the shootings. The shooters probably never frequented Carnegie Library or any other library, or had any discussions about morals and standards with their parents. Reading what you have written, I fear sadly and regretfully that we probably are too far out into the swamp to turn back the clock to the days of Mister Rogers. We can yearn for the days of patriotism, Christianity, decency, and Emily Post, but lots of luck! We can only hope and pray!

Mmmph. I grew up during those days. Thankfully, evolving into a happy hippie saved me from the pretentious corsetry of Emily Post. I was raised to be a “lady.” It sucked, and I wanted no part of it, and I much happier for having rejected being an always quiet picture of gentility, keeping my place in the bed and kitchen.

Regarding the lady named Grace, I absolutely agree with her. Women today now do cross-dressing. I often say to my husband when we are out “nobody is wearing a dress or skirt. When we are told that babies in the womb are not human babies, I ask what are they then? Rabbits, cats, dogs. No abortionist will agree we are human because they wouldn’thave A job to go to. In other words it is about “Money”.

I’ve been wearing jeans for one hell of a long time now. It’s not cross dressing. What about kilts? They’ve been around for just about forever, are those awful cross dressing too?

We have to imitate our BLESSED MOTHER MARY, would she be wearing slacks/trousers? I know of someone who had two pant outfits and the legs of both were slightly wide so that she had them made into skirts!
Especially when attending the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, it’s respect for JESUS, HIS MOTHER, THE PRIESTS and all those around her! Besides, it sets a good example for the younger generation!

Showing leg is respect? Hmmm.

Great idea but unfortunately the dresses one sees in the stores look more like tops instead of dresses. While I’m not one to wear a dress that reaches the ground, it would be nice to see the styles of years gone by.

Depends on where you shop, m’dear. Have you tried thrift stores?

Via Return To Order.

David Lynch Teaches Typing.

A lesson from David Lynch Teaches Typing (image via rhinostew.itch.io, used with permission).

A lesson from David Lynch Teaches Typing (image via rhinostew.itch.io, used with permission).

Have trouble typing? Perhaps this surreal typing game with David Lynch will help. Or perhaps not.

Super Mario tried to teach me how to type correctly when I was a kid, as did a required semester of typing at my high school, yet I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that I continue to always look at the keyboard and only use about half my fingers (unevenly favoring my right hand). So when I found out there’s a new typing game taught by a pixelated version of filmmaker David Lynch, I thought this might finally be my chance to learn.

Available as a free download for both Mac OS and Windows, David Lynch Teaches Typing is the brainchild of Los Angeles-based filmmaker Luke Palmer — “no relation to Laura,” he clarified in a phone interview, ensuring me that Palmer is, in fact, his real last name. Palmer and his collaborator, developer Hyacinth Nil, used to work at an after-school program together, where they came across a ridiculous game called Cooldog Teaches Typing. Later, when Palmer spotted a video game where one of the levels took place inside the Red Room from Twin Peaks, he had an “aha” moment. Palmer and Nil worked on the game for about five months before releasing it earlier this month.

You can read and see more at Hyperallergic.

Adeline Harris Sears.

In 1856, a seventeen-year-old girl from Rhode Island embarked on a unique and brilliant quiltmaking project. The girl’s name was Adeline Harris and her project was to make a quilt incorporating hundreds of celebrity autographs. While signature quilts were nothing new, the contributions were typically sourced from within a small community, such as a church, and functioned to commemorate a single event, such as a birth or marriage — Adeline, however, had bigger ideas, her community as the notable figures of her day, her event the phenomenon of nineteenth-century celebrity. Although one might imagine Adeline dutifully lugging a quilt to all corners of the globe for the famous to adorn with their scrawl, her process was much more ingenious (and practical). She sent a small diamond of white silk in the post with an explanation of her project and a request that they send it back to her signed. The returned and now autographed fragments were then worked into the quilt as the “top” planes in a wonderful trompe l’oeil tumbling block design. The response she got to her unusual request was nothing short of phenomenal — she ended up incorporating 360 signed pieces in total, including those from such luminaries as Jacob Grimm, Alexander von Humboldt, Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Abraham Lincoln (one of eight American presidents represented). According to her grand-daughter the Lincoln signature was, due to a family connection, actually acquired in person, and Adeline was meant to have even danced with Lincoln at his inauguration ball. Many of the pieces included a short message in addition to the signature. The diamond from the poet and editor N. P. Willis includes the following (suggestive?) rhyme: “Dream what thou willst / beneath this quilt, / My blessing still is — Yours.”

You can read and see more of this quilt, and the brilliant Ms. Sears at The Public Domain.

The Chemo Book.

This is all part and parcel of Chemo Brain. Being part of a clinical trial, I have to report to my research people after every cycle, and we get to go through a perfect storm of paper work, most of it having to do with tracking reactions and effects to treatment. Even if you don’t do this, it doesn’t hurt to try and keep track of side effects and how long they last. That can help you to bring up stuff you want help dealing with, and let your med staff know what’s going on. And, if your oncologist happens to ask, you have answers.  If you are in a clinical trial, keep the dates of when something begins and how long it lasts, your research person will wanna hug you for that.

Crow with Fish.

From Ice Swimmer: This crow was sitting in spruce tree in an island, eating a small fish (probably a perch, caught by somebody fishing on the sea ice). The crow is there in the first picture, but the branches obscure it. The bird was worried that I might take its seafood meal and flew to another tree (a deciduous one). Click for full size!

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