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Cranford

PBS' Masterpiece Classic has presented Cranford in three episodes. There is a website that can be used (for a limited time) to download the episodes if you've missed one. But if you'd like to read Elizabeth Gaskell's novel it, too, is available at another site:

http://www.classicreader.com/booktoc.php/sid.1/bookid.906/

"Mrs Jamieson's drawing-room was cheerful; the evening sun came streaming into it, and the large square window was clustered round with flowers. The furniture was white and gold; not the later style, Louis Quatorze, I think they call it, all shells and twirls; no, Mrs Jamieson's chairs and tables had not a curve or bend about them. The chair and table legs diminished as they neared the ground, and were straight and square in all their corners. The chairs were all a-row against the walls, with the exception of four or five which stood in a circle round the fire. They were railed with white bars across the back and knobbed with gold; neither the railings nor the knobs invited to ease. There was a japanned table devoted to literature, on which lay a Bible, a Peerage, and a Prayer-Book. There was another square Pembroke table dedicated to the Fine Arts, on which were a kaleidoscope, conversation-cards, puzzle-cards (tied together to an interminable length with faded pink satin ribbon), and a box painted in fond imitation of the drawings which decorate tea-chests. Carlo lay on the worsted- worked rug, and ungraciously barked at us as we entered. Mrs Jamieson stood up, giving us each a torpid smile of welcome, and looking helplessly beyond us at Mr Mulliner, as if she hoped he would place us in chairs, for, if he did not, she never could. I suppose he thought we could find our way to the circle round the fire, which reminded me of Stonehenge, I don't know why. Lady Glenmire came to the rescue of our hostess, and, somehow or other, we found ourselves for the first time placed agreeably, and not formally, in Mrs Jamieson's house. Lady Glenmire, now we had time to look at her, proved to be a bright little woman of middle age, who had been very pretty in the days of her youth, and who was even yet very pleasant-looking. I saw Miss Pole appraising her dress in the first five minutes, and I take her word when she said the next day —

"My dear! ten pounds would have purchased every stitch she had on — lace and all."

It was pleasant to suspect that a peeress could be poor, and partly reconciled us to the fact that her husband had never sat in the House of Lords; which, when we first heard of it, seemed a kind of swindling us out of our prospects on false pretences; a sort of "A Lord and No Lord" business.

We were all very silent at first. We were thinking what we could talk about, that should be high enough to interest My Lady. There had been a rise in the price of sugar, which, as preserving-time was near, was a piece of intelligence to all our house-keeping hearts, and would have been the natural topic if Lady Glenmire had not been by. But we were not sure if the peerage ate preserves — much less knew how they were made. At last, Miss Pole, who had always a great deal of courage and savoir faire, spoke to Lady Glenmire, who on her part had seemed just as much puzzled to know how to break the silence as we were.

"Has your ladyship been to Court lately?" asked she; and then gave a little glance round at us, half timid and half triumphant, as much as to say, "See how judiciously I have chosen a subject befitting the rank of the stranger."

Enjoy the book and the PBS series with a marvelous cast: Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench, Francesca Annis, Imelda Staunton, Greg Wise, Michael Gambon ... the list lengthens.

Carrier

"Making the film CARRIER required 17 filmmakers to take a six-month journey aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz during its deployment to the Gulf in support of the Iraq War. They disembarked from Coronado, California on May 7, 2005 and returned there November 8, 2005 with stops at Pearl Harbor, Hong Kong, Guam, Kuala Lumpur, Bahrain and Perth, Australia."

"The trip proved an evolution for the film crew who spent the early weeks trying to find their place while the 5,000 sailors and Marines around them were too busy to take notice. Eventually, the film crew discerned the ebb and flow of life on a carrier, and began to feel more at home on board. The ship’s crew not only accepted them but also took a vested interest in the project, making suggestions on the best places to film and providing access to missions that helped capture the full experience of the deployment."

"Jammed into their own staterooms, the crew that once felt apart now felt kinship as they shared both trepidation and jubilation awaiting the safe return of the carrier’s jet fighters. When the huge emotional surge of seeing home hit in November, the filmmakers knew how the Nimitz crew must feel. But back on land, their own mission of editing and production continued for nearly three more years before the film CARRIER docked at PBS on April 27, 2008."

Episode descriptions of three of the ten hours of the PBS series, Carrier, that will be shown.

The ship’s location and itinerary are classified. Details of how the nuclear reactor works are top secret. Many aspects of life on a nuclear aircraft carrier are hush-hush. Dating and sex aboard ship are strictly forbidden, but according to one sailor, with 5,000 people on board, relationships are “inevitable,” resulting in a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that applies to relationships as well as sexual orientation. When the Nimitz pulls into Hong Kong for a four-day port call, a scandal dramatically alters the lives of two sailors. As the ship departs, the crew learns their itinerary has changed. The captain announces that they are heading for Korea, but the crew can’t share this information with their families back home ... because it’s a secret.

From the Director's Diary:

One of the biggest challenges in a city of 5,000 shipmates is selecting individuals with great personal stories who are willing and able to have a film crew following them daily over the course of several months. While on our two scouts, Deborah Dickson and I met some great people and also learned much more about all the jobs on the ship. I know that we want to have sailors from the Admiral down to the kitchen and everyone in between; meaning we must have a selection of people, with varied job, background, ethnicities, as well as personal and political viewpoints. What I have found is that the ship is as diverse as any small town, so finding these individuals is actually not a tough task. The problem is the number of great people to choose from and everyone has an amazing story. So it is tough to choose. What is important is not just if they are individually great — but how do they fit as a group — and what are they bringing to the story that, in combination with the others, makes the overall story and themes of the series more complete.

I often like to find individuals who are themselves at a crossroads, so that they will have their own journey, changes, story arcs, and personal themes that organically align with the themes of the series.

Chinese Paper Gods

On the occasion of the Chinese New Year, we found this trove of Paper Gods available to view online at the C.V. Starr East Asian Library at Colombia University. Here is the introduction to the collection of prints from the library pages themselves online:

"The images in this collection were assembled by Anne S. Goodrich (1895–2005) in 1931, when as a Christian missionary in Peking she became interested in local folk religious practices. She studied the paper gods in this collection for much of her life. After publishing her research conclusions in 1991, she donated these prints to the C.V. Starr East Asian Library, Columbia University."

"The images are divided initially by usage: Those which were purchased to be burned immediately and serve as emissaries to heaven; and those which were purchased to be displayed for a year while offering protection to the family in a variety of ways, before being burned. The images are further divided by display locations and by the deities they represent."

Here's how the prints are described:

"The prints included in this category would be pasted conspicuously throughout the home during the New Year's celebration and displayed throughout the year. At the end of the year, they were burned and replaced with a fresh print. These prints are generally more colorful and exquisitely designed than those intended for ceremonial use."

Front Door

"These colorful prints, usually produced in pairs, were pasted on adjacent double doors, side-by-side on a single door, or on the walls around the front door. Although they originally depicted fearsome gods who would chase away demons, they later came to include gentler images that promised prosperity and good tidings for the household.'

Back Door

"These prints, often depicting Zhong Kui, were placed near the back door to ensure that no demons would sneak in unnoticed by the guards of the front door."

Kitchen

"The Stove God, often depicted with his wife, was on duty in the kitchen throughout the year, keeping watch over the family. At the end of the year, he received ample offerings, and after his immolation he would return to heaven to report on the family. A yearly calendar was often included on prints of the Stove God."

Bedroom Door

"These prints, which usually portray double happiness or happy children, were pasted on or near the bedroom door. They would assist the happy couple in their pursuit of progeny, encouraging especially the birth of sons [our ital] ."

"These colorful and elaborate depictions of the God of Wealth were likely displayed throughout the year to ensure prosperity, or at least financial stability. Some of these were produced in pairs like the door prints, and may have been displayed on or around a doorway rather than in a shrine."

The Great Escape

PBS' Nova repeated The Great Escape a " program [that] sheds new light on the audacious escape of 76 Allied airmen from a Nazi POW camp during World War II. Sixty years after the event, NOVA follows a team of archeologists as they search the site of Stalag Luft III for new evidence of the clandestine operation, which involved 600 prisoners digging three highly sophisticated tunnels, code-named Tom, Dick, and Harry. Each tunnel was made with railways, electric lights, and underground air pumps — all under the noses of German guards."

"The detainees were planning to spring 200 men via Harry on the moonless night of March 24, 1944. Unfortunately, a guard spotted the 77th man as he exited the tunnel beyond the perimeter fence, but 76 managed to get away, fanning out in all directions and forcing the German army to commit tens of thousands of troops to an intensive manhunt."

The Three That Got Away: Of the 76 POWs who broke out of Stalag Luft III, only three made it all the way to freedom.

History's Great Escapes:  Review 10 celebrated getaways, from Elizabethan to modern times.
    
Slide Show and Interactive: A Prisoner's Sketchbook: POW Ley Kenyon made an extraordinary series of drawings both before and after the escape.
    
Inside Tunnel "Harry": See how the Allied POWs jerry-rigged their escape passage right under their captors' noses.

The Tudors

The Showtime series, The Tudors, returns for a second season but in the meantime, it's possible to rent/buy the DVD of Elizabeth starring Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth Tudor.

Better yet, downloading a free copy of England Under the Tudors by Arthur D. Innes, a Sometime Scholar of Oriel College, Oxford is possible at Project Gutenberg:

For though what we call the Tudor period, from 1485 to 1603, is determined by a merely dynastic title affecting England alone, the reign of that dynasty happens to coincide in point of time with the greatest territorial revolution on record, a religious revolution unparalleled since the rise of Mohammed, and an intellectual activity to match which we must go back to the great days of Hellas, or forward to the nineteenth century: revolutions all of them not specifically English, but affecting immediately every nation in Europe; while one of them extended itself to every continent on the globe. Moreover, the accompanying social revolution, though comparatively superficial, was only a little less marked than the others. Nor was there any country in Europe more influenced by the general Revolution in any one of its aspects than England.

Library Exhibits: Amusing America & The Léda Hincks Plauché and Bror Anders Wikstrom Carnival Designs

Amusing America is the story of participatory commercial amusements in American cities, San Francisco in particular. It was the premiere exhibition of the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society, co-sponsored by the San Francisco Public Library with support from the California State Library.

It's possible to take a virtual tour of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition and view a photograph of the "San Francisco Art Association on Pine Street, the site of the first commercial exhibition of moving pictures in America in 1880. Destroyed by fire November 4, 1894 — the year the movie business really got started in America."

"Adolph Sutro opens his Baths in 1896 with one fresh-water and six salt-water pools, 30 swimming rings, 9 spring boards, 7 slides, 3 trapezes, 2 diving platforms, 500 dressing rooms, hundreds of showers, thousands of bathing suits, a gym, a shoot-the-chutes, bucking broncos, and a museum filled with what Sutro calls 'bric-a-brac' to 'amuse and instruct'."

"I must have it large, pretentious, in keeping with the environment, with the Heights, with the great ocean itself..." — Adolph Sutro, Engineer, Philanthropist, Mayor of San Francisco

At the site is a poster of Sophie Tucker in 1910, quoting lyrics from a song:

The Louisiana Division of the New Orleans Public Library has in its possession 391 costume designs, 110 float designs and 11 albums of 3 ¼ x 5 ½" black & white photographs of Mardi Gras float designs. The collection is a gift of Léda Plauché in 1958. 285 of the designs were executed by Léda Plauché; 106 of the designs were by Bror Anders Wikstrom.

Date range is from ca. 1906-1953 and the costumes can be viewed online:

Designs by Léda Plauché:

Page One || Page Two || Page Three || Page Four || Page Five || Page Six || Page Seven || Page Eight || Page Nine || Page Ten || Page Eleven

Designs by Bror Anders Wikstrom:

Page Twelve || Page Thirteen || Page Fourteen || Page Fifteen

Curious Valentines

Malcolm Warrington's site displays comic Valentines and has this to say about them:

In mid-Victorian England the custom of sending daintily printed valentines, overflowing with hearts, cupids and poetical posies was generally understood to consist of an exchange of missives between special loving friends.

Yet beneath the sweet exterior and tender words of these lace-paper beauties lurked something far more sinister — the comic valentine!

These scurrilous printed sheets, entered into the humour of the common and middles classes, fun and mischief were their elements.

In reality they were masterpieces of the grotesque, venomous in humour, spiteful and rude, expressing anything but love.

Some of the earliest comic valentines were devoted to caricatures of people or were directed at various trades, usually humorous portraits accompanied by extremely uncomplimentary verses that were calculated to wound.

Consult with Mr. Warrington's site for additional comic Valentines.

Roz Chast

Famed cartoonist Roz Chast's work was on view at the Julie Saul gallery in an exhibit entitled Theories of Everything. Ms. Chast has been delighting readers with her cartoons for about thirty years. We did find a slide show of the cartoons presented at the gallery but the captions and balloons are printed in such small type, that we searched further.

Fortunately, we did find a video of the multi-talented Steve Martin interviewing Ms. Chast during a New Yorker festival.

Here are some of the topics covered:

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