Mother: Bobbie, why can't you be good?
Bobbie: Well, Mother, I've asked the Lord a dozen times to make me good, an' I guess now it's up to him.
Life Magazine, 1922
Monday, August 31, 2015
Monday, August 24, 2015
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Bonus for Bee Day - The Bumble Bee Characteristic Rag (1909)
I thought I'd do the bees up right today. Harry Tierney was born on May 21, 1890 in one of those towns that usually only shows up in Loony Toons, Perth Amboy, New Jersey. The Bumble Bee Characteristic Rag was Tierney's first composition, written in 1909 while he was working as a composer in London. Many of his later compositions featured in Ziegfeld's Follies and he has the distinction of having one of the most successful Broadway hits of his era (Irene). His 1927 Rio Rita became one of RKO's first silver-screen musicals and it was followed by movie recreations of his Kid Boots, Dixiana, and Half Shot at Sunrise.
Tierney's covers are always striking, one day I'll get a copy of The Fanatic, his second composition posted. The Bumble Bee shows he was destined for Broadway since the bee-girl looks like a dancer from one of RKO's big musical productions. And as a bonus we've got a (admittedly midi) rendition of the piece for your enjoyment!
Happy National Honey Bee Day
According to Greek mythology, it was a mountain nymph named Melissa who hid Zeus from his cannibalistic father, Cronus. She cared for the young godling, feeding him on milk and honey and keeping him safe. When the titan found out about her deceit, he transformed the nymph into an earthworm. It was Zeus who took pity on her and transformed her into a bee. Mankind's association with the honeybee is an ancient one. In 2007 thirty intact straw and clay beehives dating back to the ninth century BCE. The hives were organized into rows of one hundred, showing evidence of organized apiculture in the ancient world.
Today beekeeping is moving back into the city and the presence of stinging bugs buzzing around suburbia has rubbed some people the wrong way. It's probably not surprising that there is a beekeeping organization lobbying to break bans and ordinances against the practice. That is the stated goal of National Honey Bee Day 2015.
Now that we've got the official stuff out of the way, what about a little music and fun? I'm Gonna Let the Bumble Bee Be isn't really a honey bee song, but it is a bee song. It came out in 1925 with words by Addy Britt and music by Jack Little. Little was born in Britain and his tunes featured in several movies of the era. He would eventually commit suicide two months after being name-checked in an episode of The Honeymooners.
A little dark there, let's lighten things up with a tune from Little's heyday.
Today beekeeping is moving back into the city and the presence of stinging bugs buzzing around suburbia has rubbed some people the wrong way. It's probably not surprising that there is a beekeeping organization lobbying to break bans and ordinances against the practice. That is the stated goal of National Honey Bee Day 2015.
Now that we've got the official stuff out of the way, what about a little music and fun? I'm Gonna Let the Bumble Bee Be isn't really a honey bee song, but it is a bee song. It came out in 1925 with words by Addy Britt and music by Jack Little. Little was born in Britain and his tunes featured in several movies of the era. He would eventually commit suicide two months after being name-checked in an episode of The Honeymooners.
A little dark there, let's lighten things up with a tune from Little's heyday.
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Rubber Limbs and the USS Oneida
Running a blog that thrives on old periodicals means constantly pouring through moldering magazines and newspapers in search of the odd and intriguing. In the six or so years I've been publishing my missives on the past I've seen hundreds of ads for cars, trains, ships, planes, canned goods, candy, and vacations around the world, but this week I stumbled across a first: an ad touting artificial limbs.
A. A. Marks wasn't the first company to manufacture artificial limbs. The earliest example comes from Capua, Italy where a bronze, iron, and wood leg dating back to 300 BC was unearthed during an 1858 excavation. Through history the art of replacing lost limbs ebbed and advanced, often in step with the history of human conflict. In the early 14th century a German mercenary invented the first hand with movable joints. Through the 17th and 19th centuries advances in articulation continued and with the scourge of amputations that attended the American Civil War, companies like A. A. Marks continued to push the prosthetic envelope.
The ad comes from the April 1893 edition of Railway Carmen's Journal and features a stalwart looking gentleman in US Navy uniform wearing a cap that bears the name of the U.S.S Oneida. The Oneida met its fate twenty-three years prior to the running of Marks' ad and she saw action in the Civil War, either of which would explain the gentleman's advanced age. It's hard to be certain, but a further look through the magazine revealed I'd apparently just been ignorant of just how many ads for prosthetic limbs were running at the time. It's hard to know if the reason owes to the dangerous nature of the railroad industry at the turn of the last century or if it's a testament to the number of men who would have been in the market to upgrade the prosthesis they'd been living with since the war.
The ad comes from the April 1893 edition of Railway Carmen's Journal and features a stalwart looking gentleman in US Navy uniform wearing a cap that bears the name of the U.S.S Oneida. The Oneida met its fate twenty-three years prior to the running of Marks' ad and she saw action in the Civil War, either of which would explain the gentleman's advanced age. It's hard to be certain, but a further look through the magazine revealed I'd apparently just been ignorant of just how many ads for prosthetic limbs were running at the time. It's hard to know if the reason owes to the dangerous nature of the railroad industry at the turn of the last century or if it's a testament to the number of men who would have been in the market to upgrade the prosthesis they'd been living with since the war.
Monday, August 17, 2015
The Funnies - Just Their Luck (1922)
Just Their Luck
To walk half a mile in the rain to get the correct time and find the darned thing has stopped.
Life Magazine, 1922
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Thirsty Thursday - The Poet's Dream
The internet is like the Ouroboros, feeding on itself a constant cycle of repetition where blogs pick up information from blogs and Wikipedia passes as thorough research. Take today's cocktail for example, The Poet's Dream.
If you surf the blogosphere you'll find assertions that the Poet's Dream came from either an 30's English bar guide or the 1935 Old Waldorf Astoria Bar Book. While that's all well and good and it may have appeared in the Astoria book, but it also appeared in Jauques Straub's 1913 Straub's Manual of Mixed Drinks.
According to a 1910 issue of the Oakland Tribune Jaques Straub was a wine steward at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago. He hailed from Switzerland and never drank, he simply knew his stuff, understood the way flavors interplay, and made the most of his skills even writing the cocktail manual Straub's Manual of Mixed Drinks. He worked at the Blackstone until prohibition did in the wine business.
Anyway, I guess the point is it's hard to know exactly where these cocktails come from. You hit on a recipe book, think you've got the source, and then a month later you find a book containing the same recipe that's a decade older. In the end, do you research, identify three agreeing sources, and you're good.
If you surf the blogosphere you'll find assertions that the Poet's Dream came from either an 30's English bar guide or the 1935 Old Waldorf Astoria Bar Book. While that's all well and good and it may have appeared in the Astoria book, but it also appeared in Jauques Straub's 1913 Straub's Manual of Mixed Drinks.
According to a 1910 issue of the Oakland Tribune Jaques Straub was a wine steward at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago. He hailed from Switzerland and never drank, he simply knew his stuff, understood the way flavors interplay, and made the most of his skills even writing the cocktail manual Straub's Manual of Mixed Drinks. He worked at the Blackstone until prohibition did in the wine business.
Anyway, I guess the point is it's hard to know exactly where these cocktails come from. You hit on a recipe book, think you've got the source, and then a month later you find a book containing the same recipe that's a decade older. In the end, do you research, identify three agreeing sources, and you're good.
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