"All I know is that I know nothing":
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-neuroscience-of-illusion
Colors:
http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_aug2006/RotatingIllusion.htm
Left brain? Right brain? Visual ambiguity:
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,22492511-5005375,00.html
(Thanks to Taylor and Lia for the first two links).
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Mid-Internship Reflection
Howdy Professor Lucic and Peck:
This is my mid-internship report, which I’m writing so you’ll know what I’ve been up to these past two months and where I’m headed with my final three here at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. The best way I can summarize this is by describing my general daily schedule and projects.
Classic Whaling Prints Exhibition
I’m currently working with Stuart Frank, the Senior Curator and director of my internship, on the Classic Whaling Prints exhibition, which will be going up in a few months. Generally, a good portion of Monday’s and Tuesdays are devoted to working on pulling this exhibition together.
When I initially got here, my first task was to locate approximately a hundred artifacts for the upcoming exhibit within the stores of the Museum’s collection—not a simple task. Things aren’t always where they are supposed to be, and when you’re new, and not even sure where you are supposed to be, it’s easy to find yourself lost deep within spirals of accession numbers. But for a geek like me, getting lost is a happy thing—I find all the coolest stuff when I am lost, like the wall of jarred whale oil and harpoon guns, or the ethnographic collections of Pacific Islander tools and weapons, or carved porpoise and shark skulls.
Once I’d located everything, the next task was to measure the dimensions of all the prints/objects. Since many of the prints were unframed, I had to make the best guesstimate could. Then I took all the measurements of the exhibition gallery and began to build a scale model of the exhibition (.75 inches to a foot) with miniature scale versions of the artifacts so Stuart can plan out what he wants on each wall. Cutting out and labeling a hundred-ish tiny scaled prints is a painstaking process, which I’ll be finishing later this week. It's a dollhouse, basically.
I can’t emphasize enough how cool the Classic Whaling Prints Exhibition is. I personally handle beautiful prints from the Dutch golden age of whaling dating back to the 17th century, not to mention prints by Huggins, Currier and Ives, Benjamin Russell, Rockwell Kent, Durand-Brager and Garneray—Garneray’s in particular are fantastic; Melville himself saw these prints (Pêche du Cachalot and Pêche de la Baliene) and referred to them in Moby Dick as the best examples of art “conveying the real spirit of the whale hunt”. Garneray’s Combat de Scies et de Baleines en vue de l’Ile Sainte Hé lè ne (“Combat of the sawfish and the Whales, in sight of the isle of St. Helena”) is perhaps the inspiration for the smoky painting Melville references in Moby Dick, Chapter 3, “The Spouter-Inn”!
Conservation
Every Wednesday I work in with Robert Hauser, the museum Conservator who specializes in paper conservation, and Rudolph Riefstahl, a volunteer/retired Curator and Art Historian. Our activities vary widely.
For one, I’m the primary liaison between Stuart (the Curator of the CWP exhibit) and Robert, so it’s really my job to make sure that the two of them are clear on expectations. It’s really exciting, because there are basically three people putting on this upcoming exhibition—and I am one of them.
Robert and I work together to assess the condition of the artifacts up for exhibition (primarily the prints), and I help organize paperwork and group sets of artifacts to be conserved and framed for exhibition. In the future weeks, he promises to teach me matting/cutting/framing techniques.
Robert also teaches me a lot about Conservation as a profession—a combination of art, craft, history, science—and a philosophical worldview. Here are a few of his maxims so you get the idea:
He has been showing me his tricks for safely packing artifacts, such as these tiny devices one can put inside a package that indicates if the package is ever tipped beyond a certain angle, or shaken particularly violently, and strips of paper which blot different colors if they are exposed to high humidity for extended periods of time, and safety mounts to deter would-be thieves. It’s all about due-diligence.
Rudy Reifstahl and I work primarily on his expertise: paintings. Generally, we’ll get a painting that’s going to be loaned to a different museum (so far, two different paintings by William Allen Wall) and he shows me how to write up these very detailed condition reports so that if they are returned with any issues, we have documented evidence of how they were before. Rudy knows an incredible amount about paintings, and particularly frames, so he’s been teaching me a lot about American period frames and frame anatomy, as well as burnishing, bole, gesso, outer/middle/linear elements, the process of painting, the conditions which lead to various different forms of painting deterioration (crackle, tenting, flaking, abrasion, fading, etc). Next week, we’re writing up furniture condition reports for two Dutch tall clocks.
Probably my favorite part of Wednesday’s conservation is our lunch break, where Rudy, Robert and I go out for food and discuss all sorts of issues, such as the ethics of Photoshop, touching up vs. redoing artist’s work—at what point is one intruding upon an objects natural aging or over-treating an object? How do we match paintings and frames? What was the artist’s intent and are we violating that? What would you save from the museum if it were on fire? Would you die for a work of art? Which one? What is art? What is an object? What is an artifact? What should we eat?
Thursday Scrimshaw Challenge
Thursday mornings (and occasionally other days) are reserved for the public to bring whaling artifacts to the Library for Stuart Frank (the world’s leading expert on scrimshaw) to analyze. Generally, these artifacts are scrimshaw (carved whalebone), and there is a team of other interested museum volunteers and employees who show up with magnifying glasses to see what’s on the table. I’ve seen quite a few of sperm whale teeth already, and Stuart explains everything from Ivory Legislation to methods of identification and authentication, such as patination, pigment migration, microscopic analysis of the individual cuts, etc—I’m told I’ll be pretty good at this myself by the time I leave. Just the other week, a guy showed up with a van full of almost 30 harpoons, which has impelled me to start reading about the history of harpoon technology.
Miscellaneous Curatorial
I’ve had the opportunity to attend a number of Curatorial Meetings, and have really enjoyed watching the various Curators discuss the upcoming redesign of the main museum exhibitions. Particularly interesting is the discussion of the place of the Museum within a community (1. Preserve history; 2. Present it to the public; 3. Research), and the best way to present information to the public that is accessible to different levels of the public. Furthermore, just last week the museum hired a new President, so it’s been really interesting to be at the museum at a time of major transition.
Stuart also sends me off on all sorts of odd missions. For example, a dentist who was studying anomalous whale teeth came to photograph our specimens of sperm whale teeth suffering various different pathologies. Just last week, I was assigned to work with a volunteer to catalog the museum’s extensive scrimshaw Swift collection (complex machines for converting skeins of yarn into balls of yarn, probably the most labor-intensive object to make out of whalebone). Or computer repair. Or local concerts of sea chanteys, or auctions—he promises a trip to Nantucket and Mystic Seaport before my time's up.
Photoarchives
On Fridays, I work with Michael Lapides, the curator of the photographic archives. Again, the work here covers a wide gamut—but generally it is a much more technology intensive department. I’ve learned quite a bit of Photoshop techniques, as well as how to do proper scanning for the collection and how to catalog items into Rediscovery, the Museum database. I’ve also been learning a lot about the history of photography, as I am expected to be able to identify different types of photos. Occasionally, I am sent out to NBWM events to photograph our activities, etc.
Because I am a big computer nerd, I’ve been really helping with steering advertising and publicity for the Whaling Museum on the internet. Since I’ve arrived, we’ve created a Facebook group and a Flickr page for sharing photos (which involved a decent amount of reading regarding copyrights and Creative Commons) with a wider community. Right now, I’ve taken up the project of updating and expanding the currently scant Wikipedia article on the NBWM.
We’ve also been significantly updating the Museum webpage and better advertising our current exhibitions as well as creating new internet-only exhibitions. Once I finish writing this progress report, I’m going to write a short article to publish as an online exhibit about the HMS Resolute desks. (An unofficial version of it can be found here: http://spellbananas.blogspot.com/2008/09/hms-resolute-was-british-ship.html)
I also have a larger project involving Benjamin Russell’s Panorama of a Whaling Voyage Round the World, which is a 12' tall panorama that stretches almost 1300' feet painted in 1846-48, which Russell would bring on stage and unravel in sections to give the audience a feel for what whaling was like—it’s a kind of 19th century film in a way. The museum actually owns this thing; it’s amazing. My project is to take the photographs the museum already possesses, and see if it isn’t possible to combine them into a digital panorama that can we can put online for people to look at, given it is too fragile to display otherwise. I’m actually a bit apprehensive about this project—I’m pretty certain we have complete photos, but in order to make a panorama, these photos need to be taken from the same angle, from the same distance, under the same lighting, and my bet is all these factors are highly labile given no sane photographer was able to photograph 1300 feet of delicate canvas in a single day. There is a limit to what Photoshop can do to make these images panoramic—and there’s a limit to what Photoshop should do, but I’m very excited to give it a try.
Final Internship Project
I am expected to produce a final project as part of my internship. Initially, my plan was to write an annotated edition of Moby Dick, a project I’ve been compiling slowly for a couple years now. However, I discovered that—just this year—that very project had been completed by someone else! It's a considerably different from how I would have done it, but it's pretty darn good: (http://powermobydick.com).
So I’m thinking about a new project. I’m considering doing an annotated version of a different work of Melville (maybe White Jacket?), but I don’t think I’ll have enough time given I’m starting from scratch.
Alternatively, I might do a project on the early (16th century) depictions of whales and whaling by Olaus Magnus, Conrad Gessner, Ambroise Parè, Sebastian Munster—I love these prints.
That’s a brief summary of what I’m up to here at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. This internship is unbelievable—I haven’t even gotten close to describing what an opportunity and experience it has been. In all honesty, I’ve already learned more in my two months here than I would have learned during a semester at Vassar; I make that statement not to diminish the quality of the Vassar education, but to emphasize the quality of my time here.
This is my mid-internship report, which I’m writing so you’ll know what I’ve been up to these past two months and where I’m headed with my final three here at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. The best way I can summarize this is by describing my general daily schedule and projects.
Classic Whaling Prints Exhibition
I’m currently working with Stuart Frank, the Senior Curator and director of my internship, on the Classic Whaling Prints exhibition, which will be going up in a few months. Generally, a good portion of Monday’s and Tuesdays are devoted to working on pulling this exhibition together.
When I initially got here, my first task was to locate approximately a hundred artifacts for the upcoming exhibit within the stores of the Museum’s collection—not a simple task. Things aren’t always where they are supposed to be, and when you’re new, and not even sure where you are supposed to be, it’s easy to find yourself lost deep within spirals of accession numbers. But for a geek like me, getting lost is a happy thing—I find all the coolest stuff when I am lost, like the wall of jarred whale oil and harpoon guns, or the ethnographic collections of Pacific Islander tools and weapons, or carved porpoise and shark skulls.
Once I’d located everything, the next task was to measure the dimensions of all the prints/objects. Since many of the prints were unframed, I had to make the best guesstimate could. Then I took all the measurements of the exhibition gallery and began to build a scale model of the exhibition (.75 inches to a foot) with miniature scale versions of the artifacts so Stuart can plan out what he wants on each wall. Cutting out and labeling a hundred-ish tiny scaled prints is a painstaking process, which I’ll be finishing later this week. It's a dollhouse, basically.
I can’t emphasize enough how cool the Classic Whaling Prints Exhibition is. I personally handle beautiful prints from the Dutch golden age of whaling dating back to the 17th century, not to mention prints by Huggins, Currier and Ives, Benjamin Russell, Rockwell Kent, Durand-Brager and Garneray—Garneray’s in particular are fantastic; Melville himself saw these prints (Pêche du Cachalot and Pêche de la Baliene) and referred to them in Moby Dick as the best examples of art “conveying the real spirit of the whale hunt”. Garneray’s Combat de Scies et de Baleines en vue de l’Ile Sainte Hé lè ne (“Combat of the sawfish and the Whales, in sight of the isle of St. Helena”) is perhaps the inspiration for the smoky painting Melville references in Moby Dick, Chapter 3, “The Spouter-Inn”!
Conservation
Every Wednesday I work in with Robert Hauser, the museum Conservator who specializes in paper conservation, and Rudolph Riefstahl, a volunteer/retired Curator and Art Historian. Our activities vary widely.
For one, I’m the primary liaison between Stuart (the Curator of the CWP exhibit) and Robert, so it’s really my job to make sure that the two of them are clear on expectations. It’s really exciting, because there are basically three people putting on this upcoming exhibition—and I am one of them.
Robert and I work together to assess the condition of the artifacts up for exhibition (primarily the prints), and I help organize paperwork and group sets of artifacts to be conserved and framed for exhibition. In the future weeks, he promises to teach me matting/cutting/framing techniques.
Robert also teaches me a lot about Conservation as a profession—a combination of art, craft, history, science—and a philosophical worldview. Here are a few of his maxims so you get the idea:
- Conservate hodienum diem crastino (“Preserve today for tomorrow”)
- There’s never time to do it right, but there’s always time to do it over.
- The treatment was successful but the patient died.
- Do as much as necessary and as little as possible.
- Conservation is 65% preservation, 30% vigilance, and 5% treatment.
He has been showing me his tricks for safely packing artifacts, such as these tiny devices one can put inside a package that indicates if the package is ever tipped beyond a certain angle, or shaken particularly violently, and strips of paper which blot different colors if they are exposed to high humidity for extended periods of time, and safety mounts to deter would-be thieves. It’s all about due-diligence.
Rudy Reifstahl and I work primarily on his expertise: paintings. Generally, we’ll get a painting that’s going to be loaned to a different museum (so far, two different paintings by William Allen Wall) and he shows me how to write up these very detailed condition reports so that if they are returned with any issues, we have documented evidence of how they were before. Rudy knows an incredible amount about paintings, and particularly frames, so he’s been teaching me a lot about American period frames and frame anatomy, as well as burnishing, bole, gesso, outer/middle/linear elements, the process of painting, the conditions which lead to various different forms of painting deterioration (crackle, tenting, flaking, abrasion, fading, etc). Next week, we’re writing up furniture condition reports for two Dutch tall clocks.
Probably my favorite part of Wednesday’s conservation is our lunch break, where Rudy, Robert and I go out for food and discuss all sorts of issues, such as the ethics of Photoshop, touching up vs. redoing artist’s work—at what point is one intruding upon an objects natural aging or over-treating an object? How do we match paintings and frames? What was the artist’s intent and are we violating that? What would you save from the museum if it were on fire? Would you die for a work of art? Which one? What is art? What is an object? What is an artifact? What should we eat?
Thursday Scrimshaw Challenge
Thursday mornings (and occasionally other days) are reserved for the public to bring whaling artifacts to the Library for Stuart Frank (the world’s leading expert on scrimshaw) to analyze. Generally, these artifacts are scrimshaw (carved whalebone), and there is a team of other interested museum volunteers and employees who show up with magnifying glasses to see what’s on the table. I’ve seen quite a few of sperm whale teeth already, and Stuart explains everything from Ivory Legislation to methods of identification and authentication, such as patination, pigment migration, microscopic analysis of the individual cuts, etc—I’m told I’ll be pretty good at this myself by the time I leave. Just the other week, a guy showed up with a van full of almost 30 harpoons, which has impelled me to start reading about the history of harpoon technology.
Miscellaneous Curatorial
I’ve had the opportunity to attend a number of Curatorial Meetings, and have really enjoyed watching the various Curators discuss the upcoming redesign of the main museum exhibitions. Particularly interesting is the discussion of the place of the Museum within a community (1. Preserve history; 2. Present it to the public; 3. Research), and the best way to present information to the public that is accessible to different levels of the public. Furthermore, just last week the museum hired a new President, so it’s been really interesting to be at the museum at a time of major transition.
Stuart also sends me off on all sorts of odd missions. For example, a dentist who was studying anomalous whale teeth came to photograph our specimens of sperm whale teeth suffering various different pathologies. Just last week, I was assigned to work with a volunteer to catalog the museum’s extensive scrimshaw Swift collection (complex machines for converting skeins of yarn into balls of yarn, probably the most labor-intensive object to make out of whalebone). Or computer repair. Or local concerts of sea chanteys, or auctions—he promises a trip to Nantucket and Mystic Seaport before my time's up.
Photoarchives
On Fridays, I work with Michael Lapides, the curator of the photographic archives. Again, the work here covers a wide gamut—but generally it is a much more technology intensive department. I’ve learned quite a bit of Photoshop techniques, as well as how to do proper scanning for the collection and how to catalog items into Rediscovery, the Museum database. I’ve also been learning a lot about the history of photography, as I am expected to be able to identify different types of photos. Occasionally, I am sent out to NBWM events to photograph our activities, etc.
Because I am a big computer nerd, I’ve been really helping with steering advertising and publicity for the Whaling Museum on the internet. Since I’ve arrived, we’ve created a Facebook group and a Flickr page for sharing photos (which involved a decent amount of reading regarding copyrights and Creative Commons) with a wider community. Right now, I’ve taken up the project of updating and expanding the currently scant Wikipedia article on the NBWM.
We’ve also been significantly updating the Museum webpage and better advertising our current exhibitions as well as creating new internet-only exhibitions. Once I finish writing this progress report, I’m going to write a short article to publish as an online exhibit about the HMS Resolute desks. (An unofficial version of it can be found here: http://spellbananas.blogspot.com/2008/09/hms-resolute-was-british-ship.html)
I also have a larger project involving Benjamin Russell’s Panorama of a Whaling Voyage Round the World, which is a 12' tall panorama that stretches almost 1300' feet painted in 1846-48, which Russell would bring on stage and unravel in sections to give the audience a feel for what whaling was like—it’s a kind of 19th century film in a way. The museum actually owns this thing; it’s amazing. My project is to take the photographs the museum already possesses, and see if it isn’t possible to combine them into a digital panorama that can we can put online for people to look at, given it is too fragile to display otherwise. I’m actually a bit apprehensive about this project—I’m pretty certain we have complete photos, but in order to make a panorama, these photos need to be taken from the same angle, from the same distance, under the same lighting, and my bet is all these factors are highly labile given no sane photographer was able to photograph 1300 feet of delicate canvas in a single day. There is a limit to what Photoshop can do to make these images panoramic—and there’s a limit to what Photoshop should do, but I’m very excited to give it a try.
Final Internship Project
I am expected to produce a final project as part of my internship. Initially, my plan was to write an annotated edition of Moby Dick, a project I’ve been compiling slowly for a couple years now. However, I discovered that—just this year—that very project had been completed by someone else! It's a considerably different from how I would have done it, but it's pretty darn good: (http://powermobydick.com).
So I’m thinking about a new project. I’m considering doing an annotated version of a different work of Melville (maybe White Jacket?), but I don’t think I’ll have enough time given I’m starting from scratch.
Alternatively, I might do a project on the early (16th century) depictions of whales and whaling by Olaus Magnus, Conrad Gessner, Ambroise Parè, Sebastian Munster—I love these prints.
That’s a brief summary of what I’m up to here at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. This internship is unbelievable—I haven’t even gotten close to describing what an opportunity and experience it has been. In all honesty, I’ve already learned more in my two months here than I would have learned during a semester at Vassar; I make that statement not to diminish the quality of the Vassar education, but to emphasize the quality of my time here.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
The Great Schlep
My secret, long-held celebrity crush on Emma Watson has just come to an end. There's a new woman in my life now:
Sarah Silverman
Sarah Silverman
Monday, September 22, 2008
Quick Weekend Update
Saturday, I went sailing in Boston with some friends and it was beautiful!
We got a big boat.
Thanks to Barbara.
Steven made a documentary out of the event. I'm just glad we didn't get that camera wet.
Jonah and Swilf trade off at the tiller.
We only got the boat because Barbara had connections with the staff there... so it was really a group challenge/effort to get the boat rigged and not hit anything. (Success! Thank you Mission Bay Aquatics!) I possess the well-practiced skill of putting the boat in irons, (all I do is turn the boat the way I think will make us go fastest) which was nice for kicking back and drinking mimosas.
Ah...
I’m always walking into random stuff happening in downtown New Bedford. I guess I never put up the video of the day there was a bagpipe marching band going down Purchase Street…but here’s what was going down on Pleasant Street today.
Note the little girl in sunglasses and tie.
And they're off!
Great Moments in NFL History:
------------------
Patriots: 13
Dolphins: 38
------------------
We got a big boat.
Thanks to Barbara.
Steven made a documentary out of the event. I'm just glad we didn't get that camera wet.
Jonah and Swilf trade off at the tiller.
We only got the boat because Barbara had connections with the staff there... so it was really a group challenge/effort to get the boat rigged and not hit anything. (Success! Thank you Mission Bay Aquatics!) I possess the well-practiced skill of putting the boat in irons, (all I do is turn the boat the way I think will make us go fastest) which was nice for kicking back and drinking mimosas.
Ah...
I’m always walking into random stuff happening in downtown New Bedford. I guess I never put up the video of the day there was a bagpipe marching band going down Purchase Street…but here’s what was going down on Pleasant Street today.
Note the little girl in sunglasses and tie.
And they're off!
Great Moments in NFL History:
------------------
Patriots: 13
Dolphins: 38
------------------
Monday, September 15, 2008
Let Us Tell You About Our Desk
Special thanks to: Michael Lapides, Stuart Frank, Laura Pereira, and Rudy Riefstahl
If you’ve watched the film National Treasure: Book of Secrets, then you probably recall Nicolas Cage’s daring break-in to the White House and Buckingham Palace in order to steal ancient Olmec rune stone maps secreted away in hidden compartments within what he refers to as the “twin Resolute desks”. While Nicolas Cage is unarguably resourceful and clever in his fanciful investigation, the New Bedford Whaling Museum would like you to know that there is more to this story than meets the big screen.
Cage finding a treasure map in the Resolute Desk
The HMS Resolute was a 600 ton British ship under the command of Sir Edward Belcher specifically designed for exploring the freezing Arctic. The Resolute set out in 1852 with the goal of finding the lost Franklin expedition, a team of explorers that had disappeared around 1848 and had, by that point, already perished.1 Ironically, the HMS Resolute promptly became ice-locked, and the crew was forced to abandon ship in 1854.
HMS Resolute from the Illustrated London News2
A year later, the empty Resolute—having drifted some twelve hundred miles with the icepack—was found by Captain James Buddington of the whaleship George Henry. Daring harsh weather conditions and forfeiting the whaling season, Captain Buddington and a skeleton crew piloted the ghost ship back to New London, Connecticut.3
The British magnanimously waived their claim to the Resolute. However Congress, goaded on by Henry Grinnell (a wealthy business man who had funded several rescue attempts for the Franklin expedition), decided to buy the Resolute from Buddington for $40,000 and return it as a gift to Queen Victoria, symbolizing the friendship between the two countries.
For the record, I'm sure Buddington would like everyone to know the he never received a penny of that $40,000—by the time it was disbursed in 1857, the company who owned the George Henry had been bought up by Henry P. Haven, who left Buddington completely out of the loop.
Queen Victoria receives the HMS Resolute4
The Queen graciously accepted the salvaged Resolute with a characteristic “I thank you, sir”. In 1879, the entire ship was dismantled, and its timbers were fashioned into a number of artifacts which the Queen presented to some of the parties involved.
Back to Nicolas Cage, standing in front of the Eiffel Tower: by talking to a few French policemen and performing some impressive acrobatics of free association, Cage solves the latest riddle5 and determines that the “twin Resolute desks” contain his next clue.
Cage correctly identifies the first desk—it’s in the Oval office. The Queen gave this large, robust desk to President Rutherford B. Hayes, and it has been used by just about every President since (notable exceptions: Johnson, Ford and Nixon).6
Two Kennedys at the Resolute desk.7
Nicolas Cage figures that the second desk (containing the second half of the ancient Olmec treasure map) is located in Buckingham Palace. Not so, Mr. Cage! The second desk, which is considerably smaller and modest in comparison to the President’s desk, has been on loan to the Royal Naval Museum (Portsmouth, UK) since the 1980s. However Cage makes a far greater mistake by assuming that there are only two desks.8 What Mr. Cage failed to account for is that the HMS Resolute was constructed from fine aged English oak—and a lot of it. Theoretically, there should be enough wooden artifacts to account for the entire ship, minus sawdust and shavings.
The third delicately fashioned lady’s desk, known as the “Queen Victoria Desk” or the “Grinnell Desk” was a gift from the Queen to Henry Grinnell’s widow (Henry died in 1874), in gratitude for his contribution toward the Franklin rescue attempts.9
Henry Grinnell (1799-1874)10
And just where do these priceless whaling artifacts end up when they’ve run their course?
You guessed it: the New Bedford Whaling Museum. In 1983, Peter S. Grinnell was kind enough to donate the Grinnell desk to the Whaling Museum.
Although we here at the Whaling Museum are grateful that Nicolas Cage never busted into our collections in order to try to find portions of ancient Olmec treasure maps, we are certainly disappointed that the producers of National Treasure: Book of Secrets would prefer to invent a fantasy Grinnell desk at Buckingham Palace rather than film the real one here at the Whaling Museum. It's really a movie-crushing error in what was otherwise a factually sound documentary.
The New Bedford Whaling Museum invites you to come see the real Grinnell desk, though we politely ask that you not search for secret compartments, or hidden treasure maps.
The Grinnell desk, at the New Bedford Whaling Museum Research Library.11
1Those interested in the fate of the Franklin expedition should refer to: Carey, John. "Answers From an Icy Grave", Newsweek. 8 Oct. 1984.
2Illustrated London Times, 27 Dec. 1856; available under Public Domain.
3Colby, Barnard L. For Oil and Buggy Whips. Mystic, Connecticut: Mystic Seaport Museum, Inc., 1990. (pp.78-88).
4Image published Jun 7, 1859, “England and America: the Visit of Her Majesty Queen Victoria to the Arctic ship Resolute”; Image courtesy of the New Bedford Whaling Museum.
5The following is the riddle Nicolas Cage solves (quoted from the movie script):
“Across the sea these twins stand resolute to preserve what we are looking for. —Laboulaye 1876”.
6The President’s desk was also altered: Franklin Roosevelt had it raised and couple inches to accommodate his wheelchair, and also had the front panel attached so that his leg braces wouldn’t be in view.
7Photo by Stanley Tretick (1963), available under Public Domain; note Kennedy’s scrimshaw on the desk.
8Cage also gets his dates confused; the riddle quoted above is dated 1876, at which point the HMS Resolute was still in service, and three years away from anything resembling a desk.
9There are also rumors of a fourth desk, a gift to Captain Buddington. However, desks are not the only ends for Resolute timbers. For example, there is a set of wooden bowls which may have been made from the Resolute, though the provenance remains uncertain.
10Kane, Elisha Kent. Picture from front plate of Arctic Explorations in the Year 1853, ’54, ’55: vol.II. Philadelphia: Childs’ and Peterson, 1856. Courtesy of the New Bedford Whaling Museum; Henry Grinnell was born in New Bedford.
11
Monday, September 8, 2008
Spectacles Magazine
Go check out my article on Spectacles Magazine! If you're pressed for time, you can get a pretty good gist of it by reading the first and last few sections. And make sure to take a look at James Phelps' art while you're there.
I really like Baby, a drawing of a creature blissfully sucking on its own foot, so completely overwhelmed by the joy of it, that he completely misses the fact that it is just a disgusting foot. The baby's ego is so consumed with the foot, that it is consumed by the foot, becoming a mere, flat cartoon of an actual being, while the foot becomes all the more three-dimensional and real in its fleshy repulsiveness. These qualities of the foot are corroborated by Toe.
At least, I think that's what James was getting at.
Alex Remo's article about the FHA is hilarious too. He told me he intends to write another two follow up articles to it, more oriented toward San Diego. Hopefully I can coax him into following through.
Here's the link:
http://www.spectaclesmagazine.com
I really like Baby, a drawing of a creature blissfully sucking on its own foot, so completely overwhelmed by the joy of it, that he completely misses the fact that it is just a disgusting foot. The baby's ego is so consumed with the foot, that it is consumed by the foot, becoming a mere, flat cartoon of an actual being, while the foot becomes all the more three-dimensional and real in its fleshy repulsiveness. These qualities of the foot are corroborated by Toe.
At least, I think that's what James was getting at.
Alex Remo's article about the FHA is hilarious too. He told me he intends to write another two follow up articles to it, more oriented toward San Diego. Hopefully I can coax him into following through.
Here's the link:
http://www.spectaclesmagazine.com
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Interesting Whale Facts:
In General:
--In order to adapt to life as a water mammal, whales evolved complete control over their respiratory systems. A whale has to consciously make a decision to breathe.
--Because whales have to consciously think to breathe, they have a unique problem when it comes to sleeping. They solve this by a process called unihemispherical sleeping, in which a whale shuts down one half of its brain (and the opposite eye), while the other half remains in operation. They switch sides every few hours until rested.
--Whales easily swim hundreds of miles and specific whales have been sighted in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans within just a few months.
--Whales have the largest brains of any mammals, up to 20 pounds, easily besting the largest human brain (2kg) achieved by Turgenev.
--There have been multiple incidents during which a whale has exploded.
--There are two main suborders of whales, the mysticeti (“mustached whales”, because they sort of look like they have beards) and the odontoceti (“toothed whales”)
--Odontoceti only have one blowhole, usually off center. Mysticeti have two.
Right Whales
--Are so called because they were known as the “right” whale to hunt, being slow, generally docile, blubber-ful and buoyant when dead.
--Northern Atlantic right whales are so over hunted (there are 300 or so remaining) that all come from only three unique family lines (yes, marine biologists mapped the family trees of these remaining whales).
--There is a theory that whales have an acoustic map of the world memorized, an enormous echolocation map of the sea floor.
--Right whales gangbang.
Humpback Whales
(megaptera novaeangliae "big-winged New Englander")
--Humpback whales have a unique feeding strategy: they exhale bubbles in a great spiraling cone formation in order to confuse and entrap a school of fish in a concentrated bubble tornado. The whales then take a big bite out of the center.
--40 ton humpback whales bash each other bloody for mating rights.
--Humpbacks have an amazing whale song, or booty call, which consists of a theme which they continually make variations on. Whole groups of humpbacks will sing the same song in time with each other.
Sperm Whales
(Physeter macrocephalus “big-headed blower” or Physeter catodon “lower-toothed blower”)
--Can easily dive to 10,000 feet and stay under for up to two hours.
--Largest nostril of any animal (only one), and largest head of any animal.
--Begin to erupt teeth around 10 years of age.
--Exchange 85-90% of air in lungs.
--Most ribs aren't connected to the sternum, allowing compression under pressure.
--Largest toothed mammal, but only has teeth on its lower jaw.
--Periodically eats people. Prefers squid.
No one is quite sure why sperm whales have their characteristic enormous heads, which early whalers really did think was full of sperm. Hypotheses include:
- Regulating buoyancy and somehow allowing it to hold its breath longer.
- Sperm whales use them for battle, ramming each other like pachycephalosaurs competing for a mate. This might also explain their tendency to ram ships.
- Echolocation amplifier (to the point at which marine biologists suspect sperm whales even stun their prey with sonic bursts.) The sperm whale was known as the "carpenter of the sea" because its clicks sounded like hammering through the hulls of ships.
- Sperm whales communicate in specific sets of clicks, known as codas, which marine biologists are currently attempting to decode. Different click dialects have been noted among different groups of sperm whales
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Why I Bought the Axe "Shower Tool"
1. It’s a tool.
2. Better than one of those foofy, puffy things.
3. I wanted one of those foofy, puffy things.
4. I expect the experience to be similar to the commercial.
5. Compensation for my new “ride”.
Take me baby. Take me now.
2. Better than one of those foofy, puffy things.
3. I wanted one of those foofy, puffy things.
4. I expect the experience to be similar to the commercial.
5. Compensation for my new “ride”.
Take me baby. Take me now.
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