Either. Or both. I recommend both.
Category: Illustration
Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright
How often does Chinese New Year fall on Valentines Day? So I had to celebrate both.
According to the Chinese Zodiac, 2010 is the Year of the Tiger (as were 1998, 1986, 1974, and so on backward every twelve years). If you were born in the Year of the Tiger, you are lively, engaging, sociable, and affectionate. Friends are always welcome in your home. You are impulsive, which can express itself in outbursts of generosity or hot temper. You are stubborn, a bit vain, and sensitive to criticism. Know anyone like this? Maybe you can guess which of your friends are Tigers without even knowing their birth years.
Tigers are supposed to be compatible with Dogs and Horses, and incompatible with Goats and Oxen. A Tiger/Tiger match is not recommended because both like to be in charge. Uh-oh. Well, Happy Chinese New Year, all you Valentines!
Winter Wonderland
The snow transforms the ordinary into the magical. I came around the corner into the alley and discovered these DC trash cans, looking now like a row of fantastic rich desserts. Or maybe jolly gnome houses.
The Tomes They Are A-Changin’
This may be a little cryptic. It’s my response to a recent meeting held at the much-loved local library, in which unwelcome developments present and future were laid out before us. Despite its being held during a snowstorm, the meeting was well-attended by many unhappy patrons.
A Long Winter
(click twice to expand to full-size)
Then you may get a sense of the resilience and inner resources of the family of Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957), whose birthday it is today. Such was the winter they experienced in Dakota Territory during the winter of 1880-81.
Wilder, born in a log cabin in Wisconsin, is well-known from her “Little House” books depicting 19th-century pioneer life through the eyes of a growing child. They are unique in combining a finely observed and personal yet unsentimental window into iconic aspects of American history: travel by covered wagon, homesteading, Indian migration, education in a one-room schoolhouse—with fascinating homely detail: cheesemaking, house construction, sugaring off—and a glimpse into the inner life of a bright, curious, imaginative girl struggling to adapt to the circumstances of her time and place.
The family’s joys are simple, their sorrows formidable. Crop devastation, malaria, prairie fires, and a sister’s blindness are described; the death of a baby brother is left unrecorded, probably still too painful to include. The books are a quiet testament to stubborn faith, determination, love, and courage, virtues frequently lauded but less often demonstrated. A bouquet of wildflowers on a clean checkered tablecloth and a family hymn accompanied by the paternal fiddle are the stuff of a boundary between hope and despair.
Although she had written magazine articles and newspaper columns, Wilder didn’t publish her first book until 1931, when she was 64, after having been asked for years by her daughter Rose to put her childhood memories on paper. Since then her books have been published in 40 languages and have informed, inspired, and enchanted many millions of readers. Happy Birthday, Laura Ingalls Wilder! You certainly were (and remain) a shining light of my growing-up.
Light Those Fires
Today we celebrate two festivals: Groundhog Day, at which time we learn, as the groundhog emerges from his burrow, whether or not the end of winter is near; and Candlemas, when, in the Christian church, the infant Jesus was presented for the first time in the Temple. Each is a festival of light in a season of darkness, ever-necessary even in a world of perpetual artificial illumination. (Probably more so.)
On this day, some people make the candles they will then store and use the following winter. Others make crêpes, a lovely round golden symbol of the coming sunshine (and if you can flip your crêpe without dropping it, you will supposedly have luck in the coming year). Some spend the evening entirely by candlelight, which really makes you think about the meaning of darkness, and the legacy of Thomas Edison. And some gather around the tv screen to watch Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, and laugh and feel hopeful all over again. In our family we have done each of the above. But not all the same year. Happy February 2nd, all.
Roshan (which means “Bright Light”)
“Boss” Shepherd
Today is the birthday of Alexander Robey Shepherd (1835–1902). Do you know who that is? Well, if not, now you will. My daughter and I are finishing up a lesson block on Local History and Geography, which has ranged from visiting and mapping our little neighborhood creeks (to follow how they connect to the Potomac River and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic) to learning about the prehistory and history of the bit of land upon which we now perch, grow strawberries, and walk the dog.
Among the colorful characters we have studied is the above-named Shepherd, nicknamed “Boss” Shepherd, who served on the Bureau of Public Works, and as governor, in the days when Washington, DC had governors. Shepherd was a powerful and controversial fellow who didn’t sit around waiting for something to be approved by some old committee or the U.S. Congress, and he took it upon himself to make huge improvements in the city’s infrastructure. He was also progressive for his day, promoting universal suffrage and school integration. Shepherd was eventually removed from office, and his statue was put in storage as an embarrassing reminder of the political corruption from which our fair city has henceforth been free… Anyway. Shepherd’s reputation has recently been rehabilitated and his statue is back in front of DC’s Wilson Building, where you can stand today and eat a cupcake in his honor.
It’s an Oldenburg
Today is the birthday of Claes Oldenburg (born 1929 in Stockholm, Sweden), whose sculptures depicting soft versions of normally solid objects (like bathtubs and violins) and gigantic versions of small household objects (like lipstick and ice cream cones) have been critically successful as well as extremely popular and are installed in public spaces around the world. Some, like his giant clothespin and typewriter eraser, have also with the passage of time become mementos of a dimly remembered disappearing technology. His works elevate the pedestrian to the extraordinary and are lots of fun besides. Here’s wishing him a great big slice of birthday cake.
Alexander
New Year’s Resolution: Recipe
This was inspired by Deb, who last week hosted book club and decided to abandon all her tried-and-true desserts in favor of something new: an amaretto-and-apricot-glazed gâteau with fresh berries and vanilla ice cream. We were contented guinea pigs. (Deb keeps a far tidier kitchen than does Daphne.)
Alena
Christiane
Man of Many Words
Today is the birthday of Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869), scientific writer, lecturer, and author of the Thesaurus, a project that he did not even begin to pursue seriously until his 70s. That ought to encourage the rest of us slowpokes. Roget was a lifelong and compulsive list-maker, a practice that apparently comforted him and helped sustain him through the terrible depressions that plagued him and his extended family, although he suffered tragedy enough throughout his life to justify serious despair. I love my Thesaurus and was inspired by this birthday to get on the library waiting list (speaking of lists) for a recent biography of Roget, Joshua Kendall’s The Man Who Made Lists. Among Roget’s many other admirers is J.M. Barrie:
“The night nursery of the Darling family, which is the scene of our opening Act, is at the top of a rather depressed street in Bloomsbury. We have a right to place it where we will, and the reason Bloomsbury is chosen is that Mr. Roget once lived there. So did we in days when his Thesaurus was our only companion in London; and we whom he has helped to wend our way through life have always wanted to pay him a little compliment. The Darlings therefore lived in Bloomsbury.” —Introduction to Act I of Peter Pan
Natsukashii: A Japanese word used to express the feeling described above. It is not yet in the Thesaurus.
Matilda
Susan