Chess

Most of my young adult years, age 18 to 35, I spent in academia living under the poverty of student life. Ramen noodles. Ragged blue jeans. At one point I neither had nor could afford a bed, and so for a year I slept on a rubber mat on the floor. Once I finally bailed out into the real world, I was astonished to discover that I could actually purchase non-necessities. You know, more than just an ascetic budget of food, clothing, and shelter. I started buying items I called my gear. First piece of gear I ever bought, back in 1993, was a Swiss Army knife which I still have and use. Second item was my old Hudson's Bay point blanket. And my third piece of gear was a Chess set.

I've always been a fanatic about games. I got a big, solid wood chessboard, 21" on a side. I got ebony and boxwood chessmen, Staunton, lead weighted, leather pads underneath. That aweful Platonic light that burns at the heart of all games burns especially hard and bright from within the game of Chess. To see into Chess is to see deeply into a transcendent mystery. I wanted a Chess set that said all this eloquently. Chess set, Chess set, burning bright, in the forests of the night...

Chess and I go back a long way together. I learned the moves of the pieces at age three, enough to play a rough Chess game, more or less. I learned the finer details at age nine— castling queenside, capturing a pawn en passant, 50-move draw rule, etc.— to be honest, I was a little disappointed that there weren't more such irregular rules, I had imagined an endless cloud of little exceptions and irregularities. I played Chess whenever I could. For some reason I preferred to play black. My favorite chessman was the Knight.

In high school we organized a Chess Club, with Mr. Hansen as our advisor. We attended one Chess tournament, then the principal told us the school couldn't afford the gas money for the van. Hunh, I was on the cross-country team, which took the van to every away meet, and gas was no problem. We planned to hold a school Chess tournament, wondered if we could get a Chess trophy to be engraved and placed in one of the three huge ceiling-to-floor glass trophy cases in the lobby of the high school. The principal said a trophy would cost too much, never mind that they spent twice as much on the uniform of a single football player. We scheduled a meeting of the Chess club in the business room during homeroom, then after the regular announcements that morning the principal came on the intercom to announce that the meeting of the Chess club was canceled. He did this on his own say-so, since (if you hadn't figured it by now) he hated Chess and thought that pursuits of the mind were stupid.

There was a lot of petty anti-intellectualism like that in the culture back in those days; they called our high school the "Sports Academy," anything but sports could go hang.

But then Chess has often been something of a countercultural pursuit, hasn't it? Longhaired players in coffeehouses. Crazy Paul Morphy. Crazy Wilhelm Steinitz. Crazy Akiba Rubinstein. Crazy Bobby Fischer. Chess as a pursuit that absorbs all your energies and renders you unfit for any other serious pursuit in life. Alice, the Red Queen, Through the Looking Glass.

At one point there, late teens and early twenties, I was beginning to get middling good at Chess. Knew what I was up to when I made a move, not just a pawnpusher. I was even learning various chess openings, Ruy Lopez, Giuoco Piano, King's Gambit, Sicilian Defense, Caro-Kann, King's Indian Defense, Queen's Gambit. But I let it go, I could see that the only way to get really good at it was to let it become an endless sinkhole for my energy.

Chess is one of the deepest games ever devised. Only the Game of Go has a reasonable claim to be deeper, though the Game of Shogi or Japanese Chess also comes close.

If Chess has a shortcoming, in my eyes it's precisely that, in order to play well in today's world, you need to memorize an encyclopedic load of openings. A game like this should be more amenable to strategic analysis than to rote memorization. Plus, well, computers have made massive inroads into Chess, haven't they? I'm one of those reactionaries who, in the rivalry between Man and Machine, still root for Man. But it's a losing battle. In the end the Machine will win.

Still there's nothing quite like Chess. It's a beauty of a game, a piece of Platonic archetype trapped and imprisoned in board and boxwood and ebony, like a fly caught in amber.

Via Crucis Triptych

All the items I've been ordering online lately, and here's yet another that arrived the other day. It's a small triptych, with the stations of the cross on it. Via crucis. The way of the cross. O crux ave, spes unica!

Small, only about 4½ inches tall. Black leather, with embossed panels of oxidized silver. Gold trim. It unfolds to stand on a tabletop, or you can fold it up to just about the shape and size of a billfold. Literally pocket sized, and exquisite workmanship.


This is another one of those items that is so wondrously low-tech, and just such a funky idea. I mean, who would ever have thought of such an item? But once you think of it, it seems like a natural. And timeless: I can almost imagine some English merchant, some Italian noble, some German hawksman, carrying it with him circa 1597.

"Use Only As a Tire Thumper"

Well, I'm on a roll lately, buying obscure but cool items online. Here's one that arrived the other day, a genuine Ozark Tire Thumper, 19 inches of cedar, weighted with a solid lead core. Grooved handle, super strong, leather thong. Tire thumpers are allegedly used by truck drivers to see if their tires are underinflated, you know, give the tire a good sound thump and you can tell by the sound if the tire is low on air.

Something shady about this tire thumper, though. You'll notice it looks like nothing so much as a sawed-off baseball bat. A sawed-off baseball bat weighted with lead: yes, the center of the "bat" is drilled out and filled with solid lead. Heavy! One might almost suspect this tire thumper of being sold for thumping things other than tires. Note, stamped on the side of the tire thumper it reads, Use Only As A TIRE THUMPER.

Oh really? What else might it be used as? Skull thumper, maybe? Kneecap thumper? On the package it says, sold for use as a Tire Thumper for checking tire pressure only. In other words, just because it looks like a lead-weighted sawed-off baseball bat, don't you go getting any ideas! Add to that how this Ozark Tire Thumper has a way of turning up for sale on "self-defense" websites. Oh, and shipping is prohibited to several states, plus all of Canada. I also find on some discussion forums that if the cops pull you over and find a Tire Thumper in your car, in some localities you could be charged with carrying a concealed weapon, even if you've got tires to be thumped.

Sounds mighty suspicious to me. Though this Tire Thumper is certainly not concealed, leaning against the wall right next to my bed. For years I've had a little souvenir Chicago Cubs bat sitting there, one of those miniature souvenir baseball bats that's skinny as a toothpick and weighs about three ounces. This Ozark Tire Thumper, 19 weighty inches of solid cedar and lead, will come much more in useful for me, should I ever wake up in the middle of the night and hear Mr. Burglar's footsteps creaking up the staircase in the dark.

Not that I'm saying it's likely. But just in case, forearmed is forearmed. And let the burglar beware!

Besides, I already am responsible for two or three out of the top 25 Google search results for "sawed-off baseball bat."

Red Faturan Greek Worry Beads

Not too long ago I was blogging about some yellow Indian trading beads that I picked up years back. Well, at the risk of sounding like déjà vu all over again, here are some more beads I picked up just recently. Greek worry beads.

Ran across them on a website out there. A website over in Greece. And of course I had to order them, and they arrived here from Greece much more quickly than I'd been expecting. I think the mailman is puzzled at all these packages I keep receiving from overseas.

Anyhow. Greek worry beads, Greek men have a custom of fiddling with them and clacking them around. And these beads are made of clear red faturan.

Faturan is a sort of synthetic amber. Cheaper than amber, and much more durable. Faturan was invented by an Egyptian chemist, and then the formula was lost during World War II. Never been successfully duplicated since. The seller tells me that these faturan beads date back to the period from around 1920 to 1940.

Thirty-three beads going around the loop, divided into three groups of eleven by two smaller spacer beads. The larger bead at the end is called the "priest," and then there are two more small beads at the very end. The beads are overall in very good condition, you can tell they've seen use, and in a couple of them you can see little stress fractures inside the bead, the kind of fracture that results from clacking beads together too hard. There's a warmth to the beads, and they're bright, pellucid, with an odd fragrance. Frankincense bakelite, that's what comes to mind.

Just so happens the number and arrangement of the beads is the same as in a string of Greek Orthodox prayer beads. (Actually there's a historical connection, too; 33 beads, one of several possible numbers of beads or knots.) All that's missing is a tassel on the end ("to wipe the tears away with"). Well, I've got a red silk tassel on order from elsewhere online, and when it arrives I may be so foolhardy as to attempt to attach it.

And yes, of course, these red faturan beads have found a place on my nightstand, right alongside those yellow Indian trading beads. One good set of beads deserves another.

The Sengbusch Ideal Junior Stamp Moistener

When I was a kid, my Dad had some items on his office desk which just fascinated me. One of them was a small black ceramic dealie, more or less cubical, with a black ceramic wheel which turned inside of it. The Sengbusch Ideal Junior stamp moistener. Idea was, you'd pour a little water down into the well inside the cube, and then when you turned the wheel, the surface of the wheel would come up wet with water from underneath. So then you could run the back side of a postage stamp across the top of the wheel, and voilà!

Sure beat having to lick the stamp, especially if you needed to put a bunch of stamps on a whole stack of envelopes. Even if it was only a single stamp, hey, mucilage, you don't know where that horse hoof has been. I always thought this stamp moistener was a really neat idea. Funky. Plus, it was ingenious but simple. Simple enough that the ancient Romans, or for that matter the ancient Sumerians, could've invented it, if only they'd had postage stamps.

My Dad's stamp moistener had a little chip out of it. When I was two years old, he lent the stamp moistener out to somebody, and they dropped it on the floor. Oops!

Well, one day not long before I moved over here to Iowa, I was out at a Goodwill store, and what should I see amidst the bric a brac on their shelves but a stamp moistener identical to my Dad's. Without a chip, even! Black ceramic. I turned it over, and between the four little feet on the unglazed underside it read SENGBUSCH IDEAL JUNIOR MILWAUKEE, WIS. MADE IN U.S.A. What's more, they were selling it for only 39¢, mere pocket change. I snatched it up, and when I moved here to Iowa, I put my Sengbusch stamp moistener on my office desk.

Only problem was, I quickly discovered that the US Postal Service had changed over completely to non-mucilage peel-and-stick sticker type postage stamps. Just when this happened, I don't know: I hadn't been sending many letters in the several years before I moved over here (long story). Something of a disappointment: no sooner did I find my own cool black ceramic Sengbusch Ideal Junior stamp moistener, than I learn it's now obsolete.

Nonetheless, it still sits on my desk. Some items are just too cool to discard. In defiance of so-called "progress." Call me a Selective Luddite™, but when we let go of horse-hoof mucilage stamps, and ceramic quasi-Sumerian stamp moisteners, we let go of a little piece of our souls.

Yellow Indian Trading Beads

Back in the 1990s, '93, '94, '95, I was living in a town down in north central Illinois, and there was a little antique shop there out on the highway. Sort of place that's a combination antique shop and gun shop, if my memory serves me correctly. Most of the stuff they had there was way out of my range, but they did have a quantity of Indian trading beads for cheap, cheap, cheap. So I sunk the price of a meal at McDonald's on these yellow trading beads. Because they were cool, you know, in a hippy-dippy way. Cool, and funky.

Yellow glass beads, with a rather rough and dull surface, not smooth. Yellow glass beads with streaks through them, streaks of blue or black or green. I have no idea whether these beads are genuine, whether they're old Indian trading beads, or newer, or something bought out of a Johnson Smith catalog. Whatever, they're just cool. And funky.

The beads were originally strung together on a dried corn shuck, but that didn't hold up, so I restrung them on several strands of thread, blue and orange. They usually sit on my nightstand, alongside my bed, with various other such curios. Yellow Indian trading beads. Funky.

Lewis & Clark Corps of Discovery Blanket

I got home from vacation late yesterday afternoon, and here at last is a picture of that wool blanket I ordered and received while on vacation.

See, while I was over in Wisconsin at my folks' place on vacation, my mom got a catalog in the mail, no idea how she got on their mailing list. Some Monticello catalog, everything having to do with Thomas Jefferson. That of course includes the Lewis & Clark expedition, and they had in the catalog several Lewis & Clark items, including this 100% wool blanket.

Well, I'd been looking for a new blanket for the wicker sofa in my living room— when I just flop out and crash there, don't you know— the blanket I've had on the sofa is some old ratty threadbare army blanket. When I saw this Lewis & Clark blanket, I knew it was just what I'd been looking for. The catalog said it was made by Pendleton, so I went online, found it even cheaper at the Pendleton website, and ordered it over my folks' computer. Several days later UPS delivered it, and I got to test drive that blanket, so to speak, the final week of vacation.

Very handsome and yet at the same time a marvel of simplicity. Heavy wool blanket. Off-white, says Pendleton; I'd say more like a light tan, or perhaps "camel" is the color-name I'm reaching for. Indigo stripe on each end of the blanket. Three "points" on one edge of the blanket, indicating size and trade value. Edges rough and unfinished, as was customary on blankets in those days. This is the kind of blanket which was widely sold and traded in North America by the Hudson's Bay Company and other outfits.

And you know me, I have a thing about wool blankets and all things woolen. There's something about wool which is honest, simple, natural, organic. Wool is just hippy-dippy back-to-nature. I use wool blankets even in the summertime.

Katsura Komadai for Shogi

Recently I got a very nice board for the game of Shogi, or Japanese Chess— a big, thick, heavy butcher block of a board, made of Japanese katsura wood, and standing on legs.

Now just yesterday I received in the mail from Japan some more Shogi items, this time two finely made komadai, or small wooden stands, which you will see flanking the board above. The komadai are also made of katsura, and their purpose is to hold captured Shogi pieces. Reason being, when you capture an opponent's piece you can hold it and reenter it as your own on a later turn. This reentry of captured pieces is a major way Shogi differs from Western Chess.

The setup shown is from toward the end of game 2 in the 64th annual Meijin tournament between the defending Meijin, Moriuchi Toshiyuki, and 9-dan challenger Tanigawa Koji, April 25-26, 2006.

Once again, David Hurley of Hirohurl.net was very helpful in obtaining this special custom order for me. If you're looking for quality Shogi items, his site is the place to go.

Update, 9/07: Hirohurl.net is now Japanese Games Shop.

The New Japanese Chess Board Is Here!

Yes! It arrived this morning, all the way from Japan! The new Japanese Chess board, a block of solid wood, thick as a butcher block, standing on legs, a thing of rare beauty. It arrived this morning from Japan, and I am simply going out of my game-addled gourd!

Game fanatic that I am, I've been fascinated with Japanese Chess, or Shogi, ever since age 14 or 15. Of course back in those days— we're talking early 70s— there was no way on earth that I, living in the American Midwest, was going to latch onto a quality Shogi set. So I made do with what I could: a homemade set I turned out myself; a cheap little travel set from Japan. For many years, I made do.

Fast forward to a bit over a year ago, when at long last I found a site called Hirohurl.net, which offers beautiful Shogi pieces and Shogi boards, and which is written in English. So I ordered a folding wooden Shogi board, and some Siamese boxwood Shogi pieces with Japanese characters incised into them. I was very pleased with these items, and with the service provided by David Hurley, the mastermind behind Hirohurl.net.


Recently the idea entered my mind of getting a really nice traditional Shogi board— like I say, solid wood, thick as a butcher block, standing on wooden legs. Boards like these are not cheap, you understand; and the thicker they are, the costlier. What I had in mind turned out to be a custom order. I emailed David Hurley, and he was very helpful in obtaining for me the kind of board I was looking for.

He packed it very, very carefully, too. And this morning Mr. Mailman showed up on my front step with an express package from Japan.


The new Shogi board is made of katsura wood from the island of Hokkaido. It measures 13" by 14 1/4", and the board is about 4 5/8" thick. The wooden legs underneath the board are 3 5/8" tall, so the entire thing stands about 8 1/4" high.

It's heavy. Heavy! I don't have any scales handy, but just hefting it, I'd hazard a good 15 or 20 pounds as a ballpark estimate. And underneath, on the bottom of the board, is carved the traditional pyramid-shaped hollow in the wood.

This is the kind of Shogi board I've been dreaming about for 35 years now. It's an absolutely beautiful board, and it really is a dream come true.

Update, 9/07: Hirohurl.net is now Japanese Games Shop.

Look, It's a Luddite PDA!

Here's an item that arrived from Levenger yesterday, and it's an item that's just designed to warm my Selective Luddite™ heart. Levenger calls it a "pocket briefcase," but I call it a Luddite PDA.

Look at that thing! Made of fine leather. Powered by an operating system which is commonly known as 3x5 cards. Yes, you just slip some 3x5 cards in the front, and you're ready to go. No batteries required. As you fill up a card, you peel it off and file it away in one of several pockets in the device. Thus the pockets can be used to organize your finished cards. Or you can even use one pocket to hold an extra supply of blank 3x5 cards. I tell you, this handy-dandy device just can't be beat!

But wait, there's more! The big pocket in the middle also carries... a 2007/2008 calendar, and a flat plastic Fresnel magnifying lens! What marvels of technology will they think of next?!

In all seriousness, this "Luddite PDA" will come in handy in meetings where I've formerly had to tote a full-sized clipboard with me just for the sake of jotting down a few notes.

Of course, I'm going to write on this thing with my fountain pen. And it's going to find a place of honor on my desk right alongside my slide rule and rocker blotter.

The New Chinese Chess Set Is Here!

Well, the new Chinese Chess set is here. Folding black leather box with board and pieces inside, arrived here this afternoon from Yellow Mountain Imports out in California.


Chinese Chess, or Hsiang Ch'i, is a different game from western Chess. Related, but in some ways quite different. I first ran across the game back around age 14 or 15, when I unearthed a Dover reprint of Edward Falkener's Games Ancient and Oriental, and How to Play Them. In high school, early 70s, I made a Chinese Chess set of my own, wooden disks cut from a dowel stick, board woodburned into brown leather. Also almost 20 years ago I ran across an old battered, beaten, and not very well made Chinese Chess set at an Oriental import shop— made in the East, but evidently used, and almost unusable.

When I was in college, one year I had a roommate from Hong Kong who was a grad student in nuclear engineering. Wong and I used to play Chinese Chess, using my homemade set; he usually wiped me.

Now at last I have a nice authentic Chinese Chess set. To go along with my Shogi or Japanese Chess set. And my fanatical fascination with classical board games and card games in general.

Expecto Patronum!

I've got all sorts of cool imaginative props around here. One of my favorites is my magic wand— not exactly like Harry Potter's, though I think it's even cooler. Look at this thing close up, it's simply beautiful, turned from a single piece of hard maple with a black walnut finish— redolent of fine 18th-century European furniture. I can almost imagine Mozart wielding this wand in a magical duel with Salieri...

This particular style of magic wand is called the Poetrell. You can find it, and many other amazing styles, at Whirlwood Magic Wands, where Mr. Gary Hall handcrafts these wands one at a time. Some of them are not cheap, but they're worth it, top quality. I see the latest new line is wands with magic cores— you know, phoenix feather, dragon heartstring, or whatever.


I've also got a wizard staff, picked it up at an antique shop down in Marquette, Iowa. I suspect it was originally intended there as a cane. But it is simply too cool to be anything other than a wizard staff, with those antique brass knobs on top, and the swirly grooves running down the body of the staff.

So far I've resisted the temptation to buy me a light saber from Parks Sabers. Mr. Jeffrey Parks hand machines these from aluminum— to me it's a toss-up between the Arc-Wave and the Shadow. Alas, I can't bring myself to part with the $275 or so that it would cost to get one of these.

I've heard of people somehow landing a genuine communicator from the original Star Trek series... <drool> But forget it, it'll never happen to me. Much less what I'd really like to have, which is a genuine original tricorder.

Yesterday afternoon I started Googling around to see if there are any lenses for sale. You know, a lens, as worn by the galaxy-patrolling lensmen in Doc Smith's classic old Lensman series, which I read and loved back in my high school days. Unfortunately I found only one for sale, for some reason made in Japan, and it was not too impressive. Give me a magnifying lens, a bund leather watch strap, and a metal mount to hold the lens, and I could probably cobble together something more impressive myself.

Ah, but over on Slashdot the other day, they were discussing an online article on how to make a Green Lantern ring! Now that would be cool...

Wool Blankets and Me

I sleep with the windows open when weather permits. During the summer it's often just a matter of ventilation. But now you can feel in the air that fall is not far off: it got down almost to 50° last night. And so I'm back once again to using a wool blanket.

Actually, I'll use a wool blanket in the middle of the summer if I can get away with it. I have a thing about wool blankets. The wool blanket on my bed is a Hudson Bay point blanket, big white blanket with colored stripes, green, red, yellow, and dark indigo blue. And those little point-marks on the edge of the blanket. I've had it for years, it's somewhat worn but still serviceable. Got it back in the early 90s, back when I was generally still in my spartan ascetic mode of life, you know, little 12" B&W TV, furniture from St. Vincent's. But I did have a top-of-the-line wool blanket. Hudson Bay! Very warm on a cold winter night. Or, like I say, in the middle of the summer if I can get away with it.

On my couch I have a lighter grey wool blanket, picked it up at some Army surplus store. In the wintertime I break out a second wool blanket for my bed, a much thicker grey wool Army blanket, red stripe near either end with a white cross sewn into the red stripe. Add my quilt on top of two wool blankets, and I am pretty well set for the coldest of winter nights.

I don't know what it is about wool blankets and me. Somehow, no other kind of blanket feels like a "real" blanket to me. Yes, as you might guess, I had a special blanket as a kid; but it was not wool: yellow, and much worn, and I wish I knew where it went to.

In the meanwhile, far as I'm concerned there's nothing to beat a genuine wool blanket. In the cold of winter. Or, if I can get away with it, in the summertime.

Russian Watch! Russian Watch!

Yes! Yes! The Russian watch I've been waiting for is finally here. And it is a thing of wonder!!!

To be precise, it's a Russian chronograph. Complete with stopwatch function— that's what those extra buttons are for. And it's a good old fashioned mechanical chronograph— no effete quartz movement, thank you, this watch has a 23-jewel Poljot 3133 mechanical movement, and it ticks like a real watch should.

Note the retro design, based on watches produced during World War II for top officers in the Red Army. Note the second hand, at 9 o'clock. Note the chronograph second hand— what you'd ordinarily think of as the "regular" second hand— and the chronograph minute hand at 3 o'clock. Note the date window at 6 o'clock. Note the scratch-resistant mineral watch crystal. Note the Super-LumiNova glow-in-the-dark watch hands. Note the logo on watch face, "1МЧЗ им. Кирова," which stands for "Первый Московский Часовой Завод имени Кирова," "First Moscow Watch Factory called Kirova."

And big! This watch measures nearly 1¾ inches across, and about half an inch thick. My middle aged eyes can read it with ease.

On the back of the watch it reads, Полёт (Poljot) Заказ Министерства Обороны Российской Федерации (Order of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation) Водонепроницаемые 5 Атм (Water Resistant 5 Atmospheres) Нержавеющая Сталь (Stainless Steel). Numbered 192 out of a limited edition of 300.

(Hey, never know when that year of Russian I took in college will come in handy! ;-)

Back last summer I bought a nice but cheap Russian watch. I have to confess that the idea of buying a nice but not-so-cheap Russian chronograph hatched in my mind within weeks. After holding off for most of the past year, I finally gave in, and ordered via eBay from a dude over in St. Petersburg. Result: this morning I drove in to town, and picked up at the Post Office a registered package containing one Russian chronograph. Absolutely awesome!

Le Knife

Here's a cool knife I got recently. Basque yatagan knife, handle of ebony wood. Stainless steel blade almost four inches long. Ordered it (like an increasing number of my purchases lately) over the Internet.


This knife was produced by French knifemaking artisans, in the town of Thiers, which is the center of French cutlery. Produced by hand, the old fashioned way. Their site has all sorts of cool photos of master knife artisan dudes working over anvil and vise with hammer and file.

The knife has a solid, balanced feel in the hand. Opening the blade feels like opening the door on a Cadillac. You can't beat quality.


And note that decorative design hand filed into the steel back of the knife.

From now on, when I need a knife around the house, I won't have to go running for the carving knife out in the kitchen any more.

The New Japanese Chess Set Is Here!

Well, the new Shogi set is here. The Shogi (or "Japanese Chess") pieces arrived in the mail Thursday from Japan, and the board arrived Saturday.


As I was remarking recently, Shogi has been a fascination of mine for 35 years— though only now have I managed at long last to lay my hands on a good Shogi set. This set really is a thing of beauty— Japanese characters carved into the boxwood pieces, big thick sturdy wooden board.

Today is my day off, so I'll probably be sitting around and working through games out of Fairbairn.

And if you're looking for high quality Japanese Chess pieces, board, whatever— check out the Shogi items at Hirohurl, that's where I got mine from. Excellent service, and everything arrived here in Iowa, all the way from Japan, carefully packed and quickly. In fact, Hirohurl has an entire shop of cool Japanese stuff. Check it out!

Update, 9/07: Hirohurl.net is now Japanese Games Shop.

Admiral Fitzroy's Stormglass

Well, my latest toy arrived by UPS yesterday afternoon. And I am sitting here and still trying to puzzle out Admiral Fitzroy's stormglass.

Or, as it's sometimes called, a stormbottle. (Stormbottle— I love that word!) Talk about a funky weather forecasting device! Brass, nearly six inches tall. Chemicals sealed in a glass tube. The whole thing weighs about one pound. And it's supposed to give you a fairly reliable forecast of weather over the next 24 to 48 hours.

Surfing around, we learn that the stormglass dates back to around 1750. Nobody knows who invented it, but by around that time such devices were for sale at a shop called "Under the Goat and Compasses" at Old London Bridge. The stormglass was popularized during the 1800s by Admiral Fitzroy (1805-65), commander of the HMS Beagle— it was one of the devices Fitzroy used during the Darwin Expedition.

The liquid in the glass is a mixture of distilled water, ethanol, potassium nitrate, ammonium chloride, and camphor. To be lazy and lift the rest of my homework straight from Wikipedia:

During the historic voyage, FitzRoy carefully documented how the storm glass would predict the weather:

• If the liquid in the glass is clear, the weather will be bright and clear.
  
• If the liquid is cloudy, the weather will be cloudy as well, perhaps with precipitation.
  
• If there are small dots in the liquid, humid or foggy weather can be expected.
  
• A cloudy glass with small stars indicates thunderstorms.
  
• If the liquid contains small stars on sunny winter days, then snow is coming.
  
• If there are large flakes throughout the liquid, it will be overcast in temperate seasons or snowy in the winter.
  
• If there are crystals at the bottom, this indicates frost.
  
• If there are threads near the top, it will be windy.

A storm glass works on the premise that temperature and pressure affect solubility, sometimes resulting in clear liquid; other times causing precipitants to form. However, the method by which this works is not fully understood. Although it is well-established that temperature affects solubility, sealed glasses are not exposed to the pressure changes that would account for much of the observed behavior.

My stormglass was made in Denmark by E.S. Sørensen. I'm still trying to dope out certain points from the often obscure and sometimes contradictory material I've been finding online. (Don't you just love the cacophony that is cyberspace?!) In particular, you'll see I've installed my stormglass just inside my (north-facing) kitchen window, as some sites recommend; I suspect I ought to (as other sites recommend) move it outside, where I should hope the alcohol content will keep it from freezing.

Oh well. Mechanical ingenuity and I do not mix. This is what they call a "learning experience"...

Russian Watch! Russian Watch!

Boy, this must be my week for buying things online.

See, I've had this watch, a Swiss Army watch, for several years now, and it served me okay, only it's getting so my sweat is tarnishing and corroding and almost rusting it away. (My sweat has a way of doing this to watches.) The leather watchband is also wearing out to the point where it's just absolutely falling apart— I could get the watchband replaced, done that before, but why bother when the watch itself is looking like something dredged up from a salvage operation?

So instead I got a Russian army watch from RussArmy, and Mr. UPS Man delivered it yesterday. Check out the easy-to-read numerals, with little glow-in-the-dark dots next to them. Check out the (glow-in-the-dark) hands. Check out the red star and army tank. Check out the inscription in Russian, "Komandirskie" (rough Roman alphabet transcript). Check out the date window. Check out the ring with minutes, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or more, around the edge.

And this watch has a self-winding mechanical movement, 31 jewels. It ticks like a real watch should. None of that wimpy quartz movement crap.

Truth be told, this isn't the first mechanical Russian army watch I've had. Many years back I had one, face of the watch identical to this one, but without many of these cool newer features. Wore that watch to death till it wouldn't run no more. And only now do I find a worthy replacement.

Harry Potter, Eat Your Heart Out!

Some of the young folks around here are very much into Harry Potter. A bunch of us went over to Prairie du Chien to see the new Harry Potter movie last summer, and then one of the kids lent me videotapes of the first two films. This led to me reading— well, okay, extensively browsing through— the first Harry Potter book. Which, actually my brother has given me all the series in print so far for Christmas these past two years. I'm getting to 'em, in my own way and at my own pace: with a schedule like mine, if I find time to read anything cover to cover, it's usually during the summer months, which are now coming up toward us.

Anyhow. One of the kids around here had a catalog with all sorts of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter merchandise in it. I rather shuddered at the thought of buying a genuine 18K gold replica of the One Ring. But they did have a very nice reproduction of Harry Potter's magic wand for sale. There was a website associated with the catalog; I went to it and looked around, then started Googling for magic wands.

I ended up ordering the magic wand up above, from an outfit known as Whirlwood Magical Wands. Somebody out there is making a very nice living, cashing in on the current Potter craze and selling magic wands which come in dozens of different styles, choose the wand that best fits your temperament. My wand isn't like Harry's, but in fact I like it even better. It's called the Poetrell: hand-turned, made of maplewood, with a black walnut finish. Site says it's 16½" long, mine actually measures 17½". This wand positively exudes the aura of fine antique furniture from 18th century Europe: somehow, I can just imagine Mozart wielding it in a magical duel with Salieri. ;-)

At $62, the Poetrell ain't cheap; but to my mind, it's worth it. That's Whirlwood Magical Wands. Another nice magic wand site, even more overtly Potteresque, is Alivan's. (Gee, is that anything like "Ollivander's"?!)

Next item of business: where can I find myself a nice Jedi light saber? :-)

Gear: Fountain Pen and Mechanical Pencil

I've written in here before about my "gear"— impractical little items that I pick up because they're cool. Because they add to the quality of my life. Call them "hyacinths for the soul." Impractical little items, or in this case not so impractical: I get a lot of use out of my fountain pen and mechanical pencil.

I used to use a fountain pen way back when, junior high and high school and on up into my early twenties. The fountain pens I got in those days were some dreadful things picked up for probably 59¢ in a dimestore. Still, they were a cut above your typical Bic ballpoint.

Then I drifted away from fountain pens until about eight or ten years ago, when I ran across this Rotring fountain pen in a Levenger catalogue. Black finish. Machined from a chunk of solid brass. Six-sided barrel, so it won't roll off your desk. Knurled grip. I got it with a medium nib— nib size, as you see, can be indicated with that twist-o-indicator at the top of the cap.

This pen is so sturdy that you could run over it with your car and it would have nary a scratch on it. (Though, as they say, "Don't try this at home.")

I also got a matching black-coated knurled solid brass mechanical pencil, which takes 0.7 millimeter leads. Push the button on top to advance the lead. Twist-o-indicator at the top, to indicate the hardness of the lead. It's another triumph of German engineering, and it looks like it, too.

Let's face it: ballpoints are cheap, ballpoints are convenient, but the aesthetic quality of something written with a ballpoint can't even begin to compare to the beauty of a page written with a fountain pen. Fountain-penned writing just plain looks better, it has character, and the ink flows onto the page like magic.

Ballpoint pens are serviceable: they represent the triumph of utility over quality. Fountain pens are serviceable and beautiful, and so is their writing— even if you've got electroencephalographic handwriting like mine.

Back in the old days, I'll admit, fountain pens could be messy to fill, and they could leak. Today's fountain pens are another story. I fill this fountain pen every three or four weeks, no problem; and I've never had any problem with it leaking. The only limitation is, it stays on my desk; but that's just because I don't want to deal with the inevitable scenario of "Hey, could you lend me your pen?", and then that's the last you ever see of it. (I can't begin to count the pens I've lost that way over the years.)

You can check out all sorts of fountain pens at Levenger or at Fahrney's Pens. Blows my mind to see how many hundreds or even thousands of dollars some of them fountain pens cost; I got mine cheap, and it'll last me a lifetime.

Gear: Railroad Brakeman's Lantern

I've written before about my "gear," impractical little items that I pick up, often for a song— items generally of no real practical use. But items that are just plain cool. Hyacinths for the soul, if you will.

Another piece of "gear" I've got is my railroad brakeman's lantern. Big, sturdy metal thing. Handle is a big circular plastic-coated metal loop. Two light bulbs in a metal cage underneath, one of the bulbs recessed back in a sort of parabolic dealie to cast more focused light, the other to cast a more diffuse light— you can turn on one bulb or the other by sliding the switch to either side. And of course this lantern is powered, as a good lantern should be, by one of those big, heavy, blocky lantern batteries.

On top of the lantern it reads:

Adlake
Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.
N^o 31-C
PATENTED

And in a circle around that: The Adams & Westlake Co., Chicago - Elkhart - New York.

The top also bears the warning: CAUTION - Remove Battery When Dead.

I keep my railroad brakeman's lantern underneath my nightstand, just in case I need light in the middle of the night. There is no flashlight half as cool (well, except maybe for a MagLite™, but that's a story for another time).

Ran across this piece of gear about ten years ago when I was living in north central Illinois. I'd gotten on a Jack Kerouac jag, was buying up and reading every one of his novels I could find. One of the many things in Kerouac that intrigued me was how his friend, Neal Cassady, had worked as a railroad brakeman for the Southern Pacific Railroad. So when I walked into this second-hand shop one day and found an actual working railroad brakeman's lantern sitting there...

In his short story "October in the Railroad Earth," Kerouac wrote of getting up and getting ready to go work on the railroad:

My little room at 6 in the comfy dawn (at 4:30) and before me all that time, that fresh-eyed time for a little coffee to boil water on my hot plate, throw some coffee in, stir it, French style, slowly carefully pour it in my white tin cup, throw sugar in... my breakfast ready at about 6:45 and as I eat already I'm dreaming to go piece by piece and by the time the last dish is washed in the little sink at the boiling hotwater tap and I'm taking my lastquick slug of coffee and quickly rinsing the cup in the hot water spout and rushing to dry it and plop it in its place by the hot plate and the brown carton in which all the groceries sit tightly wrapped in brown paper, I'm already picking up my brakeman's lantern from where it's been hanging on the door handle and my tattered timetable's long been in my backpocket folded and ready to go, everything tight, keys, timetable, lantern, knife, handkerchief, wallet, comb, railroad keys, change and myself. I put the light out on the sad dab mad grub little diving room and hustle out into the fog of the flow...

Yeah. That lantern's got any flashlight beat all hollow.

Gear: Rocker Blotter

It was nine years ago, December of 1995. I was unemployed, my car had just had a rebuilt engine put in, and I was rapidly plummeting toward flat broke. So I went and did the obvious thing, and purchased a beautiful but utterly useless item: a cherry wood rocker blotter.


Over the past ten or twelve years, I've picked up a number of little items which I call my "gear." Most of them dirt cheap, none of them more than moderately expensive. Usually items of no practical utility whatsoever. But they strike a chord somewhere deep within me. And they add, in a small but real way, to the longterm beauty of my everyday life.

That rocker blotter has sat for several years now on my desktop. Even though I often write with a fountain pen, I've never used the rocker blotter on fountain-penned ink. No, it just looks cool sitting there on my desk. In its own small way, it adds to the quality of life.

The inlaid wooden strip on top, according to the Levenger catalog, was manufactured in the 1930s and lay undiscovered in a warehouse in Paris for many years. After it was found, someone got the bright idea of inlaying it in these rocker blotters. When I first got the rocker blotter, the cherry wood was quite light. Over the years, I've watched it darken and mellow.

Like I say, most of my items of "gear" are of no real use. (My Swiss Army knife would be an exception.) But still, my life would be poorer without them. You could call my "gear" hyacinths for the soul. Of course, it should come as no surprise that in an age when fewer and fewer credit the soul, fewer and fewer find value in hyacinths.

Now all I need to do is find some green blotting paper, to replace the light brown that I've used all these years in the rocker blotter. I visit office supply stores and whatnot, not so very infrequently. You'd think one of these times I'd take the time to stop and look?

Radios around the House

Do you know, I've got a radio in every single room of the house?


In the half-bath upstairs, I've got a fair-sized portable radio, red and silver, I'd guess of early 1960s vintage. Seminole 902, "Transistor Nine"... whip antenna that folds down into the carrying handle, runs on four C batteries. I usually keep that radio tuned to the public radio station up in La Crosse, and if there's one radio filling the upstairs with the sounds of classical music, it's probably that one. (Photo of radio sitting, not upstairs, but on my kitchen table.)


In the "radio room"— upstairs radio listening post, hobby room, extension of my library— I've got my Grundig Satellit 700, which is my main shortwave radio. Pulls in everything from the BBC to Radio Tezulutlán from Cobán, Guatemala. Also receives AM, FM, and longwave. I've also got in my listening post an old shortwave tube radio, Hallicrafters S-120, seldom used. (Photo of Grundig sitting, not in my listening post, but on my folks' kitchen table.)

In my bedroom, my boombox sits atop one bookcase, usually kept tuned to the campus station from La Crosse: sometimes I set the sleep timer and drift off to sleep with jazz playing softly. Also have a digital clock-radio, which I never use except to wake me up at 5:00 AM on Sunday mornings: it's kept tuned to a station from Decorah, Iowa, which usually plays golden oldies rock, sometimes also car races(?!).

Downstairs in the kitchen I have a GE Superadio, which pulls in distant AM stations like no other radio I've ever seen. I got it because this is the only place I've ever lived where you can't pull in any of the big-city clear channel stations during daylight— indeed, except for 580 up in La Crosse, the AM dial below 900 is usually dead around here in the daytime, except on the Superadio. I usually have it tuned to the Cedar Rapids station, and I listen to news and weather while I'm eating breakfast. By the way, don't you hate it when stations do station identification five or six times a minute??! "This is 600 WMT... Now on 600 WMT we have the traffic, brought to you by 600 WMT... 600 WMT!!!"

In the living room I have another shortwave radio, a Realistic DX-440, sitting on the end table. Handy for listening to WBCQ, Monticello, Maine, 7415 kilocycles [sic] on your dial, whilst relaxing on a rare free evening. I also have in the living room my old stereo system— which has a turntable but no CD player— on the rare occasions when I use it, I have it tuned to one FM station or another.

In my study I have a Henry Kloss Model One. Small, retro-looking radio. AM on it isn't worth a darn, but it has the most amazing FM sound quality you've ever heard in a small monaural radio. I usually have it tuned to one of them public classical-musickish stations down between 88 and 92 on the FM dial.

And in the downstairs bathroom, I've got a little red and white transistor radio perched atop the toilet tank. Usually have it tuned to 95.7, which plays what passes for rock in these latter days— odd, except when I'm in the tub, I never listen to modern rock, I always listen to golden oldies rock, that is, mid-60s through early-to-mid-80s.

Oh, yeah, I've also got some diddly radio out on the back porch, which during the more seasonable months of the year I sometimes use as a second study.