Three Swans Aflying

I must be in "finding" mode lately. Ran across this in a second hand shop. Three swans aflying. Bisque. Flying over the waves. And they've found a home, sitting atop a bookcase here in my house.

3V Cola

Recently at an antique mall I ran across this pop bottle. 3V Cola. Odd, I've never seen that brand before. Various old brands, you'll run across them from time to time here and there in antique joints. But this is the only 3V Cola I've ever seen, and the lady at the cash register said the same.

Yellow on white, repeated three times around the bottle on body and neck: 3V COLA. Also 16 FL.OZ. and FULL PINT. No indication of which bottling company or where. On the bottom of the bottle, stamped into the glass, it reads Duraglass, along with some numbers which may or may not indicate 7/59.

Odd, like a pop bottle out of some strange dream.

Full of Grace

Just another one of those cool pictures I ran across out there somewhere. This one is for Dean.

Leap Without Looking

Another one of them pictures I ran across out there somewhere. The small town in Wisconsin where I grew up is about halfway between Madison and Wisconsin Dells. I remember when I was a kid hearing about Stand Rock, and how people would leap across like that. Whether they were still doing it at that time, I have no idea.

Are people still making the leap at Stand Rock today? Again, I don't know; though in this day of bike helmets and warning labels ("Caution: Coffee Is Hot!"), I very much doubt it.

A Pair of Black Cats

Stumbled across this black cat on a blog out there somewhere, lost track of just where.


Then I rummaged around on Google Images and came up with this black cat. Somehow they seem like long lost twins.

The black cat that's been flying around in my imagination for like 40 years now is a black cat, jumping through a number 9 (though from right to left), against a blue night-sky background, beneath a yellow five-pointed star, and the cat is named Jinx. In some variants, JINX is stamped in big bold letters right across the black cat jumping through the number 9. All as if printed on a playing card.

Political Aphasia Funnies

Here's an old comic strip of mine I ran across, I drew it I'd guess back in the late 80s:








* "guywires" = "talking heads," more or less (slang term my brother and I came up with)


..."Enacting the New Republic as the Hegelian 'manifestation of absolute spirit in historical dialectic!'"

Welsh Flags, Old and New

I've always thought that the Welsh flag, with that red dragon on it, is quite cool. Being part Welsh myself, I have an interest in things having to do with Wales. In fact, my freshman and sophomore years of college, way back when, I used to have a self-drawn poster on the wall in my dorm room, with the Welsh flag on it, and some slogan in Welsh underneath.

Back in those days I latched onto some "teach yourself Welsh" books, and was making pretty good progress on them, until I realized I had no real-life idea how any of the material in the book actually sounded. I was also learning French in some college courses at this time, and I realized that book-explanations of pronunciation really aren't worth much without tapes to listen to and practice.


Now just the other day, I ran across something online about an unofficial new Welsh flag: the flag of St. David, gold cross on a black field. Looked around, but almost every site where I found a reference quoted back the same laconic form of words, leaving me little the wiser. I gathered that this new flag is especially flown in connection with St. David's Day (March 1), or football (i.e. soccer) games, or by people who are looking for some more postmodern way to express their Welsh nationalism.

Of course as with so many things that burst upon the scene all of a sudden, the origins and history of the flag of St. David are murky. Vague talk about it going way back when, sixth century and all that bilge. In reality it seems that, however far back this flag may or may not go, its sudden popularity dates back no further than 1998, when someone came up with the idea of the Welsh flag of St. David as a good counterpoint to the English flag of St. George in football (i.e. soccer) games; and no one was more surprised by the burgeoning popularity of the new flag than its original promoter.

Whatever. The flag of St. David certainly is a handsome flag, one of those items whose design hits just the right spot so that it's an "odds-up favorite" to become a sudden classic. It's a cool flag. So's the red dragon flag, for that matter. Hey, anything Welsh is cool. Cymru am Byth!

(flag images courtesy of Wikipedia)

Grundig Stereo Concert-Boy Transistor 4000 Radio

Well, here it is. My latest toy. As if I didn't have more than enough radios around the house already! Yes, that's a genuine Grundig Stereo Concert-Boy Transistor 4000 radio. I'd guess it dates from the late 60s or early 70s, and if they'd had boomboxes back then— which they didn't— this would've been it.

First ran across this radio a few weeks ago, up in La Crosse on my day off, bumming around, when what should I run across but a downtown antique mall I'd never noticed before?! Spent a long time browsing around therein, sighted this radio— ah, a Grundig! Noted for their legendary audio quality, you know. But I couldn't bring myself to impulse-buy it, even though it was going for dirt cheap.

Drove back home. Thought on it. Fretted. Paced around.

Given that I'm a compleat radio fanatic, you know how this is going to end: this week, on my day off, I drifted back up to La Crosse, and bought the radio. Big! Heavy to tote, I'd guess purner 15 pounds. 19" wide by 9" high by 4½" deep. Stereo speakers. AM band, FM band, two shortwave bands, and even a longwave band. (I have quite a thing about longwave radio.) I got it home. And it works like a dream.

Legendary Grundig audio quality indeed! In that department, this radio blows away anything I've got, except perhaps for my stereo system. Amazing sound. And loud: big, booming, driving sound, fills the room, makes your bones shake. Audio on FM like you wouldn't believe. Even shortwave sounds great, audiowise, on this radio.


Late 60s or early 70s, I'd guess, this radio. One website says 1968. It has that look and feel of radios from the days, back in my youth, when I was first getting into listening to distant and curious voices over the ether. At the same time I find it somehow vaguely reminiscent of the Zenith Trans-Oceanic, on which I was first exposed to shortwave lo, back in that magical 1968. Look close up at those knobs, at that dial plate! Signal strength meter. Glowing red "stereo" light. Separate dial and tuning knob for FM— and (clever touch) that second dial serves for bandspread fine-tuning when you're using the second shortwave band.

If I wasn't in love with this radio already, consider this: at night the dial plate lights up in the dark!!! Like a fireplace, like a classic radio of yore.


The Grundig Stereo Concert-Boy Transistor 4000. FM booming out of the speakers with beautiful audio quality! The BBC, on shortwave, booming out of the speakers with beautiful audio quality! The only other radio I have which plays shortwave with such audio quality is my Grundig Satellit 700 (by no coincidence, also a Grundig), which I bought new in 1995.

There are a few minor items I ought to take care of, as with many an older radio. The AM band tends to cut out, unless you manually keep the AM band selector button pressed down. The needles on the radio dials could stand some alignment, they're off a bit. But overall the radio's in good shape for its age. And cheap!


They just don't make radios like this any more.

The Root River

Near Hokah, Minnesota.

Bwahahahaha! Whoever gains access to this river, controls all the waterways of the Greater Mississippi Watershed!!!

mississippi@river $ su
Password: **********
su: incorrect password
mississippi@river $ su
Password: *********
su: incorrect password
mississippi@river $ su
Password: **********
root@river # _

Trick Dog Bank

Here's another cool item I've got sitting around the house. It's a cast iron bank. Trick Dog. With Clown holding a Hoop. Just put a coin in the dog's mouth...


...Press the lever on the side of the bank, and the dog jumps up through the hoop and deposits the coin in the slot in the top of the barrel!

Justo Juez

Okay, let's see if I can make things right for the visitors— usually several of them a day, often though not always from Latin America— who arrive at my blog by way of a Google Image search for "Justo Juez."

I get a lot of visitors from Google Image searches for Jeep Cherokee, state quarters, Albert Camus, school bell, Where's George, coffee can, Russian watch... and Justo Juez.

"Justo Juez," or "Just Judge," is an image of Christ on the cross, surrounded by the Arma Christi and other items, which is evidently popular in Latin American Roman Catholic spirituality. Back last November I blogged about how I was down in Dubuque, stopped by a little Catholic religious supply store, and picked up several random items, including a Justo Juez holy card.

I didn't include a picture of the card, though I did provide a link to another site where you could find a Justo Juez picture. Due, it would seem, to a glitch at Google, this has somehow led to my blog rating highly in a Google Image search for "Justo Juez." Even though that blog post of mine had no Justo Juez picture in it.

I mean, come to my blog via a Google Image search for Jeep Cherokee, state quarters, Albert Camus, school bell, Where's George, coffee can, or Russian watch, and you will at least find on my blog a picture of what you were looking for. Come to my blog searching for a Justo Juez picture, and you will not find a Justo Juez picture.

Until now. I've finally given in. Hopefully this blog post will rise to the top in Google image searches for Justo Juez. And from now on, when those several visitors a day, often but not always from Latin America, come to my blog in search of "Justo Juez"... they will actually find a picture of Justo Juez.

Perpetual Calendar Wheel

Here's a clever item I ran across back in the year 2000, just as we were all thinking of the new century, the new millennium, and all. It's a genuine brass calendar wheel, a perpetual calendar which will work for any month of any year from 2000 to 2099.

It stands up like a little easel, with a third brass leg folding out behind. Just rotate the wheel to line up the year over the month, up on top. And then in the window down below, you can read off the calendar for the month. Presently set, of course, for September 2006.

Made in India, I'd guess low-tech, molten brass poured into a mold, cool and paint, a few screws to assemble it, and voilà! Aesthetic and functional, both. It appeals to the Selective Luddite™ in me— why don't we have more funky devices like this, devices with soul, instead of sterile items that require batteries and then at a critical moment don't work? By the time this calendar wheel doesn't work, it will be New Year's Day 2100. In other words, this calendar ought to last me for the rest of my life.

Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright

Just another one of the cool items I've got hanging up around the house... as a wall decoration, would you believe?! Picked this one up long ago, I forget just where. I don't know what a tiger is doing on a seed sack, but that is just such a cool tiger...

Screenshot as Self-Portrait

My brother Steven very kindly put together a computer system for me to use while I was on vacation over in Wisconsin. Above you'll see a screenshot. I find it fascinating that, if you know my brother, you can tell at a glance that that screenshot is him. Win98 restyled, Go game, carefully selected matching and contrasting colors, spare and informal-but-tidy layout... that is my brother.

This is something I've sometimes noticed with people. Not always, but often. Show me a screenshot from their computer, and often it comes across, somehow, somehow... as an abstract self-portrait. As an uncannily good "snapshot" of their personality. Not just decorated "in their own style," but a self-portrait of sorts. And it's far more than just the choice of wallpaper. It's the whole Gestalt of how their screen hangs together.


Here's a screenshot from my computer— it's changed very little, really, in the past couple of years. Once again, as you may well pick up if you happen to follow my blog, that screenshot is me. Retro, wrought iron fretwork, somewhat quirky and cryptic. The venerable command line. Technical whatsis readout along the lower right side of the screen. Yeah, the whole thing is technical, but in an almost Luddite fashion. If a steampunk Babbage engine had a screen, it might look like this.

A full-size version of my screenshot is here. For those who may be wondering, I'm running Mandriva Linux 2006, with the Fluxbox window manager— no, neither KDE nor GNOME, but Fluxbox. Further, deponent saith not.

And yes, I am the sort of person who wastes hours running Google image and AllTheWeb image searches for more and more cool or cryptic screenshots from out there. You'd be amazed how many of them come across like abstract "snapshots" of their users.

A Family Heirloom

Well, I've been fascinated lately with watches. In fact, fascinated this past year. So when I was over in Wisconsin visiting my folks earlier this week, I was astonished and overjoyed when my dad gave me, for my 50th birthday, the pocket watch which had belonged to my great-great-grandfather.

My Great-Great-Grandpa Roessler had a hotel and tavern in Hustisford, Wisconsin. He also had a stable where he kept some horses. He spoke with a German accent: his parents had come over to this country from Germany. Big mustache, full head of hair even in his nineties. He passed away in 1946, at the age of 96.


His pocket watch is still in beautiful condition, and lo and behold, it still runs. My dad said it probably hasn't run in 60 years. I don't intend to run it any more than I can help, until if and when I get it cleaned. The case is decorated on the outside with stars. Inside, the porcelain dial is in very fine condition. The dial reads "Elgin Natl. Watch Co." Very long, thin Roman numerals. Blued steel hands, sunken subseconds dial. The watch measures almost 2¼" across.

I understand from a collectors' site that I could date the watch pretty precisely if I opened it up and read the serial number off the watch movement. Uh uh, not gonna try it on my own. From looking at other Elgin pocketwatches round about on the Internet, I think I'm safe in saying that my great-great-grandfather's watch dates from the late 1800s. I find watches with the same dial and similar case design from 1885, 1890, thereabouts.

At any rate, this pocketwatch is a real piece of family history. My great-great-grandfather no doubt was telling time with it when he turned 50, in 1900, before the Wright Brothers had flown at Kitty Hawk. Amazing to ponder that.

Comrades! Watch, Ride, and Report!

This strangely Stalinesque poster comes to us courtesy of Fred Reed, who sighted it on the MARC train which runs between Washington DC and Baltimore. Reed is an American expatriate who resides in Mexico. He was back in the US recently for the first time in quite a while, and his impressions from his trip are worth reading.

"Report any unusual activities or packages to the nearest conductor... Watch, Ride, and REPORT!" Yeah, yeah, I get what they're up to. And I hope they apprehend any train-riding terrorists, and send them the same way as the Big Z. Only, don't you think we could steel ourselves against terrorism without going all Stalinesque "1930s socialist realism," "boy meets tractor," "saga of the hydroelectric power dam," "watch your neighbor with fear and loathing," and "report the gibbering train riding homeless person to OGPU"?

Honestly. Whoever dreamed up that poster deserves a position in the Department of Fatherland Security. And I don't mean that as a compliment. Why is it that whenever this country begins to slide in a Stalinesque direction, they do it with either or both of the following two excuses:

• "Won't somebody please think of the children?!"
  
  
• "It's needed to help us catch the terrorists."

'Nuff said.

Phillips Screwdriver?

Oh dear. This is one of those items that makes me feel like my head is going to explode. Sort of like a Cretan who says that all Cretans are liars. Or a barber who shaves all men in the village who don't shave themselves.

I picked this little screwdriver up in an antique shop the other day. For only a dollar. I picked it up because I thought it looked cool, like something I might have expected to find in a kitchen drawer at my grandparents' farmhouse, back circa 1964.

It wasn't until after I'd bought it that I noticed the head-exploding properties of this screwdriver. I mean, take a close look at the tip on this screwdriver, and take a close look at the logo on this screwdriver, and then you tell me: Is this a Phillips screwdriver, or is this not a Phillips screwdriver?

Uh, oh. I'm afraid the only possible answer is: No, this is not a Phillips screwdriver, and yet at the very same time, yes, this is a Phillips screwdriver.

Aiieeeeee!! It's the Phillips screwdriver paradox!!!

<head goes ka-boom!!!>

Memorial Day

The Irish Sport of Hurling

Hunh. Here's one I never knew about before. There's a sport that's big over in Ireland, known as hurling. Two teams of 15 players each. The players try to knock a ball around with what looks like a cross between a hockey stick and a war club. The stick is known as a hurley, or in Irish Gaelic, a camán. The ball is called a sliothar, which I think is pronounced "slitter." Or "schlitter." Or something like that.


Three points for a goal, knocking the ball underneath the horizontal crossbar at the goal line. One point for knocking the ball across above the crossbar. Of course, there's a goalie guarding the goal. Curiously enough, the 3-point goals are not amalgamated into the score, so that for example the score could be 1-7 to 2-3 (one goal and seven points to two goals and three points), otherwise known as "one seven to two three"— what the rest of the world would call "ten to nine."


Players can run holding the ball in their hand, though for no more than four seconds or four steps. Or they can run for any distance balancing the ball on the hurley (I think the operative term here is "if you can"). Or of course they can hit the ball with the hurley. Fer crying out loud, they can even reach up and catch the ball in their hand as it flies through the air. It's a different sport, if you're used to the likes of hockey or soccer.

Hurling has also spread to the United States. On the Denver Gaels website there are some videos which explain the game pretty well: video one, video two, and video three.

"I'm a Canis Minor"

Being the sort who's never taken astrology seriously, I decided some years back that when someone asked me that old question, "What's your sign?", I would be a bit of a wiseacre and say, "Me? I'm a Canis Minor."

You know, the constellation of Canis Minor, the Little Dog.

Okay, my birthday is June 24, I know actually that's Cancer, the Crab. But many years back I seem to remember seeing on an astronomical chart that the ecliptic runs through Canis Minor, between Gemini & Cancer, June 22-24. I dunno, maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But it sounds good.

And that Canis Minor pup sure is one cool dog. Way cooler than any Twins or Crab. :-)