Saturday, January 7, 2017

Things writers love


A clean desk, some fun pens, a coffee (tea, mulled wine, or Hot Toddy) mug, a retro lamp, and a BIG FAT THICK STACK OF CLEAN FOOLSCAP! Do you remember foolscap? Do they still make foolscap? Maybe. I don't know, but if they do, it's called something else. Because the word "fool" (when used as a noun) is probably some kind of micro-aggressive, unsafe-space, hate speech.

This is cool, and I did not know it. I always thought perhaps foolscap got its name because it made the best dunce caps.


Friday, January 6, 2017

It's about zippers


But it could just as easily have been an emancipatory cry of Victorian women who were sick of riding bikes and horses (to say nothing of playing Battledore and Shuttlecock!) while wearing long heavy dresses. Except that they didn't say "swell" in Victorian times, unless they were talking about bruises and such. 

But don't you just love vintage ads? I do. I thought this was so funny. Not least because zippers were called (by this company at least) "talon fasteners". Napoleon Dynamite would approve. 





Technically swimwear, but at least they were onto something...
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Retro Cookie Charm




Yes, by golly, it's the vintage Tupperware cookie cutters! Did you have these as a child? (In other words, did your mom or grandmother?) Our mom did, and my sisters and I grew up baking with them. So much fun (but I never understood the pig. Why a pig? What holiday has a pig for an emblem? I found only National Pig Day, but that's a bit of a stretch, especially since the holiday only seems to date from 1972! Something to do with Ireland was the best I could come up with, but there is clearly no shamrock associated with the Tupperware piggy.)

Many twenty years ago or so, I was at a garage sale, and I found two of them: the Santa and the gingerbread boy. I was so excited, I bought them right away. But the entire set eluded me (eBay, of course, was not invented back then) Then last year (Christmas 2015), I received this set from the Beazly household. As I vaguely recall, I squealed in a most unladylike fashion when I opened the box and saw them all there. 

Monday, January 2, 2017

It's not a raging wildfire.


High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew --
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
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