Before the First Dog officially arrived at the White House, the President and First Lady received a gift of two porcelain dog bowls and an orthopedic dog bed and mattresses during their trip to Prague. Lillibed, the European company who manufactured the canine accoutrements, has taken full advantage of the situation, putting up firstdogbowl.com (and firstdogbed.com which redirects there). One of the bowls is decorated with Swarovski crystals. The other is plainer but is dishwasher safe. Both are plated with 24 karat gold and all items feature a special First Dog seal. Mirek Topolanek, EU President and outgoing Czech Prime Minister, made the presentation.
Random Friday YouTube Tom Lehrer links just for momentary diversions (he turned 81 last week):
The Elements song
Silent E
LY song
The Hound song
Two rather ridiculous luxury food items, as reported by Luxist: A real cupcake topped with a 2 carat Asscher cut diamond surrounded by eight round brilliant diamonds. It’s yummy P.R. for D.C. area Mervis Diamond Importers. And for the upcoming Kentucky Derby, distiller Woodford Reserve is offering a $1,000 mint julep. Made with frozen water from Norway, hand-picked and crushed sugar cane from Reunion Island, mint from Turkey, and of course super-premium bourbon, the drink is served in a sterling silver cup plated in 24k gold. Proceeds go to charity.
Boston area independent bookstores are hanging in there, weathering out this Amazon-age and economy, assuming this article isn’t overly optimistic. They’ve added unique services, gift areas, and tailored their inventory to their clientele and economy. Brookline Booksmith survived the opening a Barnes and Noble in 1993 which has recently closed. Harvard Book Store offers bicycle delivery. The stores know that community involvement and author events help build customer loyalty.
Lot 898 in the (canceled) Michael Jackson auction is a Mills Violano Virtuoso (on page 130 in this auction catalog). Henry Sandell invented this self-playing violin at the beginning of the 1900s. Metal “fingers” controlled by electromagnets set the notes and electric rollers play the strings. Many other mechanisms complete the device, keeping it in tune and even producing vibrato. There’s a player piano in there too for accompaniment. There are many YouTube videos of the Violano; here’s one of the double violin model playing Edelweiss.
There’s a huge auction of movie memorabilia at the end of the month run by Profiles in History. Lot #876 is Deckard’s hero blaster from “Blade Runner.” It’s been in a private collection for 25 years, is one of a kind, and has an estimate of $100,000 – $150,000. They’re calling it the “holy grail ” of sci-fi weapons. Several other items from the movie are also going on the block, including a Voight-Kampff machine operating manual and the costume Harrison Ford wore when administering the test. (Random trivia: the #2 ranked cat in America is named “Blade Runner.” He’s a Russian Blue.)
Serious sports fans with money to burn can buy authentic championship rings and trophies from ChampionshipRings.net. Players and staff who’d rather have the money can sell, on consignment or outright. (Dug out of the “How (and Why) Athletes Go Broke” article in this MeFi thread)
There’s a wonderful story of dedication in The N.Y. Times’ “Scientist at Work” profile on Dr. John Grunsfeld. He’s an astronaut and has held the post of NASA Chief Scientist, but his primary career mission and passion at NASA has been as the unofficial (or maybe it is actually official!) repairman for the Hubble telescope. He’s logged 37 hours and 32 minutes of spacewalks, most of those replacing Hubble parts, many of which weren’t designed to be repaired in space. He also suffered through the abandonment of the Hubble program, a decision that almost led him to resign. But now there’s one last Hubble mission scheduled for May and Dr. Grunsfeld will pay a housecall to the telescope for the final time, allowing it to function for hopefully another 5 years. He describes his repair EVAs as Zen in space:“Once in a while the universe lets you be free alone and in peace.”
I still love paging through physical magazines and reading the comics (plus most of my local news) in newsprint. But I know it can’t compare to experiences like the interesting path I just traveled: 1) visiting Alex Ross’ classical music blog and 2) watching a video of Marion Anderson singing at the Lincoln Memorial 3) reading Ross’ New Yorker article on Anderson and the 70th anniversary of that defiant concert 4) searching for the Sticks & Drones blog cited in the article and 5) reading the post by conductor William Eddins about why the African-American community is largely absent from classical music. After which I remembered that this morning I had noticed and wanted to read later 6) an article in the N.Y. Times about Julliard cutting back on a music outreach program for minority schoolchildren who can’t afford those fancy music lessons. I just can’t access so much so swiftly on regular paper.