LET THEM EAT CAKE: So, we did school-y stuff today, I swear. We took an algebra test, and even spent 30 minutes of P.E. time tossing a Frisbee around, but most of the day was about getting a cake done. But that, too, was academic. For instance, we measured diameters (math), mixed colors (arts), did some engineering (to make sure a top-heavy cake wouldn't topple), said some bad words (language arts) when things went wrong ... Fortunately, mostly things went right as we made a birthday cake for a 17 year old girl spending her birthday in a local homeless shelter. She wanted a Pokémon themed party, and the least we could do was make a fun Pokémon cake! Pokéballs are central to the Pokémon world, and since we have a spherical cake pan, we decided to top the cake with a big Pokéball (made out of crispy rice treat covered in fondant).
We made a three-layer brownie cake covered in vanilla buttercream for the base. Around it, we put four Pokémon characters as decorations. We had to make our front-and-center guy, Pikachi, twice. His first face went all to hell when we tried to put it on the cake. We had to pull it back off. And Annabelle rebuilt it.
CJ handled the trim around the base of the cake.
Bulbasaur was one of the faces on the side of the cake.
Driving the cake to the Birthday Dreams headquarters is always nerve-wracking. It's like having fragile triplets on board. :) Fortunately, the cake traveled well (thanks, in large part, to our engineering/structural elements inside). It's always such a relief when we hand off a cake. The whole time we're driving with it in our car, I feel like I should have the hazard flashers on! I drive around every bump and am typically under the speed limit. When we hand the cake off, I think my blood pressure goes down 30 percent.
PASTIME: This morning we did standard MPA stuff - campus improvements (drywall, cleaning), algebra, and cake constructing for a Birthday Dreams (homeless youth) donation. I also told CJ and Annabelle that I was intrigued by a Library of Congress email I'd received about their baseball card collection. Since the 2018 World Series starts tonight, I thought it a good opportunity to mix history and current events. The Library of Congress' email centered on the release of a new book, “Game Faces: Early Baseball Cards from the Library of Congress.” The book offers baseball fans and historians "a visual delight that showcases early baseball cards from the 19th and early 20th centuries alongside photos from the early days of the nation’s beloved pastime," per the email. In the book, author Peter Devereaux takes readers behind the scenes of the Library of Congress’ Benjamin K. Edwards Collection to see the vibrant world of the early boom of America’s pastime. The amazing Edwards collection includes nearly 2,100 early baseball cards dating from 1887 to 1914. Originally distributed in cigarette packs, the cards were forerunners of modern sports trading cards.
"Game Faces" is the first book to explore the Library’s extensive collection of early baseball cards, "providing both the history and cultural context that reveals baseball cards as documents of their times as well as their teams," according to the Library of Congress. Right now, the Library also has an ongoing exhibition “Baseball Americana,” which is open through June 2019. Gosh, how I'd love to see that! But since a trip back East wasn't in the cards today, we had to settle for a virtual viist. We checked out the Library of Congress' baseball card collection link: https://www.loc.gov/collections/baseball-cards/about-this-collection/
What a treasure trove! Today we learned about the genesis of baseball cards. It turns out that back in the 1880s, more than half of the United States' population lived in rural areas, without major league baseball teams of their own. Back then pictures were extremely rare in newspapers, so the only way these fans could follow the game was through the box scores and printed recaps of games, all text-based. Enter the baseball card. In color and with precise detail, the little rectangles brought the legends of the game to life for people wherever they lived. For instance, check out this great portrait of John Clarkson of the Boston Beaneaters, champions in 1887.
By the way, the Beaneaters are Major League Baseball's oldest team ... no known as the Atlanta Braves. Below is the back of the card, which lists champions from several sports of the day.
In game one of the 2018 World Series, the Boston Red Sox (no beans to speak of) bested the Dodgers. I'm bleeding Dodger Blue this series. We'll see if LA can turn it around.
SUNDAY MATINEE: We had lots to try to get done (as usual) around the house on Sunday, but in the morning, I remembered I'd responded to a Facebook-posted event for a screening of the Mel Brooks' movie "Young Frankenstein" at the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) for that afternoon. When I signed us up to attend, it was because the movie is a hoot, and I figured CJ and Annabelle would enjoy it. Come Sunday, I honestly didn't really feel like going, but when I reminded Christian, he was a big "Yes!" And so, we went. The movie was funny, as always, but, gosh, the lectures before were amazing! I'm so glad we attended! Before we showed up at MoPOP, I vaguely remembered that the event started with some sort of book talk and signing. At 2 p.m. sharp, artist Bryan Moore was introduced. He had just completed a lovely bronze bust of Mary Shelley, author of "Frankenstein," for the museum. Annabelle can tell you more about that.
Bryan Moore is a sculptor and artist known for his elaborate bronze busts of horror and sci-fi authors. On October 21st, he unveiled a bust of Mary Shelley (famous author of Frankenstein) at the Museum of Pop Culture, AKA MoPOP, in Seattle. The bust was done in honor of the original manuscript’s second centennial, as it was written in 1818. He based his bust on one of the few paintings of her, as while photos existed during her life she didn’t have any taken. Her most famous portrait shows her wearing a violet brooch, which Moore replicated in the detailed bust. During the unveiling, he also noted her sad expression – possibly due to how much death she faced in life. She had two miscarriages, her only living child died young, her husband Percy Shelley drowned, and his first wife had committed suicide. Bryan Moore somewhat exaggerated her face, yet still faithfully sculpted her hair tucked behind her ears much like most paintings of her.
He mentioned how difficult it was to create a bust with so few reference angles, but the result is stunning. While the dress is a blend of ones featured in other portraits, the face is a perfectly stylized version of her expression in the image. This same style is shown in his other projects, which can be found onhttp://www.theartofbryanmoore.com/, orhis Facebook page.Bryan Moore has also created busts of famous authors such as Edgar Allen Poe and Bram Stoker. The Bram Stoker bust is currently located in MoPOP’s “Scared to Death: The Thrill of Horror Film” exhibit, and the Mary Shelley bust that was revealed will go on display in the same museum very soon.
Bust photo courtesy of Bryan Moore
Here's a video I found on YouTube from Bryan Moore about the bust. (Interestingly, it looks like the bust was dedicated a bit later than originally planned.)
Below is a photo of the sculptor and his daughter shortly after the unveiling.
Next up on the program was a fascinating talk from Leslie S. Klinger. CJ can share more about that portion of the program.
On 21 October 2018, my family went to MoPop's JBL Theater for three
purposes: The first being to see the unveiling of a bust of Mary Shelley
(best known as the author of Frankenstein), the second being to hear a presentation given by renowned author Leslie S. Klinger (and later buy his annotated version of Frankenstein,) and the third to view a screening of the classic horror-comedy film Young Frankenstein. In this essay, I will be primarily writing about Klinger:
Leslie S. Klinger, according to his website,
is "considered to be one of the world’s foremost authorities on
Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, H. P. Lovecraft, Frankenstein, and the history
of mystery and horror fiction." Klinger has received a number of awards
over the course of his career, including, according to his website,
"[the] Edgar for Best Critical-Biographical Book in 2005 for The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories and the Anthony for Best Anthology in 2015 for In the Company of Sherlock Holmes (co-edited with Laurie R. King) and two nominations for the Bram Stoker Award for Best Nonfiction book." In addition, Klinger has also worked as an attorney for. At the event that I attended, Klinger promoted his book The New Annotated Frankenstein with a lecture about Mary Shelley's life.
Shelley was born in England on 30 August 1797 to feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft (who died less than a month after Shelley's birth) and anarchist philosopher William Godwin.
Following Wollstonecraft's death, Godwin was left to raise his daughter
on his own. According to Klinger, Godwin was the kind of parent to
treat a library as a (partial) substitute for parenting. In fact,
Klinger remarked that he doesn't think Godwin would've been much of a
"hugger," so to say. At the age of 17, Shelley began a relationship with
Percy Shelley (a follower of the theories of William Godwin,) with whom
she had four children (only one of whom, Percy Florence Shelley, lived
to adulthood.)
There are two primary versions
of the Frankenstein text. There is the 1818 version, published when
Shelley was 21, and the 1831 revised version, published when Shelley was
34. There are a number of differences (a short summary of which can be
found here) between the versions published a baker's dozen years apart.
During
the Questions and Answers part of the lecture, I asked Klinger if he
preferred the 1818 or the 1831 version of the Frankenstein text. Klinger
replied with the 1818 version, stating that it is more "raw" than the
revised version.
There was also a version of Frankenstein called the Thomas text, in between the 1818 and 1831 versions. Shelley started with a rewrite, and abandoned it, leaving it with If you'd like to learn a little bit more about Shelley, here's a link to a short video: https://www.biography.com/video/mary-shelley-female-fright-writer-21400131545 Another thing we learned on Sunday is that thanks to the Shelley-Godwin Archive, anyone can read all the known manuscripts of Frankenstein. Fortunately, each hand-written page comes accompanied by a typed transcript.
Shelley, M. W. "Frankenstein, Volume I", in The Shelley-Godwin Archive, MS. Abinger c. 56, 4r. Retrieved from http://shelleygodwinarchive.org/sc/oxford/frankenstein/volume/i/#/p1
IN MEMORANDUM: Since it has just been days since MoPOP founder Paul G. Allen passed away, I expected to find some sort of memorial to him during our visit to the museum on Sunday. Sure enough, on the main floor, adjacent to the amazing, multi-story column of instruments, there was a rather tiny sign. It wasn't even the size of an 8.5x11 piece of paper.
They gave nod to two of Allen's most prized possessions - the original (discolored!) Spock uniform from "Star Trek" (the original series) ...
And the guitar that Jimi Hendrix played at Woodstock. What a gem!
