Cake Wars

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.

The Old Ball Game

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.

Also worth checking out is the Library's overall baseball themed resources: http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/themes/baseball/

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.

Monster Mash

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 21^st, 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 on http://www.theartofbryanmoore.com/, or his 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.

Below is page one of version one of Frankenstein, 1818: http://shelleygodwinarchive.org/contents/frankenstein/

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!

Infectious

DISEASED: Yesterday was Annabelle's birthday, and as part of our (low key) festivities, she got to choose the board game we played that day.

She chose Pandemic, one we haven't played in months - maybe over a year. We all really love the game. And really hate it. Because we usually lose, which means most of the world's population dies. (Sorry, y'all.)

Yesterday was no exception, unfortunately. I thought we were doing great, keeping outbreaks in check and even eradicating two of the four deadly diseases.  But then suddenly, we were overwhelmed by the unnamed plague, represented by the color black. The black plague did us in. Sigh. 

We went back to the mat again tonight and lost, again, in a different and painful way. Sigh.

Another sigh was when we went to the restaurant of Annabelle's choice last night, Ohana Kitchen, in Burien, for dinner and found its doors locked! That was a bit of a surprise! A sign on the door said they were closed Oct. 8-18. So no aloha food for us! We walked down to Elliott Bay, a standard American brew pub type place, instead, as it was in the same plaza. We'll have to try Ohana again soon.

GREAT SHAKES: This morning's grammar lesson centered on idioms. What are they? What are their origins?

According to Google, an idiom is "a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words (e.g., rain cats and dogs, see the light ).

Playwright William Shakespeare is famous for coining so many idioms.  It might be fair to call him the father of idioms. 

CJ weighs in on the topic. ... 

William Shakespeare is arguably the most influential playwright of all time, continuing to be a recognized figure in theatre, even over four centuries after his death. Shakespeare coined a number of "idioms," or phrases with figurative (and seemingly unrelated to the choice of words) meaning. Here are some examples of idioms Shakespeare coined, in chronological order (in approximate order of writing: 1593, 1591-1595, 1599, and 1603:)

Off With His Head: In the play Richard III, depicting the rise and fall of the regime of the titular (real-world) king, the eponymous character says this idiom in the fourth scene of the third act.

Wild Goose Chase: Romeo and Juliet's second act contains an early usage of the phrase to indicate a fruitless search for something desired.  

Seen Better Days: While Shakespeare (likely) didn't coin the phrase itself (its earliest known appearance is in the 1590 play Sir Thomas More, possibly co-written by Shakespeare,) Shakespeare popularized the idiom in Act II of As You Like It.

Green-Eyed Monster: Shakespeare coined the phrase in Othello to describe being "sick with jealousy." Before Shakespeare's time, green was associated with illness (and, to an extent, still is today.) As such, he described being "sick with jealousy" as "the green-eyed monster."

Here is what Annabelle has to share about Shakespeare's idioms. ... 

The phrase “good riddance” comes from the play “Troilus and Cressida” in Act 1, Scene 2. The character of Patroclus uses this phrase as Thersites exits. The original sentence was “A good riddance,” though it has been shortened slightly to refer to the end or disappearance of something one dislikes.

“Lie low” originates in “Much Ado About Nothing,” spoken by Antonio. He uses it when referring to Beatrice and Benedick’s quarreling, saying, “If he could right himself with quarreling, some of us would lie low,” implying that the arguments are doing more harm than good and getting others involved.

When someone says “as good luck would have it,” they are usually referring to a good outcome or best case scenario. This idiom comes from “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” where it refers to Mistress Page being a sign of good luck. Though used less commonly nowadays, it holds a rather different meaning and even has variations referring to bad luck.

Finally (and appropriately), the phrase “be-all end-all” actually first appears in Act 1 of “Macbeth.” The titular character quotes that "If the assassination could trammel up the consequence, and catch with his surcease success; that but this blow might be the be-all and the end-all here, but here, upon this bank and shoal of time, we’d jump the life to come." While long winded, this has since been adapted to refer to the finale or stop of any number of things.

THAT'S NO MOON:  AI/Internet tracking software knows me all too well. Multiple avenues have pushed the same story my way all day long. The headlines all report that the Chinese are planning to build an artificial moon. 

Well that's interesting. ...

Of course, I couldn't help but think immediately of a "Star Wars" reference. ... (That happens a lot if you're me.)

Anyway, the proposed new 'moon' is really a reflective satellite, set to launch in 2020, maybe.  Reportedly it will 'hang' above Chengdu, in China's southwestern Sichuan province. The goal is that the reflected sunlight hitting it will be cast back to Earth, supplementing streetlights and saving big money.

I can't help but wonder how that will affect local stargazing, as well as animals' sleep and hunting cycles, and potentially more. 

A-Maze-ing

CHILDREN OF THE CORN: We try to make it a point to make it to a local corn maze every fall. Today, that trip coincided with Annabelle's birthday!

We knew we were getting close to the farm when we saw this tractor and its trailers!

 This year there were two mazes at Carpinito's, a farm in Kent, Washington. 

 We took on the triceratops first. 

Weather wise, today's trip was the nicest we've ever had for corn maze day. It was mostly sunny skies and about 60 degrees this morning!

 The kids took turns leading us through the maze. We hit all of the marks along the way with only a couple of minor wrong turns.

 The corn the maze was made from was remarkably robust.

 I enjoyed checking out all of the silk - and other stuff - growing on it.

 The maze was home to a number of insects.

 The attraction also has a fantastic farm market. Naturally, we checked out their pumpkin offerings.

 Warts and all, they had some beauties.

 We spied piles of ghost pumpkins. It kind of looked like popcorn to me.

 And there were colorful gourds.

 They even had Pokemon pumpkins. (Gotta carve them all?)

GRATUITOUS: A beauty shot of Rainier from a couple of sunsets ago.

Rainier is not out every day, but when it is, oh boy!

The view out of our living room window is phenomenal! 

History, Then & Now

Photo by space launch photographer extraordinaire, Ben Cooper

LIFT OFF: Last night, before bedtime, we tuned into a United Launch Alliance Atlas V launch. The mission, for the Air Force, was carrying the fourth Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) mission for the U.S. Air Force. It lifted off from Space Launch Complex-41 on Oct. 17 at 9:15 p.m. Seattle time. The launch marked ULA’s 50th launch for the U.S. Air Force.

Developed by Lockheed Martin, the AEHF system "provides vastly improved global, survivable, protected communications capabilities for strategic command and tactical warfighters," per a ULA PDF. "This jam-resistant system also serves international partners including Canada, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom," it notes.

HISTORY LESSON: Yesterday I revisited my email subscriptions to the Library of Congress, a favorite resource. I must have clicked on some additional boxes, because today my inbox was filled with cool stuff, including a 'this day in history' email. Today's topic: A letter then-President Monroe sent to friend and neighbor Thomas Jefferson, asking for advice about joining Great Britain in a formal declaration to dissuade other powers (including Spain and France ) from intervening in the affairs of Central and South America.

On Nov. 7, 1823, at a cabinet meeting, John Quincy Adams warned Monroe, “It would be more candid, as well as more dignified, to avow our principles explicitly to Russia and France, than to come in as a cockboat in the wake of the British man-of-war.”

That's something to think about, now, isn't it?

Turns out Monroe took Adams' advice to heart, and he chose to pursue a diplomatic course independent of Great Britain. The policy was outlined in an address to Congress on December 2, 1823. It became known as the Monroe Doctrine. In part, Monroe said, “We should consider any (European nations') attempt to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.” Monroe declared that “the American continents…are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.” 

The Library of Congress link also shared this great old illustration about the Monroe Doctrine.

Keep off! The Monroe Doctrine must be respected. Lithograph by Victor; illustrated in Judge, February 15, 1896, p. 108-109. Prints & Photographs Division

Life

DRAWING DATE: Saturday afternoon, we headed to Ballard for a life drawing session. I loved the topic - drawing action heroes that don't all look like Wonder Woman. :)

Annabelle and a friend sat in for the session. 

I was really impressed with Annabelle's work. It was a nice departure from her 'normal' drawing style.  

I thought she did a great job of capturing the poses. 

 I love her little 'notes to self,' too!

Here's what Annabelle had to say about the experience. ...

At Populuxe Brewing in Greenwood, there was an artist’s event with the Seattle Public Library focused on body-positive life drawing. The event was rather busy, featuring two live plus-size models who took their time to pose for a crowd of artists. The event space was extremely small and not made for this kind of event, causing many peoples to have terrible views of the models they were trying to draw. While this was bad, I was able to do quite a bit of work from what I could see. The models did 1 minute, 5 minute, and 10 minute poses – 2 of each. This allowed some artists to stick around for just a few minutes if they had to be somewhere or do something else. While it felt a bit lackluster at times (not being clear on the location, no lessons or prompts) I had a good time while talking with friends at the event. The library’s Booktoberfest series of events is still going, which you can find at their website. 

BIRTHDAY GIRL: October is chock full o' birthdays in our family. Monday, it was my turn. We headed to downtown Seattle in the early afternoon to hit happy hour at a favorite restaurant, YardHouse. (Their poke nachos are to die for! I want to try to make them at home.)

Before the restaurant, we swung through Westlake Park. Imagine our surprise and delight to find an artist painting a space theme on a public piano!

 So cool!!!!

We stopped at an over-sized chess board so CJ and Annabelle could get a game in. It wound up taking about 40 minutes!

While they played, a number of people stopped to watch part of the game. One homeless gentleman, smallish white guy with a big grin and kind of a leprechaun look about him, was a big fan. He watched most of the game and grimaced and cheered appropriately and shared a couple of chess stories. :) 

A couple of tall, African American men came and stood next to me for awhile and watched. They are park regulars, and the younger of the two shared with me that he never learned how to play chess. He said no one ever taught him how. I told him it sure wasn't too late to learn and encouraged him to try it - and told him he'd probably really enjoy it. The men were both really polite and friendly, and made it a point to wish us well before they took off. 

There was a young Asian gentleman watching most of the match. He did a good job of keeping a poker face, but you could tell he was wishing he could help CJ finish Annabelle off (CJ was chasing her around the board, instead).

All in all, fun couple of hours in the city.

OUT OF DOORS: It has been SO SO SO nice weather-wise here for a week or so. Today, we struck out for a new-to-us park in our neighborhood.

We were a little frustrated during the excursion. Google Maps took us to a residential neighborhood with ZERO park access. Not sure what the software was thinking. Eventually, we wound our way to its formal entrance, on Rainier Avenue.

Not gonna lie, the park was a bit of a disappointment. We couldn't help but notice that the play equipment was decades old. Specifically, it was the stuff that had been rejected and replaced in our former (more 'upscale') neighborhood. But I guess it's good enough for the South city folks. ... :/

The basketball court was cracked and covered in moss, and a concrete expanse that looks like it might have been a tennis court once upon a time was just a big ugly slab.

We played catch with a Frisbee on a softball infield. There was some lovely fall foliage nearby.

And Lake Washington was across the street. Too bad the park doesn't actually have an lake access, though. 

CURRICULUM: We continue to use BrainPOP for fun with science and grammar. Today, for grammar 'class,' we watched a video about etymology.

During it, we learned that "dollar" is from the German “thaler,” which referred to a silver coin.  We also learned that ketchup, a beloved condiment in this house, is from the Malay “kecap,” or “fish sauce.” BrainPOP told us that British sailors brought it back from Malaysia in the early 18th century, and that it wasn’t until the 20th century that it referred to a sauce made with tomatoes. We also learned that "muscle" (as in your bicep) is Latin's “little mouse.” Turns out ancient Romans thought flexing one's arm muscles made it look like a little mouse was scurrying around under your skin. These are important things to know.

For science, we watched a video about Dolly, the cloned sheep. Afterward, we took the graded test, and checked out BrainPOP's additional resources on the topic. Via the additional doc, we learned about a sheep/goat hybrid in Botswana (interestingly sheep have 54 chromosomes and goats have 60; their hybrid had 57, a course outer coat, goat like legs and a sheep like body). We also learned about "Shrek the Sheep." The animal was shearing averse, and hid out for SIX YEARS. When they finally caught up to Shrek, it had a crazy 
25 kilograms of wool on it. Reportedly that was enough to make 20 full-sized men’s suits. 
You owe it to yourself to see photos of Shrek here: 

https://www.sunnyskyz.com/blog/985/Meet-Shrek-The-Renegade-Sheep-That-Avoided-Shearing-For-Six-Years-By-Hiding-In-A-Cave

MEATY SUBJECT: As an intellectual endeavor and a desire to get CJ to do a little writing, I asked him to choose any article from a recent "Science News" magazine, and to find at least two other sources and do a short write up about it.

Here's what he has to say. ... 

Recently, I read an article in the 29 September 2018 issue of Science News (SN) Magazine. The article was titled Dreaming Up Tomorrow's Burger, and detailed two separate "directions" for a theoretical development of meat (in this instance, beef) that does not require the slaughter of cattle. One "direction" seeks to re-create beef from cell samples harvested from living cattle (thus creating "clean" or "cultured" beef,) and the other seeking to re-create the taste, texture, smell, and other sensations associated with beef using natural plants.

Forbes details the clean meart startup Meatable on an article on their website, published 14 October 2018. According to the article, Meatable is based in the Netherlands, and "extracts stem cells from the umbilical cords of baby cows and uses a proprietary technology that helps these cells turn into the same meat you’d get from a cow (or any other animal or fish for that matter)." In addition, the article contained an infographic detailing the contrasts between traditional meat production and distribution, and Meatable's concept for production and distribution.

Richard Williams, writing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, argued that "clean meat" will likely take several years to get the public accustomed to, and will spark arguments over whether or not it is actually "meat."