New Planets!

We always hoped they were out there, right? Exotic planets teeming with extraterrestrials - who knows what they could teach us! Today's excitement focuses on two newly discovered planets, euphoniously named Gliese 581 d and Gliese 581 e. Actual scientists say Gliese 581 d is in a "habitable zone -- just the right distance to sustain liquid water -- a common component of life on Earth". Therefore it might be capable of supporting life as we know it! The planets live somewhere in the area pictured to the left. So exciting! Send a probe! Include chocolate! We want to be friends.

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, (PA); 04/22/2009, per EbscoHost
Graphic source: NASA

Score!

In our little TV package we have 'Music Choice' and lately we've been listening to the Movie Score channel or whatever they call it. I don't notice the scores all that much when I'm watching a movie. I'm usually caught up in plot/characters/monsters/explosions/keeping my 3-d glasses on. But now I know movie scores are gorgeous! The swelling strings, the plaintive brass. They are crafted to manipulate your emotions and they do. Boy Howdy. Just listen to Elmer Bernstein's thrilling score for To Kill a Mockingbird. Perfect rainy day music.

Movie Scores

Al Hirschfeld

Caricaturists fascinate me. They can throw together what appear to be a few random lines and suddenly I'm looking at Janet Jackson. Al Hirschfeld was a master of the form. He died in 2003 at the ripe old age of 99 1/2, having provided New York newspapers with elegant art for over 70 years. In fact, his work was so omnipresent that a New York Times editor once complained he couldn't tell what paper he was reading, since so many featured Hirschfeld drawings. Then there was the fun of looking for the name of his daughter, Nina, which he hid in most of his drawings. Now guess who the performer at left is. Hint: she hasn't changed her hairstyle in 40 years.

Source: Biography Resource Center
Graphic Source: Library of Congress

A Very Old Poem for Mother's Day even older now

Here is a nugget from the 1952 classic Good Things for Mother's Day.

Well, you should see my mom, yes sir!

No dark old woolen shawl for her!

She wears gay hats upon her head,

And, boy! Her curly hair is red!

Now you may wonder why we keep a book from 1952, but where else are you going to find this stuff? Hallmark? I don't think so. And while we have a tendency to view Mother's Day as a plot concocted by the greeting card cartel, it actually originated in 1907 when Anna Jarvis asked that a church service for all mothers be held on the anniversary of her own mother's death. Very sweet and very humble. Besides, even if it's been commercialized the day is a great excuse to tell someone who nurtured you that you really appreciate them. Even if they're not your mother. Or red-headed.

Source: Chase's Calendar of Annual Events

Good Things for Mother's Day, 1952 p. 13

This was originally posted in May of 2008

Postage - 44 cent bargain

Postage stamps for first-class mail are going to be more expensive starting on Monday. Two cents more expensive. Nobody likes paying more, and I will add the ubiquitous 'especially now'. (Just because it's ubiquitious doesn't mean it's not true.) But I am a huge admirer of the USPS and let me tell you why. Like you could stop me.
A. You only pay postage. I have a friend who's lived in countries in which she has literally had to ransom her mail in order to pry it out of the post office's hands. Sometimes the bribe was more than the value of the package contents.
B. They deliver mail with addresses on them that even Nicholas Cage could not decipher. I've seen mail reach the recipient when the name, address and zip were all wrong even after you figured out what the scrawls said.
C. According to encarta, they deliver more than 160 billion pieces of mail per year.
We all know the USPS isn't perfect. They've certainly had financial problems over the years and now delivery may be cut from 6 days to 5. But as a person who still likes to send messages written on paper, I'm a fan. And I'll pay the 2 cents.

Hellooo, Cloris

Cloris Leachmen will drop by the Central Library on Friday, May 8, at 6:30 PM. She will be joined by her Dancing With The Stars partner, Corky Ballas! Cloris and Corky doesn't have quite the same bounce as Bobby and Cissy, but it ain't bad. I used to watch her on the incomparable Mary Tyler Moore Show and envy her beautiful blonde hair with the perfect ear curls. That and her acting skills got her eight Primetime Emmy Awards --more than any other female performer!! And did you know she had a bit part in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? See if you can spot her. The hair looked even better then.

The Mary Tyler Moore show. The complete first season
The Last Picture Show
Young Frankenstein

Library Facts One

OCLC, the people who bring you the world's card catalog, have been compiling some fun stuff about library holdings. This particular information is from 2005, but I remember 2005. I'll bet most of you do. These were the 5 most-owned books by libraries around the world - libraries that use OCLC, that is.

#1 Bible [various]
#2 Census [various]
#3 Mother Goose
#4 Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
#5 Odyssey by Homer
Now I don't know if they are counting every publication the Census puts out, but I'm still a little surprised to see that listed. Here is a sampling of books that Des Moinesians have enjoyed:

#1 Da Vinci code
#2 My life / Bill Clinton
#3 A child called it
#4 Eats, shoots & leaves: the zero tolerance approach to punctuation
#5 Dress your family in corduroy and denim

What can I say? We care about grammar. In a big way. (Sentence fragment alert!) (Oops! That was another one ...)

Dream Control

The author of Lucid Dreaming, Robert Waggoner, will be speaking about his book at the Central Library on Wednesday, May 6, at 6:30 PM. As I understand lucid dreaming, two of the components are: telling yourself what you want to dream about before you go to sleep; and being aware that you are dreaming. The latter is not always a good thing, especially if you are in the middle of a nasty situation and can't wake up. But another aspect of lucid dreaming is that you can influence what happens, maybe even take control of the dream. Now that's cool. Especially when you'd rather have a flying dream instead of one with misbehaving appliances. That I'd like to learn. You never know when your clothes dryer will turn on you.

In addition to Mr Waggoner's book, you might also read:

Lucid dreaming for beginners

Friday Funnies - what flower are you?

Now that we've beaten the whole soap opera name thing to a bubbly pulp, let's move on to something equally useles...fun! At the What Flower Are You website, you just enter your first and last name and they tell you what you'd be if you were a flower. A random flower I'm guessing. I'm a sunflower. I love sunflowers! So at first all was great. But then it says sunflower people are Bright, Optimistic, and Opportunistic. I am not optimistic! Oh sunflower, how could you be so wrong? But don't let that stop you from trying. Maybe your flower won't betray you. By the way, when my husband said his ancestors came to the U.S. by hiding in flour barrels I thought they were covered with blossoms. So maybe I am optimistic after all.

If you're interested in the traditional meaning of flowers, here are books on Flower Language.