The Online Photographer

What MacArthur Said

TOP is down briefly for maintenance. We will return on June 1st.

Mike

Featured Comment by Sarge: "'I shall return.' Here's a photo of the MacArthur Landing Memorial at Red Beach, Palo, Leyte, taken at dawn by my friend Vey Telmo."

New Contact Page

I've just added a new contact page in the right-hand sidebar, and removed the old email link. The purpose of the contact page is to save time...I hope. I hope it will answer some questions in advance that heretofore I have been obliged to answer manually in each individual case.

It might sound a little snotty, for which a thousand apologies, but as TOP has gotten gradually more successful, the administrative duties have made my job seem "like getting pecked to death by ducks" (in the memorable phrase of J. Gregory Morgan, describing his then-current job as Headmaster of the National Cathedral School for Girls). I especially hope that it answers the question of missing comments.

The page will actually get a little longer, because I have a few more things to add to it, but...well, I don't have time right now.

—Mike, One Man TOP Maintenance Crew and Grounds Custodian

Our 100,000th Comment

Note the number

TOP—or rather the new (TypePad) TOP blog—reached Comment #100,000 at 5:43 this afternoon. When it happened, sirens went off and balloons fell from the ceiling here at TOP World HQ, scaring the dog.

The lucky 100,000th commenter, known as "Q," is by his own admission 144 years old, which I assume means he was in fact the Quartermaster for Her Majesty's Secret Service, supplying Bond with Q-devices. (I say "he" only because I actually do know his name.) For his services here, I was going to pick out and buy him a nice photobook, but then I decided I'd better get a grip and let him buy a photobook of his own choice. (It's still essentially a mystery to me, but I realize empirically that not everyone shares my taste.) So he's getting a $100 Gift Certificate from Amazon.

Q's prize is a way of symbolically recognizing the contributions of all the many wonderful commenters who participate here on TOP, enriching and amplifying so many discussions. It is, for one thing, how I continue to constantly learn things here, and how I keep myself entertained and amused. Thanks to one and (almost) all.

If you're curious, Jim Henry was commenter #99,999, and Ken Tanaka #100,001. So close!

Congratulations (and thanks) to Q. He hasn't stepped forward yet to claim his prize, but maybe we'll hear from him. (Who knows, maybe he'll leave a comment.)

—Mike, On the Velvet Rope

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Featured Comment by Ken: "And yet you did not even make Q's comment a featured comment? Wow, what does one have to do for a featured comment around here, anyways? [With tongue firmly in cheek.]"  

Featured Comment by Q: "Yikes! Really? Wow! I feel like one of those stunned actors you see in TV commercials who just look about wide-eyed when the sirens sound and the balloons envelop them at the checkout counter or some such place—except of course I'm not acting. [Looks about nervously.]

"I'm afraid I don't have a speech ready...

"Thank you for this very generous book-by-proxy gift! I think I know already where it's going to go. (Hmm; is The Empirical Photographer available on Amazon?)

"More, though, thank you for the years of posts, yours and your guest writers', and the comments. Everyone here seems to have a well-reasoned point of view, and the great majority of them know considerably more about the craft and the art of photography than I do; I learn more from TOP than from any of the other photography sites I read. I daily look forward to refreshing the TOP page and seeing what pearls appear, and I'll keep reading well past the 200,000th comment (which I'll make sure won't be mine).

"And—my sincere apologies to Lulu. I hope she got over her fright quickly.

"Thank you again!

"(Wow.)"  

Mike adds: Q, whose real name is Damon C., tells me he actually took his handle from "silent Q" in Monty Python's Bookshop sketch (originally from At Last the 1948 Show—here's a version with Marty Feldman):

Blog Note

I said Kirk's column would be coming along today, but I lied. I'll try to get it up on Monday. Or Tuesday. I temporarily have a lot of work to do because of our remodeling project, and I need to get my work done for the day before the Kentucky Derby coverage starts this afternoon. (<—Note sneaky additional mention of the Derby, to remind you that it's on NBC today at 4:00 local time. Union Rags is still the favorite, but Bodemeister has moved into second-favorite position with the bettors. I'm still pulling for Gemologist.)

My son and his girlfriend are going to her prom today, too, and both have new finery for the occasion. I'm hoping to get at least as much time from them as Karsh got from Winston Churchill. But we'll see. I'm starting to wish I had splurged for the OM-D on Thursday, kit and all. It's not like I have any shortage of cameras around here. But what could it hurt to have a surplus 12–50mm? Hmm.

Mike

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Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Bill Tyler: "Don't forget to grab your son's cigar just before shooting."

Featured Comment by Tony McLean: "You may not be able to snatch the cigar but perhaps his mobile phone would extract a similar expression?"

Pointer

Don't miss Ctein's capsule history of Daly City in the "Little Boxes" post. After you read it, go back and read the first sentence of that post. Made me chuckle....

Mike

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Need a Scanner?

I've got to apologize in advance—this could possibly turn out to be the most boring week ever in the history of TOP.*

At least I'm making progress....

Mike's library.

This is about two-thirds of the books from the living room (which in turn are roughly half the books in the house). On the plus side, I've discovered that file boxes make great book boxes...they're not too big and they have handles, making them easy to carry. And we've got a box wholesaler with a warehouse about five miles from me, so they weren't too expensive either.

So I've been preoccupied. B&H had a big sale on memory cards yesterday and...I missed it. Sorry about that. I was happily writing a post about it this morning when I reached what looked like a little snag, so I called my friend Isaac (yo, Issac!) at B&H to ask him why I wasn't seeing the sale prices on the product pages. The sale was over, that was why. Duh. A day late and a dollar short, Mike.

But this one I can't miss...they're having a sale on scanners for the entire month of April. May. I meant May. This month, whatever it is. (Maybe physical labor dulls my brain, I don't know. Maybe my brain is full of carpet fibers.)

Plustek OpticFilm 7400 Scanner  $222.95

Plustek OpticFilm 7600i SE Scanner $269.95

Plustek OpticFilm 7600i Ai Scanner $419.99

All are for 35mm slides and negs. I've never used any of them and don't know anything about 'em—I'm just passing the good word along.

And if you'd like a sort-of-free Epson V700, let me know. [UPDATE Thursday noon: The V700's been spoken for.] As far as I know it's broken, so you'd have to be willing to send it in to an Epson Service Center and have it looked at. I do have the box for it, and new it retails for $520, so you should be able to save some money if it turns out to be repairable. I hate to send it straight to recycling—I got pathetically little use out of it before it went kerblooey. Anyone who wants to take a flier on it can have it for the cost of shipping. Let me know.

(I think I'm star-crossed when it comes to Epson products. Everything I've ever bought from them seems to spontaneously explode, implode, corrupt or seize up in short order. I always assume it's my fault. But maybe the foundation of my house is made of anti-Epsonite or something. Maybe that's what the carpet was made of.)

I think I'm a little punchy.

Back to work.

Mike

*Although we do have a nice post by Kirk Tuck coming up on Saturday.

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Blog Note

Ctein is off today.

A brief update on the recent Micro 4/3 sale: About 640 prints were sold through direct U.S. orders, and our international "angels" will be ordering between 115 and 155 more. Ctein has his printer running full time. The mailing tubes have arrived at the Little Box Made of Ticky-Tacky*, and Ctein will begin shipping prints early next week.

Mike

*Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same,
There's a pink one and a green one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

—First verse of the song "Little Boxes," by Malvina Reynolds, which became a hit for Pete Seeger in 1964. The song was inspired by the housing developments around Daly City, California, where Ctein and Paula and the psittacines live.

Download "Little Boxes"

 

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Featured Comment by Craig: "Kudos to Ctein for the work load/work ethic."

Featured Comment by Ctein: "Before folks get too wrapped up in their soundbites about communists and the American dream, let me regale you with the ironic history of Daly City. To begin with, it was the result of a forcible redistribution of land and wealth. It was founded a few years after the 1906 earthquake. The San Francisco Bay Area robber barons of that era were not known for playing nice. Look up the amusing histories of the earthquake insurance frauds they committed on the East Coast robber barons and the reasons why San Francisco is both a city and a county.

"Just south of San Francisco were the holdings of one of the land barons, John Daly, a dairyman. After the Great Quake, there was no place in San Francisco to house all the homeless victims, so Daly generously volunteered land to be used for temporary tent cities and housing for the Displaced.

"You can decide how many ironic pairs of quotes there need to be in the previous sentence. I'm figuring three.

"At least they honored him by naming the city and streets after him.

"Fast forward to the middle of the century. John Doelger, inspired by Levittown, buys up the golf courses that then dominated the land here, and starts building tract homes. And all in all, they made Levittown looked like it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Doelger's personal tastes dictated all the designs (which were identical save for minimal variations). Doelger didn't like big lawns or gardens, so every house has a miniscule front yard and a smaller back one. Doelger also apparently had a thing about eastern views—all the houses on my north-south running street have the living room facing east (away from the ocean). On my side of the street, the living rooms face the street, on the other side, the bedrooms. Doelger also dictated what colors the houses could be painted (or repainted).

"Doelger hated fences (he and Rob't. Frost might have had words), so no fences allowed on front lawns. Also, no planters, trees, flower beds, lawn ornaments. Just a lawn.

"With one exception. There was a palmetto tree planted in the middle of each lawn. Dunno why, guess he thought they added a touch of exotic. You were required to have one of these in your yard.

"All of this was written into a covenant you had to sign to buy a house here and was enforced by a homeowners' association, which was empowered to collect annual fees from the owners and levy repair costs and fines if you painted your house a different color or killed your palmetto. The associations didn't go away until the 1990s.

"Talk about your central planning!

"People signed those covenants willingly. But here's the best part. This was a Restricted community. For those too young to know what that means, it meant the covenant you signed asserted that you were of good white Christian stock and you could only sell your house to the same.

"I take the last one kinda personally, since it excluded me, when I was growing up in Silicon Valley.

"So, if you're thinking that Malvina was a bit harsh in her assessments, she coulda been lots worse. Like calling the good locals out for being the racists and religious bigots they were.

"Me, I've always been amused by the song. I like it even better now that I live here.

"If my tone seems a touch more sardonic than usual, yesterday Paula and I watched with dismay as a bank officer, accompanied by burly security guards, evicted our retired neighbor. He'd been there for decades, him and his wife, retired. He worked hard, saved properly, had good health insurance and a proper retirement portfolio. They were okay. Then his wife got sick. Then the dot bomb happened and trashed all sorts of retirement portfolios. Then his wife died. Look up the percentage of bankruptcies that are a result of catastrophic or terminal illness for folks who are carrying 'full' medical insurance; you'll be appalled. Then the 'too big to fail' collapses happened and more retirement plans collapsed.

"So now he's been thrown out of his home. As if the bank has anyone else to sell it to.

"Committed pacifist though I may be, the song that was in my head yesterday was not Malvina Reynolds' 'Little Boxes,' but Bruce Cockburn's 'If I Had A Rocket Launcher.'"

Blog Note

Looks like TOP's going to be closed for a couple of days while the proprietor takes care of...shhh...the T-word. We will stoke up again on Wednesday morning. Sorry for the interruption in services and we hope it won't provoke any symptoms.

—Mike, Ace Accountant and Comptroller-in-Chief-

Sale Update

The print sale is going swimmingly, but I'm drowning. We're being inundated in torrents of orders. Enough watery metaphors? Okay.

Anyway. If you've emailed an order (thank you), you will eventually get an email back from me. If you don't, there's a problem, so let me know, but give it a couple of days—I'm currently pretty far behind, and probably will be for a while.

If you need anything from me that has nothing to do with the print sale, now is not a good time. In fact it's possible things might be pretty quiet around here for the next few days, as I do fun things like track and print orders, relearn (yet again) how to use a spreadsheet program, and cram every hour's worth of data entry tasks into about two and a half hours (my mind wanders. I have to go back and check. And then once more. I am just not good at this sort of thing). If so, I apologize. TOP World Headquarters is, among other deficiencies, egregiously understaffed. I end up doing just about everything under the sun but writing. (Sound familiar, pro photographers?)

We always get everything right in the end, though, never fear. Thanks to all for your interest.

Mike

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The First To Go

I want to apologize for the lack of activity around here on Tuesday—I was reached by news of the sudden death of Marina Finch, an old college buddy from Dartmouth, and I was just plain feeling sad all day. Memories kept coming back to me all day long. And I was beset with regret—I always assumed I would see Marina again someday, and I just took that for granted for far too long.

Marina Finch scalloping out of her little Grady White boat, c. 2008.
Photo by Martie Mack.

Marina lived a very interesting life. She was an EMT and a scalloper out of Sconset, a village at the eastern end of Nantucket island. Out of college, she spent winters in Colorado, waiting tables at night and skiing in the daytime; summers, she'd do the same on Nantucket, spending the days at the beach. This went on for so long that her friends worried she'd never settle down. Finally, in an effort to get serious with her life, she joined the Peace Corps—which promptly dispatched her to an outrageously beautiful island in the South Pacific, where she was given the best apartment on the island in return for teaching English to bright-eyed island children. "I can't win," she wrote. Can't lose, was more like it.

She married a guy who was a pilot for an island-hopping airline, I heard, and that's when I lost touch with her. I didn't even know she was back on Nantucket, and obviously she'd been there for a long time.

Marina was one of those people who have such strong, outsized personalities that, once you know them, you can never forget them. She had great spirit, strong, almost volatile passions when I knew her, a keen intelligence, and always, always a deep and abiding sense of humor. She left friends literally all over the world—tributes poured in from Scotland, New Zealand, the mountains, the seashores, both coasts. I wouldn't have guessed I had ten memories of the times we spent together—I don't remember much from those days, an unfortunate side effect of pre-recovery addictions—but as the day wore on I rediscovered ten times that many, back in the recesses of my mind. Put the Grateful Dead on and raised a glass of club soda.

That's the bitch about middle age. Pretty much everybody makes it through their first fifty years; pretty much nobody makes it through the second fifty. It's only a question of when. The first to go are never easy for those who stay. My thoughts go out to her family.

Mike

This Saturday

Housekeeping note: TOP won't be updating today, while the proprietor pretends to take a day off (although new comments will be posted).

Tomorrow, we will publish "Kirk's Take" by Kirk Tuck—this month, a review of the Leica/Panasonic 25mm ƒ/1.4 Summilux lens for Micro 4/3 which has apparently just been discontinued. (That's unconfirmed. It's out of stock at B&H; Amazon no longer lists it as current; and it's backordered on the Panasonic website. All of which usually means tha-tha-tha-tha-that's all, folks!)

[UPDATE: It's probably more likely that this is just one of Panasonic's periodic supply irruptions. Adorama has the lens in stock (link removed—see below), for a good price. —MJ]

[UPDATE #2: Reader Joe Kashi writes to say: "It is not in stock at Adorama. Their web site representation to the contrary is not correct. They took my order and then converted it into a backorder." Caveat emptor, and sorry for temporarily steering you awry. —MJ]

If you'd like something to mull over today, try John Bates' "No Emus on the Airplane!" from June 2006. Fair warning, though—it's a piece to read slowly and carefully and think about, not one to skim.

Enjoy our day off....

Mike, TOP's One-Man Sidewalk Band

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Blog Note: Upcoming 'Open Mike'

Just a warning.

For those few readers who still seem to be shocked or affronted that I occasionally take an interest in things non-photographic, I should probably mention again that on many Sundays I write a deliberately off-topic post. I call these little sorties the "Open Mike." Get it? My name is Mike, and open mike means anyone can step up to the microphone and say whatever they want to...oh, so clever.

Next Sunday, for my weekly "Open Mike," I'm going to be reviewing a terrific little high-fidelity music speaker. It's quite portable, and can serve as a stellar replacement for a soundbar for your flatscreen, as a desktop system for your computer, or as a bedroom, dorm-room, or cottage or cabin speaker. It's quite inexpensive, and its value for money is off the charts (thanks, China).

Also, a few comments about the ethics of reviewing. Probably also a few comments about buying speakers, because, well, I do go on.

So now you know. And if you're one of those who don't like my posts about anything other than photography, you can skip the post on Sunday. (Every time I write about anything else I get emails and comments saying some variant of "I thought this was supposed to be a photography site.") That's one of the reasons for the not-so-clever series name: to label those posts in order to make it easy for you to avoid them if you want to.

So that's that.

Mike

P.S. Also, I'm going to do my best to take Saturday off this week. I've been saying Saturday is my day off for a long time now, but I never actually seem to be able to not work on my day off. I typically spend Saturday doing what I do every other day, sometimes from the time I get up in the morning until eight or nine at night. I really do need to take a day off every week. Even if I have to force myself. I'm going to work on that.

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Featured Comment by Hugh Crawford: "'Open Mike' has me envisioning an invasive surgical procedure. Maybe that has something to do with my friend in college, Jeff Preiss, who complained that 'Prices Slashed' signs made him uncomfortable."

TOP Down (Briefly)

TOP will be down for maintenance for a few days. However we will be back AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! As early as Saturday, but at least by Monday.

—Mike, TOP Chief Custodian and Facilities Maintenance Engineer

Freedom Isn't Free: Protect the Internet

To all U.S. readers: Take a moment today to go to Wikipedia, enter your ZIP Code, and follow the link to your Congressman. Tell them to vote AGAINST SOPA and PIPA, the two bills now before Congress that would suppress the internet.

Existing copyright law, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), are sufficient to protect rights owners' interests.

This isn't China. This isn't a dictatorship. This is a free country with free speech enshrined in its basic principles. Protect it. If you don't speak up, we all get what you deserve. Do it! Right now. Help save the free internet. Please.

The Management

Featured Comment by Ernest Theise: "I responded."

Featured Comment by Erik: "Congress.org can be used to identify senators and representatives."

Featured Comment by T Bannor: "I sent a note to my senators urging SOPA be dropped. The lack of due process is a big problem. However, as a stock shooter who's had images ripped of from sites that paid for legitimate use, I think we need to come up with some way to protect folks like me. One of my stolen images is now on free wallpaper download sites all over the planet."

Featured Comment by Michael: "The Khan Academy has an explanation of these two laws. Or if you can log in to the Khan Academy, then look for the 'SOPA and PIPA' video. I will let Khan speak for me."

Blog Note

When it rains it pours—while I was "off" yesterday there were several notable happenings that we would normally cover in slightly more timely fashion—the death of Eve Arnold at age 99, and the leaked news of the D4 and especially the Fujifilm X-Pro 1*. I have Kirk Tuck scheduled for tomorrow, so we'll get to those other things on Sunday or Monday—a little late being better than never.

—Mike, TOP Content Juggler and APES**

*No comments on this post, because it will disappear when it's no longer needed.

**Magazine term coined by Thom Harrop—stands for "all-purpose editorial slave."

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Gott Nytt År

That's a greeting from a reader named Stefan Larm that came in this morning—"Happy New Year" in Swedish.

In any language you prefer, god bless and keep you and yours in 2012. May you have a great year.

Mike

Featured Comment by Yrjo Maenpaa: "Hyvää uutta vuotta! (In Finnish)."

Featured Comment by SamPieter: "Gelukkig nieuwjaar! (Dutch)."

Featured Comment by Gary O'Callaghan: "Athbhliain faoi mhaise duit (Irish)."

Featured Comment by Nadan F: "Sretna Nova godina (from Croatia)."

Featured Comment by odaiwai: "Sam Ling Fai Lo! (In Cantonese)."

Featured Comment by Neil Youngson: "Feliz Año Nuevo! That's Spanish, coming to you from Mexico. Keep up the good work in 2012. Saludos."

Featured Comment by Alex Vesey: "Akemashite omedeto gozaimasu (Japanese for Happy New Years). Not sure if this will show, but 明けましてお目出度うございます. Best wishes to all for 2012."

Featured Comment by Wolfgang Lonien: "Frohes neues Jahr! (German)."

Featured Comment by Dawid Ciechanowicz: "Wszystkiego Najlepszego w Nowym Roku! (from Poland)."

Featured Comment by almostinfamous: "नया साल मुबारक हो (Naya saaal mubaarak ho) or नयी साल की शुभ कामनाएं (Nayee Saal ki Shubhkamnayein) in Hindi :-) ."

Featured Comment by Akrivopolenov: "С Новым Годом! (Russian). Thanks, you run a great blog!"

Featured Comment by CF Salicath: "Godt nytt år! (In Norwegian)."

Featured Comment by Kostas: "Χρόνια Πολλά και Ευτυχισμένο το 2012! (Greek)."

Featured Comment by Bernd Margotte: "Ä guets neus (Swiss German)."

Featured Comment by Andrei P: "La Multi Ani! in Romanian."

Featured Comment by JohnMFlores: "Oh yeah? Well happy New Year to you too! (New Jersey)."

Featured Comment by riccardo_mn: "'Auguri di felice anno nuovo' or, less formally, 'Buon anno!' from Italy."

Featured Comment by jean-louis salvignol: "Bonne et heureuse année 2012 pour tous les participants à TOP, et même pour les photographes actifs (mais y en a-t-il?)."

Added by CMS: Sorry, I cannot resist. Here is the translation of the above for those who are not in command of French: "A Happy New Year 2012 to all those taking part in this blog, even to those who are active photographers (but are there any?)." Nice touch of humour. Happy New Year!

Mike replies: No one in here but coffee addicts and iPhone converts....

Featured Comment by Paulo Bizarro: "Feliz Ano Novo! (Portuguese)."

Featured Comment by Philip Storry: "Already? Oh well...(British English)."

Featured Comment by Alex Nanou: "(Arabic) كل عام و أنتم بخير "

Featured Comment by Anupun Sra-ium: "สวัสดีปีใหม่ Sawaddee Pee Mai (in Thai). All the best to you and Z(X)ander."

Featured Comment by Adam Isler: "שנה טובה (Hebrew)."

Featured Comment by Mike Plews: "Godt Nytår! Courtesy of Mrs. Plews, who is half Danish."

Featured Comment by Tim Beccue: "新年快乐! (Chinese)."

Featured Comment by Scott Saltman: "Hau'oli makahiki hou ( from Hawaii)."

Featured Comment by Martin Quiazon: "Maligayang bagong taon! (Filipino)."

Featured Comment by Erik: "Chúc mừng năm mới from my wife who's Vietnamese...."

Featured Comment by david: "Честита нова година! (Bulgarian)."

Featured Comment by jamin: "Selamat tahun baru (in Indonesian/Melayu)."

Featured Comment by Hans-Olav Andersen: "Gleðilegt nýtt ár! (Icelandic) Really enjoy TOP every day!"

Featured Comment by K: "Yeni yılın mutlu olsun! (in Turkish)."

Featured Comment by Sten A.: "Head uut aastat! (in Estonian)."

Featured Comment by Boglev: "Среќна нова година! Mike, Happy New Year, in Macedonian. All the best."

Featured Comment by Dharmaraj Jeevamani: "Puthaandu Vaalthukkal (Happy New Year in Tamil), புத்தாண்டு வாழ்த்துக்கள்."

Featured Comment by Vladimir: "'Stastny Novy rok' to all in Czech."

Featured Comment by Adam Szedlak: "Boldog új évet! (Hungarian.) And thanks for the insights, stories and photos!"

Featured Comment by David Vatovec: "Srečno novo leto! (Slovenian)."

Featured Comment by Tyler Westcott: "Happy New Year! Bonne Année! (Canadian)."

Featured Comment by Xurxo: "Feliz Aninovo! (Galician)."

Featured Comment by Ben Rosengart: "Bon any nou. (Catalan, courtesy of my wife, Suzanne Scala, who has a scholarly interest in the language.)"

Featured Comment by Grba: "Срећна нова година! (in Serbian)."

Thank You

Just thought I'd take a sec to say a very sincere "Thank You" to all the people who have ordered stuff through my links for the holidays, and indeed throughout the year.

Like any e-tailer (another ugly word, that), I count on making a few bones in December. If I can't cobble together something resembling the half-decent income I could theoretically earn if I went out and took a wage-paying or salaried job in the real world, like everybody else, then I couldn't keep TOP chugging along. Got to pay my time, as they say. And there's nothing automatic about it. Ever and always a struggle. (We didn't do as well this year as last, but still well enough to justify keeping it going.)

It's getting on towards Christmas, so if there's anyone on your list you still haven't found something for, consider getting them an Amazon Gift Card—who wouldn't want that? If Amazon sold food, I would probably never need to shop anywhere else (one can't quite live off books and camera equipment. I should know). As a bonus, at no extra cost to your pocketbook, it would help keep this webby contraption called TOP clanking along throughout another trip around the sun.

For which—ending this where it began—I thank you.

All best,

—Mike, TOP Chief Fundraiser and Holiday Gladhander

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Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

'Color Picture' Print Sale Update

I'm pleased to report that all of the prints from the last print sale have shipped and are on their way. Some U.S. purchasers should have received theirs already; the international orders were shipped last, not first, and delivery will take longer. All international orders (except one, which I shipped Express Mail by mistake) were sent via International Priority Mail.

All the shipments are guaranteed, so don't worry—if yours fails to arrive or is damaged in shipment, we have replacements. I'd give it until the first or second week in January before suspecting trouble, but if you haven't received yours by then please be in touch and I'll send another.

Thanks again to everyone!

Mike

Happy Thanksgiving

Jennie A. Brownscombe's 1914 fantasy of "The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth" has many inaccuracies—it shows only a small gathering (there would have been more than 300 people at the actual event, about two-thirds of them Pokonokets*), and details such as the frontier-style log cabin sitting out in the open and the plains Indian warbonnets are wildly out of place. The costumes of the Pilgrims (who would have called themselves Separatists, if they needed a name for themselves at all) are all wrong. The painting is more about an idea than it is a representation of history—the idea of people setting aside cultural differences, offering each other mutual aid and succor, and feasting together and giving thanks to God.

Harvest celebrations predate A.D. 1621 by thousands of years, of course, and both the Indians and the Europeans would have already been well familiar with their respective traditions of harvest feasts held in the fall of the year.

If you celebrate the day, wherever in the world you are, a good day to you and yours. And, whether you give particular thanks this day or not, may you and your family have much for which to be grateful in the coming year.

Mike

(P.S. TOP will be closed for a couple of days, but I'll probably be back by Sunday. I'm assuming I won't be able to stay away.)

*The natives at the first Thanksgiving were members of the Pokonoket tribe, of the Wampanoag confederacy or nation. Wampanoag means "people of the east." The leader and chronicler of the pilgrims, my ancestor William Bradford, was confused as to whether "Massasoit" was a title or a name, a confusion which persists right down to the present. It was a title; the Massasoit's name was Ousamequin, sachem (chief or leader) of the Pokonoket and massasoit (great sachem) of the Wampanoag.

It's interesting that Pokonoket means "people of the clearing." The Wampanoag had been decimated by European diseases in the years before 1620, and the area around Plymouth was largely deserted when the Mayflower arrived—but the English had little clearing of the land to do, because the Pokonoket had already cleared fields for crops.

Although the pilgrims, Thanksgiving, and Plymouth Colony are mostly considered fit for study only by schoolchildren in the U.S.—it's the national mythos aspect we really care about, not the actual history—we've been treated to a fine account of the era for general readers recently, in Nathaniel Philbrick's entertaining and readable book Mayflower.

Beat the Vikes

I'm normally at my crotchety-est when it comes to commercials. I mean, I'm a very peaceable and nonviolent man, but give me a handgun and put me in the same room with the "Can fifteen minutes really save you fifteen per cent or more?" guy, and there's a chance tragedy would ensue.

But I like this one:

Makes me laugh every time. Love the patronizing little pat the woman gives him on the way by. Funny.

TOP will not publish on Tuesday, as Yr. Hmbl. Ed. gets hauled in for some medical tests. (Isn't it annoying how real life gets in the way of messing around on the internet?) Nothing serious. Back soon!

"Go Pack" tonight....

Mike

P.S. Here's the link to the commercial if you can't see it here.

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Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by David L: "The awfully sad repercussion from the Vikes' loss."