Category Archives: history

May19

margins.

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throughout your life, you probably never thought much about the purpose of margin lines on your writing paper. they’re obviously there to help keep your writing neat, right? margin lines were originally added to paper not to keep your writing neat, but to protect it from rats. rats love to eat around the edges of paper, apparently. so as long as you keep your writing within the margins, all your hard work will be safe from these little fiends!

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i loved to doodle in the margins of my paper when bored in class.

anyone else make use of them?

 

 

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“i love the broad margin to my life. ” 

-henry thoreau

 

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source credit: historymates.com

Mar27

industry.

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This week marks the anniversary of the debut of Diego Rivera’s “Detroit Industry Murals” in 1933.
Rivera’s work is a monumental 27-panel mural at the Detroit Institute of Arts
that portrays the geological, technological, and human history of Detroit. 
I have visited these murals since I was a young child and I never fail to be amazed.
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Explore what makes “Detroit Industry Murals” a masterpiece in this episode of Bank of America‘s “Masterpiece Moment.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlswokSUZHU&t=2s
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credits: detroit institute of arts, bank of america
Mar9

the history of how you felt.

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 loving my new journals and so looking forward to filling them

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“language allows us to reach out to people, to touch them with our innermost fears, hopes, disappointments, victories.

to reach out to people we’ll never meet.

it’s the greatest legacy you could ever leave your children or your loved ones:

the history of how you felt.”

-simon van booy

 

Feb21

oh, liectenstein reader, who art thou?

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 i have exactly one blog follower

in the micro country of liectenstein

with so many interesting things about this amazing tiny place

here are just a couple of examples:

 

in 1886 liectenstein had an army of 80 men who fought during the austro-prussian war

they suffered no injuries or deaths

and returned with 81 men because they made a new italian friend from the opposition army.

the army was disbanded soon after and they haven’t had an army since. 

 

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and then there was the accidental invasion which didn’t cause much of a stir:

i really love their approach to life

and i’m guessing my one reader is a pretty laid-back person

and with such a tiny country

perhaps a descendent of that new italian friend they brought back from the war?

here’s to liectenstien!

 

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“be so good they can’t ignore you.”

-steve martin

 

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image credit: expat.com

Feb15

voice of america.

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on president’s day

remembering those placemats that taught us about our country 

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“justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity,

those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.”

-aleksandr solzhenitsyn

Feb5

ahead.

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one of these folks has been around for awhile and has always been ahead of his time. 

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“ideas shape the course of history.”

-john maynard keynes

 

 

 

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image credit: british medieval history

 

 

Nov7

and now, nachos. while we still wait.

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The NYT has traced the first nachos back to Piedras Negras, Mexico, in 1940, with just three ingredients. As the story goes, a group of women walked into the Victory Club in Piedras outside business hours. Aiming to please, Ignacio Anaya, the maître d’hôtel known as Nacho, ran to the kitchen and made a quick appetizer with ingredients he found. Today’s nachos know no end to their variations: They can have a number of seasoned layers or simply be topped with cheese sauce, like those sold at concession stands. But the simplicity of its original, with its barely salted chips, nutty melted cheese and briny pickled jalapenos, is sure to charm true nacho fans.

 

“we’ve all invested emotionally in nachos.”

-conan o’brien

 

 

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credits: Christoper Simpson(NYT) and Simon Andrews- food stylist (NYT)

Aug21

aloha.

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herbert smith lived in hawaii in the 1890s

120+ years ago he took pictures of this bay surrounded by palm trees and small shipping huts

here is the bay many years later

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on this date in 1959, hawaii became a state

i have yet to visit

but plan to spend time

in a hut

under a palm tree

in hawaii

on a bay

one day.

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“coming to Hawaii is like going from black and white to color.”
-john richard stephens

 

 

 

 

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Image credits: Bonhams/BNPS, IPTCDaily Mail, Matt Hunter, Herbert Smith

Aug12

veep.

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kamala harris, in the beginning

 

“A patriot is not someone who condones the conduct of our country whatever it does.

It is someone who fights every day for the ideals of the country, whatever it takes.”

– Kamala Harris – The Truths We Hold: An American Journey/2019

 

 

 

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photo credit: la times, courtesy of kamala harris

Jul19

11.

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50th anniversary of the week of the Apollo 11 moon landing

I was 11

on the cusp of everything 

we went over

to my parents’ friends’ house

everyone was transfixed

air was electric

all gathered around the tv

watching

silent and awestruck

gobsmacked

as the first man walked on the moon

spoke his first words on the moon

 lots of emotion in the house

I ran to the window to look at the moon 

hoping I would see him up there

right in the middle of all of this

the hostess

left to go to the hospital

to have her baby

she named him neil

after that man on the moon.

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“we ran as if to meet the moon.” 

― robert frost

 

 

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image credit: Ann Arbor district library archives