Michael5000 May, or May Not, Be a Pipe

Hey, remember this business?

Margaret recently responded on her own blog, The Bindery.  The Gist: "Geez. I'm just trying to do some bookbinding over here, what do you want? Salon talk? Theory?"

(Answer: Well, sure!  Don't we all want that?)

In the end each clan on the outlying coasts beyond the whale-road had to yield to The Wednesday Quiz

It's:

The Wednesday Quiz, in its third incarnation, is basically the same old weekly game of knowledge, intuition, inductive reasoning, and willingness to risk public embarrassment in a friendly and moderately supportive environment!!  With a minor twist that will probably make it rather difficult at first!  


Traditionally, it is a closed-book quiz.

It is very possible that answers will come out over the weekend.

1. What Danish religious philosopher, often considered the first existentialist, gave us the concept of a leap of faith?

2. What country produced this postage stamp?

3. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is the current President of the world's fourth most populous country.  What's the country?

4. The two big rivals among big-name composers in London in the 1710s were one Giovanni Bononcini and another guy, whose name has survived better. Of them, it was written:

Some say that Signor Bononcini
Compar'd to ______'s a mere ninny;
Others aver, to him, that ________
Is scarcely fit to hold a candle.

Who is the guy who won out over Singor Bononcini the long run?

5. What artist made these works?

6. Founded in 1831 and stationed in Algeria until the 1960s, this elite military force accepts recruits of any nationality.

7. The Cello Concerto and the Sea Pictutres are his best, in my personal opinion, but The Enigma Variations are better known. But mostly you associate him with graduations.

8. The landmark concept of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, this idea was all the rage in English departments for a decade or two. It's pretty incoherent if you really get in there and try to define it, but was popular as a vague piece of jargon deployed to imply "taking a close, analytical look at a text." [Caveat: The blog Shakespearean, while acknowledging the basic truth of the following, points out that "there's a lot more to it than that."]

9. This town stands near a city of antiquity that is probably most well known for having been sent some famous letters.

10. What famous tale says of Shield Sheafson,

A foundling to start with, he would flourish late on
as his powers waxed and his worth was proved.
In the end each clan on the outlying coasts
beyond the whale-road had to yield to him
and begin to pay tribute. That was one good king.

--

Take a close, analytical look at the text of the clues, and put your answers in the comments.  

Coffee Table Book Party: "Railway Maps of the World"

We've met Mark Ovenden before in these, um, pages, with my lukewarm review of his collection of Paris subway ephemera.  

His latest straight-to-coffee table collection of maps and and imagery seems considerably more awesome to me, but then it's focused on a topic nearer to my heart: maps of national railroad networks.

A lot of the content is simply old railroad maps.  Hard to go wrong!

Mixed in with a fair share of map-related railroad ephemera:

Intermixed with all of this are a number of short essays on various topics related to railroad history.  These are fun, well-chosen, and -- which is not always true in a book of this type -- accurate!  So, you've got some content to chew on while gazing at the pretty pictures, which is nice.

My favorite part of "Railway Maps" is the back half, which attempts a country-by-country atlas of rail networks.

It's a very mixed bag of historical, contemporary, and custom-made maps, with captions that provide some background about way the networks are the way they are, and what the implications are for the economic development of the countries involved.  (note for the skeptical: railroads were historically about the most important thing that ever happened after, say, the fall of the Roman Empire, and remain pretty critical in keeping civilization as we know it afloat)

Railroads!  Maps!  Nuggets of knowledge!  Pretty much a top-of-the-line coffee table book, if you ask me.   Still selling for close to the $35 cover price, though, so my plan is to wait a few years and then swoop down on a used copy.

Michael5000 Exploits Certain Inefficiencies in the Secondary Philatelic Market

Although I haven’t been a stamp collector since junior high, I’m obviously something of a stamp enthusiast. I have long carefully bought the stamps that would be the most fun to send and, hopefully, to receive, and for the past several years, I’ve ordered my stamps in bulk from the USPS philatelic catalog. This always gives me a nice variety of current stamps.

But then there was the whole deal a few months back with my state stamps, when I discovered that they could be sold on Ebay for, at best, face value. After that, the phrase “at best” floated around in my head for a couple of weeks, bouncing off other phrases and concepts, until suddenly it occurred to me that I might be able to extend my stamp palette. I might be able to move beyond merely using a variety of current stamps to using a variety of vintage stamps, without paying any particular premium. Cool idea! But would it work?

Turns out, it works weirdly well. Perhaps a little too well. I marched onto Ebay, made a couple dozen lowball bids on a variety of out-of-date unused stamps, as a matter of experiment – and started winning auctions right and left. And lest there be any confusion, I am not saying that I bought vintage stamps at less than their book value, the more or less meaningless value assigned by stamp catalogs. No. I bought vintage stamps at less than FACE value. Often at less than 80% of face value. For instance, I bought sheets of 29 cent stamps (the current postcard rate) that were printed in the early nineties, when 29 cents was the first class rate, for considerably less than 29 cents per stamp.

Now there is a certain melancholy backstory to all this. This kind of buyer’s market almost certainly represents the decline of the fine hobby of stamp collecting.  It is very likely is the product of a great many strapped stamp collectors trying to liquidate their collections in an absence of buyers that have caught on to the fire sale. And certainly I’m not doing the great but beleaguered Postal Service any favors by cashing in the chips that they passed out during the Eisenhower administration.

On the other hand, I’m doing my little bit to shore up the weirdly diminished value of older stamps. And, more to the point, I’m having a ton of fun picking and choosing stamps, and with luck my more discerning pals will enjoy my quixotic stamp choices. And really, just owning this mess o’ serviceable paper ephemera is kind of a treat.

Your Sunday Boring Postcard from Michael5000

SHELTON, WASHINGTON

Shelton is known as the "Gateway to the Olympics."  Located at the southwestern end of the Hood Canal, Shelton is deeply rooted in the forest industry evident by the large logging operations that began in the mid 1850's.  The oyster industry also plays a part as Shelton also hosts Oyster Fest each year in October.


Provenance: Sent by L&TM5K Ambassador-at-Large Heatherbee, May 2010.

The Bear Chronicles

Touring the Rockies by Auto
Hinsdale County, Colorado
A few years back


Befriend The Bear on Facebook

Flag Friday XXXII

Flag Friday is a periodic discussion of the world's national flags; the project is explained and indexed here.

These discussions are about graphic design, and perhaps about nationalism and national symbolism in general. They should not be taken as critical of the countries, ideals, cultures, or people that the flags represent.

Saudi Arabia

Parsons: Doesn't like "Weapons," "Writing," or "Graven Images" on this flag, but gives it a "C+," 60/100.

Michael5000: Well, there's writing and there's Arabic calligraphy.  Placing a highly stylized rendition of the Islamic profession of faith packs a rather different spin on a flag than does, say, just sticking the word "Kansas" on that sucker.  Although it is a busy pattern, or at least a complex one, it is just a white-on-color pattern, and this lends it a bit of restraint.  And, it's easy to pick out of a lineup.

Grade: B


Senegal

Parsons: Pulling out the "Plagiarism" accusation, he gives it a "B", 70/100.

Michael5000:  For some reason, the fact that the center star is green is throwing me a little bit here.  I think it's just that the sample flag I found here is ratty and a bit off-specs.  It looks pretty good in other photos I've seen.

Grade: B+

Serbia

Parsons: says "(see Yugoslavia)"

Michael5000: When Serbia and Montenegro split the sheets in 2004, Serbia took its basic red, white, and blue tricolor and slapped a regal double-headed eagle on it.  This is, to say the least, kicking it old school.

Although busy, the eagle is certainly bad-ass, in the parlance of our times.  And the busy-ness is not completely out of control; there are only six colors (including white and two distinct reds) in use here.  But the crown seems like an odd choice for a country that, as far as I know, has no plans to reinstate a hereditary monarchy.  And the shield-on-red-white-and-blue-horizontal-tricolor gambit would seem more distinctive if Croatia, Slovakia, and Slovenia hadn't all got there first.  This look didn't even exist when I was a lad; now Eastern Europe is choked with 'em.

Grade: B-


Seychelles

Parsons: "Urrgh... ohhh... feel sick..." writes Parsons. This flag has "Bad Colours," it's "Too Busy," and it "Makes [him] Nauseous," which adds up to a "C-," 50/100.

Michael5000:   I too have a strong aversion to the radial heptcolor of the Seychelles flag.  It's distinct, yes; it's simple, yes; but it just doesn't look like a flag.  Does it?  I wanted to see it on a pole:

Well, it's festive, and maybe not as bad in motion as it is in diagram.  But still, I've got an instinctive aversion that I can't quite shake.  (I had forgotten that there was a different pre-1994 flag of Seychelles, but as soon as I saw it it was immediately familiar.  Funny how that works.)

Grade: C-


Sierra Leone

Parsons: It has "Good Colours" but it's a "Bad Tricolour."  Don't look at me, that's what he says!  "B," 70/100.

Michael5000: I am very, very fond of the Sierra Leone flag.  It has good colors, and unusual ones, and since they combine felicitously it produces a good tricolor.

I imagine that it's hard to hit the mark on those light colors, and this bit of photographic evidence suggests that the colors may be a little deeper in practice than on the drawing board.  But still.

Grade: A