OLDE POSTS ADDENDA

   Fall is in the air, but the weather has not been bad enough to force me back inside. It is for that reason that my few readers have returned day-after-day only to  see those same baby chicks staring from the top page of Mulcahy's Miscellany. I will now attempt to put them at the bottom of this post. All 45,000 of them are, by the way, still missing as far as I know.

  I do, of course, come in in the evening, but by then it is usually "5 o'clock Somewhere" and I typically spend more time drinking than writing, or thinking about things about which to write. Perhaps tonight we should all have another Margarita while thinking about Jimmy Buffett. 

  With worse weather perhaps my productivity will increase. For now I will simply offer some updates to old posts. Although I generally leave the "Breaking News" to the many who claim to be offering only news that is breaking, even some of my obscure topics sometimes surface, although not on the first page or screen. Five are presented below and if you combine them with the originals you will have amassed a fair amount of information which you can use to impress those who read only the breaking news. While you are digesting what follows, I will try to work on some new subjects for the dreary days ahead.

BUTTER

  It was late in August of last year that I wrote about BUTTER and told you about the sculptures that were still being carved from it at the Minnesota State Fair. You had already learned about butter sculptures (and palaces made from corn) in an earlier piece about the mysteriously named, “The  Land of Cockaigne.” I am pleased to report that things are still rocking at the Fair in St.Paul and that the likeness of a new “Princess Kay of the Milky Way” has been produced from a 90-pound block of Grade AA Butter at this “agriculture Disneyland.” If you read the article below, you will also learn about “Sweet Martha’s Cookie Jar,” where you can get a bucket full of them without depleting her inventory since she can make 44,000 cookies in 12 minutes.
“At Agriculture Disneyland, Butter Princesses Reign Supreme: Where Can You Find Dairy Royalty, Pork Chops on a Stick and Sen. Amy Klobuchar? The Minnesota State Fair,” Natalie. B. Compton, Washington Post, Sept. 2, 2023.
   P.S. Some Canadian content is also provided. In addition to pork chops on a stick you can also get “Pizza-on-a Stick” which is made by Tino Lettieri who was raised in Canada and played for the Montreal Castors, the Vancouver Whitecaps and the Hamilton Steelers. “"Pizza-on-a-Stick" is one of my dearest friends — he was in my wedding,” Rick Born said of Tino’s Pizza-on-a-Stick founder Tino Lettieri. “He’s actually in the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame, and his son plays for the Minnesota Wild.” (I continue to be amazed about what can be learned from MM.)

FINE PRINTING: MR. TOROSIAN AND LUMIERE PRESS

  The relatively unknown Michael Torosian and his Lumiere Press are again profiled in an article in The Globe and Mail: “Printer Savant Pays Homage to Bygone Era of Publishing, Photography,” by Kate Taylor (July 19, 2023.) You can learn more about an earlier profile in the G&M by reading this post from MM in 2018. Mr. Torosian’s archive has been acquired by the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the U. of T. and he has published this book: Lumiere Press: Printer Savant & Other Stories and you can place an order for it here. 

     In the new article, Mr. Torosian is asked questions and here is one, along with the answer: “You trained as a photographer at what is now Toronto Metropolitan University but had no credentials in publishing. How did you start?”

   When I came up in the seventies there were very few galleries, few museums showing photography. It was almost like an underground network where the language was passed on and studied through books rather than through exhibitions. Books were the medium of photography.

It was a matter of finding a way to do it that worked for me. Because the industrial method of trying to compete with big publishers is lunacy. I saw photographer after photographer attempt it and they would end up with a basement full of books they didn’t know what to do with." Lead type and the letterpress disappeared from commercial publishing in the late 1970s, but you don’t fetishize the old technology. You also use digital means to reproduce some photos. Why the letterpress?

It’s indisputable that the most beautiful way of getting words on paper is with lead type on a letterpress. The technology has been around for 500 years and nobody really figured out a way of making it better.

When I discovered it, it wasn’t totally antiquated yet, but it really wasn’t commercially viable for the big companies. Big printing plants, newspapers and book publishers were dumping all their equipment. What had been exorbitantly expensive equipment was being sold for just a bit over scrap value. So, I hit the sweet spot, the moment where I could scoop up all this stuff and set up my own shop."

YOSEF WOSK

     Another person about whom more should be known is Dr. Wosk who lives in Vancouver. I mentioned him when I stumbled into a library named for him at the VanDusen Botanical Gardens, (see: Unexpected Libraries.) Recently Dr. Wosk won the “Freedom of the City Award”, which is the highest award given by Vancouver and “only in exceptional cases to individuals of the highest merit.” (see: Yosef Wosk.)

    Just a  few excerpts from this article will prove that Dr. Wosk (also a rabbi) is worth your attention. 

“Yosef Wosk has a dream. The academic, philanthropist and scion of a famous Vancouver family envisions a conservatory in the back of his Shaughnessy heritage home that will house his extensive collection of art and books….

“I think of the house as an emanation of the spirit,” he says of the home, one of several heritage projects he’s undertaken over the years. He helped restore the B.C. Permanent Building, a temple bank from 1907, filled with stained glass, as well as the first highrises in the West End, the iconic four-building Beach Towers complex he co-owned for 40 years, built in the 60s by midcentury architect Charles Van Norman. He’s a curator, patron of the arts, author and poet. He’s also a major donor to heritage conservation, galleries and museums, and various charities. But lately he’s become more circumspect about the projects he’ll take on, and how he spends his time, which is growing more valuable….

His father, who died in 2002, was also a celebrated philanthropist whose namesake is the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, to which he contributed $3-million. The Wosks left Odessa, Ukraine, in 1928 with next to nothing, and settled in a Jewish community at the time on Parker Street, on the city’s east side, peddling refurbished pots and pans….

He is devoting his time to several volumes of writing and his immense, eclectic art collection. So far in his prolific career, he’s obtained two PhDs, a Masters in theology from Harvard, the Order of Canada, the Order of B.C., the Freedom of the City of Vancouver, several honorary doctorates and accolades too numerous to count. At one point, he received the key to the city of Medford, Mass., for his contributions to that city. He put his work and accomplishments into a curriculum vitae, which is 767 pages long and still not comprehensive…”

These excerpts are from: “Yosef Wosk, Academic, Philanthropist and Art Collector, is Building a Gallery in His Own Backyard,” Kerry Gold, The Globe and Mail, Oct. 21, 2022. Ms Gold also wrote about Wosk more than a decade ago: "A Home With 'Character in Every Corner'," Kerry Gold, The Globe and Mail, April 22, 2010.

Crikey! WORMS AGAIN: But in Australia, Not Africa.

 Five years ago you were told about a gentleman who discovered a worm crossing his eyeball, and also that worms travelling in eye sockets had been spotted and written about by Mary Kingsley many years before in Travels in West Africa. See: "University of the Unusual (3); The Guinea Worm and Assorted Others.")

Here is a more recent headline about worms which have burrowed a little farther in: “She Was Depressed and Forgetful. It Was A Worm in Her Brain” Doctors in Australia Found a Three-inch Parasitic Worm in a Woman’s Brain During Surgery, After They Spent More Than a Year Trying to Find the Cause of Her Distress,” Amanda Holpuch, New York Times, Aug. 29, 2023. That’s the little fella, pictured above.
The explanation:  "An MRI showed that she had a brain lesion and, in June 2022, doctors performed a biopsy.

Inside the lesion, doctors found a “stringlike structure” and removed it. The structure was a red, live parasitic worm, about 3.15 inches long and .04 inches in diameter.

They determined that it was an Ophidascaris robertsi, a type of roundworm that is native to Australia and reproduces in a large snake, the carpet python, which takes its name from its intricate markings. The pythons shed the worm’s eggs in their feces. The eggs are then ingested by small mammals, and the worms can grow inside them….” 

The patient in this case resided near a lake area inhabited by carpet pythons. Despite no direct snake contact, she often collected native vegetation, warrigal greens (Tetragonia tetragonioides), from around the lake to use in cooking. We hypothesized that she inadvertently consumed O. robertsi eggs either directly from the vegetation or indirectly by contamination of her hands or kitchen equipment."

Jersey Girls STILL Don't Have to Pump Gas!

   Last year I pointed out that "Jersey Girls Don't Pump Gas!" and that is still the case. At that time, I also indicated that there was only one other state down in "The Land of the Free" where you were not free to fill up your own car. Oregon was that state, but now you are allowed to serve yourself, although many stations are still required to offer full service as well. So, this recent headline is now correct: "There's Only One State Left Where It's Illegal to Pump Your Own Gas," Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN, August 9, 2023. That state is New Jersey. CNN also reported about the change in Oregon: "Oregon Drivers Are Now Allowed to Pump Their Own Fuel After the State Lifted a Ban Dating Back to 1951," Andy Rose, Aug. 6, 2023.

   If you are older you will remember that gas was always pumped for you and you were not allowed to do so yourself. If you are a youngster you will always have served yourself. This is one of the many benefits of progress. Those in New Jersey are not progressive in this respect since a poll recently revealed that most do not want stations to stop providing full service. I assume that if Canadians were polled on this issue, most would want to revert to the good old days and have an attendant serve them on the many cold and windy days, or the few truly hot ones.

  

   

I have run out of gas on this subject, but if you are now wondering why things changed, see my earlier post and these references:

NACS - "The History of Self-Fueling," Aug. 5, 2023

"First Gas Pump and Service Station," American Oil & Gas Historical Society.

"Filling Station Attendant," Wikipedia.

"Gasoline Stations," Mulcahy's Miscellany," Nov. 19, 2017

The Bonus:

   There are a few full service stations in London. Here is Ron Kraft Auto Care, on Huron Street where you can go if you prefer to be served. What a concept.  You will also find:

-"Gas attendants who serve you at the pump – stay in your vehicle in rain, snow or heat

-Mobile payment machine brought to your car window

-Wheelchair accessibility to accommodate all of our customers

-Auto propane & BBQ tank refills."

"Why have the smell of gas on your hands when we can pump it for you?

At Ron Kraft Auto Care, if you don’t want to leave your vehicle, no matter the weather, our attendant is right there to pump your gas for you. Just pay with the mobile payment machine brought right to your car window."

The Land of Cockaigne

 

      Food Insecurity is a major topic of concern these days. The closing of the border and the disruption of supply chains has caused food shortages and higher prices and increased our awareness of the facts that we can't grow a lot of it here and, if we can, we don't have anyone around to get it out of the fields for us. That we might not have enough guacamole for the Super Bowl was of real concern to those who were already worried about not having enough avocados for their toast. But, I am not going to talk about Food Insecurity. If you are disappointed, you can read all about it in this report from the Library of Parliament: Covid-19, Food Insecurity and Related Issues. 

   Recently there has been a lot of good news about food in London as these headlines indicate: "Federal Funding Plants Seeds for Agri-food Growth in London," and more recently: "Innovative Factory Turning London Crickets Into Food Nets $17M Backing," by Norman De Bono, LFP, Feb. 18, 2021. It is a good thing that some of our land is now being used for food processing facilities, rather than for just supplying shelters for those retirees from Toronto who we see increasingly in our grocery stores. For really good news about food, however, one needs to look to the past, when we actually grew crops and constructed palaces out of grain and corn and used cereal in our architecture.

   To learn about such things, the book pictured above is useful. It "explores the background, history, development, and meaning of corn palaces, crop art, and butter sculpture from 1870 to 1930, concluding with a consideration of the implications of food art for today.” Such items were icons of abundance and provided visual evidence that we lived in a land of plenty. Definitions are provided: 
“A word about terms: corn palaces and their sister grain palaces are sometimes referred to as “cereal architecture.” These large exhibition buildings are covered inside and out with a cladding of grain and other natural products. “Crop art,” as the term is used here, refers to sculpture and smaller-scaled architectural forms such as street kiosks covered in grains, seeds and grasses. Butter sculpture is simply sculpture made from butter; it might be layered over an armature or carved from a solid block, but butter sculpture must be cooled in some manner to survive.” (p.x.)

Butter Sculptures

  

   The book focuses on the huge corn palaces in places like Sioux City, Iowa and Mitchell, South Dakota, but crop art also existed in Canada, as did butter sculpturing. One of the practitioners of this fine art lived close by and produced the "Life Size" sculpture made of butter pictured above. Simpson provides this information:

 “Ross Butler, a Canadian artist known for his lifelike animal sculptures, began working for the Canadian dairy industry in the 1940s, and in 1952 modeled an equestrian Queen Elizabeth II for a Toronto show. It drew so much attention that he was invited to re-create it for the coronation that summer in London. But the thought of so much butter being wasted in a sculpture drew angry newspaper letters from Britons, who were still facing food shortages. The anger was compounded by a newspaper typographical error that reported the sculpture was to be made of 15,000 pounds of butter rather than 1,500. The incorrect amount would have been enough to supply a week’s butter ration to 120,000 people. Butler and his sponsors defended themselves, first by correcting the typo, then by pointing out that the Canadian industry was shipping tons of butter to Britain as part of the celebration, and finally by assuring people that the butter would not be wasted but would be recycled. Nevertheless, it took considerable effort to offset the unexpected bad publicity.”

I suppose it would be in bad taste if the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair (upcoming virtually in March) displayed a lot of food that was being wasted.

   Lest you think this is all ancient history, having occurred in the early 1950s, there was another butter sculpture incident in Toronto sixty years later in 2012.  If you think a Life Size butter sculpture of Winston and the Queen was huge, imagine how big this one was. 

   That is a bust made of butter of the late Rob Ford, brother of the current Premier of Ontario, which was on display in the CNE in 2012.  The 230 kg depicts the Mayor reading a Margaret Atwood book, while resting against a steering wheel. Apparently Ms Atwood and others were upset about library funding issues and Ford had recently been chastised for driving while distracted.

But What About The Land of Cockaigne?

   I sometimes use trickery to try to get someone to read this blog. For example,  I wrote earlier about London's new cricket factory, under the heading ENTOMOPHAGY. The assumption is the reader will see such an odd word and peek at the post rather than go to Wikipedia, where there is, for example,  a good definition of  "The Land of Cockaigne."  It is written about in the book above as well. It is a land of plenty where fences "were made of sausage and houses were roofed with bacon." (p.9) The kind of place mentioned in the song, "The Big Rock Candy Mountain", where there are lemonade springs, where the bluebird sings and the farmers's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay and the chickens lay soft boiled eggs. 

While Canada can never be an agricultural paradise or Cockaigne, perhaps the current pandemic will at least teach us to pay more attention to the food we can grow and eat and where it is from.

Sources:

 Although there is a Wikipedia entry for Ross Butler, there is information about him close by in Woodstock. See: Ross Butler Gallery; this exhibition brochure - "Ross Butler, Branding, Butter, and Bulls" and the Ontario Agriculture Hall of Fame. 

   The Ford butter sculpture did indeed exist. See: "CNE Masterpiece: A Well-buttered Ford Reading Atwood, Leaning on a Steering Wheel: Who Said Rob Ford Wasn't Smooth," Niamh Scallan, The Toronto Star, Aug. 23, 2012 and "Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Made Into Massive Butter Sculpture," ca.news.yahoo.com, Aug. 24, 2012.

The book above: Corn Palaces and Butter Queens: A History of Crop Art and Diary Sculpture, Pamela H. Simpson. U of Minn. Press, 2012. I have the only copy in London. I am not sure why.

The Bonus: Miller & Miller Auctions  LTD.

 This provides yet another example of the bonus being better than the content. While doing the kind of exhaustive research required for an endeavour such as this, I stumbled upon this about Ross Butler: "Ross Butler, Canadian Artist. How Dawes Black Horse Brewery Made His Sculptures Famous," [he sculpted using things other than butter.] 

If you bother to check that link you will see it comes from the website of Miller & Miller. 

And, if you bother to check that link you will find The Miller Times - "an online magazine sharing intriguing stories and little-known facts about the unique items we come across at Miller and Miller Auctions." 

There is much on these websites that you will enjoy and you are likely to spend the rest of your day on one or the other of them.

Miller and Miller is apparently located in New Hamburg. I have never been there and they don't know me - that is, this is not a promotional gimmick. Given the way their website and blog looks, they would likely be embarrassed to find out they were mentioned in a blog that looks like this one. One is reminded of another classy establishment, RM Auctions in Blenheim. It was purchased by Sotheby's.