Post Office, the
It is common knowledge that
Benjamin Franklin invented the post office when he
one day spilled acid on his lap and ordered a comforting poultice
for delivery from his assistant in the next room. Watson
promptly mailed the item but Franklin was unable
to sign for delivery since his torso was, at the moment, on
fire.
Franklin was able to look back on the event with his usual good humor, noting in his famous brass and ivory diary: "My lappe is now most singed and indeed it would not surprise me to know that my most intimate friends should call me 'Old Singed Lappe.'"
Many of Franklin's friends did; though some misunderstood "singed" to be the past tense of "sing" and took to calling him "Old Sung Lap" instead, thinking the verb more correct. (See also: Sunglap Family of Boston).
In its earliest carnation, the Post Office was more than just a place to send or receive lap poultices. It was a meeting spot, a place to see and be seen, to hear and be heard, and, in the case of our nation's earliest psychics, to sense and be sensed.
It was these psychics who had the most to lose if the post office was a success--after all, why pay someone for telepathic communications when you could just send a letter?
This fear of competition led indirectly to the French and Indian and Psychic War of 1767, which, oddly, was more than twenty years before the invention of the Post Office, thus proving, claimed the Psychics, that the French and Indians really could foretell the future, just as the Psychics had predicted they would be able to nearly twenty years earlier.
Franklin was able to look back on the event with his usual good humor, noting in his famous brass and ivory diary: "My lappe is now most singed and indeed it would not surprise me to know that my most intimate friends should call me 'Old Singed Lappe.'"
Many of Franklin's friends did; though some misunderstood "singed" to be the past tense of "sing" and took to calling him "Old Sung Lap" instead, thinking the verb more correct. (See also: Sunglap Family of Boston).
In its earliest carnation, the Post Office was more than just a place to send or receive lap poultices. It was a meeting spot, a place to see and be seen, to hear and be heard, and, in the case of our nation's earliest psychics, to sense and be sensed.
It was these psychics who had the most to lose if the post office was a success--after all, why pay someone for telepathic communications when you could just send a letter?
This fear of competition led indirectly to the French and Indian and Psychic War of 1767, which, oddly, was more than twenty years before the invention of the Post Office, thus proving, claimed the Psychics, that the French and Indians really could foretell the future, just as the Psychics had predicted they would be able to nearly twenty years earlier.
Acknowledgements
20 September 2007 Filed in:
Literature
No cyclopedia entry is written in a
vacuum, and thus there are many people I have to thank, except that
this particular entry actually was written in a vacuum, so the only
people I need to thank are the dedicated staff of technicians from
NASA, and Debbie from over at Electrolux, who made this astounding
breakthrough possible.
When I first started this acknowledgments column, it was 1975, and my advisors called me "mad" to attempt it. Dedications had been common, of course, and although acknowledgments were not unheard of, my people feared that such a far-out move might harm my reputation.
But I insisted. "After all," I said, "no entry is written in a vacuum." Little did I suspect how those words would haunt me, lo these sixty years later, when, like so many David Blaines, I would find myself alone, unable to breath, and--but I get ahead of myself.
My first draft of the "Acknowledgments" started off with, what I must say, was some of my snappiest writing to date: "I'd like to thank my family for their understanding." Wow! My editor literally called it "hot stuff," and my publisher insisted on toning it down! Call me a sell-out, but I agreed.
And yet, every subsequent draft was somehow...less. As an artist, I truly felt that thanking my family represented a large part of what this acknowledgments piece needed to be. I tried and tried again, but found myself running up against the metaphorical brick wall that I'd had built the summer before to keep the neighbor's dog from pooping, metaphorically, on our lawn.
I complained to Eddie (my aptly named editor) and Pubby (his brother, my publisher) that the acknowledgments was going nowhere, and they suggested just scrapping the whole idea. And that's where things stood when Remembery, a young nephew from Toronto, remembered my casual comment in that summer of long ago: no newsletter is written in a vacuum.
An electric thrill ran through the room.
"Surely," said Logicky, a visiting cousin, "you can avoid thanking your family--or having to thank anyone--by actually writing your Acknowledgements IN A VACUUM.
Part of me feels that I should thank my creative team for developing the idea. A guilty part of me feels that I still should thank my family, especially after the unfortunate deaths of Timmy, Sarah, Elizabeth, and Rob, when they ventured (against house rules!) into the Vacuum Unit. Still, they really had nothing to do with this actual entry. So a tip of the hat to Debbie at Electrolux, and, of course, dear reader, to you.
HOW IT CAME TO PASS
When I first started this acknowledgments column, it was 1975, and my advisors called me "mad" to attempt it. Dedications had been common, of course, and although acknowledgments were not unheard of, my people feared that such a far-out move might harm my reputation.
But I insisted. "After all," I said, "no entry is written in a vacuum." Little did I suspect how those words would haunt me, lo these sixty years later, when, like so many David Blaines, I would find myself alone, unable to breath, and--but I get ahead of myself.
My first draft of the "Acknowledgments" started off with, what I must say, was some of my snappiest writing to date: "I'd like to thank my family for their understanding." Wow! My editor literally called it "hot stuff," and my publisher insisted on toning it down! Call me a sell-out, but I agreed.
And yet, every subsequent draft was somehow...less. As an artist, I truly felt that thanking my family represented a large part of what this acknowledgments piece needed to be. I tried and tried again, but found myself running up against the metaphorical brick wall that I'd had built the summer before to keep the neighbor's dog from pooping, metaphorically, on our lawn.
I complained to Eddie (my aptly named editor) and Pubby (his brother, my publisher) that the acknowledgments was going nowhere, and they suggested just scrapping the whole idea. And that's where things stood when Remembery, a young nephew from Toronto, remembered my casual comment in that summer of long ago: no newsletter is written in a vacuum.
An electric thrill ran through the room.
"Surely," said Logicky, a visiting cousin, "you can avoid thanking your family--or having to thank anyone--by actually writing your Acknowledgements IN A VACUUM.
Part of me feels that I should thank my creative team for developing the idea. A guilty part of me feels that I still should thank my family, especially after the unfortunate deaths of Timmy, Sarah, Elizabeth, and Rob, when they ventured (against house rules!) into the Vacuum Unit. Still, they really had nothing to do with this actual entry. So a tip of the hat to Debbie at Electrolux, and, of course, dear reader, to you.
Restoring the Arts and Crafts Bungalow
27 April 2007 Filed in: History
We recently purchased our own little slice of heaven, a bungalow of 1911, a glowing example of the Arts and Crafts movement. Restoring and re-decorating this could-be jewel to its original Arts and Crafts glory is largely a matter of detective work.
The fireplace, for example, now brick, we discovered was once made of macaroni necklaces--one of the most visually impressive of the arts and crafts.
The bathroom is still mostly original arts and crafts, with Gods-eyes covering the floor, and felt bookmarks with glitter initials all around. What was once a wonderful old laniard keychain has been updated, tragically, with a sink.
And so through the rest of the house. The parlour still has some of its original spoon puppets, and the clothespin sailboat has somehow remained untouched, but the egg-carton flowers were pulled out during an "improvement" in the 1950s, and, even more tragic, the tuna-can pin cushion that would have once been the jewel of a house like this has vanished.
Most Arts and Crafts items are much sought by collectors--and expensive. One can try eBay or estate sales, but I've found, surprisingly, that any kindergarten classroom is rich in these valued treasures of our architectural past.