« August 2008 | Main | October 2008 »
This collection of display windows of the Eaton's Department Store in Toronto gives fascinating glimpses of the everyday fashions of the last century. (Found via Lola)
They seem to have gone to town on even the most mundane items:
Although they admit they could never compete with some of the more lavish Continental affairs:
The online Small Worlds exhibition at the Museum of the History of Science features this microscopic writing machine, created by banker William Peters in 1862: "The machine was occasionally brought out at Microscopical Society soirées to write the Lord's Prayer and to draw geometrically."
They also liked to write tiny, boasting letters - "I trust you will agree with me that there are other small things to be seen in London besides Tom Thumb":
There's been increased interest lately in monkey languages after discoveries were made about how putty-nosed monkeys combine sounds to create a basic syntax:
* Hack-hack-hack-hack: "There's an eagle over there!"
* Pyow-hack-hack-pyow-pyow-pyow: "I've seen a leopard, let's move away!"
* Hack-hack-hack-pyow-hack-hack-hack-hack-hack "There's an eagle over
there, let's move away!"
But research at the Great Ape Trust using the sign language Yerkish reveals the primates are capable of far more linguistic sophistication. Primate Poetics sets out a manifesto to enrich this new language, starting, ambitiously, with a translation of the epic Gilgamesh:
"We will learn Yerkish.
We will translate human literature into Yerkish.
We will invent words, word-tricks, word-jokes, word-games to show the
apes new ways of using (their) language.
We will become knowledgeable and original enough to be invited by the researchers of the Great Ape Trust to read our Yerkish translation of Gilgamesh to Kanzi, Panbanisha and all the others."
"We are not here to compare and to compete with the ape but to appreciate its language for its own beauty. This is emphatically not about some lone genius monkey penning the Great Primate Novel."
Found via the sadly lamented Nonist.
See also: The song of the gibbon
Can apes talk?
And I'd like to suggest the introduction of the strandkorb into British beach life: a reclinable wicker sofa to shelter you from the wind is just what our seaside needs. No more shivering in holes dug in the sand, or flailing around with windbreaks: you can drink your gin and tonic and contemplate the horizon in perfect comfort. Why didn't we think of that?
Looks like someone is trying to get the ball rolling but at two grand each it might be a while before they replace the deckchair, unfortunately.
