But will they change Titty's name?

From tomorrow's London Times:

BBC hopes youth of today will thrill to Swallows and Amazons
by Ben Hoyle, Arts Reporter

It’s as far from a toxic childhood as you are likely to get. Captain John, Able Seaman Titty and Ship’s Boy Roger are to set sail again in a big-screen adaptation of the Arthur Ransome classic Swallows and Amazons.

Inspired by the success of The Dangerous Book for Boys, the BBC is betting that camping, fishing and messing about in dinghies will seem as thrillingly exotic to modern children as any special-effects-laden superhero movie.

The producers believe that the resourceful young heroes of Swallows and Amazons and the book’s idyllic Lake District setting possess an allure that they did not have when the tale was last filmed in 1974, before childhood hobbies became as sedentary, solitary and technology-driven as they are today.

It is a hope backed by the National Theatre, where a musical of Swallows and Amazons is in the pipeline, and at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, where an exhibition on Ransome’s work will open later this year.

There are 12 Swallows and Amazons adventures and BBC Films is close to acquiring options on all of them. Jamie Laurenson, executive producer for BBC Films, is hoping for a cinema release next year. He said: “It’s a great story and a fantastic adventure.”

If Swallows and Amazons is to work, Mr Laurenson said, it also needs to make the natural world genuinely frightening. “For a modern audience you need to bring out that feeling of danger. It’s only implied in the action because of when it was written, but it’s about children taking on adult responsibilities. The youth of today are cosseted. We rail against couch potatoes and obesity in children but ban conker fights [see aforementioned Dangerous Book], so I think this is very timely.”

Ransome would have agreed. He was a charismatic man with a love of the outdoors. In a life packed with adventure he married Trotsky’s secretary and may have spied for the Bolsheviks before settling down in the 1920s to work as an occasional foreign correspondent and angling columnist for the Manchester Guardian. He made his breakthrough as an author with Swallows and Amazons, which was published in 1930. ...

Purists should be reassured that they will still be set in the prewar years, he added. “I think that period feel is part of their charm.”

Geraint Lewis, chairman of the Arthur Ransome Society, said that the modest nature of the stories themselves was an important element of their appeal. “Ransome was a very good writer and his deceptively simple style has endured. They have never gone completely out of fashion but there does seem to be a welling of interest in them now,” he said.

And the related leading article, also in tomorrow's Times,

No Duffers
Don’t just watch Swallows and Amazons — be them

From an ancient farmhouse on a peaty fellside, into the jump-cut mayhem of X-boxes and preteen blockbusters, come John, Susan, Titty, Roger and a gaff-rigged dayboat called the Swallow. They’ll fill her up with bread and cheese and tents stitched by their mother. They’ll sail her from a Peak in Darien to an island in the “great lake in the North”. They will find a secret harbour and the perfect campsite. Nearby, still warm, there will be embers. Undeterred, the Swallow’s crew will unroll their sleeping bags and wake to the hearstop-ping sight of an arrow in the gnarled bark of the great tree at the high end of the island.

Oh, to be under surveillance by a faceless enemy armed to the gunwales and master of the timing of her attack! Yes, hers, because the Amazons will soon reveal themselves, not just to the Swallows but to a global audience of millions courtesy of BBC Films. The rights to Arthur Ransome’s books may not be in the bag but they’re being hotly pursued. A feature is planned, and possibly a franchise. Time’s wheel has alighted on the most wholesome of all parallel children’s universes as the best bet for a filmic expression of everything that Nintendo is not.

Good luck to the producers. What greater thrill can there be for any child, in any age, than to create her own world in the real world and be allowed to risk her life in it? For that is the explicit premise of Swallows and Amazons, set out in the children’s father’s legendary telegram sent from his naval ship on service in the Far East: BETTER DROWNED THAN DUFFERS IF NOT DUFFERS WONT DROWN. Tough love was never since so tough (and in any case has long since been outlawed by social services). But this was the green light that sent Roger hurtling down towards a mythic Coniston to tell his siblings their great adventure was a “go”. Let the film version spawn thousands more like it – real ones, rich with the smell of wet rope, burnt camp-fire sausages and lichen on granite. Because Tomb Raider takes some beating.

In other words, paddle your own canoe, and mess about in your own dinghy.

On the eleventh day of Christmas

my true love gave to me,

eleven ladies dancing.

And a few of their friends,










You might know them as Rose campion (Lychnis coronaria) "Dancing Ladies", because they look like little swaying dancers in brightly-colored ballgowns. Especially if you are in the garden early in the morning before that first cup of coffee and without your glasses.

The picture above is from the online catalogue of Johnny's Selected Seeds in Maine, which offers a great variety, including organic and heirloom seed. Imagine a whole garden full of dancing ladies, for the bargain price of $1.80 -- the cost of a packet of seed.

This is the season gardeners love, planning the new year's garden while snow is still on the ground. For me this involves stacks of printed gardening catalogues (and no, it's just not the same online, though I do request them by email), a pen, Post-It notes, and a graph paper pad filched from Tom.

This recent Sioux City Journal newspaper article includes a number of good US seed and plant houses to contact for catalogues.

And here's an online Guide to Gardening by Mail, Mail Order Gardening, and Catalogs, from DavesGarden.com. Very, very thorough, and includes Canadian seed and plant companies as well; there's a nifty "Browse by North American State/Province" feature.

Canadian Gardening magazine has its 2007 list online.

I'll leave the last word to Katharine S. White, E.B. White's wife, an editor at The New Yorker, and ardent and opinionated gardener. After she retired from her editing duties, in the late 1950s, she began a series of garden pieces for the magazine. More than a few columns were reviews seed and nursery catalogues, which Mrs. White considered as seriously as any other American literature. After Mrs. White's death in 1977, her husband collected them into a delightful volume, Onward and Upward in the Garden. From her first piece, dated March 1, 1958,

For gardeners this is the season of lists and callow hopefulness; hundreds of thousands of bewitched readers are poring over their catalogues, making lists for their seed and plant orders, and dreaming their dreams. It is the season, too, when the amateur gardener like myself marvels or grumbles at the achievements of the hybridizers and frets over the idiosyncrasies of the editors and writers who get up the catalogues. They are as individualistic -- these editors and writers -- as any Faulkner or Hemingway, and they can be just as frustrating or rewarding. They have an audience equal to the most popular novelist's, and a handful of them are stylists of some note. Even the catalogues with which no man can be associated seem to have personalities of their own.

Before we examine the writers and editors, let us consider the hybridizers, and the horticulturists in general. Their slogan is not only "Bigger and Better" but "Change" -- change for the sake of change, it seems. Say you have a nice flower like the zinnia -- clean-cut, of interesting, positive form, with formal petals that are so neatly and cunningly put together, and with colors so subtle yet clear, that they have always been the delight of the still-life artist. Then look at the W. Atlee Burpee and the Joseph Harris Company catalogues and see what the seedsmen are doing to zinnias. Burpee, this year, devotes its inside front cover to full-color pictures of its Giant Hybrid Zinnias, which look exactly like great shaggy chrysanthemums. Now, I like chrysanthemums, but why should zinnias be made to look like them?

By the way, any Katharine White fans who have despaired of ever reading more of her garden writings would be very happy with Emily Herring Wilson's 2003 compilation, Two Gardeners: A Friendship in Letters, Katharine S. White & Elizabeth Lawrence, the latter a talented and prolific garden writer.

Poetry Friday: That's life

Life
by Charlotte Brontë

Life, believe, is not a dream,
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day:
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
Oh, why lament its fall?
Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily,
Enjoy them as they fly.

What though death at times steps in,
And calls our Best away?
What though Sorrow seems to win,
O'er hope a heavy sway?
Yet Hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered, though she fell,
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.
Manfully, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
For gloriously, victoriously,
Can courage quell despair!

* * *

Mary Lee and Franki at A Reading Year aren't content to celebrate the new year and their blogiversary with just a four-day blog birthday gala. No, they're hosting today's Poetry Friday round-up too! Thanks, Mary Lee and Franki, and all best wishes for the new year.

Banned in Boston

One of the funniest obits I've read in a long time, from today's New York Times for the late great Ruth Wallis:

Ruth Wallis, a cabaret singer of the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s who was known as the Queen of the Party Song for the genteelly risqué numbers she performed for happy, and very occasionally horrified, listeners worldwide, died on Dec. 22 at her home in South Killingly, Conn. She was 87. ...

Ms. Wallis, who began her career performing jazz and cabaret standards, soon became known for the novelty songs — more than 150 of them — she wrote herself, all positively dripping with double entendre. Even today, only a fraction of her titles can be rendered in a family newspaper, among them “The Hawaiian Lei Song,” “Hopalong Chastity,” “Your Daddy Was a Soldier” and “A Man, a Mink, and a Million Pink and Purple Pills.” Her signature number, “The Dinghy Song,” is an ode to Davy, who had “the cutest little dinghy in the Navy.”

In 2003, Ms. Wallis’s work was the basis of an off-Broadway revue, “Boobs! The Musical: The World According to Ruth Wallis.”

Though Ms. Wallis performed in some of the most glittering nightclubs in New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and elsewhere, her career was largely overlooked at the time. Few mainstream newspapers, after all, dared print even faintly suggestive titles like “Johnny Has a Yo-Yo,” “De Gay Young Lad,” “Stay Out of My Pantry” and “Don’t Bite Off More Than You Can Chew.” Nor could they reproduce Ms. Wallis’s lyrics, in which body parts, real or merely implied, tended to loom large.

In Boston, Ms. Wallis’s songs were banned from the radio. In Australia, her records were seized by customs agents when she arrived there for a tour. Both incidents only made her more popular, according to later news accounts.

Ruth Shirley Wohl was born in New York City on Jan. 5, 1920. She chose her stage name in honor of Wallis Warfield Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, her son said. ...

Long may the party continue!

Still sniffing around the kitchen: Chemistry with the Curious Cook

More apologies. I've been meaning to post links to all of Harold McGee's "Curious Cook" columns in The New York Times but fell down on the job. I was reminded by yesterday's column, so below is the list. Once again, you need to register to read NY Times articles, but registration is free.

Harold McGee is the author of the classic On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, and also of its (apparently out-of-print) follow-up, The Curious Cook: More Kitchen Science and Lore, from which the Times column takes its name.

* * *

The Invisible Ingredient in Every Kitchen, January 2, 2008; go to The Curious Cook website, where you'll find a link to this NPR column by Bill Buford on Mr. McGee and heat.

A Blue Blood New in Name Only, December 5, 2007

Stalking the Placid Apple’s Untamed Kin, November 21, 2007

Organic, and Tastier: The Rat’s Nose Knows, October 3, 2007

The Essence of Nearly Anything, Drop by Limpid Drop, September 5, 2007

Ice Cream That's a Stretch, August 1, 2007

Testing Whether the Crunch Is All It’s Cracked Up to Be, July 4, 2007

Extra Virgin Anti-Inflammatories, June 6, 2007

The Five-Second Rule Explored, or How Dirty Is That Bologna?, May 9, 2007

The Red-Meat Miracle, and Other Tales From the Butcher Case, April 4, 2007

What’s a Great Way to Get a Fish Fried? Give It a Shot of Vodka, March 7, 2007

In a Bottle, the Scent of a Mouse, February 7, 2007

Trying to Clear Absinthe’s Reputation, January 3, 2007

When Science Sniffs Around the Kitchen, which kicked off the series, December 6, 2006

* * *

And, not part of The Curious Cook series, but also interesting, The Times ran this article, "Food 2.0: Chefs as Chemists" the other month.

Retro chemistry

I'm so far behind in my Boing Boing reading that it's not even funny -- GeekDad I can manage (and there's a nifty post today about sorting/storing Lego) -- but my spidey sense started tingling when I read Melissa's frog post at Here in the Bonny Glen.

Melissa links to an article from the 1934 issue of Modern Mechanix and Inventions, reprinted over at the Modern Mechanix blog, which is new to me -- a veritable treasure trove. And looking down the blog's list of categories I came to "Chemistry" and got ridiculously excited. Heaps and heaps of articles, mostly from Popular Science and mostly by Raymond B. Wailes, author of my old childhood favorite Manual Of Formulas: Recipes, Methods and Secret Processes. By the way, here's a spiffy article by Norm Stanley on the subject of amateur science that mentions Mr. Wailes, from the Society of Amateur Scientists website.

There are also categories for History, Science, Toys and Games, and enough other subjects to keep the retro heart beating quickly all year.

Define "recently", please

From a post today on The New York Times politics blog, The Caucus (emphasis mine):

Will Iowa’s conservative Christians turn out in force for Mike Huckabee? ...

Despite a negligible organization here last summer, Mr. Huckabee pulled off his second place finish in the Ames straw poll in August with help from the strong support of Iowa’s home-school families. It is unclear how many evangelical Christians in Iowa teach their children at home — some estimates are over 10,000 — but the network of families is tightly connected and highly motivated. They come together in groups and online to share curriculum information, form sports teams, and stage other activities. And many, aware that homeschooling was illegal in almost every state until recently, fear that if they relax their vigilance politically[,] teachers’ unions will push to take away their rights.

While you could hold The Times's feet to the fire for such an inane comment and wish for a little more old-time New Yorker-style fact checking, I'm fairly certain that the little gem above resulted not only from the fact that Times reporters are so darned busy sorting out just how Stewart and Colbert are going to tap dance around the writers' strike, but also from an organization that happens to be mentioned in the post's very next paragraph, an organization you would think (are meant to think) has home schoolers' best interests at heart. Heck, the organization even has the words "home school" right there up front in its name -- Home School Legal Defense Association. So you might, just might, be forgiven for thinking that they want what's best for homeschoolers.

But you'd be wrong. I'll admit that when we first started home schooling, very abruptly partway through Laura's first grade year, I had no idea of the lay of the land and which way was up, so in addition to a few particularly lousy curricula choices, I also signed up for a year with HSLDA. It took me about a year, until the subscription renewal arrived, to get my bearings and figure out that the organization has a vested interest in keeping homeschoolers fearful. Because the more afraid we are, and the more we're made aware of just how far on the edge our educational choices are, the more willing we're going to be, supposed to be, to cough up $100 each year. Do the math when HSLDA says it "is tens of thousands of families united in service together, providing a strong voice when and where needed." That strong voice is supposed to help all of the little people, those home education families with quavering voices quaking in their shoes.

And for shame trotting out that ancient NEA bugbear. The determined but ineffectual old dears have been trotting out the same anti-home education resolution annually at the big convention since 1988, and HSLDA knows it. By the way, does anyone else find it amusing, even without considering HSLDA reaction, that Mike Huckabee and the NEA get along so well?

Once I'm again, I'm reminded that Raymond Moore, the pioneering home schooler who with his wife established The Moore Foundation and who died last year, was right when he wrote his White Paper on "The Ravage of Home Education Through Exclusion By Religion" 10 years ago, all about HSLDA. The last two links include a lot to read, but are most worthwhile. Mr. Moore, who was 80 or so when he wrote his White Paper, refused to quake and quaver or put up with HSLDA nonsense.

New Hampshire, here they come. You can have 'em.

On the tenth day of Christmas

my true love gave to me,

ten pipers piping.

Now, you have your traditional bagpipes, and your pan pipes, piping bags for decorating cakes and cookies, lead pipe cinches, and more. But some of my oldest Christmas memories involve buying my father a new pipe. One year, when my sister and I didn't have much money, it was a corncob pipe, like Frosty's, from the tobacconist/newstand on the corner of Broadway and 91st. But one year my mother bought my father a meerschaum pipe, though it wasn't nearly as elaborate as it could have been; then again, the less elaborate, the better the chances that my father would smoke it in public.

Here's a selection from Altinok Pipe of Ankara, Turkey, from the fairly elaborate to the downright fanciful.




For a better view, and many, many more designs, go directly to the website, which also tells you all about the mineral that is meerschaum (German for "sea foam"), and how it is mined.

And now I get to say, "Put that in your pipe and smoke it!"

Another Charlotte Mason resource

I've been meaning to write this post for several months now, which of course means I'm behind and I apologize.

Penny Gardner, author of The Charlotte Mason Study Guide, who has been a long-time home educator sharing her wisdom through her writings and seminars, is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Study Guide with an expanded and revised edition. Also available now is a secular version. Each guide is available for $5 as a digital e-book to download.

And don't miss Penny's nature journaling page or her wonderful lists -- of general links and living books and nature links and books.

Speaking of a secular approach to Charlotte Mason, there's also a secular CM group at Yahoo. From the group description,

"We have no expectations that you are of any particular faith, or any faith at all, nor that you have read (and digested) in full the collected and/or abridged and/or modernized works of Charlotte Mason; dabblers and dilettantes are welcomed and encouraged. We do, however, expect tolerance, respect, civility, a general open-mindedness, a genial sense of humor, and a willingness to share information and resources (especially whenever you hear of twaddle-free literature on sale)."

The great outdoors, and a carnival

I had a very nice note this morning from teacher Terrell Shaw, to let me know that he has put some original poetry to my photograph of a robin's egg. As I replied to him, the kids got quite a kick out of seeing my photo accompanied by his poem; and in the midst of a Canadian winter, the idea of robins and their eggs gives me a little thrill, not to mention hope for Spring.

In addition to his Virtual Classroom website, which has storytelling podcasts to which you can subscribe and a science notebook, Mr. Shaw also mentioned that he is going to be hosting the Learning in the Great Outdoors Carnival, at his blog Alone on a Limb. Deadline for submissions is tomorrow, so I gather that it should be up early next week. Consider sending in a recent post, especially if you and your family have been enjoying winter fun.

Heartening reminders

From Christopher Isherwood's review yesterday of Kevin Kline's "ultimately, and happily, triumphant" year on stage:

...his Cyrano is utterly free of self-regarding, starry showboating. The quiet delicacy he brings to the role graces it with a fine sense of psychological truth. Beneath the feathered hats and slicing swordplay, Mr. Kline creates an affecting portrait of a man whose passionate nature is channeled, at painful cost, into a lifetime of determined self-sacrifice and unspoken devotion.

Such a virtuous path feels radically out of step with our self-regarding times, in which it is assumed that every 12-year-old in the country should broadcast his or her likes, dislikes, friends, enemies and distant crushes to the world of the Web. ...

The roster of plays regularly recycled for major productions seems to be narrowing by the year as audiences are assumed to be ignorant of — and indifferent to — anything without a brand-name writer attached to it, preferably an American of 20th-century vintage or an Elizabethan hailing from Stratford. The popular success of Mr. Kline’s “Cyrano” stands as a heartening reminder that the sometimes denigrated power of a star name can be put to healthy use, allowing a play to retain its hard-earned stature as an enduring popular classic, to shake off the dust and live to fight another day. Edmond Rostand may not be Shakespeare, and “Cyrano” is no “Lear,” but for three delicious hours Mr. Kline made me forget that.

On the ninth day of Christmas

my true love, a genuine hepcat, gave to me,

nine drummers drumming.















#1 Gene Krupa



#2 Buddy Rich

#3 Art Blakey

#4 Max Roach

#5 Chick Webb

#6 Louie Bellson

#7 Kenny Clarke

#8 Cozy Cole

#9 Joe Morello

And some jazzy extras, just for fun:

#1 vs. #2 (you modern types can see it here on YouTube)

#1 + #2

#2 vs. #4

If it's January 2nd,

then tomorrow must be the Iowa caucus. And just in time for the last leg of the horrendously expensive marathon that is American politics, suze has put together a new blog, Homeschoolers For …, with the tagline, "Because there is no such thing as 'the homeschool vote' ".

Speaking of which, don't miss the lovely, talented, and funny* Mrs. G.'s nifty campaign button.


Updated to add: *And incredibly generous, too. Thanks!

Beowulf: Everything really, really old is new again

Beowulf is back. Again. No, I'm not talking about the recent movie version, which came hard on the heels of the film Beowulf & Grendel (and its "making of" documentary, Wrath of Gods, which I've heard is supposed to be quite good).

I was reminded by Mary Lee's recent post of a few recent items I wanted to mention. Mary Lee at her blog A Year of Reading posted a review of the two recent children's versions of the tale nominated for Cybils this year in the graphic novel category,

Beowulf Monster Slayer: A British Legend by Paul D. Storrie and Ron Randall (Lerner)

Beowulf, adapted and illustrated by Gareth Hinds (Candlewick Press), who has tackled Beowulf before in true comic format. Hinds, by the way, takes on Shakespeare next (here and here).

And last month at Geek Dad, Michael Harrison had a post, Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Beowulf?:

This weekend, my wife and I went to see the Robert Zemeckis-directed, Neil Gaiman/Roger Avary-scripted Beowulf film. Needless to say, we didn't bring the kid along.

But this got me thinking about ways to introduce the little guy to epic stories of ancient heroes. When I was a kid, I was all about Greek mythology, and I took my first baby steps through the lavishly illustrated pages of the glorious D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths. What about something like that, but for Beowulf?

Michael's suggestios include the new Gareth Hinds title, above, as well as Michael Morpurgo's recent retelling (2006, Candlewick), illustrated by Michael Foreman; and also the cartoon Grendel Grendel Grendel, narrated by Peter Ustinov; Michael mentions a bootleg DVD and I see it's also at Blockbuster online.

Other 2007 offerings for children:

Beowulf: A Hero's Tale Retold by James Rumford; this New York Times review from last June compares the Gareth Hinds, Rumford, and Morpurgo versions; and an interview with Hawaii author Rumford in The Honolulu Advertiser is here.

Beowulf: A Tale of Blood, Heat, and Ashes, retold by Nicky Raven, and illustrated by John Howe; this one is Candlewick's third entry (at least) on the subject, the selling point for this one being that John Howe was a lead artist for the Lord of the Rings movies.

Beowulf: Grendel the Ghastly, Book One by Michelle Szobody and Justin Gerard. From Portland Studios, which is new to me, and which has this interesting blog entry on the book, with references to G.K. Chesterton.

A special mention for one of my more favorite picture book retellings for younger children, the quite gentle The Hero Beowulf by Eric A. Kimmel, and illustrated by Leonard Everett Fisher (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005); and don't forget that Dover has a coloring book of the tale, for drawing while listening along.

And, saving the best for last, Camille at Book Moot had a post not too long about the best way "to experience Beowulf" -- via Benjamin Bagby, and the news that Bagby's Beowulf, performed at Helsingborg, Sweden, is now on DVD; here too.

* * *

Updated to add: Monica at educating alice notes in the comments below, "I also did a post on this sometime back in which I provided a couple of links to articles that might be of interest, one by Morpurgo in the Guardian and the other comparing LOTR and Beowulf in Salon." Thanks, Monica!

The Cybils shortlists...

have started to roll in. No, not from my panel (middle grade/young adult nonfiction) just yet -- we have a new deadline of Saturday. But here are the earlybirds:

2007 Fiction Picture Books Finalists

2007 Poetry Finalists

2007 Middle Grade Fiction Finalists

2007 Science Fiction & Fantasy Finalists

On the eighth day of Christmas

my true love gave to me,

eight maids a-milking

















There probably aren't any dairies nowadays that use milk maids exclusively -- that would no doubt fall afoul of federal legislation -- but a surprising number in North America have begun again to offer milk in glass bottles as well as home delivery. One such outfit is the Dewitt family's Dutchmen Dairy in Sicamous, BC, whose bottles are those pictured above. In addition to milk, Dutchmen offers sour cream and artisan ice creams and cheeses. The milk and milk products are distributed mainly by home delivery.

A not particularly comprehensive list of other dairies in North America offering home delivery and/or glass bottles (and usually a good deal more, including rBGH/rBST-free or organic milk, eggs, sides of beef, farm fresh baking, gourmet cheeses, and homemade eggnog for the holidays):

CANADA

Avalon Dairy, Vancouver, British Columbia

Dutchmen Dairy, Sicamous, British Columbia

Jerseyland Organics, Grand Forks, British Columbia

Olympic Dairy Products, Delta, British Columbia

Ran-Cher Acres/Saanen Dairy Goats, Halifax, Nova Scotia

USA

AB Munroe Dairy, East Providence, Rhode Island

Apple Valley Creamery, East Berlin, Pennsylvania

Byrne Dairy, Syracuse, New York

Calder Dairy and Farm, Lincoln Park, Michigan

Catamount Farm, 387 Parade Road, Barnstead, New Hampshire 03218; (603) 435-7415

Claravale Farm, Watsonville, California

Crescent Ridge Dairy, Sharon, Massachusetts

Hartzler Family Dairy, Wooster, Ohio

The Hudson Milk Company, Shrub Oak, New York

Karl's Farm Dairy, Denver, Colorado

Lamers Dairy, Appleton, Wisconsin

Longmont Dairy Farm, Longmont, Colorado

Maplehofe Dairy Farm Store, 799 Robert Fulton Hwy, Quarryville, Pennsylvania 17566; 717-786-3924

Marigold Dairies, Elkhorn, Wisconsin

Meyer Dairy Store, 2390 S. Atherton Street, State College, Pennsylvania 16801-7613; 814-237-1849

MJM Dairy, Westchester County, New York

Mr Milkman, Waynesboro, Pennsylvania

Oberweis Dairy, Aurora, Illinois

Promised Land Dairy, San Antonio, Texas

Ronnybrook Farm, Ancramdale, New York

Royal Crest Dairy, Denver, Colorado

Shaw Farm Dairy, Dracut, Massachusetts

Shatto Milk Company, Osborn, Missouri

Smiling Hill Farm, Maine

South Mountain Creamery, Middletown, Maryland

Starlight Dairy, Yorktown Heights, New York

Straus Family Creamery, Petaluma, California

Thatcher Farm, Milton, Massachusetts

Trickling Springs Creamery, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania

Vale Wood Farms, Loretto, Pennsylvania

White Orchard Farm, Frankfort, Maine

Yoder Dairies, Virginia Beach, Virginia

You can also try the clickable map from Milkmen Across America, which just for today I'm going to think of as "Milk Maids Across America"

and

smalldairy.com

Interestingly, as I started my Googling after coming up with the idea for today's item, I discovered that I'm not the only one with deja vu all over again; the other week, The New York Times had this article on the subject (free registration).

I can't think of many things that are both as luxurious and good for you, not to mention good for your local farmers, as home delivery of fresh dairy products.

Advice for a new year

When I was growing up, New Year's Eve meant staying up late, eating hors d'oeuvres, knocking the bubbles out of the Champagne with a swizzle stick (what can I say? I'm a cheap date) and watching and listening to Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians from the ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria.

While the song everyone remembers is their rendition of Auld Lang Syne, the one nowadays that seems most appropriate to me is this one (which you can hear here):

Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think)
Music by Carl Sigman and lyrics by Herb Magidson, 1948

You work and work for years and years,
You're always on the go.
You never take a minute off, too busy makin' dough.
Someday, you say,
You'll have your fun when you're a millionaire --
Imagine all the fun you'll have in your old rockin' chair.

Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think.
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink.
The years go by as quickly as a wink --
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think.

You're gonna take that ocean trip, no matter, come what may.
You've got your reservations but you just can't get away.
Next year, for sure, you'll see the world,
You'll really get around --
But how far can you travel
When you're six feet under ground?

Your heart of hearts, your dream of dreams,
Your ravishing brunette.
She's left you and she's now become somebody else's pet.
Lay down that gun, don't try, my friend,
To reach the great beyond;
You'll have more fun by reachin' for a redhead or a blonde.

Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think.
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink.
The years go by as quickly as a wink --
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think.

You never go to nightclubs and you just don't care to dance;
You don't have time for silly things
Like moonlight and romance.
You only think of dollar bills tied neatly in a stack;
But when you kiss a dollar bill, it doesn't kiss you back.

Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think.
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink.
The years go by as quickly as a wink --
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think.

On the seventh day of Christmas

my true love gave to me,

seven swans a-swimming.

Which is a delightful, restful thing to do after you've been flying around all day, especially when you were turned into a swan against your will in the first place.























The fairy tale most of us know as "The Six Swans", as retold by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen (his version is known as "The Wild Swans"), is the original German tale of "The Seven Swans", which had been around for ages before the others got their hands on it and performed swan surgery; who knows, perhaps the Grimms found six a more pleasing and symmetrical number. Some 30 years after they included "The Six Swans" in their 1812 compilation of fairy tales, the German writer Ludwig Bechstein (1801-1860) stuck with the traditional "Seven Swans" for his own compilation, originally a much more popular collection of children's tales. But the Grimms ultimately won out, as evidenced by the fact that few of us nowadays know Bechstein's name.

In fact, I couldn't find much on the original, given the pervasiveness of the Grimms' tale. For more on "The Six Swans", don't miss SurLaLune's comprehensive listing. In the meantime, here's Andrew Lang's version of the Grimm tale from his Yellow Fairy Book:

A king was once hunting in a great wood, and he hunted the game so eagerly that none of his courtiers could follow him. When evening came on he stood still and looked round him, and he saw that he had quite lost himself. He sought a way out, but could find none. Then he saw an old woman with a shaking head coming towards him; but she was a witch.

'Good woman,' he said to her, 'can you not show me the way out of the wood?'

'Oh, certainly, Sir King,' she replied, 'I can quite well do that, but on one condition, which if you do not fulfil you will never get out of the wood, and will die of hunger.'

'What is the condition?' asked the King.

'I have a daughter,' said the old woman, 'who is so beautiful that she has not her equal in the world, and is well fitted to be your wife; if you will make her lady-queen I will show you the way out of the wood.'

The King in his anguish of mind consented, and the old woman led him to her little house where her daughter was sitting by the fire. She received the King as if she were expecting him, and he saw that she was certainly very beautiful; but she did not please him, and he could not look at her without a secret feeling of horror. As soon as he had lifted the maiden on to his horse the old woman showed him the way, and the King reached his palace, where the wedding was celebrated.

The King had already been married once, and had by his first wife seven children, six boys and one girl, whom he loved more than anything in the world. And now, because he was afraid that their stepmother might not treat them well and might do them harm, he put them in a lonely castle that stood in the middle of a wood. It lay so hidden, and the way to it was so hard to find, that he himself could not have found it out had not a wise-woman given him a reel of thread which possessed a marvelous property: when he threw it before him it unwound itself and showed him the way. But the King went so often to his dear children that the Queen was offended at his absence. She grew curious, and wanted to know what he had to do quite alone in the wood. She gave his servants a great deal of money, and they betrayed the secret to her, and also told her of the reel which alone could point out the way. She had no rest now till she had found out where the King guarded the reel, and then she made some little white shirts, and, as she had learnt from her witch-mother, sewed an enchantment in each of them.

And when the King had ridden off she took the little shirts and went into the wood, and the reel showed her the way. The children, who saw someone coming in the distance, thought it was their dear father coming to them, and sprang to meet him very joyfully. Then she threw over each one a little shirt, which when it had touched their bodies changed them into swans, and they flew away over the forest. The Queen went home quite satisfied, and thought she had got rid of her stepchildren; but the girl had not run to meet her with her brothers, and she knew nothing of her.

The next day the King came to visit his children, but he found no one but the girl.

'Where are your brothers?' asked the King.

'Alas! dear father,' she answered, 'they have gone away and left me all alone.' And she told him that looking out of her little window she had seen her brothers flying over the wood in the shape of swans, and she showed him the feathers which they had let fall in the yard, and which she had collected. The King mourned, but he did not think that the Queen had done the wicked deed, and as he was afraid the maiden would also be taken from him, he wanted to take her with him. But she was afraid of the stepmother, and begged the King to let her stay just one night more in the castle in the wood. The poor maiden thought, 'My home is no longer here; I will go and seek my brothers.' And when night came she fled away into the forest. She ran all through the night and the next day, till she could go no farther for weariness. Then she saw a little hut, went in, and found a room with six little beds. She was afraid to lie down on one, so she crept under one of them, lay on the hard floor, and was going to spend the night there. But when the sun had set she heard a noise, and saw six swans flying in at the window. They stood on the floor and blew at one another, and blew all their feathers off, and their swan-skin came off like a shirt. Then the maiden recognised her brothers, and overjoyed she crept out from under the bed. Her brothers were not less delighted than she to see their little sister again, but their joy did not last long.

'You cannot stay here,' they said to her. 'This is a den of robbers; if they were to come here and find you they would kill you.'

'Could you not protect me?' asked the little sister.

'No,' they answered, 'for we can only lay aside our swan skins for a quarter of an hour every evening. For this time we regain our human forms, but then we are changed into swans again.'

Then the little sister cried and said, 'Can you not be freed?'

'Oh, no,' they said, 'the conditions are too hard. You must not speak or laugh for six years, and must make in that time six shirts for us out of star-flowers. If a single word comes out of your mouth, all your labour is vain.' And when the brothers had said this the quarter of an hour came to an end, and they flew away out of the window as swans.

But the maiden had determined to free her brothers even if it should cost her her life. She left the hut, went into the forest, climbed a tree, and spent the night there. The next morning she went out, collected star-flowers, and began to sew. She could speak to no one, and she had no wish to laugh, so she sat there, looking only at her work.

When she had lived there some time, it happened that the King of the country was hunting in the forest, and his hunters came to the tree on which the maiden sat. They called to her and said 'Who are you?'

But she gave no answer.

'Come down to us,' they said, 'we will do you no harm.'

But she shook her head silently. As they pressed her further with questions, she threw them the golden chain from her neck. But they did not leave off, and she threw them her girdle, and when this was no use, her garters, and then her dress. The huntsmen would not leave her alone, but climbed the tree, lifted the maiden down, and led her to the King. The King asked, 'Who are you? What are you doing up that tree?'

But she answered nothing.

He asked her in all the languages he knew, but she remained as dumb as a fish. Because she was so beautiful, however, the King's heart was touched, and he was seized with a great love for her. He wrapped her up in his cloak, placed her before him on his horse. and brought her to his castle. There he had her dressed in rich clothes, and her beauty shone out as bright as day, but not a word could be drawn from her. He set her at table by his side, and her modest ways and behaviour pleased him so much that he said, 'I will marry this maiden and none other in the world,' and after some days he married her. But the King had a wicked mother who was displeased with the marriage, and said wicked things of the young Queen. 'Who knows who this girl is?' she said; 'she cannot speak, and is not worthy of a king.'

After a year, when the Queen had her first child, the old mother took it away from her. Then she went to the King and said that the Queen had killed it. The King would not believe it, and would not allow any harm to be done her. But she sat quietly sewing at the shirts and troubling herself about nothing. The next time she had a child the wicked mother did the same thing, but the King could not make up his mind to believe her. He said, 'She is too sweet and good to do such a thing as that. If she were not dumb and could defend herself, her innocence would be proved.' But when the third child was taken away, and the Queen was again accused, and could not utter a word in her own defence, the King was obliged to give her over to the law, which decreed that she must be burnt to death. When the day came on which the sentence was to be executed, it was the last day of the six years in which she must not speak or laugh, and now she had freed her dear brothers from the power of the enchantment. The six shirts were done; there was only the left sleeve wanting to the last.

When she was led to the stake, she laid the shirts on her arm, and as she stood on the pile and the fire was about to be lighted, she looked around her and saw six swans flying through the air. Then she knew that her release was at hand and her heart danced for joy. The swans fluttered round her, and hovered low so that she could throw the shirts over them. When they had touched them the swan-skins fell off, and her brothers stood before her living, well and beautiful. Only the youngest had a swan's wing instead of his left arm. They embraced and kissed each other, and the Queen went to the King, who was standing by in great astonishment, and began to speak to him, saying, 'Dearest husband, now I can speak and tell you openly that I am innocent and have been falsely accused.'

She told him of the old woman's deceit, and how she had taken the three children away and hidden them. Then they were fetched, to the great joy of the King, and the wicked mother came to no good end.

But the King and the Queen with their six brothers lived many years in happiness and peace.

I wish all of my readers a New Year of happiness and peace, and lifetimes of happily ever after.

* * *

One thing I can't help you with are resolutions. I like New Year's, and staying up till midnight, and noisemakers and funny hats, and having a special dinner of hors d'oeuvres and desserts, and I miss Guy Lombardo, not to mention watching the ball drop in Times Square (we get only two channels, neither one of which broadcasts the NYC festivities). And I love buying my new calendar, and flipping the page, and thinking about how we already (already!) have more daylight. I don't even mind all of the contrived year-end "best of" lists. Though I am finding this end-of-year business coming 'round faster and faster each year.

But no resolutions, because I don't make them. In part because I know that if I made 'em, I wouldn't keep 'em. This is supposed to be a festive season, and stopping to think about general improvements takes away from the festivities, at least for me. I also find that I deal with life and self-improvement the same way I do with our home schooling -- tinkering on the go. I can't imagine what life would be like if I saved all of the changes to implement in January. If something isn't working, I'd rather fix it when I notice it, rather than saving up a big wad o' changes for the new year, which I find just too dreadful to contemplate. It's rather like not making the various, and individually manageable, quick fixes your vehicle needs through the year, waiting instead to push your rattle-trap jalopy, with an overwhelming list of repairs, into the garage on New Year's Eve. No thanks. I'd rather start the year with a few last leftover Christmas cookies and a chocolate truffle or two, a hot cup of coffee, and the new Spring gardening catalogues.

So Bah Humbug to resolutions, and a happy and healthy 2008 to all!

On the sixth day of Christmas

my true love gave to me,

six geese a-laying.

And when they're done laying, they sing.

Or rather, chant.
















(Careful readers will count seven geese, not six. But look again and you'll see that goose #7 is not long for the choir, or this world.)

The manuscript illumination is from Das Gänsebuch, or, The Geese Book, a medieval German chant book, illustrated by Jakob Elsner (c1460-1517). Shortly after its completion (begun in 1270, the work took more than 200 years), the Lorenzkirche, or church of St. Lorenz, at Nüremberg commissioned a massive two-volume collection of music of the Mass liturgy for their choir, comprised of school boys and young adults; what they made of some of the illustrations one can only imagine. The volumes, completed between 1504-1510, measure 30" by 50", and the first volume alone apparently weighs 85 pounds. Both volumes can be found at The Morgan Library in New York.

Some of the music can be found on the Naxos CD, Das Gänsebuch (The Geese Book): German Medieval Chant, performed by the Schola Hungarica of Budapest, under the direction of the thoroughly unwolfish László Dobszay and Janka Szendrei. For a fascinating account of how the music came to be heard again after 500 years, and finally recorded, read this ASU (Arizona State University) Magazine article about "Opening The Geese Book", a research project by Corine Schleif, an associate professor of art history at ASU, and Volker Schier, a German musicologist.

Although the Lorenzkirche was badly damaged by air raids in 1945*, The Geese Book survived World War II unharmed, and, according to the ASU article,

came into the hands of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. The group’s founders trace their roots back to a patrician family in Nüremberg. The Kress Foundation helped the church rebuild after Nüremberg was bombed. In return, the church presented The Geese Book to the foundation.

Interestingly, The Geese Book project, which was started in 2000, was supported in part by a grant from the Kress Foundation.

* The church was rebuilt in 1949-52.

On the fifth day of Christmas

my true love gave to me,

five gold rings.

Enough with the birds already. How about some lovely old gold, including five rings found on King Tut's mummy?



















The website at the previous link has a children's page, "Color Me Egypt", including a link to Amira's World, a blog by a 14-year-old girl living in Luxor.

(Notice how I neatly sidestepped Olympic rings and human rights concerns. Not to mention filthy air.)

* * *

We spent all afternoon at the provincial park in town with friends for a more or less impromptu home schoolers Christmas sledding party. It was wonderful -- hardly any planning, just a hill, sleds, a fire, and enough hot chocolate, hot dogs, and buns to go around.

If I don't get Day 6 up tomorrow, it's because of all the gorgeous snow that keeps falling, slowly, gently, and the fog that has crept in (on snowshoes rather than little cat feet), both making such vast amounts of hoarfrost that everything, from spruce boughs to overhead power lines, are sagging from the weight. We're not too concerned, since we have a house still stuffed with goodies, and would be happy to continue our weeklong evening Monopoly games by candlelight. And it does look pretty, just what you'd expect for the 12 days of Christmas.