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August 3, probably not Arbor Day
Back in 1941, Louis Koch, a retired businessman was from Evansville, Indiana, visited Santa Claus, another Indiana town. It’s not clear whether it had taken him until his retirement to first visit a town with an interesting name just 40 miles away, but maybe he’d been busy. He evidently brought some kids with him, or… Continue reading
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“I’m not wearing a hat”
Hoods have been part of people’s wardrobes for a very long time. Long enough for some interesting etymology to show up. One interesting bit is “liripipe” — which is sometimes written as “liripoop”, although nobody seems to know why. If you wore a hood back in medieval England, you might have attached an ornamental dangly… Continue reading
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Have some cake
What do a fancy crocheted border, a cake, and gentleness have in common? They’ve all been known as the same thing: “mignardise.” Pronounced “min-yar-dize”, it’s a word that dates back to the 1600s, and as the spelling suggests, it was borrowed directly from French. The original meaning of “mignardise” was gentle behavior — particularly in… Continue reading
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Pierre Charles L’Enfant
Some cities grow organically, but others are designed. One of the “designed” cities is Washington, D.C., the US capital. It was designed based on the L’Enfant Plan, created by Pierre Charles L’Enfant, who was born August 2, 1754 in Paris. L’Enfant’s father, also named Pierre, was a professor at the Royal Academy of Painting and… Continue reading
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August 2
Subway trains are older than you might think. It was August 2, 1870 that the first one opened. It was in London, and would take you on a 1300 foot journey under the Thames, near the Tower of London. In 1870 there weren’t any electric trains yet (although they were very, very close to appearing).… Continue reading
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One more round
Everybody knows what beer is, and how popular it’s been around the world for millennia. But the modern beer industry has spawned some accessories that are not quite as popular in general, but have such ardent fans and collectors that there are now English words to describe them. Take, for example, labeorphiles. These are people… Continue reading
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The Maltese Gimmick
In some kinds of novels and movies, the plot rides on a special object that’s absolutely necessary for the story to work, but doesn’t really do anything at all — even in the story — and in some cases it doesn’t even appear. That object is a MacGuffin. He probably didn’t come up with the… Continue reading
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Conquered Today
It was this date, in 30BCE, that the Roman leader Octavian took control of Alexandria, Egypt, which after that was part of the Roman Republic. Octavian went on to take control of the entire Roman Empire, and for various reasons (Rome was very complicated), was also known as Gaius Julius Caesar (Octavian was adopted by… Continue reading
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It’s August 1; what’s for breakfast?
Today, August 1, would be a good day to have shredded wheat for breakfast. Why? Because August 1, 1893, is the day Henry Perky opened up an exhibit at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago to show off his “little whole wheat mattresses.” His original idea was that he’d sell the machines he’d come up… Continue reading
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Eric von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
If you think today’s politics includes some unusual characters, wait until you hear about Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn. He was born July 31, 1909 in Tobelbad, which at the time was in Astria-Hungary and is now part of Austria. Kuehnelt-Leddihn was personally brilliant, fluent in eight languages and able to read seventeen more. He started writing… Continue reading
About Me
I’m Pete Harbeson, a writer (among other things) located near Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to writing my own content, I’ve learned to translate for my loquacious and opinionated pup Chocolate Bossypaws. No surprise, she mostly speaks in doggerel. You can find her contributions tagged with Chocolatiana.
Check out my newsletter, Artisanal Scribbles, where I’m grappling with writing, authentic human authorship, integrity, and the craft of beauty in the AI age. You can also find some of my old software projects at GitHub. Nothing very impressive. I mostly wrote tiny utilities in Python and shell scripts. I’m mostly retired from coding nowadays.
I find myself suddenly de-corporatized (their choice, not mine). To help keep the lights on, buy me a coffee!
Recent Posts
- Educational Trip
- Yeah but what about the Jewish Space Lasers?
- Happy Anniversary?
- Alleys
- Your pockets aren’t deep enough
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