Present Joys

hagleyvault:

It’s getting toasty out there. Luckily, July is National Ice Cream Month and we’ve found a few easy-to-follow recipes for ice cold beverages in the circa 1965 Betty Crocker’s New boys and girls cookbook. It includes recipes for such drinks as a Molasses Soda (molasses, milk, vanilla ice cream, and club soda), Choc-o-Nut milk (peanut butter, chocolate syrup, and milk) and Woodsman’s Refresher (milk, maple syrup, and cinnamon). 

This is TX652.2 .C76 in Hagley’s Published Collections.

I had a copy of this book as a child. The full-color photography is a buzzkill, but the illustrations and all the simple, two- and three-ink print areas are spectacular examples of beautiful mid-century efficiency.

Then there was George Chuzzlewit, a gay bachelor cousin, who claimed to be young but had been younger, and was inclined to corpulency, and rather over-fed himself: to that extent, indeed, that his eyes were strained in their sockets, as if with constant surprise; and he had such an obvious disposition to pimples, that the bright spots on his cravat, the rich pattern on his waistcoat, and even his glittering trinkets, seemed to have broken out upon him, and not to have come into existence comfortably.

I’ve been listening to a free Librivox audiobook of Charles Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit at work. The quality of the narration and recording is better than I expected. Apparently, Martin Chuzzlewit isn’t one of Dickens’ most popular works, but even so I’ve really enjoyed the rich, wordy greatness of passages like the one above. Worth a listen!

“There’s something about this place that’s addictive as hell.”

Those are the words of Danny Hinty, who’s managed CCAD’s Art Supply Store since 1974. A few weeks ago, I sat down with him to conduct an oral history interview—to try and glean some information about our school’s collective story over the past few decades.

I started looking through old CCAD Archives photography largely with a view to using it as part of an advertising campaign, but I’ve found it so compelling I want to do something more permanent with it. That’s what’s brought me to do these oral history interviews—I want verbal memories to accompany the photographs. Lord willing, I’m going to put all this stuff into a big, unwieldy “CCAD family scrapbook”. This fits in with my thesis project’s theme: a nostalgic celebration of the CCAD family.

Besides Mr. Hinty, I’ve also interviewed:

• Lowell Tolstedt, dean of fine arts 1967–2005
• Gail Storer, school librarian since 1980
• Nanette Hayakawa, administrator since 1979
• Frank Laskowski, alumnus and faculty 1967–2012
• Helen Hoffelt, CCAD kid, alumna, and faculty since 1955
• Stewart McKissick, alumnus and faculty since 1975
• Jeff Fisher, Financial VP since 1982

I have plans to do several additional interviews in the next week or so. It’s been a blast. It’s a little like panning for gold, I imagine. A ton of effort goes into coordinating a meeting, not to mention conducting the interview itself. But every conversation turns up at least one real gem. With every conversation, I’m getting a little better at asking the right questions that elicit meaningful, interesting responses. After each interview, I have my contributors fill out a release form that will allow me to use their words and stories as part of my overall campaign.

What’s next?

I’m still working on those sweaters. Remember those? I’ll fill you in on all the details soon. In the meantime, I’ve been working hard to finish transcribing all the interviews I’ve recorded. I’ve also been laying out the “scrapbook” and investigating methods of printing.

c86:

Penguin Books’ Legends from the Ancient North series

Five classics of Norse literature that inspired J. R. R. Tolkien’s epic vision in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings

Let’s hope that the orange disc labels are removable stickers

via Caustic Cover Critic

Oh man! These.