Towse: views from the hill

California District 11: 2006 Race .

OpenSecrets.org is an interesting Web site. By serendipiticity, I found that the Mashpee (MA) Wampanoag Tribal Council donated $12K to Richard Pombo’s re-election campaign.

Swell of them.

(A cousin once told me that a Wampanoag ancestor stood on the Massachusetts shoreline to welcome the Mayflower ancestor back when. The Mayflower ancestor I’m pretty sure of. The Wampanoag? Not so sure. …)

If you’re curious what highest Pombo donor (checking in at $24,300) AG Spanos Companies is when they have their working clothes on, I looked it up for you.

This morning’s prowl through donorland and election finance sites started because I was curious which of this season’s campaigns and candidates my neighbors were supporting financially — who? what? how much? Alas, fundrace.org, which proved so entertaining (and informative!) two years ago doesn’t have any information re the 2006 elections.

• Opensecrets.org gives stats on top donors. Frankly, it doesn’t matter much in my local congressional election. The election results are a done deal and have been for quite a while.

• Political MoneyLine has some interesting info.
• The California State Campaign Finance site is hard to maneuver through.

If anyone knows of a site as cool as fundrace.org that gives donor information for the 2006 fall campaigns, shoot the URL my way. Thx.

Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design is an interesting site.

I was poking around on the Web, after revisiting POWERS OF TEN, because I was wondering how Charles and Ray Eames hooked up with MIT’s Philip Morrison to make the film. (Morrison narrates.)

At Boxes and Arrows, Erin Malone explains the story behind the making of the movie. Turns out the Eames made a first version of the film in 1968 for the annual meeting of the Commission on College Physics. That version of the film was called A ROUGH SKETCH FOR A PROPOSED FILM DEALING WITH THE POWERS OF TEN AND THE RELATIVE SIZE OF THE UNIVERSE. (Quite a mouthful, eh?)

Years later, in 1977, Philip and Phylis Morrison helped them with a revised version, which has been seen by millions of people since its debut.

Philip Morrison, the father of SETI, was quite a guy himself. He passed away in April 2005 at age 89.

“the” definitive Wilkie Collins site

Best known in this household for writing THE WOMAN IN WHITE and THE MOONSTONE, Wilkie Collins had far more going for him.

Wilkie Collins was born on 8 January 1824 and died on 23 September 1889. In those 65 years he wrote 27 novels, more than 50 short stories, at least 15 plays, and more than 100 non-fiction pieces. A close friend of Charles Dickens from their meeting in March 1851 until Dickens’ death in June 1870, Collins was one of the best known, best loved, and, for a time, best paid of Victorian fiction writers. But after his death, his reputation declined as Dickens’s bloomed. Now, Collins is being given more critical and popular attention than he has for fifty years. Almost all his books are in print, he is studied widely, and new film and television versions of some of his books have been made. Nevertheless, there is still much to be discovered about this superstar of Victorian fiction.

Includes articles, bibliography, biography, links to e-texts of almost every piece of Collins’ work: fiction, nonfiction, books, letters, articles, plays, short stories PLUS! the letters of Charles Dickens to Wilkie Collins. (The letters from Wilkie Collins to Charles Dickens were, of course, burned in the bonfire at Gad’s Hill Place in September 1860.)

e.g. A Queen’s Revenge: 15 August 1857 Household Words XVI 156-162
A Queen’s Revenge — A historical account of Queen Christina of Sweden and her murder of her equerry.

The things they never taught us in world history class. If they’d spiced things up with stuff like this, more students might’ve paid attention.

Back in my younger day, Ballard’s Golden Oil was the cure-all for chest congestion, coughing, &c. Used externally for chest congestion or stuffy noses, it worked like Vick’s Vapo-Rub, warm, soothing, smelly. It busted loose the crud. Used internally for coughs, it cured what ailed you. Every time.

Unfortunately, my grandmother only had a few bottles left by the time I showed on the scene and no one made the elixir anymore. She gave me a bottle from her stash decades ago. That bottle’s empty. The rest of her bottles are gone as well.

Every once in a while I search the ‘net to see if someone’s picked it up and resumed manufacturing, someone like Jeffrey Himmel, who’s made a fortune resurrecting brands like Ovaltine and Gold Bond medicated powder.

Today’s search brought up a reference in the LOC in Robert Grady’s Life of Henry Mitchell, Indian Canoe Maker, quoting Henry Mitchell, reminiscing:

Right where the bank is now there used to be a drug store run by a fellow named Folsom, and across the street, where the First National store is now, next to Parlin’s, there used to be a drug store run by a fellow named Marsh. Old Sockalexis left the recipe for a cold remedy at Marsh’s, where his boy worked, so when he gave any one a prescription for it, they could got it filled there. When Marsh died the stock was sold and old Ballard up here got a hold of all the books and papers. That Ballard’s Golden Oil that he puts out now is really the old Sockalexis Indian Cold Remedy.”

That sounded encouraging but I could find nada mas.

The old, torn, stained label on the small bottle I’d had had been pretty nigh unreadable, but I had been able to suss out that one of the ingredients was camphor. Maybe I could find the golden oil recipe by searching Google for /”golden oil” cold remedy camphor/.

… amongst the other hits was this keeper:

The Web’s a wonder!

Some of the recipes look like they might be close to Old Sockalexis’ remedy. Maybe I’ll try cooking something up one of these days. Other recipes, I’d have a hard time formulating.

e.g. Cough Mixture (formula #4009)

Syrup of Squill, 1 ounce.
Syrup of Tolu, 1 ounce.
Wine of Ipecac, 1 ounce.
Tincture of Opium, Camphorated, 1 ounce.

To this is frequently added:

Tincture of Bloodroot, 1/4 ounce.
Syrup of Wild Cherry, 1 ounce.
Hydrocyanic Acid, diluted, 1/8 ounce.

Oh, for the good ol’ days …

For those of you like me, who never had a Latin class and never succeeded in teach-yerself-latin beyond Weenie, Weedy, Weechy, a cheatsheet: Latin Quotes, Latin Phrases, Latin Mottos and Latin Quotations — over 1900 with English translations.

Came across the Web site today of Anna L. Conti, San Francisco Artist, through a SiteMeter reference. Seems Anna referenced one of my blog posts last August on her blog. Someone clicked that link today and visited here. Serendipity doo dah.

Took me forever to find the reference when I backtracked into her blog because I was looking for a “Sal said” or “Towse had” sort of reference and the reference was a link in a mention of how San Francisco has more great bookstores per capita than anywhere else in the country.

I enjoyed looking through her portfolio.

I also like her blog which is a leisurely wander and ramble through how Conti creates and the galleries she visits and business and meanderings about life. Come on in. Set your feet up. Have a cup. Let me tell you about my life.

Conti paints cityscapes, life around town, other scenes. She has a wide range of work. Doggie Diner fans, be sure to check out her whole series of Doggie Diner acrylics.

I can’t remember. …

Did I mention that I won a lifetime membership to Library Thing in a contest Rosina Lippi ran on her blog?

I didn’t? Well, I did. I am so pumped. There was a mixup in the process and my lifetime membership didn’t show up, but after I dropped a note to Rosina recently, she resolved the problem.

I am now the proud proprietess of a lifetime LibraryThing.

Go look at what I’ve got.

When I’ll find time to put the 10s of Ks of books I have into the system, I don’t know, but just the possibilities have given me a much needed bliss fix.

Annual membership is $10. Lifetime membership is $25. The app is soooo cool.

I may have a separate post on it later. ’til then, go check it out on your own.

Thank you, Rosina!

Heaps! Mountains!

Thanks to Miltos Manetas whose work it is for this Jackson Pollock flash exercise.

Thanks also to Dave Kuzminski (who mentioned it in a comments tail at Miss Snark’s).

n.b. Change paint buttons colors by clicking mouse button. Hit reload to clear and start over again.