The best Christmas gift of all
25 Dec 2009 6 Comments
in Life, Thoughts Tags: Christmas, Christmas tree
On Christmas morning I’m filled with a sense of hope, a promise of good things to come. The days grow longer, the promise of the new year beckons, the fears and apprehensions of the old year fall away. I’m reminded of the words of Pope John Paul II:
Be Not Afraid! Open up, no; swing wide the gates to Christ. Open up to his saving power the confines of the State, open up economic and political systems, the vast empires of culture, civilization and development…. Be not afraid!
And the words of Charles Dickens:
But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round — apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that — as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!
Wishing all of our readers a Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday, and all the best in the new year.
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Last year we highlighted some unusual Christmas trees. This year, Arkady gives us One Hundred Christmas Trees for the holiday, as well as two other interesting blogs: Airy Disc (Intersections between Art and Science) and Garden History Girl Gardens (Now and Then).
Here’s one of my favorite holiday displays: the Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche
And let’s not forget the Origami Tree at the American Museum of Natural History:
Origami Tree
Related MadSilence posts:
Virtual Advent Calendars for Christmas 2009!
Have a Lego Christmas!
Virtual Advent Calendars!
Winter Treat: Sweet Potato Boats
17 Dec 2009 4 Comments
in cooking, Food, Japan, Recipes Tags: Japanese dessert, Japanese food, recipe, Recipes, Sweet potato, Sweet Potato Boats
Sweet Potato Boats Recipe
A sweet, healthy, delicious treat! Try something new for your Christmas dessert selection ^^
Sweet Potato Boats - the finished product!
Ingredients:
- 450g (about 2) Japanese Sweet Potatoes
- 30g (~2T) butter
- 2 eggs yolks
- 60g (~5T) granulated sugar
- 4 T milk
- a little water
- Optional: cinnamon and nutmeg to taste
Mr. T says "I pity the fool who doesn't hand mash their taters!"
Directions:
- Peel and cut up the sweet potatoes. Put them in a pot and cover with water (quickly! Japanese sweet potatoes go brown much faster than the American ones).
- Boil until tender.
- Drain well, put back in the pot, and mash.
- Add butter, milk, sugar and mix well. Add spices if you’d like. If your potatoes weren’t dried out by the residual heat in the cooking pot, put them over low heat and stir until they’re almost dry.
- Cool and add egg yolk. Mix well.
- Shape tablespoons of potato like a canoe and put on cookie sheet. They don’t really change shape while baking so don’t worry about putting them close together.
- Mix the second yolk and a little water together. Paint over the top of the boats (if you don’t have a pastry brush, use your fingers like me ^^). Sprinkle with cinnamon.
- Bake for 20 minutes at 180C/350F.
On with the egg and cinnamon!
Notes:
Japanese sweet potatoes are really, really sweet. I couldn’t put in all the sugar… I’d suggest adding half the sugar to the mashed potatoes and tasting before adding the rest. I’m sure these would be interesting with a more American twist, like sweetening with maple sugar or adding other spices! Also, Japanese sweet potatoes are much drier and less… mushy?… than American ones, so you might get a different result with American sweet potatoes.
~MS the HUNGRYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!
PS: IshikawaAJET blog has an interesting pumpkin (kabocha) cookie recipe, go check it out!
The Muppets: Ringing of the Bells
14 Dec 2009 2 Comments
in Holidays, videos Tags: Christmas, Holidays, The Muppets, video, videos
This makes my holiday season!!!
Snuggie: The Handmade
11 Dec 2009 6 Comments
in Craft Tags: crafting, crafts, crochet, handmade, Snuggie
Coats and Clark Homemade Snuggie - dubbed "Everyone Can Snuggle"
Alright people, this is something I thought I’d never see. It’s bad enough we’ve had the normal Snuggie and the Pet Snuggie, but now people are crocheting them too??? <–click for pattern.
After all’s said and done, the Coats and Clark Crafts website is pretty awesome, it has learning videos, tips, and free patterns for many kinds of needlecraft, including knitting, quilting and embroidery. So I guess I’ll have to forgive them for their brief dip into the
Coats and Clarke Doggie Snuggle-up.
ridiculous ^^;;;
~MS the Younger
Wait wait wait wait wait…. they have a crocheted Dog Snuggie pattern too (innocently called the Doggie Snuggle-up @_@)!!! Dear lord! Forgiveness is repealed! Bring out the torches and pitchforks! XD
The iconic power of a raisin
09 Dec 2009 2 Comments
in Advertising, Art, News, Thoughts Tags: Sun-Maid raisin girl
As reported by Yahoo! Finance:
“Sun-Maid recently decided to join Betty Crocker, Aunt Jemima and Mrs. Butterworth’s in giving the female face of their product a substantial makeover from a young, early 20th-century girl into a buxom, modern young woman, leading some to say that the newly made-over raisin girl looks like a Barbie Doll in Amish attire.”
You can view the new computer-animated version of the Sun-Maid girl in this television advertisement.
The new image:
The vintage image:
Images via Sun-Maid.
The image of the Sun-Maid raisin girl is very much a part of American visual culture heritage, having endured since 1916, and is one of the most well-known female characters pictured on a product. I first noted the change a few years ago in a television commercial that illustrated the new modern look of the raisin girl. Recently the change garnered some interest and sparked some controversy.
Image via Reader’sDigest.com.
Learn more about the history of The Sun-Maid Girl here.
~MadSilence
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To explore the power of another advertising icon, go to Salty! — Morton Salt’s Umbrella Girls.
Via Argot
More food blogs for your buck – Blogs with Bite Holiday Style
05 Dec 2009 1 Comment
in Blogging, Food, Holidays, Uncategorized, Websites Tags: blogs with bite, food blogs, Holidays, notionscapital, Recipes
BlogsWithBite - the logo! "Take-Out in the Dining Room, after Paul Signac,” by Mike Licht.
NotionsCapital is back with Blogs with Bite – this time with a very holiday feel to it! Go check out their latest installation, including some awesome sites about the history of the turkey, The Barf Blog and The World’s Largest Food Encyclopedia! Here’s a little excerpt to get your salivary glands going…
Here is a fresh serving of Blogs with Bite:
A Brief History of Turkey Research at BARC – The USDA’s Beltsville Agricultural Research Center developed the Beltsville Small White Turkey, the genetic foundation of most turkeys sold today.
MeatHenge - Grilled meat, smoked meat, roasted meat and photography. Restaurant and product reviews from across the USA; recipes.
Gastronomer’s Guide - Well-written food blog by New York’s Joseph Erdos.
International Federation of Competitive Eating – IFOCE “supervises and regulates eating contests in their various forms throughout the world” with affiliates in United States, Japan, England, Germany, Canada, Ireland, Thailand and Ukraine.
~MS the Younger
50 Thousand Pieces of Plastic
04 Dec 2009 1 Comment
in Art, News Tags: Devorah Sperber, Eric Daigh
Artist Eric Daigh creates art using an unusual medium: the push-pin.
Eric Daigh’s Portraits. Image source: WebUrbanist
Reminiscent of pointillism, impressionism, post-it note art, and the art of Chuck Close, Daigh loads his canvases with pins, sometimes more than 10,000, in basic hues of black, white, blue, red and yellow. Despite the limited color palette, he is able to craft incredibly detailed works of art.
The push-pin or thumb tack is a familiar home and office tool created by American Edwin Moore in 1900. And while it’s not certain just when the first push-pin artwork was created, the common push-pin has frequently received the attention of artists. And what better way to democratize artistic creativity?
Artist Devorah Sperber uses maptacks in her creative endeavors. Sperber’s Maptack Works are quite engaging. Her “…bikinis and bandanas are constructed from thousands of ***Moore Push-Pin maptacks inserted in clear vinyl, and have an undulating, cloth-like appearance from a distance and a surprisingly menacing quality up close. At first glance, all of the works appear to be 3D but on closer inspection, some are 3D while others are entirely flat. [...] Bikinis with maptacks facing inward exude a sense of danger, pain and suffering [...] while bikinis with maptacks facing outward convey a sense of empowerment, protection and perhaps even defiance. “
French Cut Bikini, 2001. Maptacks, clear vinyl, 41"x 19"x 2" (edition of 3)
Related links:
14 Wonderful Works of Push-Pin and Thumbtack Art
The Push-Pin Man
~ MadSilence
Virtual Advent Calendars for Christmas 2009!
02 Dec 2009 3 Comments
in Art, cooking, Craft, Creativity, Culture, Holidays, Life, Music, Recipes, Websites Tags: 2009, Advent, advent calendar, Christmas, xmas
It’s that time of year again – the countdown to Christmas has started! And soon after we hit the “first day” mark all the kids will be wiggling in excitement as Santa makes his list of good and bad girls and boys. One of my favorite things about this time of year is my Advent calender – as a kid I rushed in the door from school, tossed all my stuff on the floor and carefully opened that little cardboard door each day, waiting to see what cute picture and (delicious!!) piece of chocolate was hidden behind it. And while this year I found German advent calenders in our local import store (OMG! My inner child is so doing a jig right now!) I still want MORE DOOR TO OPEN! We did a little feature on virtual Advent Calendars last year… but here are this year’s choice picks!
Musical Advent Calendars:
- BBC Radio3‘s Musical Advent Calendar: a different Bach piece every day!
- A Holiday Video Countdown to Christmas.
- The Guardian’s Musical Advent Calendar: “Blur reunited, Michael Jackson died and we made a graph out of new bands … it’s been a busy old 2009. So sit back and relive the year in music with our interactive advent calendar.”
- 8bit Xmas Music Calendar 2008: full of chiptune classic videogame inspired carols!
- Phlow Magazine’s Mix Tape Advent Calendar.
Foodie Advent Calendars:
- Lexiophile’s International Recipe Advent Calendar: new recipes from new countries every day!
- Made in the UK Recipe Advent Calendar.
Art Related:
- National Museums Liverpool Advent Calendar: each day holds a Xmas related piece of art.
- The Tate Modern’s Advent Calendar for Children [thanks ETCology!].
- Non-Dairy Diary‘s Tiny House Ornament Advent Calendar: 1 cute house to make every day! Check out the 2008 version too!
- The Artisans in Miniature (AIM) Advent Calendar: Each day open another door and find instructions for a tiny Christmas craft project… day one is a crochet project for tiny snowflakes!
- Garnstudio and Drops Design Crafting Calendar: Full of free knitting patterns for Xmas presents!
- Electric December Advent Calendar: “Watershed’s original end of year online showcase of creative talent. Electric December 09 has been coordinated by an international team of young people from Europe, including Bristolians involved in eShed (a Watershed project for 14-21 year olds who love film).”
Just Fun/Awesome/Interesting:
- DirtDirt’s Animated Advent Calendar
- Hubble Space Telescope Picture Advent Calendar 2009: A different picture from Hubble every day! Check out their 2008 version too.
- 24Ways Geek Advent Calendar: “24 ways is the advent calendar for web geeks. Each day throughout December we publish a daily dose of web design and development goodness to bring you all a little Christmas cheer.”
- Westminster Libraries Advent Calendar: “As usual it is packed with nuggets of information, hints and tips on all things Christmassy.”
- German Advent Calender: Fun facts about Xmas in Germany and around the world, in English and German.
- Advent Calendar on Sustainable Development: case studies of sustainable development with ideas for green Xmas presents.
- Intute Advent Calendar: Presenting interesting research topics every day of December. I especially like the post on the newest Lord of the Rings fan film and 17th century mince pie.
Religious:
- Paperless Christmas: A video version of the Christmas story? Interesting…
- St. Margaret Mary’s Advent Calendar: with beautiful image and Bible quote for each day.
~MS the Younger
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