April 2021
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Pictured is a variety of daylily called the Charles Johnston. Looks good, doesn't it? First introduced by Gates in 1981, it won an award of merit 1988 from the American daylily society. I ordered a couple from a nursery in Tennessee because they are VE (very early), tetraploid, fragrant, and reputed to be…
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Interviewing ten candidate a day for a couple of days can make a guy a little crazy. On the one hand, you owe each candidate your thoughtful attention, because careers are at stake. But conducting interviews is a tedious process and everyone who has ever done it knows that faces and voices and attitudes tend…
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I can remember five near misses — five times when through inattentive or incompetent driving I put my own and others' lives at risk. I give thanks that I avoided killing or mangling myself or the innocent victims of my failings. What wondrous life is this I lead — how fortunate I have been! The…
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I've been reading about the origin of spinning and weaving — specifically E. J. W. Barber's Prehistoric Textiles (Princeton, 1991), a comprehensive and exhausting survey of everything that was known about the subject thirty years ago. I'm dazzled — in part by the author, who turns the story into an adventure, but even more so…
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Although both my parents were dependent on their morning coffee percolated out of a can like this one, I myself never touched the stuff until my first year at college. In the 1950s, coffee was 10 cents a cup and I drank gallons of it, morning, noon and night. It became essential to my well-being.…
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Regular readers of this metablague know that Dr. M. has resumed his study of Italian. Foolish say some, but heroic say others, because to try to master a language when one is an octogenarian is truly daunting. However, native speakers of English, even older ones, can, if patient, slowly acquire Italian. Its sounds are similar…