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June 26, 2007

Margarita popsicles; Glass flowers; Web cemetery; Half-price Harry Potter...

Hot day ahead: Beer Popsicles Causing Controversy. I do not yet have the recipe. Here's one for Margarita Popsicles, though, from Liquor Snob:

Margarita Popsicles

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup fresh limejuice
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
2 tablespoons tequila
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier
1 tablespoon lime zest

Note: Omit the tequila and Grand Marnier for kid's popsicles.

DIRECTIONS:
Combine sugar, through orange juice in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Add tequila, orange liqueur, and lime zest, mix to combine. Pour molds and cover with foil. Place the popsicle stick in center and freeze until hard, preferably overnight.

Precision: If you've ever wondered what smart and curious people did with themselves before TV and the Web, here's evidence: Two men made extraordinary glass flowers as a teaching device.

Toward the end of the 19th century a Bohemian father-son team, Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, combined to create what is still arguably the most stunning example of lampwork the world has ever seen. They were already widely known for their glass models of marine invertebrates when George Lincoln Goodale, Harvard Professor and director of the Museum of Botany , commissioned them to undertake a mammoth project, the creation of detailed botanical models of common and exotic plants from Europe and North America. Benefactors of the project were Elizabeth Ware and her daughter Mary Lee Ware. Using only a simple bellows-driven lamp and a variety of home-made tools, the Blaschkas produced the models using wire frameworks to give them structure and enamels and paints to duplicate the coloration and texture of the plants. The results were stunning! The models were so lifelike, that even close scrutiny cannot distinguish between them and the real thing. Over the next 50 years, some 840 life-size model sets of plants and over 3000 oversized models of magnified plant parts and anatomical sections were produced. Most of the models are still on display at the Harvard Botanical Museum on the Harvard campus. To this day, no one has ever succeeded in reproducing the Blaschka's techniques or in duplicating the quality of their models.

-- History of Art Glass Lampworking

Botanical Wonders: Objects

The Story of the Harvard Glass Flowers

The Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants

Harvard University Herbaria

Web cemetery: Death networking: the latest e-trend. Largely about free British memorial site Gone Too Soon. Shirley Rothwell, whose son killed himself, talks about the site, but his page isn't linked. Here it is: Ian James Foster.

Mischief managed: Amazon.com has over a million pre-orders for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book in J.K. Rowling's series, due out July 21. And it's selling them at half-price, hence no profit. Business Week examines The Twisted Economics Of Harry Potter.

Kitty ESP: Cat becomes bus regular in Britain. It gets on and off at the same stops two or three times a week.

Mosquitoes apologize: My spammers are apologizing now. I've gotten a bunch of spam comments lately with the typical paid link to a porn or pharmaceutical peddler, but the body of the comment says only, "Sorry" or "Sorry, I really need the money."

I guess that's progress.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 9:55 AM | Permalink