Movember Moustaches - Part 4

This blog is the fourth and final installment of my Movember Moustaches series featuring historical moustaches to coincide with the Movember campaign to raise money for prostate cancer. To find more about Movember, please click here. To donate to a specific 'stache, check out the River Riders Team.


The end of November has arrived and soon the women of the world will breathe a collective sigh of relief as their loved ones abandon their moustache experiments.  However, thankfully for you, there is still time to explore one last magnificent moustache entrenched in the annals of history. Without further ado, I present to you His Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Besides his impeccably groomed moustache, the archduke is perhaps best known for dying.  Sad, but true. His assassination in 1914 was the catalyst that moved the world toward war, and although we all know (or should know) the causes of war were diverse, it is much easier just to blame it on His Royal Highness falling victim to Gavrilo Princip's gun.

While we have all learned about Franz Ferdinand's death, few of us learn about his life. Before the Archduke's unexpected death, he spent some time traveling - hunting kangaroos and emus in Australia and taking a sailing trip from Japan to Vancouver.

The Archduke was also a bit of a romantic. After falling in love with a non-royal, the lovestruck Franz  refused to follow the marriage rules of the Imperial House of Hapsburg which required a royal spouse to be a member of a reigning or formerly reigning European dynasty. It took no less than the petitions of Pope Leo XIII, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany to convince Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph to let the Archduke marry Sophie Chotek. Talk about commitment.  Sadly, Sophie was assassinated along with her husband as they rode in their car throughout the streets of Sarajevo.

So there you have it, the man behind the moustache. Until next November, I urge you to keep your eye out for worthy Movember Moustaches throughout the historical record. No moustache is too big or too obscure to tackle.  Requests/suggestions are welcome - and no, Tom Selleck doesn't count, even though he does have a fearsome stache.

 

Movember Moustaches - Part 3

This blog is the third installment of my Movember Moustaches series featuring historical moustaches to coincide with the Movember campaign to raise money for prostate cancer. To find more about Movember, please click here.

This week I introduce you to the Walrus Moustache. This moustache is so impressive, it even warrants its own Wikipedia page.   While you may have never heard of this facial wonder, you have undoubtedly seen it.  Look no further than Mr. Friedrich Nietzsche.

I was initially hesitant to give Nietzsche attention in the privileged Movember Moustache hall of fame due to my intense dislike for all things philosophy and my difficulties with spelling his name, but in the end, the moustache won.

Nietzsche is best known for his philosophical work in existentialism, nihilism and postmodernism and bearing a resemblance to this walrus. He was a particularly bright fellow that showed an abundance of potential. At only 24 years of age, he was named a professor of classical philology at the University of Basel despite lacking his doctorate or any teaching credentials. I won't mention this to all the PhD graduates currently looking for jobs. In order to take up the teaching position in Basel, Nietzsche gave up his Prussian citizenship, after which he remained stateless for the rest of his life. As it turns out, his life didn't end up being that long. Nietzsche died in 1900 at the age of 55 after being plagued by mental illness, strokes and pneumonia. 

During my extensive research for this blog, I read up on Nietzsche's philosophical perspectives, but I was much too distracted by his moustache to retain any information. I would apologize, but were you really expecting philosophy from a blog about moustaches?

The Best Thing since Sliced Bread

This blog is going to be the best thing since sliced bread.

Okay, well even if you don't agree with my narcissistic proclamations, at least this blog is about sliced bread.  You may not marvel at the existence of sliced bread as you pop those squares of goodness into the toaster each morning, but there was, believe or not, a time when people bought their bread....unsliced! (It was during this time people also had to walk uphill both ways to school in snowstorms).

So now you are probably wondering how those labour inducing unsliced loaves transformed into the wonderful pre-sliced bundles we have come to expect from the good people at Wonderbread and Dempsters. Or you may be hungry.

I can't solve any hunger issues but I can give you a variety of online resources to satisfy your pangs of curiosity.


1. Wikipedia - Sliced Bread
If you don't know the first thing about sliced bread, Wikipedia is a great place to start your research.  That's right - go ahead and use the oft-scorned Wikipedia. The site provides an article concisely summarizing the origins and history of sliced bread, including a note on the 1943 American ban of sliced bread. The Wikipedia platform is not conducive to in-depth analysis, but it is an ideal source for gaining a general understanding of the topic and building a foundation for further research. Now don't expect this article to actually claim that sliced bread is indeed the greatest thing - the crowds of Wikipedia enthusiasts are a pretty neutral bunch and are quite diligent in preventing outlandish statements.  So ignore those teachers and professors who lament Wikipedia's lack of academic integrity - rebel and research!

2. Modern Mechanix - Slicing Bread by Machinery, November 1929
The rebellious historian in me just told you to use Wikipedia but now my proper historian is coming out to tell you to use this primary source to check out what people were saying about sliced bread when it was the newest thing in town.  Modern Mechanix was an early American magazine and many of its articles have been digitized and placed online for perusal at the blog modernmechanix.com.  Reading this article will give you a sense of the excitement over the innovative bread slicing technology and a look at how the machinery was used to slice loaves.  This source also clearly lays out exactly who is supposed to be excited about the prospect of sliced bread. 

3. MIT Inventor of the Week - Otto Rohwedder
In order to truly understand the sliced bread phenomenon, it is necessary to know the man behind the machine, Mr. Otto Rohwedder. A detailed summary of Rohwedder's life and work is showcased on the Lemuslon-MIT website as part of its Inventor of the Week feature (the Lemuslon-MIT program is dedicated to honoring individuals whose inventions have improved our lives). It is apparent from this source that Rohwedder committed a lot of time and energy to designing and developing his bread slicing technology and is rightly called "the father of sliced bread."

4. Home of Sliced Bread - Chillicothe, Missouri
This website is a one-stop shop for everything and anything related to sliced bread.  The enthusiastic residents of small town Chillicothe and its Sliced Bread Committee made this website as an homage to sliced bread while also attempting to capitalize on its status as the birthplace of the product.  In the midst of the sliced bread T-shirts, aprons, postcards and ornaments, this site really does have some great information compiled by Chillicothe's bread-loving citizens. In addition to the general history of sliced bread, the website offers a variety of news articles relating to sliced bread, all of Rohwedder's patent information (including a pdf of the original patent), as well as photographs of the earliest bread slicing machines and of Otto Rohwedder himself.  I have a hunch that the people of Chillicothe really do think sliced bread is the greatest invention and they wouldn't be ashamed to admit it.

So there you have it - everything you need to begin your quest for sliced bread knowledge. Forget Google - if you really want to "rise" up to the challenge and "cut" through the information to have a "measure" of success, just use this blog.  After all, it is the best thing since sliced bread. Even with the terrible puns.

Movember Moustaches - Part 2

This blog is the second installment of my Movember Moustaches series featuring historical moustaches to coincide with the Movember campaign to raise money for prostate cancer. To find more about Movember, please click here.

You may not ever meet a man more in love with his moustache than Salvador Dali. It is reported that the Spanish artist was once carrying around a silver bell, and when asked why he had the bell, he responded “I carry it and I ring it so people will see my moustaches.” Note that he said moustaches which is not at all a misnomer if you take a look at the pictures below. While Dali is primarily known as a surrealist painter, I would like to add moustache master to his list of artistic accomplishments.

As you may infer from his distinctive moustache choice (and crazy eyes!), Dali was a tad bit eccentric. At an early age, Dali's parents told him that he was a reincarnation of his dead brother - not the most stable foundation for establishing your self-understanding.

As if his meticulously manicured moustache didn't attract enough attention, Dali had his own unique fashion sense. He often walked around in a long cape with a walking stick at his side and at one party thrown in his honour, he arrived wearing a glass case on his chest containing a brassiere. On another occasion, he arrived to deliver a lecture wearing a diving suit adorned with a jeweled dagger, with a pool cue in his hand, and two Russian wolfhounds by his side. Now that would have been an exciting lecture.  Professors, please take note.

At one point, Dali decided that he needed a pet to compliment his flamboyant personality. Naturally, he chose an ocelot. Babou the ocelot became Dali's favourite companion, even accompanying him into restaurants and on trips.

Despite his oddities, Dali was a superb artist, challenging norms and inspiring future generations of artists.  The legacy of his moustache is almost as great as that of his artistic output, and yet this generation does not seem to find inspiration in his follicle mastery.   The time to do so is now, men of Movember!

Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure - that of being Salvador Dali.

- Salvador Dali

Movember Moustaches - Part 1

While the concept of growing moustaches in November (or Movember) to raise awareness for prostate cancer is a recent phenomenon, moustaches themselves have a long history.  Throughout November, I will be featuring a variety of historical moustaches that would undoubtedly win any Movember contest.  To learn more about the Movember movement, click here.

The first historical Movember candidate is none other than Ambrose Burnside, a Union general in the American Civil War whom we can thank for giving us the word "sideburn." He was obviously blessed with the ability to grow voluminous amounts of hair on the side of his face and as a result, his name was used to label the very distinctive style.  While General Burnside is known more for his sideburns  than his moustache, the argument could be made that they are in fact one and the same.

Unfortunately for Burnside, his contribution to society is limited to his facial hair. It is quite possible that he focused too much of his attention on grooming his follicles and not quite enough on leading the army. His strategy at the battle of Fredericksburg in 1862 went a little something like this:

Soldier: Great job on taking over the town General! We sure showed those Confederate scoundrels whose boss.

Burnside: Thanks soldier, but I would really love to give those southerners another kick in the pants. Why don't we go chase them as they retreat up that hill?

Soldier: Great idea! I am sure they won't be able to mow us down in their advantageous position on top of the hill. It is quite unlikely that waves of Confederates will rush down the hill and decimate our army.

Burnside's brilliant strategy led to a massive defeat for his army, but maybe it was all for the best. We wouldn't want his military accomplishments outshining his contribution as a style icon.


 This blog originally appeared on March 4, 2009 on my other blog lvanderberg.blogspot.com.

Adventures in HTML-Land

Saturday
Today I feel like a genius.  I am currently working my way through theW3 Schools HTML Tutorial  and this being my first foray into the world of HTML, I am finding it quite thrilling to be able to tell my computer what to do.  I just made my name appear as a heading in bold, italicized text which is when I said aloud to myself "Wow! I did it!" I know that this doesn't suddenly make me the Albert Einstein of HTML, but this process of learning the very basics of computer language is slowly subverting the relationship between me and my computer.  I have always falsely perceived my computer as a brilliant, omniscient machine, but the more I learn, the more I understand it to be what it is - a tool of human intelligence. I agree with Fred Gibbs when he writes in his blog that "Even the tiniest ability to make a computer do what one wants rather than only what software allows is tremendously empowering."

Sunday
My illusions of grandeur momentarily faded away today. As I continued to read through the tutorial and practice different things, I felt increasingly helpless due to my inability to remember all the different rules. Trying to remember where to put quotation marks, colons, semi-colons and closing tags was a bit overwhelming and my "Aha!" moment of yesterday never came. But then, like a true historian, I realized it was pointless to try and retain all this information when I will always be able to look it up.  So I persevered onward and finished the tutorial, hoping to feel empowered once again. At this point, I have started to mark-up my own page and I am quite pleased with the results thus far.  I have successfully added some lines (fancy!), headers, underlined text, an unordered list, a link and....drum roll please....some pretty colours! Although my HTML experience today didn't start well, I am once again feeling comfortable and confident to continue with my HTML adventure. Onwards and upwards from here!

Monday
Today I finished marking up my very own page!  I had some difficulties toward the end with adding images to the page, but eventually made it work with a little help from someone much wiser than myself. The finished product is pretty simple and definitely won't take your breath away, but I am stepping away from it with a great sense of accomplishment. This exercise only touches the surface of what can be accomplished with HTML and I am eager to expand my knowledge further. Being able to comprehend what was previously a foreign language, even in the most basic sense, has made technology and computers feel more accessible.  I don't know if I ever will classify myself as a digital humanist, but gaining new skills in the technological realm equips and motivates me to explore the diversity of the digital world.