Processing silk (probably) in Japan

This undated, unused postcard, which was made in Japan, is simply labeled "Yarn-reeling." I'm guessing that it's silk yarn that is being meticulously separated and spun. It looks like she is holding silk cocoons in her left hand, and that basket could be filled with water and additional cocoons. I suspect that the wide circumference of the wheel is to help with the drying of the spun silk, but I'm really out of my league on this topic, so that's just a guess.

Any reader thoughts on this yarn machine would be appreciated.

It looks like a quiet and peaceful process, but I also suspect one's back and legs would ache after a while.

For a general history of silk, Wikipedia is as good of a place to start as anywhere. I also found a good website, www.silk-road.com, which contains a history of silk processing and this sentence: "A roomful of munching worms sounds like heavy rain falling on the roof."

Tuesday morning giggles from old hotel postcards

We'll leave the dog on for you

THE JEFFERSON
Watkins Glen, N.Y.
Telephone 107
A century-old inn completely modern with large comfortable rooms. 22 rooms all new furnishings. The dining room has been noted for fine food since 1821 and is recommended by Duncan Hines and AAA. Watkins Glen State Park and beautiful Seneca Lake are 10 minutes walk from the Inn. Rates are moderate and children are always free. Large free parking area with side entrance. Jeff of the Jefferson welcomes you.

Note: I believe this inn was demolished in 1978. No word about the dog.

The world's least dramatic standoff

Front Entrance to Main House
THE SHEPARD FARM
Greenville
Greene County, N.Y.

Note: This postcard was mailed in 1971. According to a 2002 article in The New York Times, The Shepard Farm "frowned on alcohol consumption. ('Those depending on stimulants for their fun should select a hotel where beer and liquors are sold,' advised one of its brochures. 'We do not have a bar and cater only to guests who do not require it.')" That might explain what's happening on this postcard.

I feel like there are some Torgo and the Master
jokes just waiting to happen here.

Old postcard: "Ice Skating Pond" at Kanaya Hotel

This vintage postcard features a group of women who are far better at standing while wearing ice skates than I am. (My only ice-skating experience, at Penn State in the early 1990s, involved a lot of falling on my butt and a few spectacular face-plants, too.)

The undated, unused postcard, labeled "Ice Skating Pond," is from the rink "in the Compound of Kanaya Hotel, Nikko."

The hotel, which caters to Western travelers, dates to 1873 and has hosted Isabella Bird, Frank Lloyd Wright, Albert Einstein, Charles Lindbergh, Helen Keller and Jack Nicklaus, among others. Read more about the hotel at its English-language website. They have Wi-Fi these days, but I'm not so sure about the status of the ice-skating pond.

You can read more about that pond and see some beautiful vintage images of past ice skating at Old Tokyo.

From the readers: Horses, goats, chocolate and pooping

Happy Sunday evening. Here's the latest collection of dandy comments from Papergreat's readers...

Late 1930s college expenses logged in The Scribble-in Book: Cynthia Brown writes: "I just came across my grandmother's Scribble-In Book. The 1st page entry was for Dec. 19, 1932: 'At the Christmas meeting of the Thursday Club, we each gave some one of the members a 10-cent gift accompanied with a verse. This book was mine --' The next entry was her Christmas card list. Next was a diary entry for my brother's birth. Lastly there is a listing of 26 song birds she saw/heard at our home the spring of '33."

Thanks for sharing, Cynthia! What a neat little collection of your grandmother's everyday life.

Postcard: Little Nell and her (zombie) grandfather: Facebook follower Tom Beiter writes: "Funny that it's from a Dickens novel because it kind of resembles Alastair Sim as Scrooge."

My 1977 Kindergarten diploma: Tom from the Garage Sale Finds blog writes: "Should I ever need someone to stack boxes, catch butterflies or curtsy, I shall call upon you with confidence."

On having an old dog: Joan writes: "YAY FOR POOPING!!"

1918 postcard: "That Nightmare Sure Was A Horse On Me": A reader going by "ltl" writes: "I once had a lit prof who pointed out to us a usage thing about 'horse' in a short story (Eudora Welty, maybe? Some Southern writer) when a horse has its baby and somebody appears to ask 'Is it a horse?' — a horse vs. a female, that is. Filly/mare-to-be. Y'know. Maybe some of a horse being tougher than a mare might be in the mix in this card's caption. Anyway, cool card. Thanks for sharing."

Vintage Hallowe'en postcard: Witch declares that she's No. 1: "ltl" writes: "It's funny how Lida was ahead of her time, in moving on from 'lol' to the recently hipper 'Haha.'"

Note: I am NOT hip, so I had no idea we had moved on from LOL.

Dark & stormy night Halloween flick picks from Twitter's cool kids: Joan writes: "Bill Rebane!! Carnival of Souls!! I love this post. Also, my list runs more toward Hocus Pocus (which we're presently watching) than horror, but House on Haunted Hill is a good one and I'd be willing to put it on my list too. Also possibly The Shining, but that's a little too scary to make for a perfect night."

And Cheryl Zaidan adds: "So cool to read the picks. Also I LOVE Let's Scare Jessica to Death!"

Klein Chocolate Co. of Elizabethtown analyzes Fannie's butter fat: Regarding Klein's Lunch Bar, a milk-chocolate and peanut treat, Elaine Hyduk writes: "That was always the first piece of candy I would eat after going trick or treating. I wish they still made that candy bar."

A happy ending as an old, inscribed book returns home: Tom from the Garage Sale Finds blog writes: "Great story. I've only had the opportunity to reunite someone with their lost items once, but it was very rewarding."

Cool illustrations: The New Human Interest Library (Part 5): Joan writes: "Did you listen to this October's Stuff You Missed In History Class podcast on the Bell Witch legend? It was very well done!"

Actually, Stuff You Missed in History Class is my favorite podcast right now, well done, indeed, and the current length for my commute. Highly recommended. Also great: Imaginary Worlds with Eric Molinsky.

Campbell's soup magazine advertisement, circa 1932: I suspect that this comment from "William Brayden" was created by a bot, partly because it was accompanied by a link to a crossword-puzzle website, but I still find it fascinating: "It is anything but difficult to clean up your printed material and other paper things. Shockingly, I have found that paper is something that more often than not gathers rapidly. Whether it be garbage mail, bank articulations, expense forms or deals receipts, these are a portion of the things that a great many people wind up with a ton of."

History's turning points: When we chose TV over goats: Joan writes: "We have had a dramatic reading of this blog post here at home tonight and we also CHOOSE GOATS. But I'm not going outside right now because it is icy and snowing and I'm cold."

And Tom from the Garage Sale Finds blog adds: "Why do we have to choose goats or TV. Can't it be both?! By the way, a Goat named 'Hooker' has all the earmarks of crass joke."

Saturday's postcard: Illustrated map of Tokyo with taijitu symbol: Clark Parker writes: "Excellent map. This would still be fairly useful today, as many of the featured locations are still major sites in Tokyo, e.g. Tokyo Station, Shibuya, Asakusa, etc."

Old postcard: Great Image of the Daibutsu in Kobe, Japan: Clark Parker writes: "Wonderful postcard! For other views of the Great Buddha, I've compiled some pictures from 1863, 1897, 1902, 1923, 1942, 1951, 1983, and 2012.
See: https://thetokyofiles.com/2013/08/08/the-enduring-magic-of-kamakura/"

Thanks for sharing, Clark!

The Gates of Circumstance

This used (but undated) postcard features a pastoral scene and a short poem:

The Gates of Circumstance
The massive gates of Circumstance,
Are turned upon the smallest hinge,
And thus some seeming petty chance
Oft gives our life an after tinge.
— Anon.
There is a longer, slightly different version of this poem. The oldest reference I found to it comes from the May 30, 1863, issue of Harper's Weekly¹:

CIRCUMSTANCE
The massive gates of Circumstance
Are turned upon the smallest hinge,
And thus some seeming pettiest chance
Oft gives our life its after-tinge.

The trifles of our daily lives,
The common things, scarce worth recall,
Whereof no visible trace survives,
These are the mainsprings after all.

Affixed to this postcard is a green, one-cent John Smith stamp that was first issued on April 25, 1907, so the postcard could be at least that old. It was mailed to Pleasantville, Iowa.

The short note states:

"Maude and Chet got here this a.m. Fern [?] freind arrived this afternoon and we are looking for Laura tonight and then we will all be at home when they get here.
Esther [?]"

Footnote
1. On May 28, 1863, two days before that issue of Harper's Weekly, the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, one of the first official African-American units in the United States, marched from Boston, Massachusetts, to fight for the Union. Just 51 days later, the 54th took part in the Second Battle of Fort Wagner. Only 315 men were left from the 54th after the battle — 30 were killed in action, 24 later died of wounds, 15 were captured, and 52 were reported missing after the battle and never seen again.

Recipes from "American Indian Cooking & Herb Lore"

Today I'm presenting a few recipes from American Indian Cooking & Herb Lore, a 32-page staplebound booklet written by J. Ed Sharpe and Thomas B. Underwood and published by Cherokee Publications.

This booklet is copyright 1973 and was first published in 1974. My copy is the fifth printing from 1986. It appears that this book is still in print and is still being sold on souvenir shops, per some online mentions that I came across. Many used copies are available on Amazon, and you can probably get one for a penny (plus shipping) if you keep your eyes peeled.

The front of the booklet includes a dedication to Molly (Runningwolfe) Sequoyah. It states, in part:

"This book has its source in people like Molly Sequoyah. ... She lives in the Big Cove section of the Qualla Boundary in Western North Carolina, and belongs to the Eastern Band of Cherokees. She represents many of the older Indian women in this country who have a rich and interesting background of food and herb gathering, preparation, and use."

A reviewer on Goodreads criticized the booklet a bit, stating: "Although most of these traditional recipes are suppose to have been passed down orally I am curious as to the age of some since I am sure that some of the ingredients weren't truly around when the first Native Americans were cooking. It is kind of like noting Native American cultures based on the introduction of the horse instead of how the tribes were living before that introduction."

But even if these recipes aren't fully authentic and don't date all the way back to the time before the European colonization of North America and the atrocities inflicted upon the indigenous peoples of the Americas, they seem to carry some of the spirit and flavor of Native American cooking.

Cherokee Bean Balls

• 2 cups brown beans
• 4 cups cornmeal
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon soda

Boil beans in plain water until tender. Put cornmeal, flour and soda in large mixing bowl. Mix well. Add boiling beans and some of the juice to the cornmeal mixture to form a stiff dough. Roll in balls and drop in pot of boiling water. Let cook for 30 minutes at slow boil. Makes 8 servings.

Apache Acorn Stew

• 2½ to 3 pounds round steak
• sweet acorns (enough to make 3/4 cup of acorn flour)
• salt
• wooden or plastic bowl

Cut the round steak into small bite-size pieces and cook in about one quart of water. Let it simmer for about three hours or until meat in well done. Salt to taste. Shell the sweet acorns and grind them into very fine flour until you have about 3/4 cup of flour. Strain the broth from the meat (it will be used later). Shred the meat and placing it in a wooden or plastic bowl mix it with the acorn flour (aluminum discolors the flour). Pour the hot broth over the mixture and stir. It is now ready to serve in individual bowls. Often times fry bread is served with this stew. Makes 6 servings.

Indian Chestnut Bread
Peel one pound of chestnuts and scale to take off the inside skin. Add enough cornmeal to hold chestnuts together, mixing chestnuts and cornmeal with boiling water. Wrap in green fodder or green corn shucks, tying each bun securely with white twine. Place in a pot of boiling water and cook until done. Salt when eating if desired. Bean bread can be made the same way, but cook beans until tender before adding cornmeal. No salt should be added before or during cooking or the bread will crumble.

Book cover: "Fangface: A Heap of Trouble" (1979)

Here at the Papergreat World Headquarters, we have a very discriminating process for choosing the book covers that we feature on this blog. You can trust that we will select only the finest, rarest and most beautiful volumes to present to you, the reader...

• Title: Fangface: A Heap of Trouble
• Author: Ruby-Spears Productions, Inc.
• Cover artist: Possibly Tony Tallarico, who did the interior illustrations.
• Publisher: Cinnamon House (a Division of Charter Communications, which was a Grosset & Dunlap Company). There is also a mention of Tempo Books. It's quite confusing.
• Cover price: $1.25 (the equivalent of about $4 today)
• Year: 1979
• Pages: 96
• Format: Paperback
• First sentence: The quiet Midtown University campus was deserted at night.
• Last sentence: And the whole Fangface gang started to laugh.
• Random sentence from middle: "Just keep your peepers open and follow me," Puggsy said.
• Back-cover blurb: It's Fangface to the rescue as a mad scientist menaces a college campus with his monster-making ray machine. Join Fangface and his TV friends Biff, Kim and Puggsy as they foil the fiendish Dr. Arnos.
• From the preface: "For extra fun, color the pictures as you read the book!"
• Notes: So, Fangface was a short-lived Saturday morning cartoon that originally aired from 1978 to 1980. It was produced by the aforementioned Ruby-Spears Productions, whose biggest claim to fame was Scooby-Doo, and it was very derivative of that iconic cartoon. ... According to Wikipedia, Fangface (later Fangface and Fangpuss) was an odd melting pot of Scooby-Doo, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Looney Tunes' Tasmanian Devil, and The Bowery Boys.
  
  
  It was also slightly progressive for a Saturday morning cartoon, as main characters Biff and Kim were a mixed-race couple. ... The 1996 book Children and Television: A Semiotic Approach, by Robert Hodge and David Tripp, has, somewhat bafflingly, an entire section on Fangface and notes: "Kim, the girl, has a darker-coloured face. It is ambiguous whether she is meant to be black or not, but in every other way she is respectably middle class. ... [T]he relationship between the middle-class Kim and Biff is cool and proper." In all, Hodge and Tripp devote more than two dozen pages to Fangface analysis, which is more absurd than the fact that I'm blogging about it. And they describe the premiere episode, "A Heap of Trouble" (the cartoon, not this novelization), as being "very rich" in meaning. ... I could get a bit more into how Sherman "Fangs" Fangsworth transforms into Fangface and oftens eats his friend Puggsy whole, but let's not do that. Instead, I'll just leave you with this link to Toonzone and some Fangface fan fiction that was posted earlier this year. Shareify it around, if you wish.

Thoughts on newspapers, computers and readers ... from 44 years ago

Hey, I'm on a roll. Here's another striking passage that I came across while sorting through books. (On the heels of Garfield Bromley Oxnam's thoughts in Youth and the New America, posted yesterday.)

These passages are from 1972's Man and the Computer by John G. Kemeny, a mathematician, computer scientist and educator who later went on to chair the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island.

From Man and the Computer's Chapter 10, titled "Computers in the Home":

One possible use of the home terminal illustrates the wide variety of information retrieval that can be made available in the home.

The New York Times is a magnificent national institution. Yet in many ways it is anachronistic in the computer age. It is too bulky, too impersonal, and often out of date by the time one reads it.

Everyone is familiar with the problem of bulk. Very few of the readers of The New York Times ever read all of the articles in a given issue, even on a weekday. Because of the bulk one often overlooks an important news item, even though the search is helped by an index. And when one finds a particular item, one may have to search through a long story, turning several pages, until one has extracted the details of particular interest to oneself. I have often wished that I could have the option of either having more or less detail. ...

[Also], there is the highly impersonal nature of The New York Times. By "impersonal," I mean that because the Times has to worry about the interests of hundreds of thousands of readers, it does not tailor its new service to my needs. I want to argue that it is entirely feasible today for the Times to provide personalized service for each of its readers. ...

Each reporter would file this stories by typing them directly into a computer terminal. The computer would provide a number of automatic services to make his life easy. It would justify all lines so that they come out roughly of equal length, correct simple spelling errors, and make it easy for him to enter corrections and improvements. ...

The editorial staff would monitor new stories as they were entered into the computer and make policy decisions on which stories to accept and how much detail to retain. The stories would then pass to a group of proofreaders who would make final corrections before each item was officially accepted into the current version of The New York Times. ...

I would expect that once the cost of printing the newspaper is eliminated, the bulk [of news content] could be increased tenfold at a surprisingly small cost. This would require about a million words of computer storage, which is a little over 1 percent of the storage available on the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System. The work of reporters, editors, and proofreaders would be actually simpler than it is today, and much of the remaining staff of a large newspaper would no longer be needed. Therefore the cost of "publishing" a personalized newspaper would be lower than the cost is today.

A reader sitting in his home could dial into his computer network and ask for his personalized New York Times. The computer would have on file those general topics which the user normally reads. ... After the reader has seen as much of the story as he wished, the computer, upon a signal, would automatically proceed to his next request, until he has seen everything he is interested in. ... In half an hour he would conclude a highly enjoyable and profitable personalized session with The New York Times. ...

If a particular story is of long-range interest to him, he could have it typed out on his terminal or stored in his own personal file in the computer's memory for future retrieval. And he would have all these services available in his own home.

It may be objected that while this scheme sounds great from the reader's point of view, it would bankrupt the Times, which depends on its advertising revenue. But this need not be the case. The computer network would charge the user for various services and could pay a royalty to the Times for each access by a user. Given that the cost of production of the newspaper is reduced, and the cost of printing and distribution is eliminated, the Times may make a profit on "sales" alone. Nor is it necessary to eliminate all advertising. Classified ads could be well indexed and made available to any user who desired to see them. If that did not suffice, the newspaper retrieval program could be so written that between frames it presented ads. However, I would then hope that by paying an extra fee I would have the option of eliminating all advertisements.

I make this suggestion freely available to The New York Times.

It's interesting to see some of the areas in which Kemeny was prescient about how we would eventually consume the news on a digital platform. He even touches on digital advertising and the idea of paying extra for a "no-ads experience." In some areas, he missed the mark a little, but still had intriguing predictions, especially given how many decades he was removed from this transition.

I also find it fascinating that he's essentially proposing the idea of micropayments (which he terms royalties) as a revenue model for online newspapers. The general sense now is that micropayments won't work and won't "save journalism," but — as with so many other bungled aspects of the newspaper industry's transition to digital — I wonder if they might have been part of the solution if they had been embedded in online readers' expectations from Day One.