Thursday's Place: Ashmolean Museum

One of the fantasies of my childhood was to be locked in a museum overnight.  All by myself, alone with the treasures collected, and able to touch anything I wanted without being scolded by an officious guard.  I would sometimes wonder if the sculptures spoke when no one was around.  When I was slightly older, I adjusted my conceit to imagining what it would be like to be a cat burglar released on my own to wander the halls of collected antiquities and help myself.

A form of these fantasies almost came true in my sixteenth year when I visited the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford very late one weekday afternoon and, as I was studying some shard of ancient lore, I was suddenly aware that, after hearing what seemed to be the sound of stout doors being closed and locked, the lights were being turned off.  I had a moment of hesitation. Should I make myself known as quickly as possible to the security staff, or should I try to hide behind a stray mummy and spend the night in fulfillment of my childhood fantasy?

I chose the former, unfortunately, since I didn’t fancy spending jail time at the pleasure of Her Majesty. However, in my dotage, I occasionally regret that decision.

The object of my distraction was The Alfred Jewel, a small enameled piece that dates to circa 800 A.D. and may have served as the head-stock to some form of stick or practical tool.  According to its inscription, it was commissioned by King Alfred the Great himself. As often happens with objects of antiquity, it was discovered accidentally.  In this case, 800 years later by a laborer while plowing his squire’s field.

While that may be the museum’s most popular display, one that has inspired and encouraged generations of amateur archaeologists, these days armed with increasingly effective metal detectors, it is housed with other works of various quality and importance, rendered by some of the great characters in English history.

Among its treasured items are the following, but I'm particularly covetous of Guy Fawkes' lantern and an ewer fashioned from lapis lazuli.

Descending from a 17th century nobleman's "cabinet of curiosities", the Ashmolean Museum rests on a pleasant street near Balliol and St. John's Colleges and within a skip from Blackfriars, a place where Evensong is sung most days for Vespers.  The original collection included items brought back to England by travelers, explorers, natural philosophers, and various brigands.  Eventually, the collection grew so that new digs were to be found in the 1840's, when the cabinet became a proper museum, named for its original owner, patron, and notorious alchemist, Elias Ashmole.

Of particular note, the Ashmolean once had the stuffed remains of the last European dodo.  Unfortunately, it was consumed by moths sometime in the 1750's.  However, it's skull is still on display.  Just ask for "The Oxford Dodo".

The museum continues to expand and offers so many courses hosted by lecturers from the University in so many topics that the suffix, "late of the Ashmolean", is regarded as a bit of a cliche.  Still, it has inspired a rich variety of people, from students to clergy to housewives and husbands, and not just those with an interest in antiquities.  As well it should, since one of its laborers in the early part of the 20th century, an undergrad from St. John's, known as Ned Lawrence, would become yet another of its benefactors after he took on the suffix, "of Arabia".

Lawrence's Arabic apparel, which is also to be found in the Ashmolean

If a trip to Oxford is not in the reader's travel plans, the Ashmolean maintains a lively web presence with lectures available for free on popular streaming sites.  However, if a trip is in the works, please give the museum a good day's visit, as there is much there and, rather like a favorite uncle's library or workshop, there are treasures to be found in every corner.

By “Worry”, We Mean We’re Darn Sure They’re Now Spy Devices

After Google acquisition, some Fitbit users worry about privacy

Voltaire

"To learn who rules over you, simply find out whom you are not allowed to criticize."

Wait Until the Exec Discovers That Tubman was a Republican

Julia Roberts was suggested to play Harriet Tubman by studio exec, says Harriet screenwriter. When someone pointed out that Roberts couldn’t be Harriet, the executive responded, 'It was so long ago. No one is going to know the difference.’

Chop Wood, Carry Water

Millennials 'are seeing their health decline faster' than Gen X, worrying experts

We eliminate recess, make school sports prohibitively expensive, require students to maintain schedules designed for busyness rather than enrichment and, surprise, they grow up unhealthy.

Also, eat some cheeseburgers, put down the weed, get a black eye, catch and clean a fish, surround yourself in the visceral.  You'll feel better; trust me.

Sooth

Please Stop Calling Yourself a ‘Feminist Badass’:

Let’s consider the case—or at least the memeification—of the badass for a moment. The badass is—and in many ways remains—the face of fourth-wave feminist sanctimonium, the symbol of all that is righteous and unassailable about modern womanhood. She is the state-of-the-art version of liberated femaleness, the ne plus ultra of self-sovereignty and zero EXPLETIVE giving. The best thing about the badass club is that just about any female possessed of a scintilla of self-sufficiency can qualify. Once upon a time, when the word was rarely used, you more or less had to escape captivity in North Korea or sit in a Greenpeace raft in the Southern Ocean facing down the harpoon of a Japanese whaling ship in order to be designated a badass. Today, no such bells and whistles are required. A woman need only take it upon herself to educate a man on the ways in which he is mansplaining, wear a “Nasty Woman” T-shirt, or just say the word “vagina” a lot, and she, too, will be conferred badass status.

I'm Glad I'm Not the Only One Who Noticed

Hollywood is horrible these days. More and more productions are reduced to shrill leftist political proselytizing. It’s not like this is what audiences want either; this is a top down driven campaign. The New Aristocracy of the Well Connected are determined to shove their propaganda down our throats through every aspect of communications in their control. Thanks to the success of the Long March Through the Institutions, they pretty much control them all. Not only movies and art, but the media, government, academia, big tech, corporate boardrooms, and non-profit agencies are all in lockstep, driving the cultural Marxist agenda.

The market is glutted with homogeneous films, endless rehashes seasoned with heaps of obligatory politically correct posturing and diversity scoring keeping. It doesn’t even matter when the audiences reject the offerings. The globalist corporate studios are so huge they can afford to take a financial hit when their crappy agitprop movies fail. I’m very suspicious of book cooking and money laundering in the reported bottom lines anyway. How much of a contemporary movie’s box office comes from the manipulated Chinese marketplace? There a Hollywood movie may do well-if the ruling Communist Party wants it too. What should that tell you?

Three Guesses

Of the 27 Deadliest Mass Shooters, 26 of Them Had One Thing in Common

This is a Much Bigger Story Than Impeachment Kabuki, but....

Bloomberg editors have noticed that the world is on fire. There are demonstrations and unrest in Lebanon, Chile, Spain, Iraq, Sudan, Russia, Uganda, Peru, Hong Kong, Zimbabwe, Venezuela and others. That "other" is Iran, where the Internet has been shut down and rampaging protesters are burning down the Central Bank.

Hong Kong at least deserves a separate mention. It is really the bellwether for the fate of China. The Chinese government may be edging toward their Tienanmen moment in the former British colony. Bloomberg's survey of the global world disorder omitted the two biggest trouble spots: Britain's Brexit crisis -- of which no more need be said for now -- and the simmering political conflict in the United States.

Sooth

In the past, people displayed their membership of the upper class with their material accoutrements. But today, luxury goods are more affordable than before. And people are less likely to receive validation for the material items they display. This is a problem for the affluent, who still want to broadcast their high social position. But they have come up with a clever solution. The affluent have decoupled social status from goods, and re-attached it to beliefs.

Needlehooks

“In any age, the so-called progressives treat politics as their religion. Their holy mission is to use the coercive power of the state to remake man and society in their own image, according to an abstract ideal of perfection. Whatever means they use are therefore justified because, by definition, they are a virtuous people pursing a deific end. They are willing to use any means necessary to gain momentary advantage in achieving their end, regardless of collateral consequences and the systemic implications. They never ask whether the actions they take could be justified as a general rule of conduct, equally applicable to all sides.”

Denise McCluggage

Change is the only constant.  Hanging on is the only sin.

The memory that I have of newsrooms is that they were places of motion.  It was rare to find in that sea of desks a person who wasn't just about to leave to interview someone or to observe some conflagration, or those returning from doing the same.  I suppose that's why the desks were rarely personalized, as we see now with cubicles.  A reporter's desk would hold her/his typewriter, an IBM Selectric, a drawer filled with Portage Professional Reporter's Notebooks waiting to be used, another for the filled notebooks [these were important to keep for future reference and for protection from libel suits] that were loosely "filed", and I seem to recall a third for the bottle of Four Roses or John Begg or some equally low-rent liquor.

This was true even in the 1980's as one of the fellows with whom I shared my Episcopal Church-owned apartment worked for the New York Times and was never, ever in the office.  The closest I think he ever came was the Blarney Stone across the street.  A couple of years ago I had the occasion to enter the newsroom of The Hartford Courant, in great anticipation of once again experiencing the frenetic electricity of reporters at work.  Instead, it was a cubicle zoo, with reporters sitting, sitting!, at their desks in front of quiet laptop screens performing their research through Internet search engines, quietly speaking to people via a thing in their ears [Bluetooth?] and drinking from Starbucks cups.  I was all at sea.

Now, while I've always had respect for reporters, the opposite is generally true of journalists.  Reporters get the story; journalists massage it.  In fact, many times these days, as most of those in the media would describe themselves as journalists rather than reporters, it seems that they're merely extensions of the public relations departments of political parties or corporations.  Stories are not necessarily the truth, but rather the journalist's point of view; a not-so-subtle change from the grand days or reporting

Even those who describe themselves as "participatory journalists" such as Hunter Thompson, George Plimpton, Gay Talese, Norman Mailer, Robert Cristgau, and Joan Didion need to be regarded with a grain of salt.  Having lived next door to a "new journalist" has made me even more suspect when I read their works.  My neighbor crows in print about his sports car collection, but they rarely leave his garage and then only to travel about a third of a mile to the local market, generally at the speed of a riding mower.  I imagine similar postures exist with the other members of his writing fraternity.

That is, except for this week's personality, as she not only and without question participated in the stories that she wrote, but did so honestly and in full public view.  In addition, she was able to report the story without artificially inserting herself into the narrative.  That's quite a feat.

Perhaps this was because Denise McCluggage was truly interested in sports, especially that of auto racing, and not as a means for self-glory.  Born in 1927, and having wanted to be a reporter since childhood, McCluggage was covering a yacht race when she met the American godfather of sports cars and racing, Briggs Cunningham, who convinced her that the only truly exciting sport was auto racing. She agreed so whole-heartedly that not only did she become the first woman reporter to cover auto racing, but one of the first women to compete.

What made her participation sublime was that, in the days when drivers wore distinctive helmets so that the fans could identify them as they whizzed by the stands, her's was white with pink polka-dots.  You'd never catch Phil Hill or Dan Gurney in anything resembling a chapeau.

Since McCluggage had gotten her first driver's license in Kansas at the age of 14, she was already familiar with passenger cars.  Her first competitive sports car was not a large, heavy piece of Detroit steel, naturally, but a 1950 MG TC with which she began her racing life in small races and small tracks.

Rather elegant, isn't it?  And a little fragile looking, too.

By the time she was hired by a New York City daily paper's sports pages, she had the wherewithal to upgrade to a Jaguar and compete in the more serious, professional races.  In 1959, she would win her first race at Thompson Raceway in Connecticut.  Eventually, she would compete in the Sebring 12 Hour race where, in 1961, she would win her class in a Ferrari, and the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally, winning her class in a...Ford Falcon [the most underrated American car in history; its engine and chassis were eventually covered by a snazzy body and called the Mustang]. 

Her career lasted until the late 1960's, driving cars for over a dozen different American and European racing marques and earning the respect of the other, mostly male, drivers in the sport.  Their regard for her is displayed in the photo at the header, where she is at ease with Juan Fangio, Stirling Moss, Pedro Rodriquez, and Innes Ireland.  All the while that she raced she also wrote articles on racing for the sporting press that are easily among the best of that wild, dangerous era of motor sports.

As her racing days concluded, McCluggage then took up skiing and organized the purchase and development of what is now known as the Hunter Mountain ski resort in New York.   She also wrote a well-received book, The Centered Skier, that combines skiing technique with elements of Zen philosophy that is still in use at some skiing schools in the USA.

She was one of the founders of what is now AutoWeek magazine, and remained one of its editors and columnists until her death earlier this year.

 There are a handful of collections of her columns for AutoWeek and other publications that bear numerous titles; By Brooks Too Broad For Leaping being the most popular.  In addition to her deft hand at the steering wheel and while heel-and-toeing her way through a corner at 100 mph, McCluggage was an able writer who could, with authority and lyricism, describe an event as visceral as an auto race with a vividity that captured the senses involved in the spectacle and the personalities attracted to its pursuit.  

This is why she was the first, and still only, reporter ever to be inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.  When asked, as she entered her ninth decade, if she would ever write her memoirs, she replied, "I don't do fiction."

 

Thursday's Place: Duke's

It was a moment during a surf trip with my oldest surf buddy.  We've known each other a long time.  We were in seminary together.  We were hospital chaplains together.  We were chaplains in two Episcopal Church schools at the same time.  I was his best man, he was mine.  Every year, depending on personal schedules and income, we surf either Orange County, California or Ocean County, New Jersey, with occasional side trips to Narragansett or Long Island's south shore.

The bar at Duke's

We have, over the past 37 years, come to develop a particular manner of communication, often based on pre-verbal grunts.  On this day, we were slightly more eloquent during an early dinner at Duke's, a restaurant named for the "father" of surfing and well-situated at the foot of the pier in Huntington Beach, California.  I was about to devour a huli huli chicken dish when he started.

The fabled huli huli

"You see that grandmother over there?", he asked, pointing his chin towards the restaurant's front door.

"Which one?"  It was a Tuesday in the early evening and nearly every patron other than ourselves would have satisfied that description.

"The short one."  Again, not really narrowing it down.

"The woman in the tropical print?"

"No, the shorter one."

"In the Polo stuff?"  It was true, the woman was head to toe in silhouetted ponies and helmeted riders.

"No, the even shorter one."

"On the left?"  If so, she was short.  Under five feet.

"Yes", he said.

"I see her."

"That's her."  There was a revelatory tone to his identification.  I was puzzled.  I was trying to remember what diminutive, older women we had been talking about at some point over the decades that had now entered his consciousness.

"Is it?  Her who?"

"You know."

"I don't."  I didn't.

"From the thing...way back.  You know.  The movies; the TV show."

"I Dream of Jeannie?"

"What? Barbara Eden is here?"  He jerked around in his chair, monetarily forgetting the grandmother in question.  Barbara Eden has a certain hold on the imaginations of men of my generation.

"I don't know.  Who are you talking about?"

"The surfer girl.  What's her name?  Gadget."

"Gidget?"

"Yes.  That's Gidget.  The real Gidget."

"No."

"Yep."

"Is she the hostess who seated us?"

"Yep. She's the hostess of aloha."

"Wow.  Wait, the what?"

It's true.  Kathy Zuckerman, nee Kohner, is still the Tuesday night "Hostess of Aloha" at Duke's.  [No one really knows what that means, so just go with it.] Her father, a Hollywood scriptwriter, who was entertained by her stories of days spent on the beach in Malibu in her fifteenth summer, wrote them all down, with some fictional flair, in a slight volume released the same year as was Jack Kerouac's On the Road.  Gidget, the Little Girl with Big Ideas became so popular that it spawned an entertainment industry, helped to define a "lifestyle", and made its protagonist the stereotype of all women surfers.

Mrs. Zuckerman today

Other than the location, its view, and the huli huli chicken, that's about all that is special about Duke's, one of a chain of similarly-named restaurants near beaches in Waikiki, La Jolla, Lahaina, and, of course, Malibu.  It has little local history, and its cache is the product of market studies and focus groups.

Nice view, though

However, despite prices that make Midwesterners balk, Duke's is a pleasant place for apres surf, as it sits on a beach that enables one to watch some of the best amateur surfers in the world, even if they are simply members of the local high school's surf team.  Plus, you know, it has Gidget, and that is worth something to those of us from the mid-20th century who still, in our dotage, shred as many waves as we can whenever we can.

Most of Whom Tend to Be in the Administration

Campus censorship: a tyranny of the minority

Everything You Know is Wrong

Nuclear Power is the Most Reliable Energy Source and It's Not Even Close

Tales of the Post-Christian Age

We Should Believe in Climate Change as If It's a Religion, Not a Science

Sooth

Everything You Know is Wrong

CDC Started a Vaping Panic, Now It’s Admitting Vitamin E Acetate In Illegal Products Is to Blame

So, what this really means is that the CDC is to blame for the network news anchors' hair being on fire lately.  Another specious moral panic, courtesy of our "betters".

Primum est tragoedia comoedia ut altera

Chocolatier creates edible Berlin Wall to commemorate 1989 fall

I Try to Avoid Hyperbole, But This Looks About Right

NBC, ABC And CBS Appear To Have Run Cover For World’s Most Powerful Rape Rings