Vintage Monday: Baking Bread

I love freshly bread but baking my own has always seemed a daunting task. Bread machines were out of the question--been there, done that, didn't care for it. In my world bread has to have a hard crust and a nice, chewy body. So of course, when I found a super-easy no-kneed recipe on Pinterest I had to try it out. I'm glad I did.

Isn't it beautiful? Oh, and that crunchy crust... The dough needs 12-18 hours to rise but it's not an issue. I can start it in the evening and it's ready to bake sometime in the next day. The other big thing is that you need a Dutch oven to bake it in, but I had one already. I'll be baking more bread in the future.

Vintage Monday: Too Much Snow

Since the white stuff is about to hit the northeast, I give you and image from the The Great Blizzard of 1888. In for days in March (!!) "The Great White Hurricane" buried parts of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and connecticut under 20-60 inches of snow. The 45 miles an hour winds were icing on the cake.

So folks living up there, make sure you have plenty of food, toilet paper, and warm blankets. I hope nobody looses electricity, because that would suck. Oh, and charge and stock your ereaders, just in case.

Vintage Monday: Viennese Gents

So, last night after a long day of working plopped down in front of the telly, thinking it was Saturday. Then I saw my Sunday shows playing and was very confused for a minute. Where the frak did the weekend go? And it's bloody Monday again--pardon my British. So I give you these two gents and back to the grind stone. Ta!

Vintage Monday: Holidays

Right ho, as Bertie Wooster would say. Let's get this holiday thing over with. I still haven't wrapped presents, and will start baking cookies tomorrow or so, but currently I have a lot of work to finish before I can take a breather.

Vintage Monday: Three Gentlemen in Top Hats

I'm too groggy this morning to say anything witty, or even try. So, enjoy the gents and their top hats.

Vintage Monday: US Sailor and his girl

I love the expression on his face and the dreamy look in his eyes.

Vintag Monday: Conundrum

I have no idea what's going on here. This could be a photo of a bearded lady, perhaps from a circus sideshow or a Victorian cross-dresser. Or a cross-dresser disguised as a bearded lady.

Vintage Monday: Summer Time

I wish I was that toddler in the washtub. He doesn't seem to have a care in the world.

Currently LA is experiencing a moderate heatwave with high humidity and weird wether. There were sudden downpours yesterday at some places and we don't normally get rain at this time of year. There was also lightning, and at least one person died from it at Venice Beach.

I pick the washtub in the backyard.

Vintage Monday: Sheep

Another Pinterest find. I love this picture and it's truly unique. Not that there aren't plenty of old photos of farm animals, but someone took this sheep to a photographer's studio to have its portrait taken. And it's a good quality photo too, better than many I've seen of human subjects. I wonder about the reason. Was this animal a champion, did she (he?) win a prize at the state fair? We'll never know. Fabulous picture though.

Vintage Monday: Lifeguards

Continuing with the beach theme, here are a couple of lovely lifeguards. This was a Pinterest find. On a side note: apparently, in 1949 lifeguard was two words. Just comes to show you that language is a living thing.

Vintage Monday: On the Beach

This old photo was a rare find--it's such a perfect representation of a bygone beach-going experience, it almost looks fake. But it is real. I feel sorry for those people for having to wear so much clothes on a warm summer day.

Vintage Monday: Gentleman

Recently as I was pontificating about the use of depth of field and aerial perspective in cover design, I came to the realization that the concept of depth of field didn't exist before photography. If you look at paintings of fine renaissance artists you'll see how far off landscape has the same detail as figures in the foreground—because that's how our brains translates the world to us.

The photo of this dapper gentleman also illustrates another photographic concept: motion blur, as illustrated by the horse-drawn carriage in the middle ground.

Vintage Monday: Top Dog

Last week we learned how how cool pipes are--or at least used to be. Men smoked them even on the beach. Today I present further evidence that pipe smoking is the mark of a sophisticated gentleman.

Vintage Monday: Ladies Too

Another Pinterest find: an illustration of sapphic love and amazing coiffure. I can't imagine how long it must take create those hairdos every morning. No wonder people needed servants.

Wednesday Word: Badinage

badinage |ˌbadnˈä zh |
nounhumorous or witty conversation : cultured badinage about art and life.ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from French, from badiner‘to joke,’ from badin ‘fool,’ based on Provençal badar‘gape.’

It's seems like half the English words are French. WTF is up with that? I understand when it comes to culinary terms, because the French are a bunch of hedonists and epicures.

Vintage Monday: The Odd Ones

This is one of the more peculiar vintage photos I've discovered on Pinterest. That place is like quicksand for a visual hoarder like myself. It has a wonderfully clean interface, simple but easy to use search, and the option to both link and upload images. When you search one image leads to another till you've killed hours.

I've set up my own boards, covering subjects from food to street art, and I have them for my books too. Being rather visual, I tend to look up pictorial references for all sorts of stuff as I write, even if thing is question only appears for a few lines. Like the steampunk wristwatch that plays minor role in Spirit Sanguine. In the old days I kept the images in folders on my desktop, later in folders within Scrivener. Now I put them on Pinterest too, keeping the board private till the book's release day.

I have no idea how many readers actually look at the images I've put up to illustrate my stories. The Dead in L.A. board has a photo of the lookout spot in Griffith Park where Jon and Leander have a conversation, and the Dead in the Desert one has pictures of the library in the desert where Leander make an important discovery. They are both real places, even if the characters and events are fictional.

Now excuse me, I have important "research" to do.

Vintage Monday: On the Beach

Cyanotype is a photographic process going back to the 19th century. It's original purpose was to create technical drawings, and as far as I know it is the origin of the "blueprint."

Vintage Monday: Tussle

These guys are supposed to be wrestlers but they seem more like having a roll in the hay.

Vintage Monday: Vintage Selfie

Just to show that selfies predate digital photography. It must be a primal urge, encoded in our DNA to stand in front of a mirror and make a record of ourselves for posterity. Technically, all those painterly self-portraits were selfies too. All the digital age adds is a greater potential for future embarrassment when our self-revelations are a little too revealing.

Vintage Monday: Man with Magnificent Mustache

Isn't it just beautiful? That mustache practically has a life on its own. There's too much shaving going on nowadays.