salutations / tipping the hat mere semantics

In John Pollack’s The Pun Also Rises: How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed History, and Made Wordplay More than Some Antics (New York: Gotham Books, 2011), there is an account of a famous French gourmand named Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière (1758-1837). According to Pollack—

As a young man, Grimod was known around Paris for wearing a mechanical wig that would tip politely, and apparently automatically, as ladies passed.

In reading that, I was reminded of a US patent (shown above), No. 556,248, titled Saluting Device, that was filed in 1896 by someone named J.C. Boyle. It seems to be more or less comparable to Grimod’s “saluting wig,” but in this case of course it’s a tip of the hat.

Here is a newspaper account of  Boyle's invention from The Democrat (Scotland Neck NC) on April 9, 1896, p. 1—

A patent has been granted J.C. Boyle of Spokane WA, for a "saluting device." It is a machine worn in the top of the hat. All you have to do is to slightly incline the head, and as the head starts forward the machine lefts the hat a little, holds it just long enough and in a graceful curve lets it back on your head.

Later that year, the following note was published in the Spokane Chronicle on September 30, p. 4—

J.C. Boyle, a member of the Drumheller Packing Company, but whose chief claim to notoriety rests in the fact that he invented the patent hat lift that removes the old labor of lifting the hat by hand, arrived home last evening after a prolonged visit to Kansas City and other portions of the east, where he has been for his health.

As much chance of surviving as a sewer rat

American book designer Merle Armitage

In the early 1940s, shortly after the novelist Henry Miller had moved back to the US from Paris, he concluded that a noncommercial artist in America "has as much chance for survival as a sewer rat.”

Refusing to borrow or to hire out for "stultifying work," he sent out a letter inviting support from the readers of The New Republic, requesting, among other things. "old clothes, shirts. socks. etc. I am 5 feet 8 inches tall, weigh 150 pounds, 15 1/2 neck, 38 chest, 32 waist, hat and shoes both size 7 to 7 1/2. Love corduroys.”

The appeal worked and a number of curious mailings arrived, one of which contained a complete tuxedo. "What'll I ever do with this?” Miller asked a friend, then used it to dress up a scarecrow that sat for a generation on the picket fence in front of his Partington Ridge house in Big Sur, California.

Among other gifts was a cash contribution from Merle Armitage, an Iowa-born book designer, civil engineer, set designer, concert promoter, gourmet cook, art collector, and author. Armitage was living in California then, and soon after, when he visited Miller’s home for the first time, he described his own profession as that of an “impresario." "But I have heard that you were a writer,” replied Miller. "If the truth were known," Armitage explained, "I write books so that I will be able to design them.” In fact, by that time Armitage had designed nearly two dozen books, some of which he had also written.

But Miller was incredulous: “Does a book have to be designed?” he asked. “A book is a book, and I don’t see how you can do anything about it.” more>>>

UNI Graphic Design Portfolio Night | 2014

Poster © Sara Heffernen 2014

Above Poster and information about this year's annual Graphic Design Portfolio Night at the University of Northern Iowa.

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Abraham Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being. New York: Van Nostrand, 1968—

I learned from her and others like her that a first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting, and that, generally, cooking or parenting or making a home could be creative while poetry need not be; it could be uncreative.

Attention to Detail | Digital montage

Roy R. Behrens © Attention to Detail (2011). Purchase online.

Paul Gauguin | Digital montage

Roy R. Behrens © Many Excellent Cooks (2011). Purchase online.