Did you know that Santa, back when he was svelte, used to deliver presents on New Year's Eve and not Christmas Eve?  This illustration is from The Family Magazine, 1840.

Bleeding ink and Google's scanning machine combine to form an aptly titled "Pairing."  The illustration is from Peterson's magazine, 1877.

Whimsical electrical poles then and now: the first image is from Punch, 1849, and the second is by Choi+Shine Architects (see photos of their stunning "The Land of Giants" electrical pylons on the Iceland landscape). Truly, "electricity dances in the air here" (Timothy Brown, Temple of the Troll God, 2001).

© 2011 Choi+Shine Architects.  This image appears here for historical commentary.

A ready-made collage courtesy of Google Books:  from an 1898 issue of Munsey's magazine.

"What is the present but the sum of the past in a moment of consciousness?  And because the spirit can call upon this consciousness — this recall — at will, so the present is ever there in the stream of time and the flowing weave can become a broad tapestry spread out for me to contemplate; and I can point to the spot where a particular thread in the weft marks the start of a new design in the pattern.  And I can follow the thread, knot by knot, forwards and backwards; it does not break off, it carries the design and the meaning in the design; it is the essence of the tapestry and has nothing to do with its temporal existence."
—Gustav Meyrink, The Angel of the West Window

"Is it the dead who bring our memories back to life when they want us to feel their presence?  Do they cross the stream of time to reach us by turning back the clock within us?"
—Gustav Meyrink, The White Dominican

Prof. Oddfellow found his ideal of a wonky homestead: the Carpenter's House (1908), now part of the Dow Museum's preserved city block in the heart of St. Augustine's historic district.  There's no lens distortion in the photo — the house really is that lopsided. 

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

Dedicated to Alayna Williams, of course.

Prof. Oddfellow offers this free collection of vintage frame clip-art, culled from 110-year-old issues of Cosmopolitan Magazine and painstakingly restored to their original glory.  The frames are available for download in high-resolution GIF and vector EPS formats.  See samples of the corners below:

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"Bearing some well-fingered letters of introduction . . ."
—James Shreeve, The Neandertal Enigma (1996)

We were surprised to notice some finger prints we picked up in the field.

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

This collage is in honor of Emily Dickinson, our beloved 21st cousin.

We're delighted to illustrate a piece about Disneyland's history with our photo of a remnant of Nature's Wonderland.

Our 9th cousin, the visionary Dr. John Dee (adviser and tutor to Queen Elizabeth I) is here beautifully celebrated by the artist Sev.

We understand this is the first and last time Hollywood extras were acknowledged in a film's opening credit sequence.  The film is the stunning noir masterpiece The Shanghai Gesture:

"The Heaven of the Time Machine" from Louis Untermeyer's Heavens, 1922.

Happy new year!  (This drawing is from Louis Untermeyer's Heavens, 1922.)

We delighted that the Vangobot robot has created a painting in our honor.  The piece is entitled "4 Prof. Oddfellow."  It's like looking in a mirror!

Punctuated Cloud Divination

(an excerpt from our whimsical new manual on Divination by Punctuation)

An ancient druidic art, divination by cloud formations offers punctuation insights on many different atmospheric levels.  The little fluffy altocumulus clouds may coalesce into periods, colons, semicolons, ellipses, and quotation marks.  The thin altostratus clouds may form long dashes.  Airplane vapor trails and cirrocumulus clouds may form forward or back slashes.  The tall cumulonimbus clouds may combine with their altocumulous cousins to form question marks or exclamation marks.  The lower stratus clouds may form short dashes, while the highest cirrus wisps may form commas and parentheses.

Students of art history will know that billowing punctuation figures into fifth-century Roman mosaics: "the cloud is simply a punctuation mark (a kind of parenthesis) that derives its meaning from the position that it occupies in a linear sequence” (Hubert Damisch, A Theory of Cloud, 2002).  So, too, with modern cloud divination: the position of the punctuation within the hieroglyphic clouds is of vital importance.

Punctuated cloud divination can be likened to Klexographie—the European parlour game that inspired Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach to develop his famous inkblot test.  One views a cloudscape through one’s inner eye so as to unlock the wisdom of the inner voice—that primal vestige that knows the answers but doesn’t always speak loudly enough for one to hear.

To begin, cast your eyes down to the ground and meditate upon your question.  When the moment feels right, look up to the sky.  The cloudy symbols and patterns you see will shed light upon your question.  You may see multiple pictures within one cloudscape, joined or separated by punctuation icons.  Do they tell a story?  There’s no need to over-analyze what you see in the clouds; trust your initial responses to the images.  Punctuated cloud divination speaks to your intuition, so allow your inner wisdom to pour forth.  If you are uncertain of how the clouds illustrate your answer, or if you require additional insight, perform a second reading by casting your eyes downward again, allowing time for the animated cloud shapes to evolve, and then look up again.

A scattering of punctuated cloud details:

Apostrophe ( ’ )
If an apostrophe cloud dissipates quickly, the loss of a possession is indicated.  "O little cloud of faery hue, / Wither so fast away?” (Anonymous, "An Apostrophe”).

Bracket ( { )
Shaped to resemble the rounded contours of a cumulus cloud, "cloud brackets” are common architectural features in Buddhist pagodas.

Comma ( , )
Cloud commas (also known as mesocyclones and hook clouds) sometimes develop eye-like features at their centers.  "The cloud eye-lids that shadow / Stay not to see what will be done” (Edgar Lee Masters, "The Battle of Gettysburg”).

Dash ( — )
A cloudy dash may foretell hurriedness.  "The moon slowly arose, amid a fitful dash of clouds, and was no sooner from under one than she would dart beneath another” (Samuel M. Kennedy, First Loves).

Ellipsis ( . . . )
Ellipsis clouds point out superfluousness: more than enough of a thing.  "A few cumulus like ellipses at the horizon’s end . . .” (Christopher Buckley, How Much Earth).

Exclamation Point ( ! )
The Hawaiians revere clouds as "the only animated features of the landscape, . . . ever with us.”  The storm cloud is feared less than "the whirlwind with that exclamation point, the whirling chimney of red dust” (Charles Warren Stoddard, Hawaiian Life).

Question Mark ( ? )
The mystic Osho considered the "immensely significant” question mark to be emblazoned "on each cloud, on each star, on each atom,” since the question mark addresses the eternal mystery of existence (The Book of Wisdom).

Semicolon ( ; )
Postmodernist author Mia Couto likens the semicolon to a raindrop "born prematurely from a cloud.”  Raindrops are ephemeral links between heaven and earth; as semicolons, they highlight the fluidity of the boundary as they simultaneously connect and separate (Phillip Rothwell, A Postmodern Nationalist: Truth, Orality, and Gender in the Work of Mia Couto).

We're honored to have captured the spirit of Brentwood for DGuides' resource on the greater Los Angeles area.  Our photo shows the hilltop Getty Museum from the Angeleno Hotel.

It's no secret that we love the greater Los Angeles area, and we'll take Brentwood's portrait anytime Brentwood wants us to.

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

Inspired by Andrew Lovatt