CLOSED Sunday this week

Hullo everyone -- I don't usually do this, but since the International Cryptozoology Museum is already closing because of the storm, and the ghost-town like state of Portland's streets as the hurricane weather begins to set in, I'm going to leave the store closed today, Sunday, August 28, 2011. Sorry if any of you were planning on visiting today!! Stay home and stay safe and dry! :) And we'll see you again on Tuesday as usual.

The Inaugural Bird Visit

Well, it's official. So far we've had a fish, many dogs, and a rabbit visit the Green Hand. But never before had we been visited by a feathered friend!

All that changed this evening when a traveling customer, Sean, began browsing the shelves with a covered cage in hand. Who was his traveling companion? None other than Harry, a cheerful and attentive green parrotlet! He had been seeing the world with Sean, starting out at Newark NJ that morning, and jaunting about upon arrival in Portland in preparation for a ride out to an island later. Thanks to Sean for humoring my fascination with the little guy! Of course, his bright green feathers nicely match my shop's plastic bags, so when they left the store, Sean's luggage matched Harry quite nicely.

I felt that it was worth commemorating the occasion with a portrait or two of Harry ensconced in his cage. :)

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OSCAR UPDATE:
Many of you remember and ask after Oscar, the jumbo oscar fish, who is back living with my brother in his apartment now, happily eating 20-30 goldfish a week and growing ever more giant.

Above is a picture I took of him when I visited. To replace the constant hubbub of being in a public place, he has taken up watching television from his tank, but apparently does not approve of explosions, and takes off to the other end of the aquarium when movies and shows are rude enough to include kabooms in their plot arcs.

Old, cautiously optimistic bookmark

Here's another cool bookmark find, an old souvenir from Portland ME with a cautiously optimistic message. Wonder when it's from?  Most of my bookmarks come from between the pages of books that wander into my shop, but this one I found at a local outdoor flea market, down in Arundel on Route 1.

Sea Pieces - charming sheet music

Here's another photo essay for your amusement and enjoyment! This time it is a type of material I rarely deal with, but it was too charming for me to walk away from. It is a paperbound edition of the sheet music collection Sea Pieces, written by Edward MacDowell, featuring a lovely cover designed by P.L. Jung of New York. This edition is dated 1899, and is published by the Arthur P. Schmidt Co., of Boston and New York.

While the cover is attractive, the contents are at least as enchanting. Titles of the piano pieces include To the Sea, From a Wandering Iceberg, Starlight, From the Depths, Nautilus, and In Mid-Ocean.

But Mr. MacDowell's delightful ingenuity does not end there, no sir, no ma'am! If you flip the booklet open, you find each piece sprinkled with such personable requests for the player's fingers as "In unbroken rolling rhythm," "Tenderly," "In languid swaying rhythm," "Ponderously," and "Gradually faster, but without hurrying. Mysteriously." Clearly Mr. MacDowell did not want any wishy-washy, landlubbery players mucking up his pieces' intended execution!

I snapped pictures of several of the most intriguing directions for posterity:

The art of the North Wind

Now and again, a book comes through my hands here at the shop which makes me stop in spite of the hurry of business. Today as I was pricing a 1950 copy of George MacDonald's At the Back of the North Wind, I had one of those "stop and smell the roses" moments. The binding of this book, while fairly solid, is not what makes it special. What makes it special (beyond its lovely storytelling) is the series of wonderful illustrations that pepper its pages.

George and Doris Hauman illustrated this edition, and their work is simple, lively, and enchanting without being too airy-fairy, just as it should be. Working in bold but fine black linework, paired with a pale aqua-blue ink to offset it and give shade or color where needed, these pieces are enough to charm any reader.

I thought you all might enjoy seeing some of the pieces as much as I did as I leafed through these pages. You can click on the images to see more detail.

The facing title page

Each chapter heading is graced with a drawing.

Little Boy Blue calls to everything in the woods

"Now let's go and dig for stars."

The Haumans are also the ones who did the illustrations for the 1961 edition of The Little Engine That Could.