finest square in Spain

Plaza Mayor de Salamanca, Spain

Image source here.

a drama waiting to happen

"His name is synonymous with conservation, but he killed thousands of birds. He was jailed for bankruptcy, but dined with Dukes, Earls, and Presidents ... Nobody really knew how to make a bird look alive." Audubon painted birds "the way he saw them, which was alive and flying, doing what birds do," despite Audubon's own early lament: "my pencil gave birth to a family of cripples."

- American Masters profile of wildlife artist John James Audubon [1785-1851]

Queen's Cocktail

2/3 Gin

1/3 Red Dubbonet

Lemon Twist

2 ice cubes

fruit pulp and sugar

general observation

"General Taylor was not an officer to trouble the administration much with his demands, but was inclined to do the best he could with the means given him. He felt his responsibility as going no further. If he had thought that he was sent to perform an impossibility with the means given him, he would probably have informed the authorities of his opinion and left them to determine what should be done. If the judgment was against him he would have gone on and done the best he could with the means at hand without parading his grievance before the public. No soldier could face either danger or responsibility more calmly than he. These are qualities more rarely found than genius or physical courage."
- U.S. Grant in his Memoirs on "Old Rough and Ready" General Zachary Taylor

Out of 42 Presidents, historians rank Grant 23rd and Taylor 29th here.

123 million

40% of Americans can trace their ancestry to Ellis Island.

"the only Latin I know is Xavier Cugat"

Xavier Cugat-She's a Bombshell
by pezhammer

a place to stay in Oxford

The Macdonald Randolph Hotel

Oxford lectures on iTunes here.

Image source here.

shrewd

Cold Harbor, 1864

An eight-year-old Ulysses S. Grant [1822-1885] buys a horse, p.25

"Papa says I may offer you twenty dollars for the colt, but if you won't take that, I am to offer twenty-two and a half, and if you won't take that, to give you twenty five." It would not require a Connecticut man to guess the price finally agreed upon.

U.S. Grant's Memoirs is regarded as the nineteenth century's most important work of American non-fiction.

on bullfrogs

"Motionless and indifferent as they appear, they are ready to leap upon their prey at any instant."

- Henry David Thoreau [1817-1862] died at 44 almost unknown.

Image source here.

Patron Saint of Cooks

St. Lawrence Market, Toronto, is not unlike Budapest's Central Market.

Depression's Evolutionary Roots

Scientific America reports here that depression is not a malfunction, but a mental adaptation that brings certain cognitive advantages. Also expressive writing promotes quicker resolution of depression, and they suggest that this is because depressed people gain insight into their problems.

burger grease

zooillogical art

French-living, Sudan-born zartist: Hassan Musa. More here.

middling management

Munich Opera House

"Being an executive does not require very developed frontal lobes, but rather a combination of charisma, a capacity to sustain boredom, and the ability to shallowly perform on harrying schedules. Add to these tasks the 'duty' of attending opera performances."

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan, pg. 166

Image source here.

contempt for forecasting

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio [1571-1610], The Fortune-Teller, c.1598-1599.

"We have always been suckers for those who tell us about the future. In this picture the fortune-teller is stealing the victim's ring."

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan, p.164

An earlier reference to Caravaggio here.

physically elegant swimmers

"When asking around about the comparative physical elegance of athletes, I was often told that runners look anorexic, cyclists bottom-heavy, and weight lifters insecure and a little primitive."

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan, pg.110

Image source here.

advice

"The next time someone pesters you with unneeded advice, gently remind him of the fate of a monk whom Ivan the Terrible put to death for delivering uninvited [and moralizing advice]. It works as a short-term cure."
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan, pg.27

greek fireworks

Most management theory is inane

Story here.

another approach to history

www.footnote.com

perception

Optical illusion source here.

bunk

"History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's dam is the history we made today."
- Henry Ford [1863-1947]

An earlier reference to Ford here.

activist

"Give light and people will find the way."
- Ella Baker [1903-1986]

entrepreneur

the farthest ever seen

RIM is Fortune's fastest growing company

Research in Motion (RIMM)
Headquarters: Waterloo, Canada
Market Cap: $41.3 billion

3-Year EPS Annual Growth Rate: 84%
3-Year Revenue Annual Growth Rate: 77%
3-Year Total Return Annual Rate: 45%

Price/Earnings: 20.4

Full story at Fortune.

An earlier reference to RIM here.

"let me see what I wrote so I know what I think."*

"All that we are not stares back at what we are." And, "Art is born of humiliation."
- W.H. Auden [1907-1973]

A reference to Jacques Louis David here.

the masses are the force of nature

Eugène Delacroix [1798-1863], La Liberté guidant le peuple, 1830

The people inspired dread, fear, respect.

See Phrygian cap.

affinity for those who didn't fit in

At the Moulin Rouge, 1895

An earlier reference to Toulouse-Lautrec here.