Month: December 2016

(Banner image courtesy of iStock)

Prague’s newest spot to curl up with a good book is a nearly 138-foot-long zeppelin suspended above an art museum. As Lonely Planet reports, the city’s DOX Center for Contemporary Art built the wood-and-steel structure to serve as a reading room and space for literary talks. It was unveiled in a ceremony at the art center on December 10, and opened to the public the next day.

With a Jonathan-Swift-inspired name (“Gulliver”), the design by architect Martin Rajniš is meant to reference utopian literature and the optimism of early 20th century technology. Cantilevered between buildings, the airship is accessible by stairs that stretch from the roof of one of the gallery buildings. (Don’t worry, you don’t have to dangle midair between the buildings at any point.)

Time to add Prague to your world tour of literary locales.

[h/t Lonely Planet]

All images courtesy DOX via Facebook

Edward Pearson was in his 90s when he told a newspaper reporter about the most magical day of his childhood.

“As long as I live,” he said, “and I’ve lived quite a few years, I’ll never forget that experience.”

It was December 1890, and a young Pearson was wandering the aisles of the Boston Store, an upscale department store in Brockton, Massachusetts, when he turned a corner and saw a portly man with a white beard and a red suit.

“All of a sudden, right in front of me, I saw Santa Claus,” he recalled. “I couldn’t believe my eyes.” The man smiled and approached Pearson. Like most kids, Pearson had only seen interpretations of Santa in magazine illustrations, never in the flesh. But here, in a department store in a small town near Boston, was the man himself.

In reality, Santa was James Edgar, the owner of the Boston Store and a man who bore a resemblance to the holiday icon long before he ever asked a tailor to fashion a costume for him. For the hundreds of kids who visited his store, Edgar became something their eyes could hardly believe: the first department store Santa.

Edgar was born in Duns, Berwickshire, Scotland in 1843, arriving in the United States some 24 years later [PDF]. A big, jolly man who carried his generosity with him everywhere, Edgar opened the Boston Store—later renamed Edgar’s—in 1878 and promptly began to personify the holiday spirit.

While other area stores often had their workers staying late, Edgar closed his store four evenings a week so workers could be home with their families. If a customer wanted to put an item on layaway, he gave them four percent monthly interest on whatever amount they had deposited. If a child in the area was in need of medical attention and had no money, Edgar would make sure they got the help they needed. While he did it anonymously, it wasn’t hard to figure out who was behind it.

With one daughter of his own, Edgar loved kids. He hired trolleys to ferry thousands of them into a nearby grove for a Fourth of July picnic every year, where he enjoyed dressing up in costume for their amusement. He was Uncle Sam one year and a cricket player the next. He’d climb to the roof of his store and toss pennies into the crowd below.

For Christmas, Edgar originally donned a clown costume to spread cheer inside his store. He did this for years until, in 1890, the idea struck him to try his hand at portraying Santa, using the Thomas Nast illustrations of the character from 1860s issues of Harper’s magazine as inspiration. Edgar made his way into Boston, hired a tailor, and picked up his Santa suit.

“I have never been able to understand why the great gentleman lives at the North Pole,” he once said of his ambitions. “He is so far away. He is only able to see the children one day a year. He should live closer to them.”

To say children were awestruck would not be an exaggeration. Like Pearson, they had never conceived of meeting their mysterious benefactor face-to-face before. Lines began to spiral out of the store and around the block, surging when school was let out. Edgar had planned on being Santa for just an hour a day and three on Saturdays, but he eventually had to hire a second man to play Santa when the demand outstripped his energy.

The notion of a living Santa was so intriguing that Edgar’s store attracted visitors from as far away as New York and Rhode Island. By the following year, several other stores across the country had picked up on the idea, which helped bolster foot traffic and sales. Unlike many of his successors, however, Edgar never had a place to sit and idle. He roamed his store, actively seeking out children so they could confide in him.

By the time Edgar died in September 1909, the department store Santa had become a tradition. The owners of his namesake property also seemed determined to continue his philanthropy, devoting an entire floor to cobbling shoes for the poor during the 1920s.

Edgar was not the first man to put on a Santa costume: because of the character’s many incarnations—from 4th century bishop to Coca-Cola advertising icon—that will forever be an issue of semantics. But he was the first documented department store Santa, and he arguably was the man who most closely resembled the character in terms of the good will he circulated. When he died, his funeral service was held in his second-floor apartment in Brockton. As soon as local schools let out for lunch, hundreds of children filed past his casket to pay their respects.

Additional Sources
“Original Department Store Santa,” The Billings Gazette, December 1972 [PDF]; “Department Store Santas Owe Paychecks to Col. Jim Edgar,” Enterprise, Dec. 20, 1987 [PDF]; “The First Santa Claus,” Yankee, 1979 [PDF].

This Christmas, you might find yourself elbow-deep in frosting and candy canes, trying to construct a gingerbread house that doesn’t collapse. But it turns out that creating a gingerbread house isn’t just a Christmas construction project—it’s a ritual with sometimes surprising connections to royalty, brutal fairy tales, and global trade.

Although versions of gingerbread date to ancient Egypt and Greece, the gingerbread we eat today has its roots in the Middle Ages, when cakes became all the rage in Europe as an increasingly global world opened up to new spices and ingredients. First there was fruitcake. The once-hot, now played-out treat came into favor after medieval cooks finally got access to dried fruit from Spain and Portugal thanks to increased trade in the 13th century.

That led to a vogue in cakes and breads, which spread as better construction made having an oven in your house less terrifying. Trade with the East also made the ingredients in gingerbread available for the first time. Early gingerbread recipes contain spices that were once coveted and expensive, like cinnamon, sandalwood, and saffron, which became increasingly accessible after the Crusades. Gingerbread became big business, and local variations began to arise. Lebkuchen, a gingerbread-like spiced treat, became popular in Germany, and guilds of gingerbread makers began to emerge in the 15th and 16th centuries.

As gingerbread makers got better at their craft, they began to press the luxurious creations into intricate molds and even paint them. The sweet treat became a popular way for rich rulers to impress visitors, as when Elizabeth I handed out gingerbread men to visiting dignitaries.

Then, a simple story thrust gingerbread from yummy treat to full-blown cultural phenomenon. Though the original doesn’t reference gingerbread specifically, the Brothers Grimm’s “Hansel and Gretel” told the story of two children who are left to starve by their poor, hungry parents, then enticed and imprisoned by a wicked witch in a house “built of bread and covered with cakes.”

After the Grimms published the tale in 1812, building gingerbread houses became a popular pastime in Germany. Food historians debate whether the Grimms’ story simply drew on gingerbread houses that were already popular, or whether it gave people the idea in the first place, but it certainly seems that constructing gingerbread houses became a popular activity among Germans right around the time the Grimms began publishing their bestsellers.

By then, of course, gingerbread was already associated with Christmas. And nobody celebrates Christmas like the Germans, who pioneered everything from Christmas presents to Christmas trees to some of the most popular carols.

In the 19th century, many gingerbread house-making Germans, armed with their favorite holiday traditions, moved to the United States in multiple mass waves of immigration. The opera “Hänsel and Gretel” by Engelbert Humperdinck, which premiered in Germany in 1893 and in the United States two years later, featured a gingerbread house that may also have increased the popularity of the confectionery construction.

By 1909, Good Housekeeping was suggesting that moms make a “Jack Horner pie” (the term was used as a catch-all for any pastry that had goodies inside) featuring a miniature gingerbread house for a Hansel and Gretel children’s party. And with each Christmas, more elaborate gingerbread creations could be found.

These days, gingerbread structures are so popular that many become tourist destinations, as in the case of a three-ton gingerbread village built each year by a New York chef. And next time you see one, you might want to remember its convoluted history—one that belies its sugar-sweet looks.

In The Golden Child, Eddie Murphy plays Los Angeles social worker Chandler Jarrell, who is tasked by the priestess Kee Nang (Charlotte Lewis) to travel to Tibet to save the Golden Child (J.L. Reate)—someone believed to be a bringer of compassion that walks among us every thousand generations—from bad guy Sardo Numspa (Charles Dance). Here are some facts about the film on the occasion of its 30th anniversary.

1. IT WAS MEANT TO BE A “RAYMOND CHANDLER WITH SUPERNATURAL ELEMENTS” FILM STARRING MEL GIBSON.

Writer Dennis Feldman (Just One of the Guys) wrote a screenplay called The Rose of Tibet, a “Raymond Chandler movie with supernatural elements.” Feldman later said that what would become The Golden Child (1986) “was intended to be played very straight by Mel Gibson, but Eddie Murphy loved it, and took it.”

2. EDDIE MURPHY CHOSE IT OVER 20 OTHER SCRIPTS.

The red-hot comedian was coming off of 48 Hrs. (1982), Trading Places (1983), and Beverly Hills Cop (1984) when he chose The Golden Child over approximately 20 other projects in development at Paramount specifically for him.

3. JOHN CARPENTER TURNED DOWN THE CHANCE TO DIRECT IT

Though John Carpenter was offered the chance to direct The Golden Child, he preferred the somewhat similar script for Big Trouble in Little China (1986), starring Kurt Russell. “The films have a similar theme in that they both explore Chinese legend and magic, but they develop in different ways,” Carpenter said. “Golden Child is a very fine script. It has its problems, but it also has one big plus—Eddie Murphy. It will be hard to pull off that script. But if they do, it could be a wonderful movie!”

4. CARPENTER RUSHED TO BEAT THE GOLDEN CHILD INTO THEATERS.

In order to beat The Golden Child into theaters, Carpenter limited his prep period on Big Trouble in Little China to 12 weeks to make sure his movie came out in July 1986, five months before Murphy’s movie. “If Big Trouble were released at the same time as Golden Child, we would be killed at the box office because audiences love Eddie Murphy,” Carpenter said. Opening on the 4th of July, Carpenter’s film made $11.1 million, while Murphy’s made over $79.8 million.

5. MURPHY MET WITH GEORGE MILLER ABOUT DIRECTING IT.

While Murphy was an “avowed fan” and met George Miller at least twice about directing The Golden Child, the actor decided to go in a different direction. Michael Ritchie (The Bad News Bears, Fletch) ended up with the gig.

6. THE GOLDEN CHILD WAS A 6-YEAR-OLD GIRL WITH A SHAVED HEAD.

The titular character was a Tibetan boy, but 6-year-old Jasmine Reate got the job. She had her head shaved and was credited as “J.L. Reate” to hide her true gender.

7. A WORLDWIDE SEARCH WAS HELD TO CAST KEE NANG.

There was a “global effort” focusing on London, Bombay, Hong Kong, and United States talent. Out of 500 applicants, producers and Murphy’s manager ultimately went with teenage model Charlotte Lewis, who had only ever appeared in one film—Roman Polanski’s Pirates (1986), which came out six months before The Golden Child.

8. YELLOW DRAGON WAS PLAYED BY KIRK DOUGLAS’S SON.

The Golden Child was one of nine movies featuring Eric Douglas. The actor and stand-up comedian passed away in 2004.

9. THE ACTORS WEREN’T IN NEPAL.

A second unit team did film in Nepal, but most of the movie was shot on Paramount’s soundstages in Los Angeles. The Himalayas were recreated at the Mammoth Mountain ski area in Mammoth Lakes, California.

10. THEY UTILIZED NEW SPECIAL EFFECTS TECHNIQUES THAT WERE DEVELOPED FOR WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT.

“The Tondreau system,” developed by Bill Tondreau, was described by American Cinematographer as “a live-action motion-control system which enables any camera move to be recorded on floppy disc; where the information is stored for playback later at the (George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic) facility, and can be repeated exactly ad infinitum.” Ken Ralston, the visual effects supervisor, said the tests for Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) went so well that they decided to use it on The Golden Child first.

“It was like initiation by fire,” Ralston said. “We were still doing our tests up here while we were shooting our plates down there in L.A., and it was a race to get everything set. We had our fingers crossed all the time, but we pushed the system as far as we could.”

The Los Angeles Times reported that the special effects were not completed until a few days before the film opened. One scene the ILM crew had “fun” with was the Pepsi can dancing to “Putting on the Ritz.”

11. THEY ADDED SCENES IN POST-PRODUCTION TO MAKE IT FUNNIER.

Post-production on The Golden Child was extended due to several last-minute tweaks to the film, including attempts to give it more of the humor that audiences had come to expect from an Eddie Murphy film. Producer Robert D. Wachs told the Los Angeles Times that a handful of short scenes were added, noting that “Some of the jokes just needed buttons.”

12. THE MUSICAL SCORE WAS SWITCHED AT THE LAST MINUTE.

Also adding to the film’s long post-production period: The film’s entire score was replaced at the last minute. Originally, Oscar-winning composer John Barry (Out of Africa, Dances With Wolves) was hired to score the film, but the reaction to it was not favorable. According to Wachs, Barry’s score “was magnificent but the research told us it did not move the picture along.” So Michel Colombier was brought in to create something more contemporary.

13. CHARLES DANCE WAS DISMISSIVE OF THE FILM.

Charles Dance—who played Sardo Numspa in The Golden Child, but is perhaps best known today as Tywin Lannister on Game of Thrones—said he enjoyed improvising and acting with Murphy, but admitted that he didn’t think much of The Golden Child. “It wasn’t a great intellectual exercise, but it was great fun,” Dance told the Los Angeles Times.

14. THE WRITER CALLED THE FILM “A NIGHTMARE.”

Screenwriter David Feldman didn’t think Michael Ritchie did a great job with the film. “You had to get in there and make this action/adventure/detective film, but instead, everybody wanted to make an Eddie Murphy comedy,” Feldman opined. “I think that wasn’t what Eddie should have done, and it’s not what the director should have done—and he didn’t even do it that well, either. It was a nightmare.”

It’s that time of year again, when gingerbread artisans put the rest of us to holiday-themed shame. Redditor ejustice, who has in previous years created nerdtastic cookie “houses” of spaceships like the Millennium Falcon, decided to attempt new heights (and puns) for his 2016 take on the annual spiced dessert creation.

The Starship Gingerprise, spotted by io9, is a dessert architecture take on the USS Enterprise from Star Trek. But it isn’t just a recreation of a beloved sci-fi ship—it’s the nod to the spacecraft’s penchant for regularly crashing into planets. The mostly edible gingerbread version of the Starfleet ship is depicted as crash-landing through cotton clouds that are made of an inedible crafting product called Buffalo Snow.

Here’s the full image:

It’s a worthy addition to National Gingerbread House Day (December 12), even if it’s not technically a house.

[h/t io9]

Skype users with contacts around the globe can use Skype Translator to interpret nine spoken languages in real time, and more than 50 languages while instant messaging. Introduced in 2014, the feature only worked with Skype-to-Skype calls—but now, The Verge reports, the app is expanding the feature to calls made to landlines and mobile phones.

Want to try it for yourself? The feature is still in development, so callers will need to download the Skype app’s latest beta version. You’ll also need to register for Microsoft’s Windows Insider Program (which lets people with a Windows 10 license sign up to access early builds of the operating system) and purchase some Skype credits.

Once everything’s all set, you pull up the Skype dialer, hit the “Translate” switch, choose the languages you plan to speak in, and make your call. The recipient will hear a brief message informing them that the conversation will be recorded and translated, and the rest of the phone exchange will be interspersed with brief pauses as Skype deciphers various phrases.

At the moment, Skype Translator supports English, Spanish, Italian, French, German, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, and Arabic. And as with all automated translation services, it’s not foolproof; so if you’re planning on holding any cross-cultural conversations, you may want to play it safe by speaking slowly and having a foreign language dictionary on hand.

[h/t The Verge]

Shattered pots and other artifacts have much to teach us about vanished civilizations, but, sometimes, it’s what’s inside that counts. Researchers have identified molecular traces of diseased human organs inside clay pots from the Iron Age. They describe their discovery in a forthcoming issue of The Journal of Archaeological Science.

The settlement at Heuneburg in modern-day Germany was part of one of the earliest cities ever built among the Alps. At the height of its success during the 6th century BCE, Heuneburg was home to more than 5000 people. Those people left behind stone walls and mud-brick buildings, fields and burial mounds.

Nestled within one of those burial mounds were six ceramic jars. By the time archaeologists reached them, the jars were smashed, and their contents had decomposed beyond recognition—at least to the naked eye.

A team of three archaeologists and one biochemist found a way to reconstruct what was once there. They took teeny samples from each pot, ground them up, and washed them in a chemical solution to collect any proteins that might remain. They then compared the 166 different compounds they’d found with a large protein database, looking for matches.

What they found was surprising, to say the least. Some of the proteins came from human blood. Others were from human organ tissue. Still others belonged to a virus called Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF). This tick-borne disease starts with a sudden fever and headache, progresses to vomiting and nosebleeds, and can end in uncontrolled bleeding and death. It still kills people today across a wide region stretching from western Asia through southern Africa.

The presence of organ and blood proteins inside the jars suggests that the people of Heuneburg cared lovingly for their dead, interring each organ in its own fine receptacle.

The researchers aren’t sure what the virus’s appearance in Heuneburg might mean; we’ve never found hemorrhagic fever on ancient artifacts before.

Lead author Conner Wiktorowicz, of Purdue University, says his team’s methods and findings open new portals into the world of the dead.

“What have archaeologists been missing regarding social practices and the use of pottery vessels in the past?” he said in Science magazine. “I can’t imagine all of the exciting new findings other researchers will make.”

‘Tis the season for massive spending. Americans plan to shell out and average of nearly $600 on gifts for others this year, according to the National Retail Federation. That includes $460 for family, $76 for friends, and $24 for coworkers (sorry, coworkers). But even if you’ve got an extra 600 bucks in your budget, presents make up just one part of holiday spending. According to a Time survey, 43 percent of people reported that travel was actually their top expense this year, and another 10 percent said entertaining expenses trumped gift-giving.

Those stats are enough to make anyone sweat. But if you’re committed to getting through the season while sticking to your budget, the splurge-fest can induce panic. First things first: Take a deep breath. “The holidays can be an especially stressful time of year, but having a plan and the right expectations can go a long way,” says Catherine Derus, CFP, financial planner and founder of Brightwater Financial. Then, check out these expert-backed steps:

1. MAKE A LIST (AND CHECK IT TWICE)

No question, stretching your gift-giving budget across every recipient on your list only works if you actually have a complete list. (And all of those small gifts that you usually forget to budget for, like the $10 Secret Santa at work or the $20 gift card for the mail carrier, can quickly add up.) Odds are, you have a few new names to shop for this year—maybe your college BFF had a baby or you’ve gotten close with a new neighbor. Mapping out your list in advance makes it easy to keep an eye out for the right sales, and it can spare you from last-minute shopping sprees that can quickly tank your budget.

2. BATCH AND BUNDLE

December 23^rd is not the time to suggest a gift swap, but if you bring up the topic now you might be surprised at how relieved people are. “You’re definitely not the only one facing a long gift list—and shopping can be stressful even if people aren’t on a budget,” says Derus.

If talking money makes you feel like a Scrooge, focus on the time aspect—that you’re overwhelmed shopping for all 18 cousins or 12 sorority sisters and you think swapping names would let everyone focus on finding one great gift.

3. BRAINSTORM BEYOND THE RIBBONS AND BOWS

Be real: How many scented candles or funny mugs does one person need? “Maybe instead of buying another trinket that doesn’t mean much, you suggest doing a shared activity instead,” says Derus. Even with skate rentals and ample hot chocolate, an evening of ice skating with friends can be cheaper than everyone swapping $15 presents. And those shared memories can mean more, too: University of Pennsylvania researchers found that experiential gifts forge a stronger connection between the gift-giver and receiver than material presents.

4. DIY

“The more expensive a gift is does not mean more joy—period,” says Vid Ponnapalli, CFP, financial planner and founder of Unique Financial Advisors. “The joy comes from thinking about them and what they like, and finding something that shows you know their taste.”

That can mean splurging on a Le Creuset baking set for your sister who’s obsessed with sweets—or reining things in and opting for a homemade jar of vanilla sugar and one of your grandma’s treasured cookie recipes. You don’t have to be super crafty to go DIY, either. Maybe it’s offering to design a site for your friend who’s launching a business or gifting your pal who’s a new parent five date nights’ worth of baby-sitting.

5. PUSH BACK TRAVEL

You might be able to save a few bucks by booking odd flights during December (like flying out Christmas afternoon or embracing the 5 a.m. departure). But the absolute best way to save on holiday travel is to wait until the holidays are over, says Ponnapalli. “For the past 10 years, I’ve planned a vacation in January, when you can save so much on airfare, hotels, and car rentals,” he says. “I almost cut my ski vacation cost in half by timing it right.”

Booking something later in the winter doesn’t just mean less strain on your wallet—it can mean battling fewer crowds and less stress while you’re at your destination. And while it may feel awkward to put off traveling to see family until after the New Year, a quiet holiday at home can quickly become a new tradition, says Derus. “You’ll have a little more time to save and get your post-holiday finances in order, so you can enjoy the trip more,” she says.