“Founded in part by Eric Carle, the renowned author and illustrator of more than 70 books, including the 1969 classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art is the first full-scale museum in this country devoted to national and international picture book art, conceived and built with the aim of celebrating the art that we are first exposed to as children. Through the exploration of images that are familiar and beloved, it is the Museum’s goal to foster connections between visual and verbal literacy and to provide visitors of all ages and backgrounds with the confidence to appreciate and enjoy art of every kind.” The website isn’t that impressive (IMHO, they ought to have some digitized selections from their collection) but the museum, which we visited this weekend, is wonderful.

The current exhibit, through mid-January 2004, explores Russian children’s book illustration from 1899 to 1939. I am not a big fan of Soviet political realism; for example, I shuddered at one political poster that said something along the lines of “Down with the traditional mythological and folkloric themes of children’s literature. Give us new children’s books!” Russian folklore is richly dense and allegorical and the pre-Soviet children’s story illustrations are fittingly beautiful accompaniments, baroque and fanciful, often Art Nouveau-flavored. They make a striking contrast to the primary colors and graphic reductionism of much modern American children’s book illustration like Carle’s (although I enjoy his innovative tissue paper collage technique), and leave me curious about the impact the genres have on the minds of the children raised under each.

Kevin Kelly’s obsession continues: “Here are my recommendations for cool tools. I include books, gadgets, software, videos, maps, hardware, materials, websites or gear that are extraordinary, little-known, or reliably handy for an individual or small group. I depend on friends and readers to suggest things they actually use. Particularly welcomed are old items that you still dote on after years of use. I only post things I like and I ignore the rest. ” And here is a Wired interview with Kelly.

And this year’s winner is: “Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s curious statement at a press briefing was named on Monday as the year’s most baffling comment by a public figure.

“Reports that say something hasn’t happened are interesting to me, because as we know, there are known unknowns; there things we know we know,” Rumsfeld told the briefing.

“We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

… Rumsfeld, whose boss President Bush is often singled out by language critics for his sometimes unusual use of English, took the booby prize ahead of a bizarre effort from actor-turned politician Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman,” was the odd statement from the new California Governor. ” —Yahoo!

“Looming competitive and regulatory pressures factored into Microsoft’s recent decision to reveal formerly secret pieces of its latest Office software, according to analysts.

Microsoft announced that starting Dec. 5, customers and partners will be able to view the unique Extensible Markup Language (XML) dialects, or ‘schemas,’ used by three of the most common Office applications: Word, Excel and InfoPath.

Microsoft has made extensive XML support one of the key selling points for Office 2003, with the widely adopted standard promising more fluid exchange of data between Office documents and enterprise computing systems.

The software giant attracted growing criticism for its refusal to reveal the XML schemas Office would use. Without access to the schemas, customers were ensured only of basic data interchange, without access to sophisticated formatting and organizational information included in Office documents.” —CNET

Reflections on the iPod’s ‘aura’ on its second birthday: “What I had been hoping to do was catch a glimpse of what’s there when you pull back all those layers — when you penetrate the aura, strip off the surface, clear away the guts. What’s under there is innovation, but where does it come from? I had given up on getting an answer to this question when I made a jokey observation that before long somebody would probably start making white headphones so that people carrying knockoffs and tape players could fool the world into thinking they had trendy iPods.

Jobs shook his head. ”But then you meet the girl, and she says, ‘Let me see what’s on your iPod.’ You pull out a tape player, and she walks away.”” —New York Times Magazine