In the Annals of "If We'd Only Thought It Through"

Nipper the Dog, that sweet little white pooch staring into the trumpet of a Gramophone? Totally a real dog. A mutt which liked to, um, nip at people's ankles. His owner, painter Francis Barraud, who had inherited the dog from his brother, was a forward looking guy who owned an Edison cylinder player and, when he realized that the dog loved to listen to it, painted Nipper in position: head tilted, staring into the trumpet intently. Since Barraud believed the dog was listening in hopes of hearing his original master's voice, he titled the painting "His Master's Voice."

Later, Barraud tried to sell the painting to the Edison folks for promotion.

They passed.

He took it to the English Gramophone Company, who asked him to make some changes (like, replace the patented Edison cylinder with disk recording media) and bought the painting and right of copy for a hundred pounds. And it wound up (through various twists and turns of fate) as the logo of RCA Victor, one of the 20th century's most recognizable logos.

The original "His Master's Voice" painting is now displayed at EMI Music's Gloucester Place headquarters. When viewed in the proper light, the original cylinder player can still be seen underneath the second layer of paint.

That Was Interesting

Because my father is 95.5 and counting, he is participating in a Long Life Longitudinal Study run out of Massachusetts General Hospital. Because he's my father and I therefore have some of his genes, they asked me to participate likewise (my brother, as well as his two surviving sibs, are likewise participants). Because the Spouse is, um, the Spouse, they asked him to participate too (probably they're going to glom on to the young at some point too, in the future). So: we'd done the phone history interview some months ago, but today, two extremely chipper young women from the Study showed up to do the physical parameters part of the program. Nothing horrifying: multiple blood pressures (mine's 94/60. As always, low) from the right arm, the left arm, and both ankles--to see if they could catch any peripheral artery disease lurking, of which it appears there was none; mobility tests (all couched in terms of "if you feel it is safe to do so, please...") like, stand with your feet together for ten seconds, stand with one foot in front of the other, stand up from a seated position five times fast; height, weight and other measurements; and respiratory tests.

The good news: my blood pressure is (still) low. No sign of PAD, no sign of any other problems, and my lung capacity and pulmonary function are actually better than they were when we lived in NY and I was going through physical therapy to improve it, so apparently that worked.

The bad news: I've shrunk. It's not just my imagination: my floor-to-knee measurement (which doesn't decrease, whatever your spine does to smush down and compact) and my arm span both belong to the woman who used to be 5'5 1/2"; I, however, am now 5'4."

I always wanted to be tall. I think this proves pretty conclusively that that's never going to happen.

The nice women had all manner of cool equipment that they talked about, so it was an educational afternoon, as well as enlightening.