Big Apple Whore Hoax (update); Oxford Food Book; Panda (OED?)

Sat Aug 28 02:14:36 UTC 2004

Just finished with parking tickets for the week. I've got tomorrow (Saturday) 
to solve the "Republican elephant" and "Democratic donkey" thing, first 
posted here back in 1996.

TIRED TYPO: "Ass" in my last "Catalina salad" post should have been "add." I 
was tired and typed the wrong key.

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BIG APPLE WHORE HOAX (UPDATE)

A new "BigApple Fest" article has appeared today. It appears to be almost a 
word-for-word reprint of the horrendous "What would Madam Eve think?" Simon 
Houpt article in the Toronto Globe and Mail.

When I got home today, there was a phone message. Believe it or not, it was 
Simon Haupt of the Toronto Globe and Mail!

(GOOGLE NEWS)
300 Apples Invade New York City
IBLNEWS, Spain - 11 hours ago
... of "Big Apple" sculptures, decorated by local and international artists, 
will grow in New York City this summer as part of the Big Apple Fest, a public 
art ... 

http://iblnews.com/news/noticia.php3?id=114234
300 Apples Invade New York City     

Hundreds of "Big Apple" sculptures, decorated by local and international 
artists, have ripined in New York City this summer as part of the Big Apple Fest, 
a public art initiative to promote the city and benefit charities.

Viernes, 27 agosto 2004
EENY / AMIGOT NEWS  
The Big Apple Fest, running through October 15, is putting a special glow on 
the Big Apple. Some 300 apples are on display for two months at buildings and 
plazas such as Rockefeller Center, South Street Seaport and Madison Square 
Garden, where the GOP National Convention will be held in late August, organizers 
said.

The outer boroughs have apples at central locations such as the Staten Island 
ferry terminal and Brooklyn Borough Hall.

"Big Apple Fest is a great way to bring artists, corporate and civic leaders, 
and families together to build community pride. Beautiful apples sponsored by 
civic groups and corporations will decorate the city and the Police Athletic 
League and City Harvest will share in the proceeds," said NYC & Company 
President and CEO Cristyne L. Nicholas.

The oversized apples are four feet tall and four feet in diameter. They are 
cast from acrylic, allowing artists to create three-dimensional works inside or 
decorate the exterior. Artists will submit designs for the Big Apples by 
March. Designs will be reviewed by an artistic committee and presented to sponsors 
for consideration. Some sponsors are directly commissioning designs from 
particular artists.

Businesses and organizations paid $8,500 to sponsor an apple which will be 
later sold at auction or $12,500 to sponsor and keep the apple.

With security increasing because of the recent terror threats and the 
impending Republican National Convention, the Big Apple Fest is taking precautions. A 
spokesman said that, at each site, existing security arrangements will be 
extended to cover the apples. For example, two apples are headed for 23 Wall St., 
across the street from the New York Stock Exchange. Working with the police 
and the NYSE, the fest has come up with a detailed installation process 
including the use of bomb-sniffing dogs. The apples are under 24-hour surveillance to 
prevent tampering.

After two months on the streets, they'll move to Sotheby's, where a November 
auction will raise money for City Harvest, the Police Athletic League and the 
NYC & Company Foundation.

Why is New York called the Big Apple?

What exactly is the root of New York's tag as the Big Apple? And could it 
have anything to do with the approbation, 'How about them apples?' "

Jazz aficionados point to the use of the phrase 'the big apple' by black 
musicians, to refer to New York gigs in the 1930s. Horse-racing fans can go back a 
couple of decades earlier, when a reporter for the Morning Telegraph heard 
the phrase around the tracks.

But the explanation that precedes them all goes back to the early 19th 
century, possibly 1803 or 1804, when a certain Mlle. Evelyn Claudine de 
Saint-Evremond established a salon on the Lower East Side -- then a well-regarded 
residential neighbourhood -- for discerning gentlemen.

The anglicized version of her name was Eve, and she apparently boasted of her 
"apples," her many girls on hand, that tempted men from afar. It is said that 
Eve and her apples helped New York earn the dubious distinction of being the 
American city with the highest per-capita concentration of houses of ill 
repute.

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OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FOOD AND DRINK IN AMERICA (UPDATE)

I should have contributed more to it, but here is the status of it, in a 
message received today from general editor Andrew F. Smith:

Good news. The encyclopedia will go to print on September 24 and should be 
available in bookstores by mid-October -- just in time for the holiday season. 
It has a thousand pages with a million words organized in more than 800 entries 
written by 206 authors. 
(...)
OUP is spending a great deal of time and money on promotion. Press packets 
will be sent out the week of September 7. If you have close connections with 
anyone in the press or media (or editors of culinary newsletters) and wish a 
package sent to them, please send their names and addresses to Don Myers at 
donald.myers at oup.com

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PANDA

Jen Chung (http://www.gothamist.com/jenchung.php), the beautiful and talented 
editor of Gothamist.com who really should come with me to Bhutan, has a thing 
for pandas.

Jesse, what does the revised OED have for "panda"?

The "Making of America" database has some 19th century hits. I haven't yet 
checked Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO). 

I can see that this is going to be an elephant-donkey-panda kind of weekend.

(OED)
PANDA
[Said to be one of the names in Nepal.]     
1. A racoon-like animal (Ælurus fulgens) of the south-eastern Himalayas, 
about the size of a large cat, having reddish-brown fur and a long bushy 
ring-marked tail; the red bear-cat. 

  [1824 F. CUVIER Hist. des Mammifères livrais. 50 Panda.] 1835 SWAINSON Nat. 
Hist. Quadrupeds 107 The panda..has been discovered only of late years, in 
the mountains of India. It has been termed the most beautiful of all known 
quadrupeds. 1861 J. G. WOOD Nat. Hist. I. 420 This beautiful creature is a native 
of Nepal, where it is known under the different names of Panda, Chitwa, and 
Wah. 1901 C. J. CORNISH Living Anim. 126 The bear Cat or Panda.

    2. a. A large, black and white, bear-like mammal, Ailuropoda melanoleuca, 
native to limited, mountainous areas of forest in China, where the first 
scientific description of it was made by the French missionary, Armand David 
(1826-1900), in 1869; formerly known as the parti-coloured bear, until its 
zoological relationship to the red panda was established in 1901. 

  1901 E. R. LANKESTER in Trans. Linn. Soc. (Zool.) VIII. 165 Æluropus must 
be removed from association with the Bears..and is no longer to be spoken of as 
‘the Parti-coloured Bear’, but as ‘the Great Panda’. 1928 Proc. Zool. Soc. 
975 The systematic position of the Giant Panda..is a question about which 
there has been much disagreement amongst zoologists. 1933 Discovery Mar. 91/1 In 
outward appearance there is considerable difference between these two animals, 
the giant panda..being very bear-like, while the little panda is about the 
size and somewhat the shape of a cat. 1939 Daily Mail 12 Apr. 8/4 This sickly 
sentimental panda plague has infected far more people than can ever hope to eye 
it in the flesh... Would-be fashionable young women are carrying panda mascots. 
1940 N. MITFORD Pigeon Pie ix. 140 Ming, the panda, would soon eat no food 
until one of them was played to her. 1943 Jrnl. Mammalogy XXIV. 267 The New York 
Zoological Society has recently acquired a pair of giant pandas... The 
principal natural diet of the panda is bamboo. 1966 R. & D. MORRIS Men & Pandas vi. 
105 There were panda postcards.., panda toys (almost obliterating the teddy 
bear for a brief period), panda novelties, panda strip-cartoons, panda brooches, 
and panda hats. 1973 Times 2 May 9/8 Children [in Peking] played a multitude 
of games including ‘feed the panda’, a variation on ‘pin the tail on the 
donkey’. 1976 Times Lit. Suppl. 27 Feb. 231/5 It is rumoured that China has sited 
her nuclear testing grounds not far away from Panda country.

    b. Used attrib. to designate a type of pedestrian crossing (see quot. 
19621). Also absol. 

  1962 Daily Tel. 7 Mar. 15/7 ‘Panda’ pedestrian crossings are to be 
introduced..to supplement zebra crossings. Their warning lights will be operated by 
push-buttons and they will be given a 12-month trial. Ibid., Differences in 
appearance between the ‘Pandas’ and the zebras are that the black-and-white 
carriageway markings at the ‘Pandas’ will be altered in shape from rectangles to 
blunted chevrons. 1962 Times 3 Apr. 12/6 Panda crossings, introduced 
yesterday, held up Croydon's evening traffic. 1963 Times 24 May 17/4 The amber lights 
system used on panda crossings was so complex and ambiguous that the ordinary 
driver could not understand it. 1965 A. CHRISTIE At Bertram's Hotel xi. 106 On 
the whole, the Canon was not what we would call accident prone... Whilst 
taking no care or thought, they could still survive even a Panda crossing.

    c. A police patrol car, so named from the resemblance of a broad white 
stripe on the car to the markings of the giant panda. Also attrib. colloq. 

  1966 Guardian 13 Sept. 8/4 Special one-man patrol carspainted blue with a 
broad white stripe and known as ‘Pandas’. 1969 J. WAINWRIGHT Take-Over Men i. 
13 What about your Panda Patrols? Your closed-circuit television? 1970 Times 
17 Mar. 2 Five children, who..helped catch two thieves, are to be given a ride 
in a police panda car. 1971 Daily Tel. 10 May 2/2 It was felt that panda 
drivers should be warned that the vehicles were not meant to be pursuit cars. 1974 ‘
A. GILBERT’ Nice Little Killing vi. 82 He got out his old second-hand carthe 
village bobby didn't rate a panda.

(MAKING OF AMERICA--MICHIGAN)
Author: Redfield, Anna Maria (Treadwell) Mrs. 1800-1888.
Title: Zoèological science; or, Nature in living forms ... Adapted to 
elucidate the chart of the animal kingdom, by A. M. Redfield, and designed for the 
higher seminaries, common schools, libraries, and the family circle ...
Publication date: 1858.
Collection: Making of America Books
Search results: 1 matching page in 712 pages
Page 89  - 7 terms matching "panda", "bear*" 
_Ailurus Fulgens_, (Lat. shining,) the PANDA, or WAH,--is found in the 
Himalaya chain of mountains, between Nepaul and the Snowy mountains, Cuvier declared 
this to be one of the most beautiful of quadrupeds, and included it in the 
Bear tribe.

Author: Richardson, John, Sir, 1787-1865.
Title: The museum of natural history; being a popular account of the 
structure, habits, and classification of the various departments of the animal kingdom 
: fishes.
Publication date: 1862
Collection: Making of America Books
Search results: 2 matching pages in 730 pages
Page 77  - 5 terms matching "panda", "bear*" 
Page 221  - 11 terms matching "panda", "bear*"  