|
Clarence Schmidt
Clarence Schmidt (September 11, 1897 in Queens, New York – November 9, 1978 in Woodstock, New York) was an “outsider artist” and a pioneer of monumental environmental sculpture. His ongoing life's work, the “Miracle on the Mountain,” was constructed of found objects and recycled materials between the years 1940-1972, which evolved on the back slope of Ohayo Mountain, in Woodstock NY. Biography Clarence Schmidt attended high school in Astoria Queens, NY, before dropping out to work alongside his father as a mason and plasterer. One account mentions him building sets for silent films — a potent metaphor for what was to come. In 1920 Schmidt inherited five acres of land off Ohayo Mountain, near Woodstock NY; around 1928 he convinced his wife Grace to summer with him there. The couple alternated living in NYC and Woodstock through the 1920s and '30s, and finally settled in Woodstock in the late 1930s when Schmidt finished his first house there, built in a “Swiss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Queens, New York
Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn and by Nassau County, New York, Nassau County to its east, and shares maritime borders with the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island, as well as with New Jersey. Queens is one of the most linguistics, linguistically and ethnically diverse places in the world. With a population of 2,405,464 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Queens is the second-most populous county in New York state, behind Kings County (Brooklyn), and is therefore also the second-most populous of the five New York City boroughs. If Queens were its own city, it would be the List of United States cities by population, fourth most-populous in the U.S. after the rest of New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Queens is the fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Woodstock, New York
Woodstock is a Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town in Ulster County, New York, United States, in the northern part of the county, northwest of Kingston, New York, Kingston. It lies within the borders of the Catskill Park. The population was 6,287 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, up from 5,884 in 2010. History The first non-indigenous settler arrived around 1770, and the town of Woodstock was established in 1787. Later, territory from Woodstock was contributed to form the towns of Middletown, Delaware County, New York, Middletown (1789), Windham, New York, Windham (1798), Shandaken, New York, Shandaken (1804), and Olive, New York, Olive (1853). Woodstock played host to numerous Hudson River School painters during the late 1800s. The Arts and Crafts Movement came to Woodstock in 1902, with the arrival of Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead, Bolton Brown and Hervey White, who formed the Byrdcliffe Colony. In 1906, L. Birge Harrison and others founded the Summer S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saturday Evening Post
''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine published six times a year. It was published weekly from 1897 until 1963, and then every other week until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely circulated and influential magazines among the American middle class, with fiction, non-fiction, cartoons and features that reached two million homes every week. In the 1960s, the magazine's readership began to decline. In 1969, ''The Saturday Evening Post'' folded for two years before being revived as a quarterly publication with an emphasis on medical articles in 1971. As of the late 2000s, ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is published six times a year by the Saturday Evening Post Society, which purchased the magazine in 1982. The magazine was redesigned in 2013. History 19th century ''The Saturday Evening Post'' was first published in 1821 in the same printing shop at 53 Market Street (Philadelphia), Market Street in Philadelphia, where the Benjamin Frankl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eccentricity (behavior)
Eccentricity (also called quirkiness) is an unusual or odd behavior on the part of an individual. This behavior would typically be perceived as unusual or unnecessary, without being demonstrably maladaptive. Eccentricity is contrasted with normal behavior, the nearly universal means by which individuals in society solve given problems and pursue certain priorities in everyday life. People who consistently display benignly eccentric behavior are labeled as "eccentrics". Etymology From Medieval Latin ''eccentricus'', derived from Greek ', "out of the center", from '-, '- "out of" + ', "center". ''Eccentric'' first appeared in English essays as a neologism in 1551, as an astronomical term meaning "a circle in which the earth, sun, etc. deviates from its center." (See Orbital eccentricity.) Five years later, in 1556, an adjective form of the word was used. In 1685, the definition evolved from the literal to the figurative, and ''eccentric'' is noted to have begun being used to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rip Van Winkle
"Rip Van Winkle" () is a short story by the American author Washington Irving, first published in 1819. It follows a Dutch-American villager in Colonial history of the United States, colonial America named Rip Van Winkle who meets mysterious Dutchmen, imbibes their strong liquor and falls deeply asleep in the Catskill Mountains. He awakes 20 years later to a very changed world, having missed the American Revolution. Inspired by a conversation on nostalgia with his American expatriate brother-in-law, Irving wrote the story while temporarily living in Birmingham, England. It was published in his collection, ''The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.'' While the story is set in New York's Catskill Mountains near where Irving later took up residence, he admitted, "When I wrote the story, I had never been on the Catskills." The Mountain Top Historical Society in Haines Falls, New York, has hosted a community reading of the story every year since 2019. The Mountain Top Historical So ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Bunyan
Paul Bunyan is a giant lumberjack and folk hero in American and Canadian folklore. His tall tales revolve around his superhuman labors, and he is customarily accompanied by Babe the Blue Ox, his pet and working animal. The character originated in the oral tradition of North American loggers, and was later popularized by freelance writer William B. Laughead (1882–1958) in a 1916 promotional pamphlet for the Red River Lumber Company. He has been the subject of various literary compositions, musical pieces, commercial works, and theatrical productions. His likeness is displayed in a number of oversized statues across North America. Etymology There are many hypotheses about the etymology of the name ''Paul Bunyan''. Much of the commentary focuses on a French-Canadian origin for the name. Phonetically, Bunyan is similar to the Québécois expression "''bon yenne!''" expressing surprise or astonishment. The English surname Bunyan is derived from the same root as "bunion" in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robin Hood
Robin Hood is a legendary noble outlaw, heroic outlaw originally depicted in English folklore and subsequently featured in literature, theatre, and cinema. According to legend, he was a highly skilled archer and swordsman. In some versions of the legend, he is depicted as being of noble birth, and in modern retellings he is sometimes depicted as having fought in the Crusades before returning to England to find his lands taken by the Sheriff of Nottingham (position), Sheriff. In the oldest known versions, he is instead a member of the yeoman class. He is traditionally depicted dressed in Lincoln green. Today, he is most closely associated with his stance of "redistribution of income and wealth, robbing the rich to give to the poor". There exists no canonical version of the Robin Hood mythos, which has resulted in different creators imbuing their adaptations with different messages over the centuries. Adaptations have often vacillated between a libertarian version of Robin Hood ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baron Munchausen
Baron Munchausen (; ) is a fictional German nobleman created by the German writer Rudolf Erich Raspe in his 1785 book '' Baron Munchausen's Narrative of His Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia''. The character is loosely based on baron Hieronymus Karl Friedrich Freiherr von Münchhausen. Born in Bodenwerder, Hanover, the real-life Münchhausen fought for the Russian Empire during the Russo-Turkish War of 1735–1739. After retiring in 1760, he became a minor celebrity within German aristocratic circles for telling outrageous tall tales based on his military career. After hearing some of Münchhausen's stories, Raspe adapted them anonymously into literary form, first in German as ephemeral magazine pieces and then in English as the 1785 book, which was first published in Oxford by a bookseller named Smith. The book was soon translated into other European languages, including a German version expanded by the poet Gottfried August Bürger. The real-life Münchhausen wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1897 Births
Events January * January 2 – The International Alpha Omicron Pi sorority is founded, in New York City. * January 4 – A British force is ambushed by Chief Ologbosere, son-in-law of the ruler. This leads to a punitive expedition against Benin. * January 7 – A cyclone destroys Darwin, Australia. * January 8 – Lady Flora Shaw, future wife of Governor General Lord Lugard, officially proposes the name "Nigeria" in a newspaper contest, to be given to the British Niger Coast Protectorate. * January 22 – In this date's issue of the journal ''Engineering'', the word ''computer'' is first used to refer to a mechanical calculation device. * January 31 – The Czechoslovak Trade Union Association is founded in Prague. February * February 10 – Freedom of religion is proclaimed in Madagascar. * February 16 – The French conquer the island of Raiatea and capture the rebel chief Teraupo'o, ending the Leeward Islands War and brin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1978 Deaths
Events January * January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213. * January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd government). * January 6 – The Holy Crown of Hungary (also known as Stephen of Hungary Crown) is returned to Hungary from the United States, where it was held since World War II. * January 10 – Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, a critic of the Nicaraguan government, is assassinated; riots erupt against Somoza's government. * January 13 – Former American Vice President Hubert Humphrey, a Democrat, dies of cancer in Waverly, Minnesota, at the age of 66. * January 18 – The European Court of Human Rights finds the British government guilty of mistreating prisoners in Northern Ireland, but not guilty of torture. * January 22 – Ethiopia declares the ambassador of West Germany '' persona non grata''. * January 24 ** Soviet satellite Kosmos 954 burns up in Ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artists From Queens, New York
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, the term is also often used in the entertainment business to refer to actors, musicians, singers, dancers and other performers, in which they are known as ''Artiste'' instead. ''Artiste'' (French) is a variant used in English in this context, but this use has become rare. The use of the term "artist" to describe writers is valid, but less common, and mostly restricted to contexts such as critics' reviews; "author" is generally used instead. Dictionary definitions The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' defines the older, broader meanings of the word "artist": * A learned person or Master of Arts * One who pursues a practical science, traditionally medicine, astrology, alchemy, chemistry * A follower of a pursuit in which skill ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
