How happy are clams?

How happy are clams?

Seriously, why do people say "happy as a clam"? Last night (as I write this) I was visiting my parents. My Mother said that their cat was rolling around on the driveway, happy as a clam. I asked, "How happy can a clam be? It's a shell full of snot." None of us knew the full meaning of the phrase; hence, this post.

Some people say, incorrectly, that clams must be happy because they appear to be smiling. I say to those people that if you flip it upside down, the clam is frowning.

This is one of the few sayings that cannot be traced back to Billie Shakespeare. There are two versions of this saying, "Happy as a clam," and "Happy as a clam at high tide." At high tide, a clam would be very happy as it would be safe from terrestrial and avian predators.

The earliest, written reference to the phrase that I could find comes from the 1833 book The Harpe's Head - A Legend of Kentucky.

"It never occurred to him to be discontented... He was as happy as a clam."

In 1840, John Saxe used the phrase in his "Sonnet to a Clam."

    "Inglorious friend! most confident I am
     Thy life is one of very little ease;
     Albeit men mock thee with their similes,
     And prate of being 'happy as a clam!'"

The following was published in the Bangor Daily Whig And Courier from 1841:

"Your correspondent has given an interesting, and, undoubtedly correct explanation of the expression:  'As happy as a clam at high water.' His pursuits must be anything but Clam-berous, if we may judge from his knowledge of the nature and habit of this interesting little fish."

   
The expression made it into Dictionary Of Americanisms - A Glossary of Words And Phrases Usually Regarded As Peculiar To The United States, 1848 edition:

"As happy as a clam at high water," is a very common expression in those parts of the coast of New England where clams are found.

Also in 1848, the Southern Literary Messenger from Richmond, Virginia expressed the opinion that the phrase "is familiar to everyone".

And finally, the image, above, is of the Walrus and the Carpenter and they are talking to oysters. I know this. I also know that oysters are never happy. But I like the image.

New Scribal Case

New Scribal Case

I picked up a new tool box for my scribal stuff. $15 at Harbor Freight. It not only holds more than the box I was using, but it came with locking, plastic trays. Now all of my gear can be organized for easier access. Two trays hold all of my brushes, pens, pencils and other tools. One tray holds all of my good paint and the last tray holds the paint that I don't use very often... i.e.: not so good paint. And, the top bin is as large as the box that I was using.

A great bargain for $15.  Now I don't have to hunt through layers of paint tubes looking for the one that I need; I can pull one tray out, quickly find what I need, and put the tray back to keep my work area neat.

Tutankhamun's Folding Camp Bed

Nothing new is original.

3,300 years ago, King Tutankhamun died and was entombed in what can be called one of the most important discoveries of the 20th century. A crypt filled with ancient artifacts that are still beyond imagination. "Tut" was sent to his afterlife with so many items that they are still being studied and examined to this day.

This week, the web site LiveScience reported that researchers at Musashino University in Tokyo released information about a folding camp bed, the only one known to have survived to modern day. Made of a wooden frame, bronze hinges, copper-alloy support drums and a linen mat, this bed would not look out of place at Pennsic, today.

However, given the elaborate shape of the legs, folding up the bed was tricky. To solve the problem, the ancient artisans devised some ingenious hinges and placed them over the four auxiliary legs.
"In this way, the legs took the strain off the hinges," when the bed was in use, Nishimoto said.
The complex folding system required two different types of hinges: Single hinges with stoppers were used on the middle and end pairs of legs near the footboard, while a system of double hinges was designed for the foremost pair of the auxiliary legs.
"The double-hinged legs could be turned inwards simultaneously when the bed was folded," Nishimoto said.

The strange thing about this bed is how normal it is: no gold, no engravings, no paint. And the feet look very crude for something to be used for a Pharaoh.

It could be that the bed wasn't finished by the time the tomb was to be sealed. But, why was it made for a dead man? Tut was entombed with a number of gilded beds and certainly didn't need a folding camp bed.

There is a theory that Tut's tomb, and the items stuffed into it,  weren't intended for Tut. Tutankhamun either died unexpectedly (due to malaria, Kohler disease, an infection or complications due to a chariot accident) or expectedly (through assassination). In any case, the theory goes, Tut's Grand Vizier Ay, who seceded Tut as Pharaoh Kheperkheperure, "donated" his tomb and burial offering to Tutankhamun, with the intention of completing  Tut's grand tomb for himself.

This kind of makes sense. As grand and magnificent as the burial items are, they are kind of random and were stacked haphazardly into a relatively small space. Many of the items don't appear to be of the quality intended for a pharaoh. Even his famous death mask appears to have been originally intended for his mother, Nefertiti. (The beard was added as an afterthought, the ears are depicted as pierced, and Tutankhamun's name is inscribed over Nefertiti's). The camp bed might have been originally made for Ay, but then stuffed into Tut's tomb with the intention that if the now King Ay needed a bed for when he traveled, he would have a magnificent traveling bed made for himself.

The question as to whether the camp bed was made for Tutankhamun or for Ay will be debated for years. But we can certainly enjoy the ingenuity of whomever designed and built the bed. I wish that my wood working skills were better; I would love to see a copy of this bed built.

It's done.

Sometimes one just has to bite the bullet.

Never again will I do knotwork.... Until I forget how much I hate the style and start working on another image.

Look. Sometimes you either have to just finish the damned scroll or tear it up and throw it away. This scroll had been sitting, half complete, since January. I just finished it off, this evening, just to get it out of the way. I will admit that if it irritated me any further I would have thrown it away.

It's paper and time.

Paper is cheap and I have enough free time that I could have justified setting fire to this half-finished scroll. This scroll wasn't for an assignment: I would have lost nothing had I not finished it. Other than $1.80 for the sheet of paper and a few pennies for the paint that I used.

There comes a time when you have balance your hatred for a particular scroll against the satisfaction of  finishing the damned thing. If the paint had been one iota more persnickety I would have ditched it. But, once I had put down the red and the green, I liked the way that it looked. And, thus, I finished it up.

It's not the best thing I've done this year, but I am happy that I finished it. It will make a nice tourney scroll.