Abe Lincoln, cultural icon

I have no explanation for this. I just think it's sort of interesting that Lincoln is the only president you'd see depicted this way.

Update: Except, of course, President Marshall.

Photoshop 1903?

Just added a suspicious pic of TR with his Cabinet in his "executive office" in the old West Wing. How many of these characters do you think were actually in the room with him at the time?

The legend reads

Cortelyou, Knox, Payne, Moody, Hay, Roosevelt, Hichcock, Root, Shaw, Wilson. The President reading his message to the Cabinet before sending it to Congress.

Update: Let me stress that the photo is a genuine 1903 print. I haven't done anything to it myself, and I doubt the Library of Congress did. But clearly the original publisher optically printed in several of the figures.

Chuck and Diane

The visits of Charles and Diana (the Waleses, don't you know) must have been a big deal in the Reagan White House. More photos keep popping up from time to time. The one I've just added is of the second floor dining room set up for a little dinner party.

The one of Diana dancing with John Travolta in the Entrance Hall is famous. There is a nice one of them sitting in the West Sitting Hall. And the State Dining Room has one taken from a high corner, that must have been tricky to rig. Next I suppose we'll see one of them lounging by the pool or perhaps bowling. Better still, we'd see one of Charles reacting to being served a cup of tea with a tea bag in it.

Also just added, the Reagan Green Room.

Lincoln-era memoir

Full text of Elizabeth Keckley's 1868 memoir Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House. There doesn't seem to be much description of the White House itself, but there is an awful lot of this sort of thing:

Mrs. Lincoln was especially severe on Mr. Wm. H. Seward, Secretary of State. She but rarely lost an opportunity to say an unkind word of him.

Welcome, Nick Cage fans

I saw National Treasure: Book of Secrets this past weekend. The titular book is a diary passed from president to president that holds all their deepest secrets. Given the vagaries of politics, that seems unlikely (Carter wouldn't release Nixon's missing 18-minute tape?), but the point of it is that the book contains a photo of a wooden plaque that was formerly concealed in a secret compartment of the Resolute desk—one half of a treasure map that has something to do with the Queen of England. Her Resolute desk (the feminine fraternal twin to our president's) contains the other half. Naturally, Nick Cage must sneak into the Queen's private office and the Oval Office (it looks just like GWB's) to get the information that he needs, only it's not there, and he has to ransack the Library of Congress. Unfortunately for him, the president's secret book is one of the 17 million items I purloined from the Library of Congress a few months ago and the movie ends with him being nonplussed, chagrined, arrested, indicted, arraigned, and other French terms. The End.

Anyway, as a result, "Resolute Desk" is now the top term that brings visitors to the White House Museum. Welcome!

New front page: blueprint

Changed the front page to an elevation of the south face that I made to look like a blueprint to use as wallpaper. I've included regular versions at two size, in case anyone wants to use it as computer wallpaper (altho the term "wallpaper" doesn't make sense with a computer "desktop;" maybe it should be called a "computer blotter paper.")

Happy New Year &c.

Happy New Year. Here is hoping that 2008 is prosperous and full of growth and knowledge.

If you were intrigued by my post on LibriVox, the free audio book site, there is a project going on right now in which numerous people all contribute their reading of the US Bill of Rights. They do this from time to time, everyone recording the same piece; and hearing the different voices is rather fascinating. Check out the Jabberwocky catalog page. Reading the BoR has the added benefit of being educational. I for one learned that the "right to party" was not in the original 10 amendments, so it must be number 12 or 13. And I learned that I can apparently just kick out all these soldiers that have been quartered in my house for a while.