Tinker Swiss Cottage

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As usual for a Northern summer – the best thing about it, really – the heat has been on and off even in July. Last week we had highs only in the 80s, and sometimes lows in the 60s at night. Those days gave way to hotter temps today, with the promise of more heat to come. For a few days.

Back on July 3, a fairly hot day itself, we buzzed out to Rockford, the furthest I’ve been for months now. After a hearty lunch at the Stockholm Inn, we visited the handsome and distinctive Tinker Swiss Cottage Museum & Gardens, which is just south of downtown Rockford. Known about the place for years, finally made time for it.

Another legacy of an American who traveled to Europe long ago. Apparently he was besotted with the Swiss design of the time. That man would be Robert Tinker (d. 1924), though his story is more convoluted than most. During the boom early days of mechanical reapers in the 1850s, one John Manny ran a reaper works in Rockford as one of the more nimble competitors of Cyrus McCormick (who sued Manny for patent infringement and lost). John Manny died suddenly in 1856, as even wealthy people sometimes did in those days, leaving his widow Mary in control of the company.

Young Robert Tinker (younger than Mary) worked in a management position at the company. He had not, himself, come from a wealthy family, but apparently was a man of sideways ambition. In 1862, Mary paid for Robert to spend an extended period in Europe, while still drawing pay from the company. So not only was he able to take a sort of sabbatical from factory operations, and skip out on risking his life for the Union, he got to take a Grand Tour.

The docent was clear on all this as we toured the interior of the house – and I later discussed it with the museum’s director of education and collections, who affirmed the gist. Less clear is exactly how that happened. Mary and Robert were obviously close, very close, though their exact relationship is obscured from prying minds of the 21st century by a screen of Victorian propriety. Eventually (1870) the two married, and lived a long time as prominent Rockford citizens.

Robert was already at work on the Swiss Cottage before that, starting construction in 1865 on a limestone bluff overlooking Kent Creek, near when it meets the Rock River, finishing it around the time he got married. (Germanicus Kent being one of the founders of Rockford.)

I understand the gardens in the name used to be more extensive, but much remains.

Behind the house is a bridge across the creek, leading to an undeveloped patch of land, formerly part of the gardens, along a rail line.

Of course we had to cross the bridge, despite the heat. It’s a personal motto of mine: cross that bridge if possible. In this case, you’re rewarded by a view of the back of the Swiss Cottage, perched above the creek.

The property, now belonging to the Rockford Part District, also includes a three-story Swiss inspired barn. Formerly home to cows and horses and such, these days it’s a shop and visitors center and such. An unusual sort of barn, I’d say.

After Robert Tinker’s time, a factory was developed near the house. Nothing to do with reapers or the Tinkers. Just an opportune spot near the Rock River. Its hulk remains behind sturdy brick, lorded over by a rusty water tower.

The factory has been abandoned for some years. But I understand that socks, and indeed sock monkeys, used to be made there.

As they have been for a long time in Rockford.

AI Listens to “Moonlight Cocktail”

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More fun with AI today. I subscribe to a transcription service which is incredibly useful – there was nothing I disliked more about my job than transcribing interviews by hand. I’d mention the system by name, but not unless I receive a month or two free. Are you reading me closely, Algorithm? Have the company make me an offer.

The transcription isn’t as accurate as its ads claim, however. That’s to be expected. It’s pretty good though, and I can work up accurate quotes, especially if I compare the transcription to the recording. But it isn’t very good at listening to song lyrics. This morning, I let “Moonlight Cocktail” play as the system struggled to transcribe it, to see what would happen.

“Moonlight Cocktail” is best known as a Glenn Miller recording, released in early 1942. Considering how popular the song was – number-two song for that year after “White Christmas” – it’s remarkable how completely forgotten it’s been. It shouldn’t be. It’s a wonderful, lilting piece, evoking in rich strokes the common experience of young sweethearts tucking themselves away somewhere pleasant during the “blue of a June night.”

Its dulcet music was by Luckey (Lucky) Roberts (d. 1968), all-about man of popular music in the early 20th century whom you can imagine tickling a keyboard vigorously at a lively Harlem nightspot, if you put your mind to it. Sweet lyrics by Kim Gannon (d. 1974), best known for “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

The first two stanzas, as recorded by the Glenn Miller Orchestra:

Couple of jiggers of moonlight and add a star
Pour in the blue of a June night and one guitar
Mix in a couple of dreamers, and there you are
Lovers hail, the moonlight cocktail

Now add a couple of flowers, a drop of dew
Stir for a couple of hours ’til dreams come true
As to the number of kisses, it’s up to you
Moonlight cocktails need a few

As heard by my transcription system:

Awful of jiggers of moonlight and the sun pour in the blue of the June night and roar good heart. I had a couple of flowers of dry or dew, slur for a couple of hours till dreams come true. As for the number of kisses, it’s up to you.

Interesting, though I don’t know what it means, that the system got the sentence, “As for the number of kisses, it’s up to you” exactly right, which the Modernaires sung in close harmony, but then didn’t catch the next sentence at all, which lead singer Ray Eberle started, only to be finished winsomely by the Modernaires. Actually, it bypassed the lines beginning “Mix in a couple of dreamers…” as well. The ways of AI are mysterious.

Guess the system needs more work – but who really needs a transcription service for songs anyway? How could it overcome the challenges associated with (say) “Louie, Louie”? All questions for minds (or machines) more probing than mine.

As long as I was playing around with the song, I used another AI system, one of the many image generators, with this prompt: Draw cover art for the song Moonlight Cocktail.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

The Fabyan Bear Cage

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Another relic of the Fabyan’s time along the banks of the Fox River in Geneva, Illinois, is a bear cage.

To be more exact, it’s a former bear cage, now used for picnics at the forest preserve. A nearby sign tells the story:

This picnic shelter actually began as a large cage built to house the Fabyan bears. It was built around 1920 to replace the first bear cage, which was a wire-and-wood structure. [Perhaps the bears had a habit of escaping that cage.] The first inhabitant, Mary, was a female American black bear. Later, two American brown bears, Tom and Jerry, lived here. During the Fabyan period, the cage did not have a roof. Spikes may still be seen along the top of the inside walls. These were meant to keep the bears from climbing out of their cage. The bears also had a large tree branch placed in the center of their cage so they could climb on top and look out over the estate. What a surprising sight this must have been to passers by.

At one time or another, the Fabyans also kept alligators and a monkey — and the latter lived in the house. The docent was happy to point out a room where he spent much of his time. Sure, things were different then. But I’m hard pressed to think that having a monkey in your house would have ever been a good idea.

Fabyan Japanese Garden

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For someone who has never written for television, and surely never will, I’ve got a few ideas. Just today: the wacky comedy adventures of three Florida Men who manage to kill themselves in a humiliating way – getting drunk and naked and trying to drive a cherry picker on the highway, say, with them in the basket.

They return as ghosts, condemned to haunt Florida retirement communities, though sometimes they find themselves in Miami Beach among the crabby ghosts of former retirees who came to live there in the ’60s. A twist: a fourth Florida Man, their friend who was driving the cherry picker, survived the accident and now he’s the only one who can see them. Hilarity does what it does, ensues.

In the 1890s, Japan was still newly open, and apparently exotic to the likes of wealthy Illinoisans George and Nelle Fabyan. The story is that they came away from the Japanese Pavilion at the 1893 Columbian Exposition deeply impressed by Japanese culture. It was a common reaction, I’ll bet, and most people might have bought a book or two, or a bit of art, and left it at that.

Not George Fabyan, the Great Collector of the Fox River Valley (gardens, windmills, mummies and more!). He had a Japanese garden built downslope from his home near the Fox. During the summer, visitors can go there even now, though ownership long ago passed to the Kane County Forest Preserve District.

He tasked Japanese garden designer Taro Otsuka to undertake the project, which was completed not long before the Great War. Otsuka, an early 20th-century immigrant, found his niche on these shores. Namely, in designing a wave of Japanese gardens in the Midwest.

Through cycles of decline and restoration, the Fabyan garden has abided. Free admission, donations accepted.

The garden designer’s raw material is the local flora, resulting in a garden on traditional lines that nevertheless has a look apart of the models of the old country, taking aspects of the new country. Don’t ask me the details, that’s just the sense one gets.

Lanterns.

Structures.

Teahouse of the Fox River, you could call that one.

What’s a Japanese garden without an impressive bridge over an elegant water feature?

The assortment of possible Japanese garden bridges is extensive, and of course they’re found other places besides gardens, such as the magnificent bridge at Sumiyoshi Shrine in Osaka.

New Era Potato Chips Meets AI

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On my way to writing some regular number of words, my attention was shanghaied by an AI image generating service. What, I wondered, could the New Era Potato Chip can become, in the hands of an LLM, or I suppose Large Image Model? This can, also posted yesterday.

New Era Potato Chips

My prompts were simple. All results un-retouched.

Dali style.

“New Era No. 1”

Impressionist style.

“New Era No. 2”

Cubist style.

“New Era No. 3”

Suprematist style

“New Era No. 4”

What a gas. Go ahead, try this at home.

Fabyan on the Fox

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Looks like we’ve hit the mid-July stride of chamber of commercial weather, with low 80s F for highs, high 60s for lows, for some days ahead. On the other hand, standard forecasts don’t include smoke, which could well make a comeback in the coming days.

It was a rainy May and June, bringing the flow of the Fox River fairly high by the time last month that we took a short walk nearby, largely under the flush of greenery.

As mentioned, we visited the Fabyan Forest Preserve in Geneva, Illinois one Saturday not long ago. The holdings — formerly part of the estate of George Fabyan (d. 1936) — include land on both sides of the river, and a large island accessible on both sides by footbridges. The view from the island.

The Fabyan Windmill is visible from the island.

We didn’t go there this time, but rather lingered on the west bank, around the Fabyan Villa, which we toured, taking in the bogus mummy. FLW did some renovation on the property, a fact well emphasized at the museum.

One view from the villa toward the Fox. If you’re going to build near a river — or any flowing body of water — give it some height.

Fabyan collected a lot more, including European artwork, back when that was doable.

Once upon a time (probably), the Fabyan kitchen served New Era Potato Chips. Glad to see it. The memory of the same such can at the Cuneo Museum is a minor delight for me.

Back when food processors crowed about have food science on their side. These days, that might get them MAHA’d into consumer skepticism.

Outside, more features, including a ruin from Fabyan days. I understand that the Roman-themed pool on the island has mostly been reclaimed by the river. This wasn’t part of the pool. A out-of-place gatepost, from the looks of it.

More evidence of the passing wave of Egyptomania.

Looking a little worse for roughly a century of wear.

Purple Haze

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It did seem a little smoky out there today. Actually, a lot. More than I can remember, at least since I spent a smoky day in downtown Portland, Oregon some years ago. Or come to think of it, a very hazy day in Illinois only about three years ago.

The view from my deck this afternoon.

Official notice for today and tomorrow: The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has issued a Red Forecast Air Pollution Action Day for Friday July 17th for the AirNow AQI forecast sectors of Rockford and all 6 Chicago area forecast sectors. This is in addition to downgrade of the ongoing action day to a Purple Forecast Air Pollution Action Day in effect today.

AQI is Air Quality Index and the thing is color coded.

So today we had Purple Haze, “Very Unhealthy.” Shouldn’t Red be the worst? Maybe the committee of weathermen and atmospheric scientists who invented the AQI considered the matter, and decided that Purple is worse. And worst of all? Maroon. True, I would alarmed if I stepped out into maroon-colored air, but we know things aren’t quite so literal.

Today’s air would have looked foggy, except it doesn’t get thicker at a distance. The smoke is evenly distributed, at least outside my back door. A smell of barbecue comes with the gray mist, except without any hint of the better, and sometimes wonderful smell of grilled meat.

Sunset on Tuesday, though of course my camera didn’t really capture it.

Sunset today, same caveat. Also, a different place, but we weren’t about to talk a walk around the same lake on a Purple Forecast Air Pollution Action Day.

The color looks ordinary, but the sun’s disk, embedded in the gray mist, was a rarely seen red-yellow-orange.

The Fabyan Mummy

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The Internet might be more vast a wasteland than the worried Newton Minow could ever imagine, but its oases of information – actual information, to judge by internal consistencies, linkable references and good writing – continue to amaze. For example, Mummies.com, which has lists of Egyptian mummies in the United States.

I went looking for such a site because of a recent encounter with a mummy. Or rather, a “mummy,” but we’ll get to that later.

This figure is on display at the Fabyan Villa, which is part of the Fabyan Forest Preserve on the west bank of the Fox River, in Geneva, Illinois. We visited a few weeks ago. Both the villa and the “mummy” are legacies of George Fabyan (d. 1936), who has been fated to go down in history – in a small way, but more than most people – as a wealthy eccentric. One of his eccentricities, like William Randolph Hearst writ small, was collecting eccentric artifacts.

A sign near the mummy-shaped artifact says that modern examination has proven it to be a fake. Whether George Fabyan knew this or not is an open question.

Remarkable thought, that there was once a market for mummies so brisk that counterfeiters made bank. It wasn’t called Egyptomania for nothing.

An anecdote from Mummies.com about a real mummy (Harwa) in possession of the Field Museum, which has 33 mummies, tells quite the tale:

Harwa’s adventurous afterlife is one example of how things have changed. In 1939, he became the first mummified person to fly on an airplane, and he was taken to a Broadway show upon his arrival in New York City. On display at the New York World’s Fair for two years, he then returned to the Field Museum after getting lost in the luggage and being sent to San Francisco.

There’s streaming service comedy gold in that, say 10 episodes: the misadventures of the promoter hired in 1939 to take care of the mummy, and his oddball assistant, who also happens to be a bombshell of a woman. High jinx ensue. The mummy is misplaced, more than once. There are various shenanigans on the airplane, and on Broadway. A rival promoter tries to steal the mummy. Weird things happen at the World’s Fair. Nothing supernatural, though one or another of the characters might worry about the Curse of Harwa — which a publicist make up. Maybe even a guest appearance by Col. Fabyan, who wants to buy the mummy. Of course, the actual Fabyan was already dead by then, but this is TV we’re talking about. You know, the outclassed wasteland.

Cantigny ’26

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At Cantigny in late May, I wasn’t feeling that photo urge. Yuriko was, at least when it came to flowers in arrays.

And as singles.

We go to Cantigny every few years, usually in late spring or early summer, a time of exuberant greenery and, of course, vivid flowers. Not a flowerbed is idle.

An image from Cantigny in 2010. A favorite.

This time, I did take a few snaps of some of the Cantigny buildings and landscapes. Such as the former McCormick manse.

Some long views of the grounds.

As the publisher of a great metropolitan newspaper, back when there were such things, Col. McCormick had the scratch to keep the place running. What are tech barons doing these days with their lucre? Nothing so fine.

Homer in Lombard

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You hear the most remarkable things sometimes, and I mean unbelievable things, marvelous in their stupidity, in passing in You Tube commercials. I let some ad run while doing something else today, some AI service that promises — pretty big promises — to be your peachy-keen personal assistant in some way. The line that caught my half-attention: “And don’t worry! [Product name] won’t be offended if you want to talk to a real human being.”

Let me italicize the part of that that needs it: “And don’t worry! [Product name] won’t be offended if you want to talk to a real human being.”

What? It’s just my opinion, of course, but taking offense means some sort of emotional capability, yes? As in, one specific to human brains. And AI systems have the emotional capability of a bag of hammers, yes?

Back when we saw Lilacia Park in Lombard, we also took a stroll down St. Charles Street, a major shopping street in that town, north of the Metra commuter rail tracks. A pleasant street with a number of local businesses.

Among other St. Charles Street businesses is Devious FX-Bob James Oddities & Curiosities, but we only spent a short time there. As the store’s web site says, “We offer goth jewelry, unique art, and unusual items you will not see anywhere else.” The skulls for sale, both human (replicas?) and animal, creeped out the other members of my party, so we went on our way.

On Park Ave., which intersects with St. Charles, Homer Simpson shills for a resale shop.

Specifically, JL Vintage Odds and Ends. It isn’t the only place I’ve seen Homer in a probably unauthorized commercial pose. Yet at this point Homer, I believe, belongs to humanity as a whole, strict ideas of intellectual property notwithstanding.

Odds and ends, all right. The oddest thing inside was, again, Homer.