From Alice’s whackadoo tea party host, to the phrase “mad as a hatter,” hatters and their sanity seem to be getting a bad rap. The imagery, however, is rooted in some truth. From the 1700s through the early 1900s, mercuric nitrate was a commonly used compound in hat making. The result after many years of hatting? Mercury poisoning. Symptoms included tremors and extreme irritability, which led to the “mad as a hatter” expression. Talk about an occupational hazard.
Whether you flew through calculus or crawled your way through freshman year algebra, a party with pie is something everyone can get behind. Enter Pi Day, a nerdtastic celebration of all things pi and pie.
For those of you who erased most of high school math from your memory (this writer who had to look it up on Wikipedia included), pi is the symbol used by mathematicians to represent the ratio of a circle’s circumference. Sure!
Since pi is an irrational number, it has an infinite number of digits in its decimal representation. However, the first few digits (3.141592…) are the digits used to designate the “Pi” holiday, celebrated on 3/14. This year is a special year, as 3/14/15 represents even more digits of pi! What a time to be a math lover!
UncommonGoods loves math, to say the least, so we had our pick of great pi paraphernalia. Using math plates, bottle openers, and pizza stones, we were able to create a well-calculated (get it???) table spread that was just as delicious as it was educational.
However you decide to celebrate Pi Day this year, make it a celebration of math, geekery, and pastry. It’s the only day of the year when everyone can be a numbers nerd—even if you only ever used your calculator to spell funny words upside down.
Happy Pi Day! May your crusts be buttery and your fillings be plentiful.
Something about that certain power ballad makes you feel all the feelings. But what is it about the uplifting guitar solo that gives you the kind of chills typically reserved for the Grand Canyon or best man speeches that are a perfect mix of funny and touching? Turns out, music encourages a flow of dopamine to the same part of the brain that is activated by addiction, reward, or motivation. Since the brain is such a good listener, it can predict when the more uplifting part of the song is coming. Once the long-awaited chord hits, you’re in chill-city and it feels great. Even when the powerful movements occur in a sad song, research shows that the overall experience is still positive. Sadly, only about 50% of people feel chills when listening to music. Scientists found oddly specific evidence that the people most likely to experience chills are reward-driven and open to new experiences. So loosenup, man. You might feel something!
They’re certainly more chivalrous than that guy who cut you in line at the grocery store. Researchers videotaped four litters of puppies from different breeds and found a noticeable constant between the Labradors, Shepherd mixes, Dobermans, and Malamutes during play: males would often display submissive behavior, even when they were at a physical advantage. They would crouch low to the ground and even lick their lady opponents’ muzzles to give them an easy in to strike. Sure, these lady pooches could win without the help, but even the furriest of partnerships needs a little romance at the start. So the next time your perpetually single friend says all men are dogs, remind her that that could be a good thing. Then buy her a drink for not taking her problems seriously.
More than a cheesy line from your high school poetry writing class, this phenomenon is actually a thing—as long as you’re really into each other. A study took 32 couples and had them stare at one another for three minutes straight as their heart rates were monitored. Eventually, the heart rates began to sync up. What’s interesting is that it was the women who tended to adjust their heart rates to their partners. Researchers speculated that stronger ability for empathy could have been behind the trend. Now if only you and your significant other could sync up who does the dishes.
NOPE! And it never will be, as long as it’s sealed and stored in a dry place! That’s because honey is a sugar. All sugars are hygroscopic, meaning they don’t contain much water in their natural state. Very few bacteria or microorganisms can survive in an environment like that. One thing that sets honey apart from other sugars, and makes it an excellent long-term resident in your cupboard, is its high acidity, which kills off anything trying to make a home in the honey. The oldest honey that has been found dates back 5,000 years. Whether that particular sample is edible depends on its storage. However, if you were to seal up your favorite honey, tuck it away in a safe, dry place, your great great great, several more times great grandchildren could partake.
Manhattan Rooftop Honey Flight, $45
Jill Davis always knew she wanted to be in the business of creativity. Growing up just outside of Boston, MA, she was immediately drawn to the rich arts and culture resources the city had to offer. Visits to the Museum of Fine Arts in her stroller gave way to a summer internship in high school. “In retrospect, I can’t believe the museum staff hired me,” says Jill, “I was the only high school student—all the others were graduate students!” Despite her young age, Jill began working on a project to organize all of the exhibition photos in the museum archive. Her favorite part of the job, however, was exploring the decorative arts and period furniture sections.
This sparked a lifelong passion in three-dimensional art. Before finding her way to glass, Jill worked with a variety of techniques and materials. From clay and metal to jewelry and paper, Jill eventually settled on fashion, making all of her own clothes. “It was the early ’80s and I wanted to look like I was in a rock and roll band, preferably Van Halen or KISS.” Jill went on to sell those clothes at small stores in Boston and Cambridge before enrolling at the Parsons School of Design in New York City.
During her freshman year studying fashion, Jill realized her clothes were more akin to wearable “sculptures” than they were “fashion.” She knew she wanted to stay at Parsons so she began exploring their different departments. The day she walked into the glass studio and saw molten glass for the first time, her search was over. “Glass is the most challenging and rewarding material I have ever encountered,” says Jill. “You can’t bully it—you are perpetually persuading and coaxing the glass into shape. Even the best living master glass blowers cannot always get the glass to do what they want! It’s this feisty streak that keeps me enchanted.”
Jill began working with the New York Experimental Glass Workshop, spending the next 15 years creating one-of-a-kind fine art sculptures. “It was absolutely great, and I didn’t mean to stop doing it—starting my company was a happy accident,” says Jill. After leaving New York and moving to rural Washington State, Jill realized that Washington was a bit lacking in terms of 24/7 public transportation. She needed a car and she didn’t want to take out a big loan to get one. Thus began her Car Project. “Glassblowers are lucky,” says Jill, “instead of waiting tables, we can blow Christmas ornaments, go set up a card table at a craft fair, and at the end of the day, you can generally count on having sold most of them.” She designed a small collection of affordably priced items and by the end of the year was able to buy a brand new car—in cash. She was also able to start her company, Henrietta Glass. Her innovative Wishing Ball followed shortly.
The Wishing Ball was inspired by an NPR story Jill was listening to while she blew some bud vases. A woman told a story about wishing on pennies as a way to heal a broken heart. Realizing that a penny couldn’t buy a wish these days, she began saving her wishes in a jar. Her wish came true at $4.73. Inflation much? This story inspired Jill to create a container for lucky pennies, though a container for pennies ended up amounting to a classic piggybank. Jill realized she was more interested in wishes than pennies, and so began to create a vessel that echoed both crystal balls and snow globes—“two other glass traditions that encourage us to gaze both inward and outward to explore new possibilities.”
The ball itself is hand blown from a blob of 2000 degree molten glass. The clear glass is rolled in bits of copper and cobalt glass called frit in order to produce an ethereal turquoise color. “It’s just like putting sprinkles on ice cream, only screaming hot,” says Jill. The glass is then carefully shaped with a bubble inflated within it. A separate bit of molten glass is affixed to the ball to form the foot. Once assembled, the whole piece slowly cooled in an oven over twelve hours.
The perfect spot to stow wishes, give thanks, or make a resolution for the New Year, the Wishing Ball presents an inspirational opportunity to put your hopes where you can see them. What’s Jill’s wish for the Wishing Ball? “I’d like people to see their Wishing Ball as a little bit of help or inspiration toward a positive future. Deciding what to write on each piece of paper may be an opportunity to focus and clarify your thoughts.” Her resolution for the New Year? To make sure she keeps doing things that make her uncomfortable, things that challenge her.
“The wonderful American furniture artist Wendell Castle, a hero of mine, has a list of 10 ‘rules’ to live and make art by,” says Jill. “One of those rules is that if you hit the bull’s eye every time, you are standing too close to the target.” This inspiration to constantly push herself lends perfectly to the idea behind the Wishing Ball. Set goals, make a wish, and make changes.
People often ask Jill why the wishes can’t come back out, and her explanation can be summed up with birthday candles. “When you blow out you candles, you don’t tell the wish you made, otherwise it won’t come true.” Says Jill. “But more importantly, memories are always more beautiful than photographs, and the same is true of wishes. When you look at the little slips of paper accumulating in your Wishing Ball, I want you to think about the Big Picture those messages convey. Rereading the notes would be like looking backwards, or trying to step in the same river twice.”
If a koala did break into your house, vandalize your car, or commit any other array of felonies, the detectives would have a tough time figuring out whodunit—or, more specifically, which species-dunit. Turns out, we share fingerprint patterns with the adorably moody creatures. The prints are so identical that even a trained expert would have trouble telling the human and koala prints apart, even with a microscope. Koalas are in fact in the only marsupials to have these kinds of prints, a possible evolutionary advantage to aid in climbing. So what’s the real takeaway from this? Never rule out a highly advanced koala with a vendetta when investigating a crime scene.