Plenty of Nothing

David Low, Competing Industries (1933)

David Low was the top British political cartoonist of the 20th century. Even if you think you don't know any of his work, you'd recognize his cartoon of Hitler and Stalin making nice after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939. My favourite Low cartoons are the ones he did in the late Twenties and early Thirties starring the figure of Peace. She's usually drawn as a young woman, healthy, modern and idealistic, sometimes shown gathering signatures on a clipboard, and often wearing a look of dawning awareness of the awful magnitude of her task. Here she is cycling an ice cream cart past an arms factory as the trucks of heavy industry roll out. You can explore a huge archive of Low's political cartoons here.

Night Snow (1923)

Night Snow (1923) by Itō Shinsui. Itō Shinsui revived the Japanese woodblock print by rejecting the chemical inks of the late nineteenth century and restoring the traditional subjects of beautiful women and landscape views.

In related snow news the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge University has just ended an exhibition of images of snow in Japanese woodcut. Read about it at Floating Along.

Ce n'est pas le bois de Vincennes

"Göttingen" par Barbara (1964).

Sapporo Snow Festival

The Sapporo Snow Festival starts today and goes till the 11th. Meanwhile Winterlude is happening in Ottawa from February 1st to 18th, and le Carnaval de Québec from February 1st to 17th.

It Is Strange To See Pop Musicians With Sitars

Ravi Shankar teaches George Harrison sitar, maybe not in 1968, and definitely not in Rishikesh which is nowhere near the sea.

Scottish Cup Round Five

The 1955 graduating class of Dundee University's Masters of Comics Studies programme. All went on to become editors at the Dandy.

Morton visit Dens Park today to play Dundee FC in the fifth round of the Scottish Cup.

This is the round in which Morton crashed out last year, losing to Motherwell 6 - 0. But this year's Morton squad is better than last year's, and Dundee are no Motherwell. In 2011-12 Morton won both times they visited Dens Park.

Other Scottish Cup matches involving First Division clubs this weekend: Dunfermline v Accies [Accies win 0 - 2], Falkirk v Forfar [Falkirk win 4 - 1], and Raith v Celtic today (sold out) [Celtic win 0 - 3].

Today's match takes place on a Sunday because the police do not permit the Dundee clubs to have simultaneous home fixtures. It's hard enough controlling two crowds of supporters, let alone four. Yesterday, down the block at Tannadice, Dundee United hosted Rangers. 365 Rangers supporters showed up despite a boycott. Dundee United won 3 - 0. Rangers are now out of every competition except the Third Division title.

The 12-12-18 league restructuring proposal is evolving into a 12-12-10-10 plan. It's an improvement in so far as it makes Rangers' season meaningful, and opens two spaces for two upwardly mobile non-league clubs like Spartans and Edinburgh City.

[Ugh. Dundee win 5 - 1. Morton goal by Tidser. Morton are now out of every competition except the First Division title. And they have still not played Rangers since the year 2000.]

Jazz Party

Art Ford's Jazz Party (1957). That's Johnny Windhurst on trombone, Coleman Hawkins on sax, and Mary Osborne on electric guitar. Eight-and-a-half minute version of "I've Got a New Baby" at 2:05.

Munro Day

Today is Munro Day at Dalhousie University in Halifax. Each year on the first Friday of February the university shuts down to honour 19th-century benefactor George Munro, a Nova Scotian who made good in New York, publishing highly popular dime novels and taking full advantage of the absence of any copyright convention between the UK and the US. In the 1880s Munro used some of his pirate gold to bail out Dalhousie, which was then at the brink of insolvency. Image is from the holdings of the University of South Carolina Libraries.