Friday Four

1. If you live in the St. Louis area,  you should make the newest location of this business your beer emporium -- or have your head examined:

Craft Beer Cellar was founded in 2010 by ex-restaurateurs Kate Baker and Suzanne Schalow on a desire to create a beer store that they would want to shop at, passion for the industry, and a commitment for changing the world of beer. They fell in-love with craft beer in the late '90s, and began a quest (which they're still on) for amazing beer, the people behind it, and all that it entails! Their focus is on awesome beer with flavor, not those beers whose ingredients are intended to lighten color or lessen quality.

This store is amazing. I didn't spend an eternity looking, but they had almost everything I could think of and, for a slight per-bottle premium,  it was possible to buy individual bottles,  thereby creating a custom six-pack. There is a tasting bar with five taps in the back and the brothers Nickelson, obviously passionate about fine beer, offer outstanding customer service.

2. My son -- now one year old! -- loves puppets, just like his Grandpa. He particularly likes a panda hand puppet and waves back at it when I make it wave to him.

3. A professional in the field of imaging software has devised a technique to produce paintings very much like Vermeer's:

It took another seven months to actually paint the picture. The work was tedious and very hard on the back, but the machine worked well. My experiment doesn't prove that Vermeer worked this way, but it proves that he COULD have worked this way. And the impossible white wall came out looking about the way Vermeer painted it.

Tim Jenison's efforts are further detailed,  with the help of Penn Jillette and Teller in a documentary titled, Tim's Vermeer.

4. Says Greg Ross:

Here's a special kind of genius: In 1997 Daniel Nussbaum rewrote Oedipus Rex using vanity license plates registered with the California Department of Motor Vehicles[.] [bold added]

Read it all at the link above.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Corrected a typo.