Word: kristensen
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...greatest gifts is to discover early in life what you are meant to do, then Charles (Chuck) Kristensen, 49, must be counted among the lucky ones. He found his calling in 1973, at 22, while working for an entomologist at the University of Minnesota. "I spent a lot of time watching spiders," he recalls. All that webmaking, spider mating and insect catching resonated with something in his personality--he still can't say what. "It just nailed me," he says. "I knew I would be working with spiders for the rest of my life...
...evidence of Kristensen's arachnophilia sits, silent and menacing, in thousands of plastic cups and modified deli containers in the basement of his unkempt and funky-smelling suburban house in Feasterville, Pa., just north of Philadelphia. Arrayed on tray-size boards and more than 20 6-ft.-tall racks are some 50,000 living spiders representing dozens of species: sleek, lacquered western black widows, hairy fishing spiders, palm-size Gramostola spatulata from Chile, even a fist-size, cocoa-brown African king baboon tarantula...
This is the livestock of Spider Pharm, a mom-and-pop operation that Kristensen began as a hobby in 1980 and that has since grown into the most active purveyor of spider venom in the world...
According to Tom Steifel-Kristensen, the p.r. manager at Saga, some 40 American designers have obtained fur licenses in the past couple of years after a little visit to Sandbjerg. "We help them develop their ideas while they're here and can use our facilities," says Steifel-Kristensen. "Then we offer to continue elaborating on their ideas after they have left and to make and supply samples." He says Saga will even help teach the designers' fur suppliers the techniques they have learned. Who could resist? Not designer Eric Gaskins, who visited Saga in 1994. "They really show someone...
...Since last spring, tens of thousands of discontented Danes have taken to the streets in demonstrations to protest inflation (currently 19% annually) and unemployment (10.3%-the highest in Western Europe). In contrast to oil-rich Norway and politically stable Sweden, Denmark is so problem-ridden that Danish Economist Thorkil Kristensen notes: "It is not easy to write anything encouraging about Denmark today...