Want to check out some Life magazine photographs of Brooklyn, circa 1946?
Sure you do:
http://life.time.com/culture/hipsterless-brooklyn-vintage-photos-from-a-vanished-world/#1
Don’t know about you, but I can’t get enough of these “vintage” photographs. If I had a time machine…
Interesting article by Harry McCracken for Time Magazine regarding Green Apple Books, a San Francisco bookstore, and how it is introducing -and dealing- with e-readers in their stores:
http://techland.time.com/2013/08/12/how-one-local-bookstore-is-dealing-with-the-e-book-revolution/
It is my sincerest hope that bookstores will continue to survive in some form or another into the future. The logical side of me, however, feels that because of the various advantages tablets and e-readers have over brick and mortar stores, bookstores will either a) fade away entirely or b) morph into something more devoted to “nostalgia” or “collectible” material -and e-readers- than printed “new” works…which it seems Green Apple Books is indeed doing.
On the one hand, this is a very sad sign of the times. As much as I like carrying around a virtual library in my tablet (same as carrying my entire music collection in an iPod), finding new books and authors has always been best for me while walking through a bookstore’s new books section and looking over the wares. This is something that Amazon, as good a company as it is in getting product into people’s hands, hasn’t quite been able to successfully accomplish. At least to me.
So, on the other hand, there may be a glimmer of optimism to be had for the continued success (if not sterling success) of a Green Apple Books. Perhaps one day a store like this one will open in my area…
Over at the fascinating slightlywarped.com you can find three incredible pages devoted to “rare” historical photographs…oddball pieces that surprise, delight, and amaze:
http://slightlywarped.com/crapfactory/curiosities/2013/march/rare_historical_photos.htm
In this, the first webpage, I found the following photograph the most fascinating:
Yes, that’s Fidel Castro standing before the Lincoln Memorial after laying a wreath! Though I knew of his trips to the United States both before and after the Cuban Revolution, this image is so very…odd.
The second page can be found here:
http://slightlywarped.com/crapfactory/curiosities/2013/august/even_more_rare_historical_pictures.htm
Of this group, my favorite has to be:
According to the website, this is a photograph taken in 1893 of three Princeton students after a Freshman/Sophomore snowball fight! Guess the snowball fight became somewhat…intense.
There is a second photograph in this grouping, however, that I simply have to show:
Believe it or not, that’s a photograph taken in 1894 of Mark Twain in Nikolai Tesla’s lab…with, I’m assuming, Mr. Tesla looking on! Seems like something you’d see in a steampunk movie.
Finally, we have this, the last of the three pages:
http://slightlywarped.com/crapfactory/curiosities/2013/may/hidden_rare_historical_photos.htm
Of these, easily my favorite photograph, and one I had seen before, is this:
This photograph, taken in 1885, shows the Statue of Liberty nearly completed…while sitting in the middle of Paris. Sometimes its easy to forget this extraordinary statue was a gift from the French and was constructed over there before being brought over to New York.
As I said before, fascinating, fascinating stuff.
So my sister tells me the other day about this fascinating documentary she saw on the Discovery Channel during the current very popular “Shark Week”. It involved the search for a mysterious (and very scary) predator. Presented as a factual documentary, Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives, was, as she told it to me, a fascinating story.
I repeat: A story.
However, given the way the show was presented and the channel it was presented on, many people out there, including my sister, thought they were watching something real. A controversy followed and Discovery Channel was forced to issue a statement defending its programming:
This hasn’t, however, entirely stopped the controversy. Wil Wheaton, late of Star Trek: The Next Generation, offered some very strong comments regarding this special:
I agree with Mr. Wheaton’s statements and would go a step further: Shows like this and the fact that they can fool people into believing a fiction are good examples of the dangers of mass media. Often we are passive watchers of what the media offers us and, as is the case here, some of us can be “lied” to…and we believe the lie.
In the case of the Megalodon, I suppose watching this special and mistakenly believing it to be true is a fairly “benign” lie.
The danger, of course, is when the lie is no longer benign.
Fascinating article, found on Huffington Post, regarding the many (many!) alternate titles considered by author Peter Benchley for the novel that eventually became known as…Jaws:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/05/jaws-alternative-title_n_3703627.html
It got me thinking about my own novels and alternate titles I considered for them.
The Dark Fringe, my first major work, was originally entitled The Fringe (I came up with the title when I first started writing the story, way back in 1984-85 or thereabouts and a good twenty years before the TV show first appeared). When it came time to print the story in 1996 or so, it was suggested by my publisher that I change the title to make it more “dramatic”. So, I converted The Fringe into The Dark Fringe and to this day I believe J. J. Abrams and company at the very least were aware of my book (I say this for several reasons, the greatest of which is the season two episode Brown Betty. While the plot of my book and the episode are quite different, the peculiars and visuals in Brown Betty sure look an awful lot like what I presented in my graphic novel). 
My next big work was started shortly after I finished the early drafts of The Dark Fringe, circa 1985-86 and was entitled The Abyss. In 1989, James Cameron’s The Abyss was release to theaters and my book’s title was deep sixed only to be resurrected years later as The Last Flight of the Argus.
As for my other books, they were originally titled as you see ’em today, so no stories there!
Ran into several articles regarding how some (alleged) criminals were found out. The first batch of articles are about how some people who (allegedly) stole cell phones/iPads were discovered because…well, read on!
http://www.wral.com/man-arrested-after-taking-selfies-with-stolen-cellphone/12495642/
http://www.myfoxphilly.com/story/22452829/cell-phone-feature-gives-police
and then there’s this:
“Selfies” seem to be all the rage nowadays, even with (alleged) criminals. However, and as noted in the articles, often any photograph taken with your cell phone is “uploaded” to a secondary device you own or have access to, and therefore you get to see what the (alleged) criminal who has your property is doing with it.
This one may well take the cake, if only for the selfie taken by the (alleged) criminal, who in this case stole someone’s iPad:
http://cheezburger.com/7148116480
I can’t resist. Here’s the “selfie” the (alleged) criminal in the above article took of herself:
The second story is far more serious as it involves a double murder committed in 2007. What is so incredible about this story is how police came to suspect a certain individual in this “cold” case:
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/31/19799880-rap-lyrics-lead-to-arrest-in-unsolved-va-murder
Yes, the rap lyrics of one Antwain Steward aided in his arrest for that double murder committed in 2007. Obviously there’s more evidence linking him to the crime than the lyrics of a song he wrote, but it is nonetheless fascinating that he might well have -to at least some degree- fingered himself for the crime by virtue of his own song.
Interesting, interesting stuff.
Yet another bit from i09.com:
http://io9.com/two-sentence-horror-stories-are-actually-pretty-chillin-923728355
I loved the one about the kid and the “monster” under the bed.
Some of the comment writers to that article have referenced Fredric Brown’s classic short story Knock, with its short-short story opening, as a classic example of a very short horror story. Knock opens with this:
The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door…
Interesting to note, at least according to Wikipedia that this famous opening line was itself apparently cribbed from the following, originally written by Thomas Bailey Aldrich:
Imagine all human beings swept off the face of the earth, excepting one man. Imagine this man in some vast city, New York or London. Imagine him on the third or fourth day of his solitude sitting in a house and hearing a ring at the door-bell! (Ponkapog Papers, 1904)
Chilling stuff.
I can spend hours at i09.com, especially for bits of information like this:
http://space.io9.com/did-you-know-that-the-saturn-vs-fuel-economy-was-7-inc-935695163/935748020
Granted, a very small bit of information, but to realize that at the time of launch the Saturn V’s fuel economy was a whopping 7 inches per gallon…is rather mind boggling.
And yet it makes perfect sense, given the incredible energy expended at the moment of liftoff.
Now you know.
Was driving around yesterday and this song came on the radio…
While listening to it for perhaps the five hundred thousandth time, my personal opinion that this is the all time best “guitar” heavy song ever was strengthened by hearing each individual lick. I absolutely love the work of Mr. Hendrix here, the way his playing seems to go on digressions/different melodic tangents only to come back over and over to the main thrust of the song again. The end result is absolutely terrific.
So it got me to thinking. What are my favorite “guitar” songs? Songs where the guitar work is so exquisite, so memorable, that it just sticks out in my head?
Apart from Voodoo Child (Slight Return), only one other song instantly popped up in my mind, Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb.
Again, terrific guitar work. Unlike Voodoo Child (Slight Return), however, Comfortably Numb, like the album it came from, is at heart a sad song about alienation. The guitar work by David Gilmour seems to pierce your very soul.
I keep driving and I think: Come on! There are hundreds of other songs with strong guitar work you love.
There are, of course, but those two above stand out more than most, at least for me. Well then, if Voodoo Child (Slight Return) and Comfortably Numb are my two favorite “guitar” songs, what are some of my others?
How about a Beatles classic…
Many note the terrific drumming by Ringo Starr (and it is), but I’ve always loved the guitar work by George Harrison, the way the guitar seems to “answer” each lyric by John Lennon.
If you’ve been around this blog for a while, you know what a big fan of David Bowie I am. There are plenty of David Bowie songs featuring terrific guitar riffs. My two favorites happen to feature the guitar work of late Mick Ronson…
and…
My juices are flowing and I’m starting to think of so many others…How about Heart?
Radar Love by Golden Earring could well be the absolutely best “driving” song out there. Wonder how many people got speeding tickets while driving to this?
Ok, before I get too far afield and start listing just about all the songs I like that feature pretty good guitar work, how about Rolling Stone’s 100 Best?
http://www.stereogum.com/10114/rolling_stones_100_greatest_guitar_songs_of_all_ti/list/
Agree or disagree (I disagree with more than a few of their choices) it is food for thought. Another list, this one by Spinner Magazine, features their “Top 50 Guitar Riffs”. Some great stuff here:
http://www.spinner.com/2011/01/13/rock-guitar-riffs/
Of note, their David Bowie pick is the also excellent Rebel Rebel, features guitars by Mr. Bowie himself!
Interesting stuff. I might just have to go through some of my favorite music for the rest of the day! 😉
Fascinating article by Brian Palmer for Slate magazine regarding which U.S. city has the worst drivers. Now, I know most people out there feel the worst drivers have to be the ones they’re around, but Mr. Palmer uses actual research, in this article, so be warned!
So, which city has the worst drivers? Behold:
Spoilers: Miami is #1. Not at all shocking for someone (me) who lives here. Whenever I travel away from home, I’m always surprised by how much better the drivers are in other places. True, there are glitches to be found almost everywhere. As much as I like traveling to Canada, for example, the roadside signs and sudden changes to names of highways can be confusing and irritating to newbies. However, the drivers themselves in the places I’ve gone to thus far always seem to be more…mellow. More polite. More in control.
In Miami, driving is a form of warfare, and you have to always need to keep your guard up. Lately, my greatest frustration involves people who drive on a crowded/large street and then suddenly come to a stop to either let a passenger within the vehicle out or to pick someone up.
Yes, in the middle of a crowded street.
The “driver” (I use that term lightly) of said vehicle could simply drive into a parking lot or take a turn onto a smaller street and park in an embankment to deliver their passengers but no. The brainiac inside said vehicle figures it is best to simply stop in the middle of the busy street (often not even using their hazards) and risk getting rear ended to let their passenger off.
Another example: In the past few years I’ve driven I-95 during early morning rush hour to take my daughter to school. During the first month of doing so I saw on two different occasions vehicles flipped over onto their roofs and blocking a lane in the highway. The image was surreal, almost like witnessing a Michael Bay film in progress.
What had caused the drivers to lurch their cars in such a way as to flip them over? I can’t imagine. If it hadn’t occurred on the highway, I might have considered the poor drivers flipped their vehicles when they swerved to avoid someone that stopped to drop a passenger off.
Ah Miami.