2010

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Listeria: Top 15 Minor League Baseball Team Names

February 16, 2010 in Sports | Permalink

Not Rosie O'Donnell.

Pitchers and catchers are reporting to spring training camps in Florida and Arizona this week, so it’s time to look at the best names of minor-league baseball teams with major-league affiliations. Enjoy.

Read other Listeria lists.

Roads (Hopefully) Less Traveled

February 16, 2010 in Urban Studies | Permalink

Shanghai's Puxi Viaduct, used by thousands of motorists each hour, has five levels of bridges connecting two of the city's busiest highways.

The great Newmark’s Door pointed me to “The 19 Most Dangerous and Complex Roads in the World” on waze.com. The feature presents photos and descriptions of some of the most treacherous driving you can imagine.

Only one of the killer pathways is here in the U.S.–Los Angeles’ Judge Harry Pregerson Interchange, an exhaustingly complicated maze that doesn’t seem possible outside of a video game. Perhaps the one that makes me the most vertiginous is Bolivia’s North Yungas Road (appropriately dubbed the “Road of Death“). An excerpt from the feature about this South American highway to hell:

“Famous for its extreme danger, it was christened as the ‘world’s most dangerous road’ in 1995 by the Inter-American Development Bank. The single-lane width, extreme drop offs, and lack of guardrails, only add to the danger lurking behind. Further, the fog and rain can make visibility poor and the road surface muddy, loosening rocks from the hillsides above. It is estimated that 200 to 300 travelers are killed per year on this treacherous road.”

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“Some Called It A House, Others A Machine”

February 16, 2010 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

A Dymaxion House on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan. (Image courtesy of rmhermen.)

Even though architect Buckminster Fuller has long been revered as a visionary theorist, not many of his designs, including several iterations of his pre-fab, space-age autonomous building, the Dymaxion House, ever caught on. In fact, no Dymaxion was ever built according to Fuller’s specifications and inhabited, even though it was energy efficient, had a waterless bathroom and was designed to withstand any climate.

But his futuristic house designs were taken seriously in a 1946 Life article “Fuller House,” which was subtitled “Newest answer to housing shortage is round, shiny, hangs on a mast and is made in an airplane factory.” An excerpt from the article:

“Unveiled last week was the most startling solution yet offered for the U.S. housing shortage. It was a round aluminum structure, 36 feet in diameter. At its center was a mast, anchored in the ground. From it radiated cables on which walls and floors were hung. Around the outside ran a plastic window. On the roof ran a streamlined, revolving ventilator. The inside had four wedge-shaped rooms, two baths, range, dishwasher, refrigerator, garbage-disposal unit, three revolving closets and three electric bureaus.

Some called it a house, others a machine. Designed by Buckminster Fuller, it was made by Beech Aircraft Corporation, Wichita, Kansas, which expects to be producing it in volume by next January. The house is a descendant of Fuller’s 1927 Dymaxion House, but, unlike its ancestor, is eminently practical. Included in the hoped for selling price of $6500 are all appliances plus shipping and erection charges anywhere in the U.S.”

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Ruining The Classics: Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge Of Courage

February 15, 2010 in Books, Humor | Permalink

Come sit by the fire with me, soldier. Why it's warm enough here that you could remove your shirt.

“The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors. Rumors about gay stuff.

Once a certain tall soldier developed virtues and went resolutely to wash a shirt. He came flying back from a brook waving his garment bannerlike. That show-off was always looking for an excuse to be shirtless. And he was swelled with a tale he had heard from a reliable friend, who had heard it from a truthful cavalryman, who had heard it from his trustworthy brother, one of the orderlies at division headquarters. He adopted the important air of a herald in red and gold.

“They’re going to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” t’morrah–sure,” he said pompously to a group in the company street.

“It’s a lie! that’s all it is–a thunderin’ lie!” said another private loudly. His smooth face was flushed, and his hands were thrust sulkily into his trouser’s pockets. He took the matter as an affront to him. “I don’t believe the derned old army’s ever going to repeal. I’ve got ready to come out eight times in the last two weeks, and they ain’t repealed yet.”

The tall soldier felt called upon to defend the truth of a rumor he himself had introduced. He and the loud one came near to fighting over it. But they was always havin’ lovers’ quarrels.

Many of the men engaged in a spirited debate and some slow dancin’. Meanwhile, the soldier who had fetched the rumor bustled about with much importance. He was continually assailed by questions.

“What’s up, Jim?”

“Th’army’s goin’ t’ repeal.”

“Ah, what yeh talkin’ about? How yeh know it is?”

“Well, yeh kin b’lieve me er not, jest as yeh like. I don’t care a hang.”

There was much food for thought in the manner in which he replied. He came near to convincing them by disdaining to produce proofs. They grew much excited over it. Visibly excited.

There was a youthful private who listened with eager ears to the words of the tall soldier and to the varied comments of his comrades. After receiving a fill of discussions concerning the repeal, he went to his hut and crawled through an intricate hole that served it as a door. He wished to be alone with some new thoughts that had lately come to him. Thoughts about how incredibly gay the regiment was. The whole thing was like Charles Nelson Reilly Day at Fort Elton John. It was almost like being in the Navy.

The youth was in a little trance of astonishment. So they were at last going to repeal. He had long despaired of witnessing a Greeklike struggle. But if that’s what the Tall Soldier and the Loud Soldier wanted to do in their tent, who really cared, he thought. After all, I’m not an insecure child and the important thing is we’ve got a fucking war to win.”

Read other Ruined Classics.

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Old Print Ad: Duel In The Sun (1947)

February 14, 2010 in Books, Misc. | Permalink

This novel was as lusty as its cover, but the Hays Code made for a toned-down film version.

“A lusty novel of the Southwest” boasts the copy in this 1947 advertisement for a 25-cent thrift edition of Niven Busch’s melodramatic novel, Duel in the Sun. The story concerns a half-white, half-Native American woman who gets caught up in intrigue–romantic and otherwise–while living with her white rancher relatives.

Before becoming a novelist and Hollywood screenwriter, Busch was a magazine writer for the New Yorker and Time. Duel in the Sun was made into a film by David O. Selznick and King Vidor in 1946 and remains a popular classic, one which Martin Scorsese identifies as one of the most influential films of his childhood. But the out-of-print novel is all but forgotten. An excerpt from the ad copy:

“When hot-headed handsome Lewt McCanles gallops recklessly along a trail that can lead only to flaming gunplay, a million-acre cattle empire trembles in the balance. Brother wars on brother in an action-packed, swift-shooting story of the great American Southwest in its sprawling, brawling infancy.”

See other Old Print Ads.

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Was The Birth Of America An Immaculate Conception?

February 13, 2010 in Politics | Permalink

From Shorto's article: "Jefferson said it was not the place of the President to involve himself in religion."

The author and New York Times Magazine writer Russell Shorto is one of those blessed media people who quietly and consistently does excellent work. His 2005 New York history, The Island at the Center of the World is a brilliant book.

Shorto has an insightful piece, How Christian Were the Founders?, in this week’ Sunday Times Magazine. It looks at how Christian Conservatives on the Texas State Board of Education have used the purchasing power of a $22 billion education fund to pressure publishing companies into altering the language and ideas of the nation’s textbooks. Shorto also takes a balanced look at whether our Founding Fathers did indeed intend America as a Christian nation. An excerpt from the piece about one instance where the Board prevailed in changing textbook language:

“To give an illustration simultaneously of the power of ideology and Texas’ influence, [textbook publishing veteran] Tom Barber told me that when he led the social-studies division at Prentice Hall, one conservative member of the board told him that the 12th-grade book, ‘Magruder’s American Government,’ would not be approved because it repeatedly referred to the U.S. Constitution as a ‘living’ document. ‘That book is probably the most famous textbook in American history,’ Barber says. ‘It’s been around since World War I, is updated every year and it had invented the term ‘living Constitution,’ which has been there since the 1950s. But the social conservatives didn’t like its sense of flexibility. They insisted at the last minute that the wording change to ‘enduring.’ Prentice Hall agreed to the change, and ever since the book–which Barber estimates controlled 60 or 65 percent of the market nationally–calls it the ‘enduring Constitution.'”

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Excerpted: “England’s Biggest And Best Director Goes To Hollywood,” Life (1939)

February 13, 2010 in Excerpts, Film, Misc. | Permalink

I laugh because I just thought of a new and ingenious means of psychological torture.

For years, I lazily accepted the notion that director Alfred Hitchcock was underrated by the media as merely a purveyor of spine-tingling melodrama, someone thought of as an entertainer of the masses but not an artist. I assumed that the campaigning of his greatest admirer, Francois Truffaut, helped revise the opinion of Hitch as someone worthy of high praise.

There may be some truth to that, but people definitely knew how great Hitchcock was long before the ’60s. Case in point is a 1939 article in Life magazine, “Alfred Hichcock: England’s Biggest and Best Director Goes to Hollywood.” The piece looks at the esteemed English director’s move to California to begin a brilliant second act to his career.

The article was written by Geoffrey T. Hellman, who was best known as a legendary New Yorker writer but also simultaneously served as associate editor at Life for a couple of years in the ’30s. Hellman’s papers are housed at NYU. An excerpt from the colorful piece, which looks at how Hitchcock’s devious need to cause discomfort carried over from the big screen into his personal life:

“In private life, Hitchcock’s astringent outlook enables him to take an enormous, if deadpan, satisfaction in the distress of his friends and acquaintances, especially in situations induced by himself. Although his flair for practical jokes has suffered a setback in Hollywood, where the novelty of his surroundings and the constant sun seem to have cramped his style, he is beginning to feel more at home, and judging from his past record it is only a question of time until he gives Louie B. Mayer the hot foot. He once offered an English property man a pound for the privilege of handcuffing him overnight, and just before snapping on the manacles gave the victim a drink into which he had slipped a strong laxative. Hitchcock has a sense of values and gave the fellow a 100% bonus the following morning because of the unusual humor of the circumstances.”

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Decoder: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Boasts About Iran’s Growing Nuclear Prowess

February 13, 2010 in Humor, Politics | Permalink

I got this blazer on sale at Korvette's. Such savings you would not believe!

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: With the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., one was just as bad as the other. Both contributed to the destruction of world values. They talked about prosperity and wealth, but they killed more than 120 million individuals in the last 120 years and made many more homeless and injured.

Decoder: I’m the only person on the planet annoying enough to make Russia agree with Obama on anything. I mean, the Russians side with North Fucking Korea over the U.S. And Kim Jong-il is one suspicious Happy Meal from being Idi Amin.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: I am proudly announcing today that our scientists have gotten laser technology and will be manufacturing and providing the Iranian nation with new equipment.

Decoder: Lazer Zeppelin is upon us, and we will have the technology to produce Lazer Floyd within six months.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Today many of our cities enjoy electricity, schools, health, activities in villages that were on the verge of destruction. I do not want to offer figures and statistics; you are all aware of them.

Decoder: You’re not all aware of them? Let me see if I have them on me. Oh, I know, I must have left them in the pocket of my other Members Only jacket. But they are so very awesome, I swear.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: I want to proudly announce that in the next few days we will have celebrations for electricity being transferred to all villages with more than 20 households.

Decoder: 1934, here we come!

The Tehran planetarium will be rocking. (Image by Dina Regine.)

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Due to the blessings of God Almighty, today the convoy of the Iranian nation’s progress and prosperity is moving forward more swiftly and no power can resist the power of the Iranian nation.

Decoder: I am not going to stop talking until I get this whole fucking country blown up.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: With no doubt, the future belongs to the Iranian nation. Its enemies have no chance for victory.

Decoder: My penis, it is very small, so I talk really big. You should hear me in clubs and bars.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Liberalism is trying to turn all nations into laborers to fill the pockets of capitalists. They want to make a modern slavery.

Decoder: Though Casual Fridays are really fun. And that new lady in HR doesn’t seem bad. I think her name is “Carol.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: The Allies’ victory in WWII was due to plundering the energy resources of the Middle East.

Decoder: I know even less about history than Sarah Palin.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: They want us to be kept weak and under the domination of atrocious dictators.

Decoder: No, not me, Mr. Funnypants. The other atrocious dictators.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Hopefully, the Western wing of the hegemonic system has come to its end and this malicious system will hopefully collapse.

Decoder: Actually, it kind of already has, but they seem to still be way richer than us, which has me baffled.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: From a scientific view we have made the swiftest signs of progress in the world.

Decoder: Did I mention only six months to Lazer Floyd?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: I am proud to announce that, the day before yesterday, we began to enrich the 20% fuel. The first convoy of 20%-enriched fuel was produced.

Decoder: It was very likely not produced, but again: little penis = big talk.

Thinks he's agreed to host an Aziz Ansari roast. (Image by Scott LaPierre.)

Mahmoud Ahmajinedad: They should know that our nation is so courageous that if we make a nuclear bomb, we will openly announce it.

Decoder: And Charles Barkley has agreed to do color commentary. No, seriously, he actually agreed to do it. He’s apparently crazy.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: We will never allow the West to dominate this region.

Decoder: And by oppressing my own people and creating such a sick society, I will make sure we never dominate this region, either.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: The Iranian youth have a right to seek justice and truth. They have a right to build their own future on the foundations of love, compassion and tranquility.

Decoder: And when they finally do, I am so totally fucked.

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Listeria: Top 25 Magazines And Journals Of 1969

February 13, 2010 in Books, Misc. | Permalink

The periodicals section is on the third floor, and, yes, I am a vixen beneath my demure exterior.

Several years ago I picked up a excellent 1969 paperback entitled Good Reading for about a buck in used bookstore in Brooklyn (which has since gone out of business). The Good Reading series was first published in 1935, and this 35th anniversary edition was priced at 95 cents.

Scholars from fields including Middle Ages history, the 19th-century British novel and Mathematics suggested the must-read books in their area of expertise. It lucidly and briefly annotates more than a couple thousand important books. In the fields of reference books and magazines, J. Sherwood Weber, who was the series’ editor and the chairman of the English department at Pratt, picked the best of the best.

The following are his choices for the best periodicals of the era, all but one of which still exist and have made the leap to the Internet. A good number, however, have changed significantly, so you’ll have to judge for yourself how many would still belong among the top publications.

Read other Listeria lists.

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Great Photography: The Big Picture’s “Tough Guy Challenge 2010”

February 11, 2010 in Photography, Sports | Permalink

The "Tough Guy Challenge 2010" attracted 5,000 male and female entrants. Each one of them is a special kind of crazy.

If you look at this site with any regularity, you probably have an idea how much I love the Big Picture photography site at Boston.com. It’s consistently the best marriage of photography and the Internet. The essay “Tough Guy Challenge 2010” by Mike King is no exception.

The annual excruciating and almost indescribable contest complicated by fire, barbed wire and mud on an English farm is described as “the safest most dangerous taste of physical and mental endurance pain in the world.” I don’t have the rights to repost any of the images here, but I encourage you to go to their site and have a look. It’s worth it.

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Wanted Poster: D.B. Cooper (1971)

February 11, 2010 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

Cooper looks cool in his dark glasses. Let's make a movie glamorizing him. Is Johnny Depp available to provide one of his overpraised, one-note performances?

I’m always amazed when criminals become folk heros, like when John Dillinger or Bugsy Siegel are glamorized because somehow their lawlessness supposedly tapped into the anti-authoritarianism of our collective psyche. We must be very bored.

Think of all the honest people who struggle through difficult times without committing crimes. Some are part of movements that attempt to make society fairer. Or perhaps they just quietly try as best they can to raise their children well. Those people are the heroes, but usually the geniuses with the guns and getaway cars get more attention.

One such unlikely antihero was the shadowy lowlife D. B. Cooper, who became a cult hero after hijacking a 727 aircraft in November 1971 and securing $200,000 in ransom from Northwest Airlines before parachuting into oblivion. Because of his daring crime and subsequent disappearance, Cooper became a huge cult figure

His wanted poster is textually matter-of-fact apart from mentioning that Cooper was a “heavy smoker of Raleigh filter tip cigarettes.” The images look fairly Warhol-ish, which isn’t surprising consider the Pop Artist’s stature in the culture at the time. There is no reward money listed.

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Early 1900s Ephemera Found Stashed In A Bible, Part 3

February 11, 2010 in Books | Permalink

On the flip side of the note: "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near."

Got my hands an early-20th Century bible owned by a family in Ripley, New York, that had pressed in its pages a bunch of notes and clippings. One of the pieces is a faded handwritten note bearing the title, “Central Indian Mission.” I can’t be sure of the author or date, but the note refers to an 1877 Presbyterian mission. If you can look around the ethnocentrism of the note–and, boy, is it hard to do–you have to be sort of in awe of people in that era (before radio, TV, cars, antibiotics, etc.) sailing from North America to a country that they knew so little about. Such is faith. Here is the full transcript of the note:

“Our Canadian church first helped the American Presbyterian mission in North India, but, as we became more interested, a special field known as Central India was given to us in 1879 when the Rev Jim Douglas was sent to Indore.

Central India is a collection of native states north of the central province, it is a fertile section with of approximately 9,000,000, largely Hindus.

Our mission occupies the western section of Central India, with a population of over 800,000. Our stations are at fourteen central points each the centre of hundreds of villages for nine-tenths of India’s population dwell in villages. Fully two-thirds of Central India is yet unvisited by any Christian worker, so there is a great task at hand before our church; also let us not forget that the home life of these people, especially of the women and girls, is a sad one, and that all the men, women and children are like ourselves, subjects of the British Empire. Let’s see to it that India’s empire is Christ’s.”

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(Sub)Urban Studies: What Will Become Of The Sprawl?

February 11, 2010 in Urban Studies | Permalink

A half-built McMansion looms like an insta-ruin. What will exist in its place in 10 or 20 years?

New York Times writer Timothy Egan won a richly deserved Pulitzer Prize for his excellent 2005 book about the Great Depression, The Worst Hard Time. He has an interesting post, “Slumburbia,” on the paper’s site about suburban ghost towns that have become commonplace during the Great Recession.

It’s a clear-eyed but not hopeless look at life in Foreclosure Alley, the California area considered the hardest hit American real estate market during this time of the Great Bust. As has so often been the case in our country’s history, it’s our best resource–new immigrants determined to make their way–that will likely save us from ourselves. An excerpt from the piece:

“After several days in foreclosure alley, this broad swath of the Central Valley that has been rated by some economists as the most stressed region during the Great Recession, I can’t see such apocalyptic forecasts coming true.

Yes, huge developments are empty, with rising crime at the edges, and thousands of homes owned by banks that can’t unload them even at fire-sale prices.

But through it all, the country churns and expands, unlike most other Western democracies. That great American natural resourced–tomorrow–will have to save the suburban slums.”

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Excerpted: Oriana Fallaci Interviews Golda Meir (1972)

February 10, 2010 in Books, Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

No, I don't have gold in my ear. Please stop asking me that.

Before I reluctantly return Oriana Fallaci’s out-of-print 1976 book, Interview with History, to my shelves, I bring you one more excerpt. I’ve previously presented segments of her tête-à-têtes with Henry Kissinger and Indira Gandhi, and now we look at her meeting with Golda Meir, who was then Israel’s Prime Minister.

Even though Fallaci differed politically with Meir on crucial issues, the journalist acknowledged a sort of love for the politician, who physically resembled her mother. The interview actually took place twice because the first set of microcassettes were stolen from Fallaci’s Jerusalem hotel room. (Fallaci believed that Muammar al-Qaddafi was behind the thievery.) An excerpt from the women’s exchange on the topic of feminism:

“Oriana Fallaci: Shall we talk about the woman Ben-Gurion called ‘the ablest man in my cabinet?’

Golda Meir: That’s one of the legends that have grown up around me. It’s also a legend I’ve always found irritating, though men use it as a great compliment. Is it? I wouldn’t say so. Because what does it really mean? That it’s better to be a man than a woman, a principle on which I don’t agree at all. So here’s what I’d like to say to those who make me such a compliment. And what if Ben-Gurion had said, ‘The men in my cabinet are as able as a woman’? Men always feel so superior. I’ll never forget what happened at a congress of my party in New York in the 1930s. I made a speech and in the audience there was a writer friend of mine. An honest person, a man of great culture and refinement. When it was over he came up to me and exclaimed, ‘Congratulations! You’ve made a wonderful speech! And to think you’re only a woman!’ That’s just what he said in such a spontaneous, instinctive way. It’s a good thing I have a sense of humor….

Oriana Fallaci: The Women’s Liberation Movement will like that, Mrs. Meir.

Golda Meir: Do you mean those crazy women who burn their bras and go around all disheveled and hate men? They’re crazy. Crazy. But how can one accept such crazy women who think that it’s a misfortune to get pregnant and a disaster to bring children into the world? And when it’s the greatest privilege we women have over men.”

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Old Print Ad: Panti-Legs (1961)

February 10, 2010 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

Where my hose at?

This 1961 advertisement in a New York University newspaper was one of the earliest ads for what were the first commercially available pantyhose. “Panti-Legs” were manufactured by a North Carolina fabric company named Glen Raven, which was founded in 1860 and is still in existence. A seamless pair of Panti-Legs would have run you $3 a pair back then. Glen Raven also makes awnings, flags and window covers. An excerpt from the ad copy:

“What’s going on with girls in every college in the country? Panti-Legs by Glen Raven! The fabulous new fashion that is making girdles, garters and garter belts old fashion. Panti-Legs are ecstatically comfortable with campus togs, date frocks, all your ’round-the-clock clothes–especially the new culottes and under the slacks. No sag, wrinkle or bulge.”

See other Old Print Ads.

Ruining The Classics: Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man And The Sea

February 10, 2010 in Books, Humor | Permalink

Side effects may include: back pain, blurred vision, cough, decreased sexual ability, diarrhea, dizziness, drowsiness, lightheadedness, runny or stuffy nose, sinus inflammation, trouble sleeping and weakness.

“He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. Every time he could have caught a marlin, he was too busy going to the men’s room. It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each day with his skiff empty and he always went down to help him either carry the coiled lines or the gaff and harpoon and the sail that was furled around the mast. Then the old man would rush to the can in the Red Lobster because he felt like he needed to take a leak.

Everything about him was old except his eyes which were the color of the sea and were cheerful and undefeated. But his prostate was defeated–enlarged and badly defeated. The old man was thin and gaunt and had deep wrinkles behind his neck, which he noticed one day in a restroom mirror. He sat on the Terrace and many of the fishermen made fun of him but he was not angry. He thought he had a going problem, but then his doctor told him that he had a growing problem. That’s when he discovered Flomax.

‘Bad news for you, fish,’ he said and shifted the line over the sacks that covered his shoulders. ‘I am a tired old man. But I have killed this fish which is my brother.’ Later, up the road in his shack, the old man was sleeping again, dreaming about the lions. He had taken a Cialis, so he rested upon a gigantic boner.”

Read other Ruined Classics.

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Early 1900s Ephemera Found Stashed In A Bible, Part 2

February 10, 2010 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

Theodore Roosevelt called Chautauqua "the most American thing in America."

Got my paws on a bunch of ephemera that was stashed in an early 1900s bible owned by a family in Ripley, New York. I brought you a transcript of one piece yesterday–an article clipped from the Ripley Express about women cultivating facial beauty. Today I bring you an information sheet called “Chautauqua Tickets.”

Chautauqua, massively popular in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, was a progressive education and culture movement that was begun in 1874 by Lewis Miller and John Heyl Vincent in Southwestern New York State. It grew into a traveling circuit that brought lecturers, preachers, musicians, Shakespearean productions, balled performances, etc., to rural communities across the country. The advent of automobiles, radio and TV eventually diminished the need for barnstorming entertainment.

The flyer (no way to tell the exact date) informs that tickets are available at local businesses, including Avery’s Garage and J.F. Vandrick’s Druggist Shop. The copy reads: “The War Tax is included in the price of ticket. This will save the trouble patrons were put to in former years. Adult Season Ticket…$2.75, Children’s Season Ticket…$1.35.”

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Listeria: Top 25 Athlete Names Of 2010 Olympic Games

February 10, 2010 in Sports | Permalink

In all fairness, "Afflctor" is pretty fucking stupid name, too. Few domains left.

The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, approaches, so it’s time for us to look at the best names of the athletes competing. The names only go up to “M” because the “N-Z” names really sucked.

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Married To The Mob: Polygamy In The U.S.A.

February 9, 2010 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

All of my wives are great, but you see that one right there, no the other one, she's my favorite.

National Geographic offers up a different sort of V-Day love story this month with a cover piece titled, Polygamy in America. The story looks at marriages with multiple wives in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), a sect that split from the Mormon faith in the 1920s and became centered in Colorado City, Arizona.

The sect became infamous in recent years when their compound in West Texas was raided by federal officials amid domestic abuse and child-endangerment allegations. Perhaps trying to change their public image, church elders opened their doors for National Geographic. An excerpt in which women from the sect discuss their unorthodox marriages:

“Joyce is a rather remarkable example of this harmony. She not only accepted another wife, Marcia, into the family, but was thrilled by the addition. Marcia, who left an unhappy marriage in the 1980s, is also Joyce’s biological sister. ‘I knew my husband was a good man,’ Joyce explains with a smile as she sits with Marcia and their husband, Heber. ‘I wanted my sister to have a chance at the same kind of happiness I had.’

Not all FLDS women are quite so sanguine about plural marriage. Dorothy Emma Jessop is a spry, effervescent octogenarian who operates a naturopathic dispensary in Hildale. Sitting in her tiny shop surrounded by jars of herbal tinctures she ground and mixed herself, Dorothy admits she struggled when her husband began taking on other wives. ‘To be honest,’ she says, ‘I think a lot of women have a hard time with it, because it’s not an easy thing to share the man you love. But I came to realize this is another test that God places before you—the sin of jealousy, of pride—and that to be a godly woman, I needed to overcome it.'”

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Early 1900s Ephemera Found Stashed In A Bible, Part 1

February 9, 2010 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

The bible is subtitled: "As Laid Down By Our Saviour--The Christ."

Got my gnarled, greasy, grimy, grubby fingers on a copy of a Cornerstones of Christianity bible that was owned by a Presbyterian family in Ripley, New York, in the early 1900s. While the good book itself is a standard hardcover copy of Testaments both New and Old (published by the John A. Hertel Company), there was a stash of newspaper clippings, personal letters, general-store receipts and other ephemera still pressed in the pages. The latest item appears to be dated 1916. One of the letters involves a missionary expedition to India.

I’ll bring you a transcript of each item in the days ahead. Today I’ll start with a newspaper article that was clipped from a local Ripley journal. I’d like to say it’s a horribly stupid, sexist piece that could never be published now, but is it really any more reductive than much of the the junk in today’s women’s magazines? Here’s a word-for-word transcript of the unbylined “Cultivation of Facial Beauty”:

“The woman who spends all of her money upon clothes and neglects her face and hair is no more interesting than a wooden figure decked to a gorgeous gown in a show window. A great artist once said to me that no clever woman would wear a garment or jewel to outshine her face. Meaning that the face should be the ornament and the garments should form the frame surrounding it.

Nothing looks more grotesque than an expensively gowned woman who has allowed her hair to become faded and neglects to dress her face. When I say ‘dress her face,’ I mean not only to wash it but to treat it with a pure face cream, which cleanses the pores of the skin, and the use of a little delicate, pure powder. Every woman past the age of 25 requires a little powder upon her face. There are secretions of dust and grease in the pores of the skin which cause a shine upon the surface that has an appearance of neglect.

The face, neck and hair should first be considered; the dress should be a secondary consideration. The quality of the hair, its care and manner of arrangement is a question only of attention. The quality of the complexion, its bloom and smoothness, is simply a question of exercise, cleanliness, and quality of creams and powders used.

First beautify your head, then fit your garments to suit it, and you will have a harmonious symphony pleasing to the eye and mind of all who behold.”

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Ruining The Classics: Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway

February 8, 2010 in Books, Humor | Permalink

Maybe Septimus couldn't stand your jibber-jabber.

“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. It was pretty fucking obvious nobody else was gonna do it. Try to get people to move their asses.

For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer’s men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning—fresh as if issued to children on a beach. But cold as fuck. Was it supposed to be so cold? That’s not what it said in the papers.

She had reached the Park gates. She stood for a moment, looking at the omnibuses in Piccadilly. The park, it smelled like shit, thought Mrs. Dalloway. They probably should clean that place more often. You think bums don’t urinate in there?

She would not say of any one in the world now that they were this or were that. She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. Which really makes very little sense. I mean, I guess she was being poetic, but maybe she’s just middle-aged and confused. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day. Especially if you don’t even know basic stuff like if you’re young or old. Life really is very fucking dangerous when you don’t even have rudimentary knowledge.

Her only gift was knowing people almost by instinct, she thought, walking on. If you put her in a room with some one, up went her back like a cat’s; or she purred. Which inevitably creeped out everyone. She remembered once throwing a shilling into the Serpentine. Because poor people had no use for that money. I bet one of the urinators in the park would have been really grateful for it. But every one remembered; what she loved was this, here, now, in front of her; the fat lady in the cab. But I’ll say one thing for the fat lady, I bet she at least knows if she’s young or old. She might be overweight, but she probably has some concept of time.

But what was she dreaming as she looked into Hatchards’ shop window? Was it that dream where you’re naked but nobody else notices? I hate that one. What was she trying to recover? What image of white dawn in the country, as she read in the book spread open:

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun
Nor the furious winter’s rages.

This late age of the world’s experience had bred in them all, all men and women, a well of tears. But it had not bred in them the ability to use a rhyming dictionary to save their fucking lives.”

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“A North Korean Is On Average Six Inches Shorter Than A South Korean”

February 8, 2010 in Books, Politics | Permalink

Christopher Hitchens has used some space on Slate to put a spotlight on an interesting new book about the blighted nation of North Korea, run by the ridiculous and brutal overlord Kim Jong-il. In his article, “A Nation of Racist Dwarfs,” Hitchens shares ideas from B.R. Myers’ book, The Cleanest Race: How North Americans See Themselves and Why It Matters. Myers looks not only at how arrogant delusions about racial superiority drive North Koreans but how it has stunted their growth–figuratively and literally. An excerpt from the Slate article:

Here are the two most shattering facts about North Korea. First, when viewed by satellite photography at night, it is an area of unrelieved darkness. Barely a scintilla of light is visible even in the capital city. Second, a North Korean is on average six inches shorter than a South Korean. You may care to imagine how much surplus value has been wrung out of such a slave, and for how long, in order to feed and sustain the militarized crime family that completely owns both the country and its people.

But this is what proves Myers right. Unlike previous racist dictatorships, the North Korean one has actually succeeded in producing a sort of new species. Starving and stunted dwarves, living in the dark, kept in perpetual ignorance and fear, brainwashed into the hatred of others, regimented and coerced and inculcated with a death cult: This horror show is in our future, and is so ghastly that our own darling leaders dare not face it and can only peep through their fingers at what is coming.•

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“I Don’t Waste Time With Flowery Small Talk”

February 8, 2010 in Books, Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

Nixon and Gandhi, together in 1971, despised one another. He referred to her behind the scenes as an “old witch.”

 

I brought you an excerpt of Oriana Fallaci’s spellbinding 1972 session with Henry Kissinger from the journalist’s great out-of-print book, Interview with History. I’m returning for passage of Fallaci’s 1972 Q&A with Indira Gandhi, one of the most complex and thorniest political leaders of that era.

By the time Fallaci had published her book in 1976, she had renounced her admiration for Gandhi, who had been India’s tough-as-nails Prime Minister and a feminist icon. In 1975, Gandhi, rather than resign as Prime Minister after being convicted of election fraud, declared the Indian version of martial law, had her political opponents imprisoned and repealed many of the citizens’ freedoms. She had, in effect, become a dictator.

Fallaci wrote a new introduction to the four-year-old interview that expressed bitter disappointment in the fallen idol. (“I didn’t hide my regret and shame at having portrayed her in the past as a woman to love and respect.”) Here’s a portentous excerpt from the interview that was conducted in New Delhi:

Oriana Fallaci:

Mrs. Gandhi, I have so many questions to ask you, both personal and political. The personal ones, however, I’ll leave for later–once I’ve understood why many people are afraid of you and call you cold, indeed icy, hard…

Indira Gandhi:

They say that because I’m sincere. Even too sincere. And because I don’t waste time with flowery small talk, as people do in India, where the first half hour is spent in compliments: ‘How are you, how are your children, how are your grandchildren and so forth.’ I refuse to indulge in small talk. And compliments, if at all, I save for after the job is done. But in India people can’t stomach this attitude of mine, and when I say, ‘Hurry up, let’s get to the point,’ they feel hurt. And think I’m cold, indeed, icy, hard. Then there’s another reason, one that goes with my frankness: I don’t put on an act. I don’t know how to put on an act; I always show myself for what I am, in whatever mood I’m in. If I’m happy, I look happy; if I’m angry, I show it. Without worrying about how others may react. When one has had a life as difficult as mine, one doesn’t worry about how others will react.•

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Decoder: Sarah Palin’s Keynote Address At The Tea Party Convention

February 7, 2010 in Humor, Politics | Permalink

This is a party of the people--working-class people who will pay me $100k for a speech. Ka-ching!

Sarah Palin: I look forward to attending more Tea Party events in the near future. It is just so inspiring to see real people.

Decoder: Real white people, that is. Real racist white people who aren’t really good spellers and who are resentful about having an African-American President.

Sarah Palin: Now, in many ways, Scott Brown represents what this beautiful movement is all about. You know, he was just a guy with a truck and a passion to serve our country.

Decoder: A guy without pants. A guy who did bottomless stuff. A guy who let it flap in the breeze. Also: Pointing out that he owned a truck makes it look like I’m connecting to working-class people, when I’m collecting $100K for a speech.

Sarah Palin: The Tea Party movement is not a top-down operation. This is about the people, and it’s bigger than any king or queen of a Tea Party. And it’s a lot bigger than any charismatic guy with a Teleprompter.

Decoder: But not bigger than a charismatic woman with notes scribbled on her hand.

Sarah Palin: The stakes are too high right now, and your voice is too important. So work hard for these candidates, but put your faith in ideas.

Decoder: Or vague buzzwords and catchphrases that have no real meaning.

Sarah Palin: Because that’s not how radical Islamic extremists are looking at this. They know we’re at war. And to win that war, we need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law standing at the lecturn!

Decoder: I don’t like professors, with their gotcha questions. They were always giving me bad grades at all five of the colleges I attended.

Sarah Palin: And you know, it’s no wonder that our President only spent about nine percent of his State of the Union Address discussing national security and foreign policy, because there aren’t a whole lot of victories that he could talk about that night.

Decoder: He hasn’t started any cool wars yet.

Sarah Palin: Just like you…probably just so tired of hearing the talk talk talk…Tired of hearing the talk!

Decoder: Although I can’t shut my resentful piehole for five minutes.

Sarah Palin: We need clear foreign policy that stands with the people and for democracy—one that reflects both our values and our interests, and it is in our best interest, because democracies—they don’t go to war with each other. They can settle their differences peacefully.

Decoder: Actually, democracies do go to war with each other. I am a complete fucking idiot–a complete fucking idiot with a $100K check in my pocket!

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Old Print Ad: Rubber Party Masks (1949)

February 6, 2010 in Misc. | Permalink

That Halfwit is going to get lung cancer from his chain-smoking.

Imagine the delight on your friends’ faces when you travel back to 1949 in your time machine and don one of these fun rubber masks. There are many interesting options to choose from, including “The Monster,” “Satan,” “The Monkey,” “Old Man,” “Old Lady,” “Clown,” and our personal favorite, “Idiot.” (“Yes, here is Halfwit in all his goofiness. People howl with laughter when you put on this life-like mask.”)  It’ll cost you $2.95 per mask or $4.95 if you want to purchase the “Santa Claus.” (It probably took a lot of extra rubber to properly approximate the jowly obesity of St. Nick.) An excerpt from the ad copy:

“Enjoy hilarious ‘monkey-shines’ at your next masquerade party with these amazing life-like rubber masks. Cover entire head…last for years…so lifelike people gasp with amazement and delight. Mold-Art Rubber Masks are made from best-grade natural flexible rubber. They cover the entire head. Yet you see through the ‘eyes.’ The mouth moves with your lips…you breathe…smoke…talk…even eat thru it.”

See other Old Print Ads.

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