2011

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“The Postmaster General Quickly Issued A Regulation Forbidding The Sending Of Children In The Mail”

February 6, 2011 in Photography, Urban Studies | Permalink

While on the subject of U.S. Postal Service history, I should point out that the above photograph comes from the Smithsonian with the following eye-popping caption:

“After parcel post service was introduced in 1913, at least two children were sent by the service (with stamps attached to their clothing; the children rode with railway and city carriers to their destination). The Postmaster General quickly issued a regulation forbidding the sending of children in the mail after hearing of those examples.”

Listeria: What Cannot Be Mailed (1893)

February 6, 2011 in Urban Studies | 1 comment


Taken from the 1893 Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac.

  • Explosives
  • Poisons
  • Liquids
  • Ardent
  • Inflammable oils
  • Animals (alive or dead)
  • Fresh fruit liable to decomposition
  • Insects (except queen bees and their attendant bees and dried insects when safely packed)
  • Substances exhaling an offensive odor
  • Obscene and indecent books, prints, writings or papers
  • All letters upon the envelopes of which, or postal cards indecent, lewd, obscene or lascivious delineations, epithets, terms or language are written or printed
  • All matter concerning lotteries or other similar enterprises offering prizes, or concerning schemes devised or intended to defraud the public or for the purpose of obtaining money under false pretences.
  • All mail matter not addressed to a post office or to no particular person, firm, company or publication

NYC Elevated Train Goes Off The Rails (1905)

February 6, 2011 in Photography, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The 1905 IRT wreck occurred just a few minutes after seven in the morning.

September 11 was an ominous date in NYC history even before 2001, if on a smaller scale. Due to a switching error, a horrendous 1905 train wreck killed 12 and seriously injured another 48 in Manhattan on the erstwhile IRT Ninth Avenue line at West 53rd Street. As this astounding (and anonymous) photo illustrates, it was a horrifying calamity of Hollywood blockbuster proportions long before movies were capable of simulating such disasters. The motorman, Paul Kelly, faced criminal charges for the crash because police suspected the incident was a willful act connected to an imminent strike by the motormen. Kelly went on the lam and eluded capture for nearly two years. The July 1, 1907 New York Times reported on his arrest in San Francisco. An excerpt:

“Paul Kelly, wanted by the New York police on a criminal charge growing out of the death of twelve persons in an elevated railroad wreck on Sept. 11, 1905, was arrested here last night by local detectives and detained pending orders from New York. Kelly admitted his identity.

The day before the strike of the elevated railroad men in New York, Kelly, who was a union motorman, was in charge of the train which was wrecked. It was charged that Kelly willfully disobeyed orders. He disappeared, and the Police Commissioner of New York offered a reward of $500 for his arrest.

Kelly has been here for a year, and has been in the employ of the Southern Pacific Railroad in a local freight yard.”

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Featured Video: Girl With Orange On LSD

February 6, 2011 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

I previously posted a clip of a 1950s housewife on LSD, but let’s see what acid does to a girl with an orange.

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Old Print Article: Oscar Wilde Rides The Long Island Rail Road, Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1882)

February 6, 2011 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

"If you don't wait on me I'll report you."

Of all the important and momentous events in the life of writer Oscar Wilde, riding on a Long Island train wasn’t one of them. But that didn’t stop the Brooklyn Daily Eagle from reporting on a minor kerfuffle he was involved in while aboard a train headed for Long Beach, in its August 24, 1882 issue. Wilde’s haughtiness with a conductor was apparently met with pure cheek. An excerpt:

“Oscar Wilde has been badly snubbed by the guests of Long Beach and other resorts on Long Island. In traveling between Hunter’s Point and Long Beach in a drawingroom car the other day he occupied two chairs in the laziest kind of way. Presently Conductor Billy Reynolds passed through.

‘Conductor?’ called out Oscar.

‘What is it, sir?’

‘Hand me some ice water,’ commanded Oscar.

‘There’s the tank; fill in,’ tartly replied the conductor.

‘Impudence, damned impudence,’ chimed in Sam Ward. ‘I’d report the fellow, Oscar.’

‘See here, young man,’ cautioned Oscar, ‘if you don’t wait on me I’ll report you.’

‘Report and be damned,’ said the conductor. ‘I sized you up long ago.’

Oscar was as good as his word. The railroad officials laughed over it, and that conductor is said to be in line for a promotion.”

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

February 6, 2011 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

??????????

Dan Callahan’s Coat – $1 (Oakland Gardens, NY)

For sale is a worthless coat formerly owned by a worthless person that goes by the name of Dan Callahan. The coat is roughly 90 years old and reeks of shit. It’s covered in dog hair and numerous other unidentifiable pieces of fuzz and/or actual dog shit.

By purchasing this item you will also receive the pocket contents which are as follows:

– 1 used and broken golf tee
– 1 empty box of cigarettes
– 2 broken cigarettes
– 1/4 empty tin of mint skoal pouches
– 15 State Farm Business Cards
– No Life
– 1 half consumed dog biscuit
– 1 dead frog
– 4 bags of Nike’s shit
– Dan Callahan’s 10 steps to success guide
– Sidewitz’s dad
– Forged scorecard
– Croxley’s coupon for 10 cent wings
– 1 giant sarcastic asshole
– Voucher for a free fluoride rinse
– Tee time for Bethpage Black in 2028
– The most hated human being alive
– His dad’s friend Leo
– Unlimited bitching & moaning
– Unlimited horseshit golf advice
– 1 really wide driveway
– 1 more of anything anyone else has

Ehhhhh you should probably buy this. Price negotiable.

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This Week’s Afflictor Keyphrase Searches

February 5, 2011 in Misc. | Permalink


A few search engine keyphrases bringing traffic to Afflictor this week:

“Highlights” From Another Week Of Afflictor Crap

February 4, 2011 in Misc. | Permalink

Afflictor: Encourgaing circus strongwomen to break chains since 2009.

  • The businessperson who most influenced Steve Jobs.
  • Gay Talese recalls his first article for the New York Times.
  • Has any tool ever disappeared completely from Earth?

Featured Video: Punk (1976)

February 4, 2011 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

A fascinating five-minute clip about the landmark NYC magazine, Punk, which began publishing in 1975. The mag featured interviews conducted by writer Legs McNeil, who, according to the narrator of this British doc, was encouraged to ask his subjects “the dumbest questions because punk…is anti-intellectual.” I don’t know that McNeil really required much encouragement. I interviewed him once and he was (unsurprisingly) a huge asshole. Fuck you, Legs. (Thanks to The Documentarian.)

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Gay Talese Recalls His First New York Times Piece

February 4, 2011 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

Talese

Gay Talese in 2006, (Image by David Shankbone.)

During a 2009 interview with the Paris Review, New Journalism legend Gay Talese recalls how he published his first article at the New York Times. An excerpt (Thanks Longform):

“The copy boys had to go at night to Times Square to wait for the arrival of the late-evening tabloids, which we’d deliver to the editors so that they could see what the other newspapers were reporting. While I was waiting in Times Square one night I became transfixed by that electronic news ticker scrolling around three of the sides of the old New York Times building. Fifteen thousand lightbulbs spelling out that day’s headlines, in five-foot-high letters. I wondered, How do they do that?

"Fifteen thousand lightbulbs spelling out that day’s headlines, in five-foot-high letters. I wondered, How do they do that?"

After I delivered the papers I had some free time, so I went back to the old Times building and I climbed the stairs until I found a door open on the fourth floor. Behind it was a man standing on a ladder, holding what looked like an accordion. I said, Excuse me, I’m a copy boy, and I was just wondering, what are you doing? He said, I’m doing the headlines. I asked him how he did it. He said, They call me and read me the headlines, and I type them into this device here, and it makes the bulbs light up in the right way. He said he’d been working there for twenty-five years. I asked him what his first big headline was, and he said, Oh, election night, 1928. HERBERT HOOVER BEATS AL SMITH. I asked him if I could come back with a notepad and interview him about his career and some of the famous headlines he’d written, and he agreed.

One of the good things about being a copy boy was that you got to know a lot of people on the staff. Especially if you were polite. I had good manners, thanks to growing up in the store—a reverential attitude toward the customer. So I approached Meyer Berger, one of the famous reporters on the paper at the time and a wonderful, generous man. He said I could write up the piece on his typewriter and show it to him. I did, and he liked it. He showed it to his editor, and soon it was published, without a byline, on the editorial page.”

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Urban Spelunkers Tour Subterranean Paris

February 4, 2011 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Even the guts of Paris look beautiful. (Thanks Open Culture.)

Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

February 4, 2011 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

"I am a wanting a used designer handbag for my girlfriend for Valentine's Day."

I could use your help please read Looking for a Designer Handbag for my GF

I could use your help

I am a Wanting a used Designer Handbag for my girlfriend for Valentines day PLEASE HELP last year she hated my Gift she said it looked like I bought it at a garage sale could you please kindly respond for more details I reside in newyork Thanks again for your help

“The Robot’s Legs Aren’t Ready Yet…We’re Still Testing Them”

February 4, 2011 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

"There will be plenty for R2 to do while waiting for its lower extremities." (Imaghe by NASA.)

The specimen pictured on your left is Robonaut 2 (or R2 for short), the first human-like robot that NASA will send into space. In February, R2 joins the International Space Station to aid in conducting scientific projects. The robot’s legs aren’t ready yet, so it’s launching ahead of them and they will be sent up and attached in space when they’re ready. The same thing happened with Buzz Aldrin, who was merely a torso when he first went to the moon. His limbs and genitals were shipped separately. An excerpt from a NASA news release:

“NASA’s Robonaut 2 is primed and ready for launch aboard space shuttle Discovery in February. R2 is so ready, in fact, that it’s going up ahead of its legs, which will follow on a later launch.

‘The robot’s legs aren’t ready yet,’ says Rob Ambrose of NASA’s Johnson Space Center. ‘We’re still testing them. But there will be plenty for R2 to do while waiting for its lower extremities.’

R2 will be the first humanoid robot to travel and work in space, so it’ll be training for some big responsibilities.

‘This robot will eventually become the space station crew’s right-hand ‘it.” (Ambrose says R2 is neither male nor female.)

Thanks to the legs and a few other upgrades, ‘it’ has a bright future. In fact the ultimate goal is for R2 to help the astronauts with EVAs. But first, like a student in school, the robot must progress stepwise as new features – like legs — are added and it acquires new abilities.”

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“The Tragedy Is That We’ve Largely Stopped Doing This In The United States”

February 4, 2011 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Guangzhou is one of the cities included in the Pearl River project. (Image by Myouzke.)

Yglesias has a post about the latest Chinese mass development, a megacity along Pearl River which will link many of its urban manufacturing areas with a dizzying array of infrastructure projects. The post also decries the lack of regional planning in the United States, while completely ignoring the land grabs and uprooting of reluctant people necessary to make such sweeping changes. Also: Some Chinese megalopolises, like Ordos, become insta-ghost towns. But here’s the Yglesias screed:

“I would say the key merit of this plan isn’t just the possibility for more coherent regional planning (it might work out well, or the planning might be out of touch and inept) so much as it is the deliberate desire to keep filling in China’s most prosperous, highest-productivity area. And it’s quite reasonable to expect people to continue flowing away from the poor countryside to opportunity in richer areas, and specifically this area which is quite prosperous by Chinese standards. Rich, productive urban areas are, after all, where the best opportunities lie and it’s sensible for the Chinese to be planning for the infrastructure needs of a future in which more people flock to them.

The tragedy is that we’ve largely stopped doing this in the United States. Of course people still flock to the Boston-Washington corridor, the Bay Area, etc. But we don’t adopt the kind of infrastructure and zoning policies that would facilitate those areas becoming substantial denser. Consequently, instead of having the fastest net population growth in the richest metropolitan areas (or states) we have people flocking to Houston and Phoenix in search of cheap housing.”

Featured Video: “Dress For Pleasure” (1977)

February 4, 2011 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

After watching John Samson’s infamous, trippy 1977 documentary, “Dress for Pleasure,” which profiles leather, rubber and vinyl fetishists, I don’t really have any better idea why some people gain sexual gratification from dressing in these materials. But it’s still a powerful movie that’s hard to look away from. It also gives a glimpse into Malcolm McLaren’s SEX clothing shop in London and serves as a pretty great fashion documentary of the type of punk wear that his partner Vivienne Westwood later brought to the mainstream. I would point out that several bare breasts make this film NSFW, but if you’re watching fetish documentaries at your desk, you obviously stopped caring long ago. (Thanks to The Documentarian.)

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New DVD: Dogtooth

February 4, 2011 in Film | Permalink

Incredibly upsetting and wholly mesmerizing, Giorgos Lanthimos’ 2009 absurdist drama, Dogtooth, is a unique vision about a trio of children approaching adulthood who’ve been cut off from the outside world since birth by their disturbed parents. It’s a perverse parable and one that never fails to convince.

Trained their whole lives to believe that dangers lurking in the world will kill them if they step outside the gate of the family compound, three siblings (Aggeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni and Hristos Passalis) have stayed put and been miseducated by their insane parents. They’ve been taught that a salt shaker is called a “telephone,” so that’s what they call it. The only films they’ve ever seen are home movies and they’re allowed no interaction with anyone but their parents and each other. Only Father (Christos Stergioglou) leaves the grounds, and he drives straight to his job as a middle manager in a factory and returns home as soon as he can. While dad is the leader of the ruse, Mother (Michele Valley) goes along wholeheartedly, convincing her dull-faced, damaged children that she can give birth to dogs.

But when Father brings home the female security guard from his plant to relieve the burgeoning sexual urges of his son, the dynamic begins to change and the balance of power becomes unmoored. As hormones rage and natural curiosity blooms, the children grow increasingly violent under their suppression. Soon they’re slashing one another with kitchen knives, clubbing each other with bats, taking hedge clippers to stray cats and performing all manner of unnatural acts.

You could accuse Lanthimos of trafficking in oddness for the sake of oddness, with no greater desire than to shock or titillate, but that wouldn’t be giving this amazing film the credit it deserves. As the movie reminds, we live to some extent by the tenets that we receive whether they be elements of nationalism, religious fundamentalism, political ideology or the ones we learn in our homes behind closed doors. Even if those lessons are irrational, they’re real to us and effect they way we behave with others who’ve been informed by different standards. And the violence and perversity in this fictional crazy home is nothing compared to the horrors that go on in our allegedly sane world.•

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Stem Cell Spraygun Cures Burn Victims

February 3, 2011 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

From second-degree burns to completely healed in 96 hours.

Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

February 3, 2011 in Misc., Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

"Cash only." (Image by Richiek.)

Baseball Team – $750 (Flushing)

For sale: one baseball team, one highly financed stadium, one cable program and one owner’s idiot son for sale. Team is about 50 years old and in poor condition. Cash only.

“It Was One Of Those Welfare Hotels With Nut Jobs Walking Up And Down, You Know, Fucking Crazies And Killers”

February 3, 2011 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

"I closed the window and sat there on the edge of the bed holding my club, thinking somebody fucking crazy from the lobby was going to come up." (Photo by David Shankbone.)

Before he was reborn, Mickey Rourke was a huge mess and before that a huge star. Before all of it, he lived in New York on no money during a time when the city had begun offering only the coldest shoulder possible to starving artists. In an interview in the February 1987 issue of Playboy, Rourke, then in the first great flowering of his career, recalled his hard-knock life as a young actor in NYC. A few excerpts follow.

••••••••••

“Down the hall, a little guy was opening the grille, peeking in; you couldn’t even jerk off in private. It was one of those welfare hotels with nut jobs walking up and down, you know, fucking crazies and killers and guys who were truck drivers who thought they were women. The first night, there was this loud fucking music coming up from somewhere, man. And I kept hearing these voices and shit from downstairs. I closed the window and sat there on the edge of the bed holding my club, thinking somebody fucking crazy from the lobby was going to come up and bust into the room. ‘Cause at the time, you know, I had left a lifestyle where I was a little wary of that kind of shit. The slightest sound at the door or whatever and I was jumpy. And there were a lot of strange sounds at that joint, believe me. I put a fucking chair next to the door with a can propped right on the edge, and another can on the window ledge. Anybody tries to break in, you know, I’m gonna hear it.”

••••••••••

“When I moved to the Marlton Hotel, I remember I was walking down the street, man, and I saw these dudes down on Christopher Street, and they were all wearing motorcycle jackets. With all the leather, all dressed in black, the whole thing. They kept looking at me, and I’m thinking, Fuck, man, where can I go? What fucking gang is that? None of my boys were with me. This wasn’t Miami. I kept thinking, What the fuck is this guy looking at me like that for, man? ‘Cause you didn’t eyeball somebody back home in Miami unless you wanted to get down, you know—unless you were ready to fight. What I didn’t realize was that they were sissies, all dressed up in leather.”

••••••••••

“It was funny, in a way. In the wintertime, I was really, really lonely. And I used to work down by the water, moving furniture in this warehouse where Lee Marvin, Steve McQueen, Gene Hackman and a bunch of other guys had all worked, too. The guy who ran it was an old actor or something and used to tell me stories about them. Anyway, I used to walk home during the night, and I was so fucking lonely, you know, I’d pretend I had a girlfriend waiting for me in my room, waiting to have a cup of coffee with me or go to the movies. As I walked home, I was still daydreaming. Same way I daydreamed in school. I’d say to myself, ‘Oh, now I’m going home; she’ll be waiting for me.’ Because I couldn’t talk to girls. It’s easier now. They come running.”

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Roads That Automatically Melt Snow

February 3, 2011 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Scott Brusaw’s solar-powered glass-based roadways trap the sun’s power and melt snow. (Thanks Bioscholar.)

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Featured Video: Attack Of The Puppet People Trailer (1958)

February 3, 2011 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

“See a baby doll take a bubble bath in a coffee can,” says the announcer of this trailer for Attack of the Puppet People. I can’t say it was on the agenda, but sure, why not, I’ll have a look.

“We Will All Spend More And More Of Our Time In Cyberspace Producing, Sending, Receiving, And Responding” (1994)

February 3, 2011 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Architect Gunnar Birkerts, Sven's father, designed the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY.

Mule Variations has a new interview with Sven Birkerts and it touches on the author’s prophetic 1994 work, The Gutenberg Elegies, which examined the fate of reading in the age of Internet. An excerpt:

“Mule Variations: In 1994, in the days before widespread use of the Internet or cell phones, you wrote inThe Gutenberg Elegies, ‘We will all spend more and more of our time in cyberspace producing, sending, receiving, and responding, and necessarily less time interacting in a ‘hands on’ way with the old material order.  Similarly, we will establish a wide lateral interaction, dealing via screen with more and more people at the same time our face-to-face encounters diminish.  It will be harder and harder – we know this already – to step free of our mediating devices.’  At the time, this observation was far from readily apparent to the public at large.  Now that it has played out as you predicted, do you ever feel like The Gutenberg Elegies was too far ahead of its time?  That if you had published it, say, five years later in 1999 more people would have understood what you were talking about?

Sven Birkerts: I think it came out at a time when the people who tend to think about these things were thinking about them, even though it hadn’t entered the wider public consciousness.  I think it was a wonderfully opportune time to start the debate.  And it was very coincidental, the publication of that book, because it came out at the very same time as Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte, who runs the MIT media labs.  And his was this raving, ‘Here’s the new world!  All solutions are in hand!  We’re all digital!’  And so the books were reviewed over and over and over again together.  And he and I did a couple things where we’d go on talk shows together.  To me, it said we’d come to a moment where it could be talked about.  What’s interesting to me now is that the wave’s falling back a little.  Some of the people were so gung ho about it, for instance Jaron Lanier who published a book this year.  Here’s this wild-haired Silicon Valley computer visionary suddenly starting to find the problems with the current situation.  He’s coming back from his raving enthusiasm.  He saw where the digits were going, but he didn’t see what would happen when the digits got tied up with the economy, etc.”

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“I Have Photographed Julie Baird’s Complex Story Of Multiple Homes, AIDS, Drug Abuse, Abusive Relationships, Poverty, Births, Deaths, Loss And Reunion”

February 3, 2011 in Excerpts, Photography, Urban Studies | Permalink

Julie and child, 1983. (Image by Darcy Padilla.)

Photographer Darcy Padilla’s amazing 18-year photo series, The Julie Project, follows a deeply troubled woman named Julie Baird through her life, beginning in 1993 in a flophouse in San Francisco. It’s heartbreaking and important work, though it’s not for the faint of heart. An excerpt below from the story’s introduction (Thanks to Kottke and Dooce):

“I first met Julie on February 28, 1993. Julie, 18, stood in the lobby of the Ambassador Hotel, barefoot, pants unzipped, and an 8 day-old infant in her arms. She lived in San Francisco’s SRO district, a neighborhood of soup kitchens and cheap rooms. Her room was piled with clothes, overfull ashtrays and trash. She lived with Jack, father of her first baby Rachael, and who had given her AIDS. She left him months later to stop using drugs.

Her first memory of her mother is getting drunk with her at 6 and then being sexually abused by her stepfather. She ran away at 14 and became drug addict at 15. Living in alleys, crack dens, and bunked with more dirty old men than she cared to count.

For the last 18 years I have photographed Julie Baird’s complex story of multiple homes, AIDS, drug abuse, abusive relationships, poverty, births, deaths, loss and reunion. Following Julie from the backstreets of San Francisco to the backwoods of Alaska.”

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Octopus Exits From Empty Beer Bottle

February 3, 2011 in Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

He emerges drunk, surly and ready to watch some football. No, he’s not going to your sister’s house. (Thanks Reddit.)

Swimming In New York City’s East River (1921)

February 3, 2011 in Photography, Urban Studies | Permalink

According to the Virtual Dime Museum, J.B. Johnson entertained East River bathers in 1874 by smoking a cigar and drinking milk underwater. (Image by Underwood & Underwood.)

The only place in America where it’s not currently snowing is Arizona, and you can’t live in that state because even babies there carry handguns. But at least we can think about the warmer weather that will hopefully, mercifully, eventually arrive. While it’s almost unimaginable for anyone in 2011 to equate summertime fun with swimming in the dirty, murky East River, there was a time when overheated working-class locals used it as a watering hole.

In 1870, a bathhouse was built along the East River to serve the needs of the swimmers and to set up competitive races. According to the Virtual Dime Museum, the bathhouse was condemned in 1912 because city officials were alarmed by how polluted the waters had become. That didn’t stop folks on view in this 1921 photo from taking a dip, but the building of public pools eventually ended the practice. Even during the relatively cleaner pre-1900 days, you never really knew what you would find in the East River. A brief article from the August 15, 1897 Brooklyn Daily Eagle makes that clear:

“A GRUESOME HOAX. Henry Buck of the 174 Vernon avenue, and Herman Seelig of 41 Ninth street, while in swimming in the East River at the foot of Nott avenue, this afternoon, saw a bundle floating in the water under the dock and notified the police. Examination showed that the bundle contained the remains of some animal.

Dr. P.J. McKeown of 145 Fifth street and Dr. P.H. Bumater of 143 Fifth street both looked at the remains and said that the bones were too large to be those of a human being. The end of one bone looked like the double joint in the foreleg of a cow, while another bone looked like the hip bone of a cow sawed lengthwise. Coroner Strong, who was summoned, said the thing was doubtless a hoax.”

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