2012

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“The Creation Of WikiLeaks Was, In Part, A Response To Iraq”

January 19, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

"The Iraq War was the biggest issue for people of my generation in the West." (Image by Espen Moe.)

From Michael Hastings’ new interview in Rolling Stone with Wikileak’s head leaker, Julian Assange, on what inspired him to begin disseminating classified information:

“Then, two years later, the U.S. invaded Iraq.
The creation of WikiLeaks was, in part, a response to Iraq. There were a number of whistle-blowers who came out in relation to Iraq, and it was clear to me that what the world was missing in the days of Iraq propaganda was a way for inside sources who knew what was really going on to communicate that information to the public. Quite a few who did ended up in very dire circumstances, including David Kelly, the British scientist who either committed suicide or was murdered over his revelations about weapons of mass destruction. The Iraq War was the biggest issue for people of my generation in the West. It was also the clearest case, in my living memory, of media manipulation and the creation of a war through ignorance.“

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“My Guests Tonight Are Forty Percent Of The Jackson 5”

January 19, 2012 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Twelve-year-old Michael Jackson and older brother Jackie interviewed on local Los Angeles news, 1971.

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“Sony Promoted The Machine’s Ability To ‘Time Shift’ Programming”

January 19, 2012 in Excerpts, Film, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

"Sony...introduced its Betamax video tape recorder to the U.S. consumer market in early 1976." (Image by Franny Wentzel.)

For more than three decades, Hollywood has been fighting a losing battle with technology, trying to pause time in an era when there was less competition, when making boatloads of cash required little ingenuity. From the movie establishment’s landmark case in futility, in which it fought to make home video recorders illegal:

“Universal City Studios, Inc. et al. v. Sony Corporation of America Inc. et al., commonly known as the Betamax case, was the first concerted legal response of the American film industry to the home video revolution. After nearly a decade of announcements and false starts by one American company or another, Sony, the Japanese electronics manufacturing giant, introduced its Betamax video tape recorder to the U.S. consumer market in early 1976 at an affordable price. In its marketing strategy Sony promoted the machine’s ability to ‘time shift’ programming–that is, to record a television program off the air even while watching another show on a different channel.

The plaintiffs, Universal and Walt Disney Productions on behalf of the Hollywood majors, charged that the ability of the Betamax to copy programming off air was an infringement of copyright and sought to halt the sale of the machines. The studios were ostensibly trying to protect film and television producers from the economic consequences of unauthorized mass duplication and distribution. However, Universal might have also wanted to prevent Betamax from capturing a significant segment of the fledgling home video market before its parent company, MCA, could introduce its DiscoVision laserdisc system, which was to scheduled for test marketing in the fall of 1977.”

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Time shifting with Sony Betamax, 1977:

Old Print Articles: Harry K. Thaw And Evelyn Nesbit, After Stanford White’s Murder, New York Times (1917, 1926)

January 18, 2012 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

Everyone is familiar with the crime. On a June day in 1906, Harry K. Thaw fired three bullets at close range at architect Stanford White, on the roof of Madison Square Garden, wounding him fatally atop a building the victim had designed. The gunfire was apparently provoked by jealousy Thaw felt over his wife, the comely chorus girl, Evelyn Nesbit, who had previously been White’s mistress. After a couple of trials, Thaw spent some time in a mental asylum, but not long after a failed escape to Canada, he was declared sane and set free. But neither Thaw nor Nesbit were ever free of themselves, liberated from their destructive impulses. Excerpts from two New York Times articles about their lives after the most shocking murder.

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"The terrified lad saw Thaw, armed with a short, stocky whip rushing for him."

“Whipping of Boy Starts Hunt for Harry K. Thaw” (January 10, 1917): “The police of every city last night sought Harry Thaw. Accused in the Stanford White trial of having used a silver-capped dog whip on girls, Thaw was indicted here yesterday charged with having whipped a nineteen-year-old boy.

In a room high up in the Hotel McAlpin Thaw on Christmas Eve is alleged to have lashed Frederick Gump, Jr., a Kansas City schoolboy, almost to unconsciousness, after having enticed the lad to this city on pretenses of educating him.

‘Thaw’s acquaintance with young Gump goes back to December, 1915,’ said Mr. Walsh at the Holland House yesterday. ‘The elder Mr. Gump is one of the leading citizens of Kansas City, and I have known his only child, Fred, since infancy. The boy’s father became ill about two years ago, and when Fred was graduated from the Kansas City High School the family moved to Long Beach, Cal. Fred enrolled in the Berkeley Polytechnic Institute, but spent the week-ends with his parents in Long Beach, and it was on one of these occasions that Thaw met the lad in an ice cream pavillion.

‘Fred, a fine-looking chap, appeared to interest Thaw, who told the boy he would like to have him go back to Pittsburgh with him, where a fine job could be had. Gump declined the offer and they parted. This was early in December, and the next Gump heard of Thaw was when a postal came wishing the young student a merry Christmas. Letter after letter came to Mrs. Gump addressed to her son, and in nearly all of them Thaw repeated his offer. Finally on December 20 last he wrote, offering Gump $50 a month and expenses either to take a job in his plant or to enroll for a course in the Carnegie Institute. Thaw inclosed a certified check for $50, and urged Gump to accept the offer.

After thinking the matter over, Mr. Gump advised his son to take the chance at the Carnegie School and Thaw was advised of the decision. In a wire, he directed Gump to come to New York and put up at the McAlpin, where further instructions would be wired to him.

‘At the hotel Thaw had reserved a big suite on the eighteenth floor and had even rented two adjoining rooms which, I think, he did to prevent strangers from hearing the cries which later came from his apartments. It was Gump’s first trip away from home. The splendor of his bedroom rather bewildered him, and it was some time before he retired.

‘Soon Gump heard his door opened cautiously. Almost immediately the lights were switched on and the terrified lad saw Thaw, armed with a short, stocky whip rushing for him.

‘The boy leaped to his feet, and dodging Thaw, tried to get out of the door, and even to jump out of a window. All were locked. From that time until Gump was almost insensible his captor drove the young lad around the room, raising great welts upon the boys’s unprotected back. When he had beaten the lad so that his back and legs were covered with blood, Thaw quit the room as suddenly as he had entered it. Young Gump lay on the floor all night, and in the morning Thaw again came in, this time accompanied by his body guard. Thaw instructed the guard to keep the boy a prisoner, and then left.'”

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"An examination of her throat revealed that there is hope of saving her voice."

“Thaw to Visit Chicago Reconciliation Rumor” (Jan 8, 1926): “Chicago–Harry K. Thaw, whose former wife, Evelyn Nesbit Thaw, attempted to kill herself Tuesday morning during a fit of despondency, will arrive in Chicago early next week to confer with his attorney, Charles S. Wharton, it was learned today.

The appearance of her former husband at this time, coupled with the interest he has shown in her behalf over a long period of years and which was climaxed by a personal inquiry sent to the hospital the other day, has caused rumors that a reconciliation might be effected between the two.

Thaw has been paying $10 every day to her through a Pittsburgh attorney for a number of years. He did this, it was said, as a ‘token of pleasant memories of the past when we were happy.’

It is also known that William C. Dannenberg, private detective, with headquarters in Chicago, has been receiving large fees annually from Thaw for ‘keeping tabs’ on Evelyn during her frequent stays in Chicago. It was through Dannenberg that Thaw made inquiry as to her condition a few hours after Evelyn was taken to the hospital.

Thaw telephoned to Dannenberg on Thursday, asking him to go to the hospital and deliver a message to Evelyn only in the event she were dying. The detective denied this later by saying he had been sent over to get a personal report on her condition, but had no message to deliver.

At the hospital it was announced that Miss Nesbit had rallied from the sinking spell which made her physician apprehensive during the crisis of her illness, and she was pronounced out of danger. An examination of her throat revealed that there is hope of saving her voice. The burns from the disinfectant she swallowed were at first believed to have damaged her throat so seriously she might never sing again.”

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“You’ve Never Even Read Shakespeare, You Imbecile!”

January 18, 2012 in Excerpts, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

There are all sorts of entertainment for all sorts of occasions, but I’ll always like best the kind that upsets conventions and makes the audience want to tear down the stage. Do not please the people–the people are already far too pleased. Playwright Alfred Jarry angered ticket buyers in just such a fashion in 1896. An excerpt about the tumult from Karl Whitney at 3:AM Magazine:

“Arguably Jarry’s greatest literary creation, and certainly his best known, was the character of Père Ubu, the corpulent and vulgar ‘King of Poland’ who emerged, swearing forcefully, in Ubu Roi (performed onstage in 1896, but printed versions predate the theatrical performances). The first performances of the play caused a stir. Partly, this was because of the shock of the new – as Brotchie points out: ‘it was as though a modernist play from the middle of the next century had been dropped on the stage without all the intervening theatrical developments that might have acclimatized the audience to its conventions.’ On the other hand, many of Jarry’s friends in the avant-garde weren’t leaving anything to chance: they turned up with mischief in mind, and caused – or at least contributed to – an uproar in the theatre. At one point the poet Fernand Gregh shouted out his opinion: ‘It’s as beautiful as Shakespeare,; to which his own brother shot back from the balcony: ‘You’ve never even read Shakespeare, you imbecile!'”

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“Bon jour, Père Ubu”:

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“I Was Living Without Electricity For About 15 Weeks”

January 18, 2012 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Beck interviewed by a robot voice as Mutations is released, 1998.

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“According To This New Research, The Online Echo Chamber Doesn’t Exist”

January 18, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I find so many great things online by accident that I’ve never been quite as concerned about Internet filters as some have. In “The End of the Echo Chamber,” Farhad Manjoo of Slate writes about new research–albeit research conducted by the very interested party Facebook–that suggests that the Web is inherently serendipitous (or perhaps we are) no matter how much personalization, targeting or narrowcasting is forced upon us. The opening:

“Today, Facebook is publishing a study that disproves some hoary conventional wisdom about the Web. According to this new research, the online echo chamber doesn’t exist.

This is of particular interest to me. In 2008, I wrote True Enough, a book that argued that digital technology is splitting society into discrete, ideologically like-minded tribes that read, watch, or listen only to news that confirms their own beliefs. I’m not the only one who’s worried about this. Eli Pariser, the former executive director of MoveOn.org, argued in his recent book The Filter Bubble that Web personalization algorithms like Facebook’s News Feed force us to consume a dangerously narrow range of news. The echo chamber was also central to Cass Sunstein’s thesis, in his book Republic.com, that the Web may be incompatible with democracy itself. If we’re all just echoing our friends’ ideas about the world, is society doomed to become ever more polarized and solipsistic?

It turns out we’re not doomed. The new Facebook study is one of the largest and most rigorous investigations into how people receive and react to news. It was led by Eytan Bakshy, who began the work in 2010 when he was finishing his Ph.D. in information studies at the University of Michigan. He is now a researcher on Facebook’s data team, which conducts academic-type studies into how users behave on the teeming network.”

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“Muhammad Ali, Who Happened To Be Nearby, Volunteered To Talk To Him”

January 18, 2012 in Sports, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Looking back to an odd incident from 1981, as “The Greatest” turns 70.

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

January 17, 2012 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink


The Most Underrated Thing In This Life (Inwood / Wash Hts)

is a good shit, followed closely by a big glass of ice water. Guess I am getting old.

“Hann Finally Converted His Airport Research Into A Breakthrough Sneaker”

January 17, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

The opening of “The Greatest Running Shoe Never Sold,” Bob Parks’ new Businessweek article about a lone inventor trying to partner with a mega-corporation:

“Late one night in August 1997, 54-year-old inventor Lenn Rockford Hann placed two bottles of Gatorade near Concourse F of Chicago O’Hare International Airport, unlaced his sneakers, removed his socks, then dodged curious maintenance workers for two hours while running 13.1 miles on the walkways. His pace surprised him. He was convinced the springy, resilient surface was almost perfect. ‘My legs felt amazing,’ says Hann, a marathoner. ‘I’ve been chasing a shoe that feels that good ever since.’

For years, Hann had been designing a running shoe that he hoped would give him an edge. After his airport run (in the days of lighter security, naturally), he knew he was on to something, and he became obsessed with O’Hare’s movable sidewalks. Finding a walkway in the midst of repair on a subsequent jog, he jumped into the pit to look at its clockworks. There he found rollers on each side, with nothing holding people up in the middle but the belt’s tension. The next day, Hann called the belt company, Dunlop Conveyer Belting, and learned they were adjusted to 2,500 foot-pounds of force to create the right balance.

Athletic brands spend millions every year trying to build a better sneaker that will propel them to the front of the $6.3 billion running shoe business, one of the biggest and most visible areas of sporting goods, with 11 percent growth in 2011, according to industry analyst SportsOneSource. Nearly all sneakers have a sole that looks like lasagna, composed of layers of rubber, foam, and plastic. The fluffy foam is made from ethylene-vinyl acetate, or EVA, which has its critics: EVA adds weight to shoes, and lab tests show it requires more energy per stride. Running shoe companies have long sought an EVA substitute that absorbs shock but also returns more energy. ‘Consumers like the cushioned feeling associated with a conventional running shoe,’ says Darren Stefanyshyn, a University of Calgary researcher and former chairperson of the Footwear Biomechanics Group. ‘If you could provide that without using foam, you’d have a winner.’

It took him eleven years, but Hann finally converted his airport research into a breakthrough sneaker patented in 2008, a shoe with an entirely different system to cushion and propel the foot. It quickly attracted the attention of fast-growing athletic brand Under Armour (UA), which spent two years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop it as the prospective centerpiece of the company’s first line of footwear. Hann’s shoe was scheduled to launch early this year and was poised to rock the footwear industry, but it never quite made it to market.”

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“The Concept Of A Combined Wristwatch And Calculator Is A Natural Outgrowth Of Today’s Digital Watch And Pocket Calculator Technologies”

January 17, 2012 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

In 1977, Hewlett-Packard introduced the original wristwatch-calculator combo, which was the first commercially available wearable computer. The 01 Wrist Instrument didn’t just provide a variety of functions–calculator, stopwatch, 200-year calendar, among them–it also allowed for the interaction of these functions. Portable tools have grown exponentially more sophisticated in the subsequent 35 years, but our general use of them seems to have remained simple and largely uninspired. Have the numbers we carry in our pockets shrunk so much that we’ve forgotten their value? Is the meaning reduced to so much lint? From the Hewlett-Packard Journal, December 1977:

“The concept of a combined wristwatch and calculator is a natural outgrowth of today’s digital watch and pocket calculator technologies. However, merely putting these two functions into one small case does not add significantly to the capabilities already available to the consumer. Only when the time and computation functions are allowed to interact freely can the full potential of the combination be realized and significant new capabilities be made available.

It is this interaction, along with state-of-the-art watch and calculator technologies, that provide the wearer of the HP-01 Wrist Instrument with the information that was previously unavailable, and makes the HP-01, after a brief experience with it, more difficult to do without than it might at first appear.”

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Hologram of HP-01 Wrist Instrument:

“These Are All Cheap Tricks Compared With What The Real World Has To Offer”

January 17, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

How can you have stunning science fiction when science itself is so stunning? From “Superstuff: When Quantam Goes Big,” a Michael Brooks article at New Scientist:

“FOR centuries, con artists have convinced the masses that it is possible to defy gravity or walk through walls. Victorian audiences gasped at tricks of levitation involving crinolined ladies hovering over tables. Even before then, fraudsters and deluded inventors were proudly displaying perpetual-motion machines that could do impossible things, such as make liquids flow uphill without consuming energy. Today, magicians still make solid rings pass through each other and become interlinked – or so it appears. But these are all cheap tricks compared with what the real world has to offer.

Cool a piece of metal or a bucket of helium to near absolute zero and, in the right conditions, you will see the metal levitating above a magnet, liquid helium flowing up the walls of its container or solids passing through each other. ‘We love to observe these phenomena in the lab,’ says Ed Hinds of Imperial College, London.

This weirdness is not mere entertainment, though. From these strange phenomena we can tease out all of chemistry and biology, find deliverance from our energy crisis and perhaps even unveil the ultimate nature of the universe. Welcome to the world of superstuff.” (Thanks Browser.)

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It’s only a trick, for now–1900:

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“That Was Almost The Picture That Made Me Decide To Quit”

January 17, 2012 in Film, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Clint Eastwood interviewed in 1974 in New Orleans for Canadian TV. Eastwood has, of course, usurped much of his own violent, macho image in late-career work, but he remains a staunch conservative politically, recently extolling the virtues of Herman Cain.

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“How Would You Behave, If The Devices That Surround Your Life Were Suddenly Turned Against You?”

January 17, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From “The Hacker Is Watching,” David Kushner’s new GQ piece about the unlikely culprit behind a creepy new wave of computer hacking, which exploits the omnipresence of cameras, among other things:

“The more ubiquitous cameras become, the less we’re aware they’re even there. They stare out at us blankly from our phones and laptops, our Xboxes and iPads, a billion eyes and ears just waiting to be turned on. But what if they were switched on—by someone else—when you least expected it? How would you feel, how would you behave, if the devices that surround your life were suddenly turned against you?

It’s a question that James Kelly and his girlfriend, Amy Wright, never thought they’d have to entertain. But one instant message changed everything. Amy, a 20-year-old brunette at the University of California at Irvine, was on her laptop when she got an IM from a random guy nicknamed mistahxxxrightme, asking her for webcam sex. Out of the blue, like that. Amy told the guy off, but he IM’d again, saying he knew all about her, and to prove it he started describing her dorm room, the color of her walls, the pattern on her sheets, the pictures on her walls. ‘You have a pink vibrator,’ he said. It was like Amy’d slipped into a stalker movie. Then he sent her an image file. Amy watched in horror as the picture materialized on the screen: a shot of her in that very room, naked on the bed, having webcam sex with James.

Mistah X wasn’t done. The hacker fired off a note to James’s ex-girlfriend Carla Gagnon: ‘nice video I hope you still remember this if you want to chat and find out before I put it online hit me up.’ Attached was a video still of her in the nude. Then the hacker contacted James directly, boasting that he had control of his computer, and it became clear this wasn’t about sex: He was toying with them. As Mistah X taunted James, his IMs filling the screen, James called Amy: He had the creep online. What should he do? They talked about calling the cops, but no sooner had James said the words than the hacker reprimanded him. ‘I know you’re talking to each other right now!’ he wrote. James’s throat constricted; how did the stalker know what he was saying? Did he bug his room?

They were powerless. Amy decided to call the cops herself. But the instant she phoned the dispatcher, a message chimed on her screen. It was from the hacker. ‘I know you just called the police,’ he wrote. She panicked. How could he possibly know? She ran into her bathroom and slammed the door behind her. As she pleaded for the police to come quickly, she reached into the shower and cranked the water all the way up, hoping the hacker couldn’t hear her.”

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“Suited Up, They Emerged From The Transfer Van In Sunlight And Shadow”

January 17, 2012 in Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

Astronauts Grissom, White and Chaffee perished during the Space Race. From ABC News on January 27, 1967, the day after their accidental deaths.

See also:

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“The Bellman Who Fetched His Bags Said He Was A Famous Writer”

January 16, 2012 in Books, Excerpts, Film, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

The opening of “Love, Boxing, and Hunter S. Thompson,” screenwriter John Kaye’s raucous Los Angeles Review of Books essay:

“HUNTER AND INGA: 1978

The third (and last) time I went to New Orleans was in September of 1978. I was living in Marin County, and I took the red-eye out of San Francisco, flying on a first-class ticket paid for by Universal Pictures, the studio that was financing the movie I was contracted to write. The story was to be loosely based on an article written by Hunter Thompson that had been recently published in Rolling Stone magazine. Titled ‘The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat,’ the 30,000-word piece detailed many of the (supposedly) true-life adventures Hunter had experienced with Oscar Zeta Acosta, the radical Chicano lawyer who he’d earlier canonized in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Hunter and I were in New Orleans to attend the hugely anticipated rematch between Muhammad Ali and Leon Spinks, the former Olympic champion who, after only seven fights, had defeated Ali in February. The plan was to meet up at the Fairmont, a once-elegant hotel that was located in the center of the business district and within walking distance of the historic French Quarter. Although Hunter was not in his room when I arrived, he’d instructed the hotel management to watch for me and make sure I was treated with great respect.

‘I was told by Mister Thompson to mark you down as a VIP, that you were on a mission of considerable importance,’ said Inga, the head of guest services, as we rode the elevator up to my floor. ‘Since he was dressed quite eccentrically, in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, I assumed he was pulling my leg. The bellman who fetched his bags said he was a famous writer. Are you a writer also?’ I told her I wrote movies. ‘Are you famous?’

‘No.’

‘Do you have any cocaine?’

I stared at her. Her smile was odd, both reassuring and intensely hopeful. In the cartoon balloon I saw over her head were the words: I’m yours if you do. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘That is good.'”

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The late-career Ali regains the title yet again:

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“The Backwater Of Bristol Has Become More Important Than Disney World And Disneyland Combined”

January 16, 2012 in Sports, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

A couple of interesting bits from “Big, Bigger, Best,” Nick Summers’ new Daily Beast article about ESPN, that sports-programming behemoth.

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“With revenue of $8.5 billion last year, ESPN has become the principal cash spigot of the Walt Disney Co., the network’s 80 percent parent. To the largest entertainment corporation on earth, the backwater of Bristol has become more important than Disney World and Disneyland combined.”

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““ESPN, through … sheer muscle, has been able to say to us, ‘You will carry this service on the lowest level subscription you offer, and you will make all of them pay for it,’ says Matt Polka, CEO of the American Cable Association, a trade group. ‘My next-door neighbor is 74, a widow. She says to me, ‘Why do I have to get all that sports programming?’ She has no idea that in the course of a year, for just ESPN and ESPN2, she is sending a check to Disney for about $70. She would be apoplectic if she knew … Ultimately, there’s going to be a revolt over the cost. Or policymakers will get involved, because the costs of these things are so out of line with cost of living that someone’s going to put up a stop sign.'”

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The first SportsCenter, 1979, hosted by Lee Leonard:

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“People Who Worked For Him Hated Him Passionately”

January 16, 2012 in Film, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

The sometimes maddening and always provocative film critic Pauline Kael dishing on Cecil B. DeMille and others in 1982. She is still missed.

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

January 16, 2012 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

"If he closes in on me, I'm going to key him in his face." (Image by Francinegirvan@Wikipedia.)

DUMB Dad (nyc)

so here I am walking on a side street shclepping my 2 Trader Joe bags when dad and his kid come up the block in the opposite direction.
The kid is not holding dads hand and bumps into me and my bags. Nothing tragic. He doesn’t fall even or cy or anything. So I continue. 

about 20 seconds later I hear dad blurt out, ‘watch where your going’. I turn around to see dad and kid stopped up the block. 
I’m totally surprised, and a little pissed, so I yell back ‘watch your kid’ or hold your kid. dad gets irate yelling back at me. 
finally i’ve had enough of him and yell, ‘fuck you’. He say’s ‘what’? 
I retort, ‘you heard me, FUCK YOU!’ 

Now he’s about to make a move in my direction. He’s half my age and twice my size, me 58 but in good shape. 
I reach into my pocket for my keys, figuring if he closes in on me, I’m going to key him in his face. 

But he backs off, finally using his pint size brain and walks away like cowardly dick he is. 

I conclude it’s time to buy some mace. Too many assholes in this fucked up city. This shit ONLY happens in NY.

Old Print Article: “Richard A. Proctor Dead,” New York Times (1888)

January 16, 2012 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

"The malady as diagnosed followed the typical course of languor and malaise, rapid prostration, remission, recurrence, collapse and insensibility, convulsion, black vomit, and death."

The 19th-century British astronomer Richard A. Proctor produced one of the first maps of Mars, but he was cut down in America at age 51 by the scourge of yellow fever. An excerpt from a report of his final hours in the September 13, 1888 New York Times:

“Prof. Richard A. Proctor, astronomer, lecturer, and author, died last night at the Willard Parker Hospital, Sixteenth-street and the East River, where he was quarantined as a yellow fever patient from Florida. He was prostrated in Room 88 at the Westminster Hotel Tuesday morning, and the malady as diagnosed followed the typical course of languor and malaise, rapid prostration, remission, recurrence, collapse and insensibility, convulsion, black vomit, and death. Prof. Proctor was at the time of the the attack suffering from cardiac uraemic troubles, and for some time it was suspected that a violent pilous attack aggravated and accelerated these affections, but the diagnoses of experts were apparently confirmed in his last moments, when the characteristic ejecta were noticed.

Proctor's map of Mars.

The Professor has a country seat and observatory at Oak Lawn, Marion County, Fla. He left there on Saturday, intending to sail for Europe on the 15th, and he was one of the first guests to register at the Hotel Westminster on Monday morning. He came here by rail and his family remained at Oak Lawn. He appeared fatigued and languid after he had taken a bath, but he was alert and bustling during the afternoon and evening. Tuesday morning he told a bell boy that he was ailing and asked for lemonade and a word with Boniface W.G. Schenck. Mr. Schenck admits that when he learned the Professor was not well he decided on ascertaining exactly what was the matter with him, because he came from Florida, so when he hailed him in the corridor outside his room in his customary hearty fashion he scanned him closely. The Professor, who looked like a very sick man, repeated his request for lemonade.

‘Better put a ‘stick’ in it, Professor,’ suggested Mr. Schenck, and the result was that the invalid drank a goblet of whisky  and lemonade.

Then Mr. Schenck had a chat with his guest, and it prompted him to suggest that a physician be sent for. Prof. Proctor did not appear to consider that his condition warranted it, but he permitted Mr. Schenck to summon Dr. George S. Conant, who was once a diagnostician in the division of contagious diseases. After seeing his patient Dr. Conant visited Mr. Schenck and told him that the Professor was going to be a very sick man. He could not, he said, say what he believed was the matter with him, but his diagnosis warranted him in suggesting that an officer of the Board Of Health he called in consultation, and Dr. Cyrus Edson, Chief Inspector of Contagious Diseases, was summoned. He made up his mind in a few minutes, and told Mr. Schenck that it was extremely probable that the Professor would be dead in 10 or 12 hours of yellow fever, and suggested that his family be notified.”

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Two Martin Luther King Jr. Videos

January 15, 2012 in Politics, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

RFK in Indiana, 1968: “I have some very sad news for all of you.”

Early MLK TV spot, 1957: “I think it’s better to be aggressive at this point.”

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“I Know Of No Literary Work Written By An Animal–And That Is Very Sad”

January 15, 2012 in Excerpts, Videos | Permalink

"Have animals had, in the past, a literature of their own?"

Eccentric composer Erik Satie published some odd humor pieces in Vanity Fair. They were more strange than funny. From “A Learned Lecture on Music and Animals,” which ran in 1922, three years before his death:

“Indeed we have no example either of painting or of sculpture made by an animal. Their taste does not lead them towards these two arts.

Architecture and Music, however, have attracted them–the rabbit constructs tunnels–both for himself and the beagle hound.

The bird builds a nest, a marvel of art and industry, wherein he himself may live with his family–

Even the cuckoo is a fairly good judge of architecture.

We would continue to cite similar examples indefinitely.

So much for architecture.

I know of no literary work written by an animal–and that is very sad.

Have animals had, in the past, a literature of their own?

It is quite possible. No doubt, it was destroyed by a fire–a very, very large fire.”

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“Gymnopédie No.1,” which was the end music for My Dinner With Andre:

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“Those Saloon Bedrooms, Located A Drunken Stagger From The Bar, Provided A Haven For Prostitutes”

January 15, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Theodore Roosevelt, NYC Police Commissioner, 1895.

File this one under unintended consequences. Theodore Roosevelt attempted to reduce drunkenness in 1890s New York City while he was police commissioner and instead encouraged vice of all kinds. From “How Dry We Aren’t,” Richard Zacks’ new Opinion piece in the New York Times:

“During the November elections in 1895, corrupt Tammany Democrats won in a landslide by campaigning against Rooseveltism and dry Sundays. Undaunted, Roosevelt lobbied the Republican-dominated legislature to pass even tougher excise laws. On April 1, 1896, the Raines Law went into effect, expanding the Sunday shut-down hours from midnight Saturday to 5 a.m. Monday, banning “free lunch” counters, and requiring that saloon doors be kept locked and blinds raised to let police peer inside. The law also exempted hotels with 10 rooms, which could serve guests liquor with a meal 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

In a New York minute (actually the next few months), more than 1,000 saloons added 10 dinky rooms. Tammany building inspectors didn’t care if some had four-foot-high ceilings or were in former coal bins. “Ten beers and one hard-boiled egg scarcely constitute a meal,” complained Roosevelt, but local judges disagreed, allowing most anything to pass for food. The playwright Eugene O’Neill once described on a saloon table “an old desiccated ruin of dust-laden bread and mummified ham or cheese which only the drunkest yokel from the sticks” would ever dream of eating.

New York — already awash in illegal casinos and brothels — was transformed into the city that never sleeps. These Raines Law saloon-hotels could serve round the clock. Even the Metropolitan Opera added 10 bedrooms to be able to offer late-night wine. And those saloon bedrooms, located a drunken stagger from the bar, provided a haven for prostitutes and a temptation to couples who’d had a few too many drinks. Adding 10,000 cheap beds was bound to loosen the city’s morals.

Roosevelt’s liquor crackdown backfired; so did the Raines Law. The city’s spirit of place, what Stephen Crane once dubbed New York’s ‘wild impulse,’ refused to be tamed.”

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Roosevelt is interred on Long Island, 1919:

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“Molecules Are Really, Really Tiny”

January 15, 2012 in Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

Drew Berry uses computer graphics to illuminate the molecular world, at TED.

Galileo drawing from video, 1610.

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3 Recent Films I Liked Now On Home Video

January 15, 2012 in Film, Videos | Permalink

Certified Copy
Abbas Kiarostami has trafficked in painful alienation for most of his career, but it still surprises how close to the bone this puzzling movie cuts. An English intellectual (William Shimell) is in Tuscany to read from his new book and is introduced to a French single mother (Juliette Binoche) who drives him around the day he is to leave. The two exchange philosophies on art and life before stopping in a café in which the proprietor mistakes them for a married couple. From that moment the pair begin to speak to one another as if they are husband and wife at odds. Are they playacting or is it something deeper? It’s something deeper. Watch trailer.

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Another Earth
Really fascinating indie that uses a helping of science fiction to ask questions about accidents of life and love. Rhoda Willaims (Brit Marling, also co-writer) is a 17-year-old science whiz headed to MIT until she kills two people in drunken car accident on the very night that a parallel Earth is discovered. The whole world is buzzing about the amazing discovery, but Rhoda’s world has gone silent. She is sent to prison for several years. When released, Rhoda insinuates herself into the life of composer John Burroughs (William Mapother), whose wife and child she killed. John has shrunk into hermitage, and his dim life is buffed and shined by this mysterious cleaning woman who says she’s been sent to his home by a service. The two become friends and lovers, but will the awful truth, which eventually must come out, ruin their relationship? And will this other Earth play a role in determining their futures? Director Mike Cahill keeps the film on track as it hurtles toward a sneaky, perfect ending. Watch trailer.

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The Arbor
First-time filmmaker Clio Barnard’s devastating and unconventional documentary tells the deeply painful story of British playwright Andrea Dunbar, who became famous at the tender age of 15 but was never able to escape the pernicious influence of the infamous Butterfield Estates in West Yorkshire. Dunbar passed away in a barroom at age 29 in 1990, but not before turning out several scathing plays and damaging her own offspring, especially her mixed-race daughter, Lorraine, whom she regretted having. Barnard spent a couple of years interviewing Lorraine and others and employs “verbatim theater” in which actors lip-synch their words. The director also has performers act out versions of Dunbar’s plays outdoors in the shadows of the housing project. A fascinating creation in which artifice communicates the truth better than a simple reality could.  Watch trailer. 

 

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