Ideas and technology and politics and journalism and history and humor and some other stuff.
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"It’d be nice to help." (Image by Mavarin.)
i’m 18, m. saving for a new car. i don’t hold much in, so i’m offering my deepest darkest confessions for donation(s) of any amount. it’d be nice to help. i think i have some pretty interesting things to share.
"It's about the Internet when it was a more tactile experience."
The Slow Internet movement has been around for awhile, but it seems to be gaining traction. Or perhaps it just hired a better publicist. NPR presents a story about people who seek out dial-up connections, yearning for a slower user experience, a doomed but interesting experiment in ’90s nostalgia. It’s an offshoot of sorts of the Slow Food movement. Listen to the report here. An excerpt:
“Dial-up Internet is enjoying a huge comeback as the slow-net wave (partly inspired by the slow food movement) crashes onto hipster shores nationwide.
OK Go frontman Damian Kulash has written the trend’s anthem. The song is called ‘Love Me Longtime.’
‘It’s about the Internet when it was a more tactile experience — when it took something to be on the Internet,’ Kulash says.” (Thanks Klaw.)
Tags: Damian Kulash
A five-minute writing lesson from Kurt Vonnegut, the Mark Twain of our lifetimes. So it goes. (Thanks Open Culture.)
A 1970 Vonnegut commencement address, as covered by Time magazine:
“Like his novels, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s message to the graduating class of Bennington College was by turns desolately winsome, merely bleak and utterly but almost gaily despondent. Confessing to congenital pessimism, Vonnegut told the graduates: ‘Everything is going to become unimaginably worse and never get better again.’
Still, Vonnegut had some suggestions: ‘We would be a lot safer if the Government would take its money out of science and put it into astrology and the reading of palms. I used to think that science would save us. But only in superstition is there hope. I beg you to believe in the most ridiculous superstition of all: that humanity is at the center of the universe, the fulfiller or the frustrater of the grandest dreams of God Almighty. If you can believe that and make others believe it, human beings might stop treating each other like garbage.’
Vonnegut also asked the graduates to take advantage of some of youth’s prerogatives. A ‘great swindle of our time,’ he said, ‘is that people your age are supposed to save the world. I was a graduation speaker at a little preparatory school for girls on Cape Cod a couple of weeks ago. I told the girls that they were much too young to save the world and that after they got their diplomas, they should go swimming and sailing and walking, and just fool around.'”
Tags: Kurt Vonnegut
Sea-sickness: Disturbance of the nerves and stomach produced by the pitching of a ship at sea, resulting in pallor, cold sweat, vomiting, exhaustion, and, in exceptional cases, in death. It varies greatly in individuals, may be either annoyance or wretchedness, and usually passes away after a few hours or days. It is constitutional, runs in families, and seems dependent on the brain’s inability to balance and accommodate itself to the new condition, communicated through the spine and the solar plexus. Those who suffer from car-sickness are sure to have it. It is nervousness, for women are more subject than men, and young children, without rigidity of nerve, rarely suffer. It is well to keep on deck, recumbent if possible, and live sparingly on shipbread while it lasts. If the patient takes to the berth, mustard plasters on the stomach, cocaine in the mouth and bromo-caffein afford relief. Shutting the eyes to avoid the sight of moving objects is sensible, and sleep is the best of all.
Seldel, Emil: A Socialist mayor of Milwaukee, distinguished as the first of his party to be elected to such an office (April, 1909). His victory was due in part to the popular discontent with the open corruption of previous administrations, and partly to the fact that other Socialist officials before him, in minor offices, had made excellent records. Nearly all the candidates with him were workingmen. He himself is a pattern-maker by trade and can show evidences of the handiwork in the public places of the city. He was born in Germany, but has long been a resident of Milwaukee.
Shakers and Euthanasia: The Kissimmee Colony of Shakers, founded 1894, near Aston, Florida, acquired notoriety, September 1911, through the giving of a “quieting medicine,” to Sister Sadie Elizabeth Sears. When questioned, the administrators of the drug said that “whatever was done, was done to alleviate her sufferings, and to make it easy for her to pass out of the body without severe pain, not to take life.” The event shocked the whole country and a wide discussion on “Euthanasia” followed. The subject was revived a short time later, when the physicians of the County Hospital, Chicago, announced that they had chloroformed a seven-year-old victim of hydrophobia. They said, “They would not kill him, but they would do nothing to prolong his life of suffering.” The child was placed under an anaesthetic; not to be permitted to come from under its influence and “was put to sleep from which he would not wake.”
Shoes: As coverings for the human foot they have been worn from the earliest times. They are referred to in the Bible and early historical records. The shoes of the Jews were made of wood, rush, linen or leather. Pythagoras directed his followers to wear shoes made from the bark of trees. The Romans were the first to set the example of costly shoes, and introduced various decorative adornments of ivory and precious stones. In the Middle Ages fashion played some fantastic tricks with shoes, and in England, about the middle of the fifteenth century, shoes with such long points were worn that they had to be tied to the knees for convenience in walking, the dandies using silver chains for the purpose. It was about 1633 when shoes of the present form were introduced, and in 1668 the buckle came into use as an ornament. These continued in vogue up to the nineteenth century, before which period shoes were not made “rights” and “lefts.”
Swimming: The art of floating upon or in the water, and of progressing therein; a very desirable accomplishment indeed, as well as a pleasant and healthful pastime.
•Taken from the 1912 Standard Illustrated Book of Facts.
See also
Genesis P-Orridge, Throbbing Gristle legend and world’s most famous pandrogyne, is profiled in the seven-minute 2009 documentary.
Tags: Genesis P-Orridge
"The Executive Committee ...had chosen my poem, from a multitude, to be entered in its seventh annual poetry convention, which would be held...in Reno, Nevada.
The opening of “What Is Poetry? And Does It Pay?” Jake Silverstein’s smart-acre 2002 Harper’s essay about an asinine poetry convention in Reno, Nevada, that’s run by a vanity press:
“Summer in New Orleans is a long slow thing. Day and night, a heavy heat presides. Waiters stand idle at outdoor cafés, fanning themselves with menus. The tourists have disappeared, and the city’s main industry has gone with them. Throughout town the pinch is on. It is time to close the shutters and tie streamers to your air conditioner; to lie around and plot ways of scraping by that do not involve standing outside for periods of any length.
I was so occupied one humid afternoon when I came across a small newspaper notice that announced in large letters, ‘$25,000 poetry contest.’ ‘Have you written a poem?’ the notice began. I had written a poem. I had even considered submitting it to contests, but the prizes offered never amounted to much—a university might put up $100 in the name of a dead professor—and I hadn’t sent it off. This was a different proposition. With $25,000 I could pay off my debts, quit my jobs, and run the air on hi cool for a while. I submitted my poem that very day.
Two weeks later I had in my hands a letter from something calling itself the Famous Poets Society, based in Talent, Oregon. The Executive Committee of its distinguished Board of Directors, the letter informed me, had chosen my poem, from a multitude, to be entered in its seventh annual poetry convention, which would be held September 16–18 at John Ascuaga’s Nugget hotel and casino in Reno, Nevada. ‘Poets from all over the world will be there to enjoy your renown,’ the letter boasted, ‘including film superstar Tony Curtis.’
This was not exactly what I had imagined.”
Tags: Jake Silverstein
"There seem to be no limitation upon his ability to do wonders in arithmetic."
So-called “Lightning Calculators” were sideshow performers more than a century ago who could solve complicated mathematical problems in their heads in front of live audiences. Few had the facility for numbers displayed by Jacques Inaudi (1867-1950), an Italian who toured extensively with vaudeville shows demonstrating his prodigious abilities. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle profiled the math man on October 15, 1901 (and misidentified his nationality). An excerpt:
“To make a real hit, mathematics in vaudeville have to be of a sensational character. The old time lightning calculator, with his demonstrations and short processes, would depreciate to the vanishing point if compared with Jacques Inaudi, ‘the man with the double brain,’ at the Orpheum this week. Inaudi is a Frenchman and his English is limited but there seem to be no limitation upon his ability to do wonders in arithmetic.
One blackboard isn’t enough for him; so his assistant operates five in a row. Ordinary examples apparently bore him; so, if given an option, he chooses something in the trillions. His assistant, who wears a big black mustache and a dress suit, has to work much harder, physically, than Inaudi. The latter, who faces the audience from a little projecting platform, never looks at the blackboard, but repeats the numbers given him from various parts of the house for his manager, and stage assistant, to write with Parisian flourishes. Then, when the sum in addition, subtraction, cube root or what not, is complete, the manager works it out in sight of the audience but, quick as he is, Monsieur Inaudi finished before him and gives the correct answer to the people in the front.
"One blackboard isn't enough for him; so his assistant operates five in a row."
Last night Inaudi asked first for material for a sum in subtraction. Various three figure combinations were shouted here and there, with the result that when the top of the five boards had been filled to overflowing Inaudi had a proposition like this–not before–but behind him: Subtract 297, 122, 999, 492, 322, 260 from 495, 876, 711, 411, 460, 594. It was not the sort of a sum that the ordinary school sharp would care to tackle mentally, but Monsieur Inaudi did it, with his back turned to the board; and he did something else beside. This is where the double brain theory gained its notoriety. All the while that Inaudi was calculating in amounts rather more than the average man’s spending money, he was answering questions, as to the week days of certain dates, from anybody in the audience. Many men fired the date of their birth at him and received back instantly the day of the week. A glance at the questioner’s face was enough to indicate that Inaudi’s answer had been the right one.
In the meantime the hard working manager at the blackboard had been taking violent exercise in subtraction.
‘Haf you finished?’ asked Inaudi, from his place out by the footlights.
‘Non, non,’ was the answer, ‘It ees not quite.’
‘I haf finished,’ said Inaudi, calmly.
There, still looking straight ahead, the Frenchman gave the answer, the same as that which had been worked out on the blackboard: 98, 753, 711, 919, 138, 334. After that came multiplication, square root and finally Monsieur Inaudi repeated without a falter, from beginning to end, every figure that appeared on the blackboard up stage.
Inaudi and his manager were the very pink of politeness when an Eagle man saw them later in their dressing room. More tests in mathematics followed and with them every suspicion of possible treachery vanished.
‘What were you before making use of your ability at figures?’ the reporter asked.
‘Monsieur Inaudi was a shepherd,’ his manager replied for him, ‘a shepherd, with hees sheep, in France. One day, years, ago, he came to Marseilles. A strangaire there learned what he could do in mathematiques. He heard him and took him to Paree. Since then he has been before scienteests, doctairs and all–and all say, ‘Monsieur Inaudi ees a man with two brains.’
‘Have you got a memory for other matters like your memory for figures?’
‘It ees for feegures only,’ said Inaudi, answering for himself.”
Tags: Jacques Inaudi
How very mirthful. (Thanks crunchy.tv.)
Spittoon under bench, because ladies also enjoy spitting.
“New Pattern Britannia Parlor Spittoons–More the pity that such articles should be needed, but while some persons who expect to rate as gentlemen frequently expectorate on the carpets, there’s a necessity for parlor spittoons. A new and beautiful pattern just received at the Brittannia hardware store of Lucius Hart, 4 and 6 Burling Slip.”
Tags: Lucius Hart
"Will gladly travel." (Image by Downtowngal.)
I will come haul away all your broken shit, lawnmowers, weed eaters, leaf blowers, mini bikes, snowmobiles, jet skis, whatever, I will get it out of your back yard. Let me know, i live on staten island, but will gladly travel.
"The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year."
From “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%,” a cogent takedown in Vanity Fair of the rising wealth inequality by economist Joseph Stiglitz:
“It’s no use pretending that what has obviously happened has not in fact happened. The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. One response might be to celebrate the ingenuity and drive that brought good fortune to these people, and to contend that a rising tide lifts all boats. That response would be misguided. While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall. For men with only high-school degrees, the decline has been precipitous—12 percent in the last quarter-century alone. All the growth in recent decades—and more—has gone to those at the top. In terms of income equality, America lags behind any country in the old, ossified Europe that President George W. Bush used to deride. Among our closest counterparts are Russia with its oligarchs and Iran. While many of the old centers of inequality in Latin America, such as Brazil, have been striving in recent years, rather successfully, to improve the plight of the poor and reduce gaps in income, America has allowed inequality to grow.”
Tags: Joseph Stiglitz
As we await the merciful arrival of spring, let’s recall the scary winter.
"From 1987."
A summer day in 1987, Van Johnson arrived at my hair cutting shop for a trim – he was performing in La Cage aux Folles at the time… I recognized him, got his autograph and kept the hair that was cut. These items are now being sold to all interested parties as collectable memorabilia. These are completely authentic and a must have for any fan of Van Johnson.
Tags: Van Johnson
"No matter how tightly they clung to the surrogate mothers, however, the monkeys remained psychologically abnormal."
A note about an important shift in child rearing that occurred during the 1950s from “Hellhole,” a 2009 New Yorker article about solitary confinement by the Brooklyn-born surgeon and excellent writer Atul Gawande:
“Well into the nineteen-fifties, psychologists were encouraging parents to give children less attention and affection, in order to encourage independence. Then Harry Harlow, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, produced a series of influential studies involving baby rhesus monkeys.
He happened upon the findings in the mid-fifties, when he decided to save money for his primate-research laboratory by breeding his own lab monkeys instead of importing them from India. Because he didn’t know how to raise infant monkeys, he cared for them the way hospitals of the era cared for human infants—in nurseries, with plenty of food, warm blankets, some toys, and in isolation from other infants to prevent the spread of infection. The monkeys grew up sturdy, disease-free, and larger than those from the wild. Yet they were also profoundly disturbed, given to staring blankly and rocking in place for long periods, circling their cages repetitively, and mutilating themselves.
At first, Harlow and his graduate students couldn’t figure out what the problem was. They considered factors such as diet, patterns of light exposure, even the antibiotics they used. Then, as Deborah Blum recounts in a fascinating biography of Harlow, Love at Goon Park, one of his researchers noticed how tightly the monkeys clung to their soft blankets. Harlow wondered whether what the monkeys were missing in their Isolettes was a mother. So, in an odd experiment, he gave them an artificial one.
In the studies, one artificial mother was a doll made of terry cloth; the other was made of wire. He placed a warming device inside the dolls to make them seem more comforting. The babies, Harlow discovered, largely ignored the wire mother. But they became deeply attached to the cloth mother. They caressed it. They slept curled up on it. They ran to it when frightened. They refused replacements: they wanted only ‘their’ mother. If sharp spikes were made to randomly thrust out of the mother’s body when the rhesus babies held it, they waited patiently for the spikes to recede and returned to clutching it. No matter how tightly they clung to the surrogate mothers, however, the monkeys remained psychologically abnormal.”
Tags: Atul Gawande, Harry Harlow
The BBC having April Fools’ Day fun 54 years ago.
"I will listen and help if I can."
Is your life not going in the direction you wish, to the point that at times you just wish you were someone else and elsewhere? We’ve all been there, so just drop a line and I will listen and help if I can. Talk to you soon!
A stunning example of the form.
Raccoon: A plantigrade carnivorous mammal, common to the American continent. Is about two feet long, with a bushy ringed tail, and sharp snout. Its skin is valuable. The raccoon has the peculiar habit of dipping its food in water before eating it.
Race Suicide: A term that came into popular use, referring to the view of Ex-President Roosevelt and others in regard to the willful limitation of offspring by married couples, which has been denounced as a great crime against the nation. Ex-President Roosevelt asserts that the average family should consist of four children, while others have demanded that the mother should produce, during her natural maternal period, eight children. Those who inveigh against race suicide, however, make no allowance for the necessity of limiting the human product to those who are fitted for the perpetuation of normal specimens of the race–which is the real crux of the whole question of raising the desirable citizens and so conserving the nation’s most valuable natural asset in its infant product.
Rachel: Properly Elise Rachel Félix (1820-1858), she is a celebrated French tragic actress of Jewish birth. Singing for coppers on the streets of Paris, when ten years old, she attracted attention, was educated, and became queen of the tragic stage. In character, she was neither exemplary nor amiable. Her immense popularity enabled her to dictate her own terms to managers and she used this power without scruple. Many stories are told of her greed and rapacity, nor was she ever known to make a present that she did not afterwards take back.
Rowing: A popular sport and useful art. One of its chief advantages is that it affords uniform exercise to the entire muscular system. Those who have access to a suitable boat on any safe water should cultivate it, for good oarsmanship not only affords much gratification but brings much physical benefit.
Rinks, Roller Skating: They began to be popular in 1875, and in the course of the next ten years many rinks were started all over the country, but died down after a few years, to witness a revival, more recently.
•Taken from the 1912 Standard Illustrated Book of Facts.
See also
"The beauty of it is that there is a large stock to choose from."
Before every infant was required by law to be accounted for by public authorities, “baby farms,” unlicensed businesses where unwanted newborns exchanged hands via shadowy doorstep adoptions, were prevalent. These were often the unwanted offspring of prostitutes. Before the transaction could be completed, these babies were not often cared for well, and the ones who perished were usually buried surreptitiously on the grounds of the farms. It was a dark practice that led to numerous shocking scandals in that era. One such adoption story which had an odd twist was covered in surprisingly sanguine fashion in the February 18, 1891 Brooklyn Daily Eagle. An excerpt:
“What is known as the ‘baby farm’ is not an entirely modern institution. Nor has it escaped its share of criticism; but it serves one excellent purpose in supplying babies at small cost to lonely couples which Providence has not blessed with children. The beauty of it is that there is a large stock to choose from and it is just as easy to obtain a bouncing little girl, with the customary blue eyes and golden hair, as it is to acquire title to a rosy, roaring and frolicsome boy. It is with keen appreciation of these advantages that Mrs. Huber of Lorimer street, this city, negotiated for a baby warranted to give satisfaction and, having taken it home, succeeded in convincing her husband that the visitor was his son and heir. Mr. Huber appears to be one of those gentle, confiding creatures who are quite willing to believe that the moon is made of green cheese, and it is absolutely certain that he would still be celebrating his newly acquired dignity as a ‘parent’ had not an unlooked for incident disturbed the serenity of his repose.
"Mr. Huber then had the pleasure of ascertaining that while Mrs. Walson Schermerhorn had changed her mind and wanted her baby back."
A few days after the appearance of the crowing youngster at the Lorimer street domicile, Mr. Huber was surprised to find his quarters invaded by strangers. There was a hack in front of the door, and upstairs, in his wife’s room, was a dashing young woman who, strange to say, made claim to Mr. Huber’s baby, and announced her intention to take it away with her, kindly promising, however, to leave another infant in its place. It is, of course, unnecessary to submit that Mr. Huber did not immediately recognize the young woman as the mother of his child, and after settling this point to his own satisfaction, came to the conclusion that he was harboring a lunatic. It was in vain that he appealed to Mrs. Huber. That estimable person, instead of becoming highly indignant at the unexpected turn of affairs, was disposed to accept the situation in a philosophical mood, and sat on the edge of the sofa closely studying the pattern of the carpet. Finally the truth was told, and Mr. Huber then had the pleasure of ascertaining that while Mrs. Watson Schermerhorn had changed her mind and wanted her baby back, Mrs. Kate Burke, polite and obliging as she was, was willing to let her baby be exchanged for it.
We do not believe that people will be disposed severely to blame the wife for the deception of which she was guilty, because her desire to be proud possessor of a prattling baby was really pathetic. It was the consuming passion of her life, for, as she innocently puts it, ‘there can be no happiness when there is no baby.’ But would it not have been advisable to consult the husband before surreptitiously introducing the stranger into the household?”
Tags: Mr. Huber, Mrs. Huber, Mrs. Kate Burke, Mrs. Watson Schermerhorn
Seems like a million things could go wrong. (Thanks Singularity Hub.)
"They need you and your wisdom desperately."
Hi, I am doing a study on wisdom and I would love to hear what you think are the most important lessons in life you have learned. Won’t you take the time to share your advice with our younger generation? I would greatly appreciate anyone willing to take the time to help our young people, some of which have no adult role models to look up to. They need you and your wisdom desperately.
Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg get attuned in 1975. (Image by Elsa Dorfman.)
Great find by the Essayist, which uncovered an online version of “The Great Marijuana Hoax,” Allen Ginsberg’s 1966 Atlantic essay in defense of the illegal herb, which was then vilified to hysterical proportions. An excerpt:
“This essay, conceived by a mature middle-aged gentleman, the holder at present of a Guggenheim Fellowship for creative writing, a traveler on many continents with experience of customs and modes of different cultures, is dedicated to those who have not smoked marijuana, who don’t know exactly what it is but have been influenced by sloppy, or secondhand, or unscientific, or (as in the case of drug-control bureaucracies) definitely self-interested language used to describe the marijuana high pejoratively. I offer the pleasant suggestion that a negative approach to the whole issue (as presently obtains in what are aptly called square circles in the USA) is not necessarily the best, and that it is time to shift to a more positive attitude toward this specific experience. If one is not inclined to have the experience oneself, this is a free country and no one is obliged to have an experience merely because friends, family, or business acquaintances have had it and report themselves pleased. On the other hand, an equal respect and courtesy are required for the sensibilities of one’s familiars for whom the experience has not been closed off by the door of Choice.”
Tags: Allen Ginsberg
Urban planning students in the house.
Quarantine: The detention of a ship or crew supposed to be infected with pestilence until the peril is over. Before science had ascertained periods of incubation it was made 40 days, which was unreasonably long. The period now observed in the United States is 10 to 15 days for plague, with disinfection and fumigation of all suspected goods, as fleas introduce it; for yellow fever 5 to 7 days, for cholera 5. The great immigration from Europe renders precaution especially needful in New York. Every vessel must bring a clean or foul bill from the last port’s health authorities, and outbreaks in a foreign city are known at once by cable the world over. Russia, from its proximity to Asia and the unsanitary conditions of its own population, is rigidly guarded at the German and Austrian frontiers. Venice was the first to institute quarantine in 1403; Genoa followed in 1467. Austria tried to drive back Turkish pestilences with cordons of troops. In the United States the word quarantine is also applied to the isolating and placarding of a house in which contagious disease exists, until its final disinfection. Sanitation has nearly doubled the average of human life in a century, and we cannot imagine former conditions. Quarantine overrides ordinary rules of Law. No action can be brought for delay or destruction of goods against a sanitary agent who has acted in good faith, even if he be mistaken.
Quicksand: Sand with water-worn granules, which have no friction, do not pack, and when wet resemble a liquid. A locomotive which fell into such a sand was sounded for in vain to a depth of fifty feet.
•Taken from the 1912 Standard Illustrated Book of Facts.
See also
"He saw that his pants were torn and blood was running down his leg."
An excerpt from “The Million-Dollar Nose,” William Langewiesche’s 2000 Atlantic article about the sometimes-perilous life of oenophile Robert Parker, who holds great sway among the grape-squashing set:
“Parker was in his hotel room in Bordeaux one night, working on the day’s notes, when he got a phone call from Jacques Hébrard, the family manager of a famous chateau called Cheval Blanc,whose recent vintage Parker had described as a disappointment. Because Hébrard was very angry, Parker agreed to visit the chateau the following night, after his regular schedule of work, in order to retaste the wine. At the agreed-upon time he knocked on the chateau door. When it opened, a snarling schnauzer came out, leaped into the air, and clamped onto Parker’s leg. Hébrard stood in the doorway, staring into Parker’s face and making no attempt to intervene. After several attempts Parker managed to shake off the dog, which went tumbling into the night. Parker followed Hébrard into an office, where he saw that his pants were torn and blood was running down his leg. He asked Hébrard for a bandage. Hébrard came across the room and glanced disdainfully at the wound. Without saying a word, he went to the far side of a desk, pulled out a copy of The Wine Advocate, and slammed it down hard. He said, ‘This is what you wrote about my wine!’
In his simplified French, Parker said, ‘That’s why I’m here. To retaste it. Because you think I’m wrong.’
‘Well, I’m not going to let you retaste it.’
Parker got as belligerent as he gets. He said, ‘Look. I came here at the end of the day. You said I could taste your wine. I’ve been bitten by your dog. If I was wrong about this wine, I will be the first to say so.'”
•••••••••
Parker queried in 2003 by Charlie Rose, who seems fairly fermented himself.
Tags: Charlie Rose, Jacques Hébrard, Robert Parker, William Langewiesche
