Urban Studies

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Listeria: Definition Of Five “G” Words (1912)

March 15, 2011 in Books, Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

Gangrene: Instant mortification, a term applied to the death of tissues, following disease of the part, which becomes black and void of sensation. Amputation beyond the seat of mischief is nearly always essential.

Giants: The greatest known giants of the nineteenth century were a Finlander, 112 inches tall; an Australian, 103 inches, a Kalmuck and an Irishman, each 100. The greatest racial averages are the Scotch of Galloway, 71 inch; Scotch, 69.5 inch; Patagonian, Cheyennes, Fulahs, Sikh, 69 inch.

Gloves: An article of luxury in warm countries, of necessity, in protection of the hand, for laborers and drivers in the far north. They are universal among Eskimos, and were used by the cave-men. They were an article of magnificence in the Middle Ages. Gloves are made of kid or lamb-skin (hard to distinguish); doeskin, dogskin, buckskin. The nineteen pieces of a good glove are sewed by machine. Cutting is difficult, and descends in families. Out of 409 manufacturers in the United States 166 center around Gloversville, N.Y., where the trade was introduced by Sir Wm. Johnson, 1760.

Golf: A golf field or links is a tract of flat or rolling turf of 3 to 5 miles. There are 18 holes, 4 1/2 inches in diameter, at distances of 100 to 500 yards, each surrounded by a smooth putting green, 60 ft. square. Each player has a putting ball, and an assortment of of beech or hickory golf-sticks, often shod with iron. The competitors play in turn until one drives his ball in the first hole. Then they all begin again for the second, and the one who makes most holes wins. President Taft says: “If men over fifty, who are in need of something and do not know what, will organize a golf-club and chase balls around 6,000 yards every afternoon, they will grow a great deal more contented with life.”

Gypsies: A wandering Hindu tribe, as can be proved by their language, who roamed into Eastern Europe with the Tartars in the fourteenth century, and have remained a rambling, tinkering, horse-trading and shoeing, poaching, fortune-telling race in every land. The French called them Bohemians, the English, The Egyptians or Gypsies.

•Taken from the 1912 Standard Illustrated Book of Facts.

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Minsky Tentacle Arm Demonstration (1968)

March 14, 2011 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

AI pioneer Marvin Minsky at MIT in ’68 showing his robotic arm, which was strong enough to lift an adult, gentle enough to hold a child.

Minsky discussing smart machines on Edge: “Like everyone else, I think most of the time. But mostly I think about thinking. How do people recognize things? How do we make our decisions? How do we get our new ideas? How do we learn from experience? Of course, I don’t think only about psychology. I like solving problems in other fields — engineering, mathematics, physics, and biology. But whenever a problem seems too hard, I start wondering why that problem seems so hard, and we’re back again to psychology! Of course, we all use familiar self-help techniques, such as asking, ‘Am I representing the problem in an unsuitable way,’ or ‘Am I trying to use an unsuitable method?’ However, another way is to ask, ‘How would I make a machine to solve that kind of problem?’

A century ago, there would have been no way even to start thinking about making smart machines. Today, though, there are lots of good ideas about this. The trouble is, almost no one has thought enough about how to put all those ideas together. That’s what I think about most of the time.”

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

March 14, 2011 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

Monkey (westchester)

Monkey needs a good home. She is very lovable to everyone. I am moving to an apartment that doesn’t allow dogs never mind a monkey.

 

Update From A Neighbor On A Gleaned Book

March 14, 2011 in Books, Urban Studies | Permalink

I gleaned an old hard-covered compilation of Playboy articles on my block in Brooklyn a while back and posted an excerpt from it. In the photo caption, I mentioned that the great name “Stella Bugbee” was inscribed inside, presumably the previous owner. Stella came across the post and sent me the email below. Thanks for the free book, Stella! The email:

“Hi There. I saw on your blog that you gleaned my old Playboy interviews book. Pretty great, no? I had to get rid of a lot of my things last year and that one didn’t make the cut. But I’d had it for about 20 years. Glad it went to a good home!

Best,
Stella Bugbee”

••••••••••

Original post, September 1, 2010:

Gleaned: The Twentieth Anniversary Playboy Reader (1974)

"Stella Bugbee" is inscribed on the inside flap. The previous owner, I suppose. There's a designer by that name, but I don't know if it's the same person.

I gleaned this book a few blocks from my Brooklyn apartment just yesterday. It’s a beat-up hardback copy (sans dust jacket) of a Playboy compilation of interviews, fiction, reportage and humor from the era when Hefner put out a great publication that attracted the best writers. This collection features work from Woody Allen, Murray Kempton, Joyce Carol Oates and Vladimir Nabokov.

One brief, interesting piece from 1971, “World 42-Freaks 0,” recounts conservative author Garry Willis’ visit to a Canadian commune, where he mostly found “dope, dirt and self-indulgence.” An excerpt about a drug deal gone awry:

“A car door slams–Tony, back from taking Dani to the city. His hair is short, the Army crew cut still growing out: his tanned, thin arms are scribbled over with ‘good ole boy’ unsophisticated tattoos. His eyes light up at the sight of two motorcycles, and he kicks one off into the field, wheels slipping as he bangs off thin deciduous trees, then races halfway up the incline till the loose grass and leaves throw him, laughing crazily. the motor kicks and coughs itself to rest on the ground.

‘Bombed out of his head,’ Al mutters. ‘He was supposed to deal some dope in the city, but he got high on the first batch. Well, it always happens. When people first come over the border, they have to stay high for a couple of weeks before they can get themselves together.’ Tony deserted last week, when his company was preparing to ship out for Vietnam. ‘That mean we’ll have nothing but rice and salad for dinner tonight.'”

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“Did You See That Guy? I Know He’s A Pig.”

March 14, 2011 in Excerpts, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

One of the most shocking episodes in the upside-down decade of the ’70s–or any decade in American history, really–was the kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army, a violent and radical outgrowth of the tortured anti-war movement of the ’60s. The nation shuddered for the shanghaied scion, but soon Hearst was a full-fledged member of the SLA, knocking over banks, cursing the “pigs” and being pursued by the FBI along with her new “friends.” Was she brainwashed? Was she a traitor? Was she a rich girl acting out? Rolling Stone looked for answers in a cover story for its October 23, 1975 issue. An excerpt:

“The next day Patty ate her meals in the car. Even standing in line at a McDonalds was a risk. Millions had seen her picture on the evening news and the cover of Newsweek or heard her soft, distinctive voice on radio broadcasts of the S.L.A. communiqués.

For most of the previous four months she had been cooped up inside. Her excursions outside twice had ended in gunfire. Now she was driving across country through an FBI dragnet that already had employed more agents than any other civilian case.

The strain of the past months was showing. To Patty the passing world was populated by an army of undercover agents. Once, as Jack showed up to ease past a construction site, she ducked and whispered in a half shriek: ‘did you see that guy? I know he’s a pig.’

‘C’mon, he’s a highway flagman. Don’t be so uptight.’

When Jack pulled in for gas she frequently demanded he speed away as an attendant approached. ‘I don’t like the way he looks,’ she’d explain. ‘He looks like a pig.’

Patty’s repeated reviling of ‘pigs’ soon lead to a discussion about the political criterion for such a classification. Patty took the position that a pig was anyone who did not give wholehearted support to the S.L.A. Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden, for instance, were pigs because they’d criticized the S.L.A. tactics. Patty sounded like what she was — a new convert to radical thinking,”

••••••••••

The trailer for the great documentary, Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst:

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Description Of Bill Gates At 30

March 14, 2011 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I like Bill Gates the philanthropist, though Bill Gates the extrepreneur was a real a-hole. Longreads put up a link to a Fortune profile about Bill Gates from 1986, when the 30-year-old tech titan was about to take Microsoft public. Here’s how writer Bro Uttal described Gates at the time:

“Money has never been paramount to this unmarried scion of a leading Seattle family, whose father is a partner in a top Seattle law firm and whose mother is a regent of the University of Washington and a director of Pacific Northwest Bell. Gates, a gawky, washed-out blond, confesses to being a ‘wonk,’ a bookish nerd, who focuses singlemindedly on the computer business though he masters all sorts of knowledge with astounding facility. Oddly, Gates is something of a ladies’ man and a fiendishly fast driver who has racked up speeding tickets even in the sluggish Mercedes diesel he bought to restrain himself. Gates left Harvard after his sophomore year to sell personal computer makers on using a version of the Basic computer language that he had written with Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft. Intensely competitive and often aloof and sarcastic, Gates threw himself into building a company dedicated to technical excellence. ‘All Bill’s ego goes into Microsoft,’ says a friend. ‘It’s his firstborn child.””

••••••••••

Microsoft in 1986:


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Barrison Sisters Perform The Cat Dance (1890s)

March 14, 2011 in Old Print Articles, Photography, Urban Studies | Permalink

Cats perched below skirts.

The Barrison Sisters of 1890s vaudeville were a group of struggling New York actresses who found fame (and infamy) when they figured out that sex sells. Hyped as the “Wickedest Girls in the World,” the sibling act is seen in the above classic photo performing its notorious “Cat Dance,” in which the sisters hiked their skirts at the climax to reveal a live kitten that was perched by contraption between their legs. Their lasciviousness was not appreciated by the puritans at the New York Times, which reviewed a Barrison performance in the October 6, 1896 edition. An excerpt:

“The irreverent Barrison sisters, who were once of this country, and who have returned to it, preceded by a foreign-gained reputation for wickedness, public and private, began an eight weeks’ engagement in Koster & Bial’s Music Hall last night. The house was filled, and this means that the top-tier boxes, to see whence one must almost hang over the rail, were as crowded as those nearer the floor.

‘The five Barrisons,’ as a fluffy-haired quintet of the sisters are separated from Lona, the most heralded of all, begin their performance by living up to the stories of their doings that have come from across the water, but the frankly suggestive first song they sing is in the ratio of virtue to vice, when compared to the doings of Lona, who occupies the stage alone, preceding them by two numbers.

Vulgar is a word that may be applied to her performance; perhaps some of those in last night’s audience have by this time found a stronger word. She appears on stage in the attire of a fop, and, depriving a large part of her meaning, as she sings in French, she disrobes, appearing in tights. The story she tells is of the life of a rake.

She departs, only to appear again in a second, riding astride a handsome white horse, which prances around the stage. Bringing it is to a standstill in the centre of the stage, she sings, again in French, and lets the audience know by her action of her exhilaration and her love for the steed.

‘It’s the most audacious piece of deviltry and abandonment I ever saw offered to a New-York public,’ declared an old theatre-goer, as he was leaving the theatre.”

 

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Robots Beat The Snot Out Of Each Other

March 14, 2011 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Not that they have snot. Not yet, anyway. (Thanks Singularity Hub.)

1950s Car With a Fifth Wheel

March 14, 2011 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Rudoph Steingass’ invention never caught on, probably because of the loss of trunk space. (Thanks Live Leak.)

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Listeria: Definition Of Five “F” Words (1912)

March 14, 2011 in Books, Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

(Image by Mgregoro.)

Fairies: Supernatural beings, generally diminutive in size, a belief in whom is one of the most popular forms of superstition. It is confined to modern Europe (and of course America) and the character of the fairies depends upon the country they inhabit, thus the English fairies are simple and comely, the Scandinavian are harsh and often traitorous. According to the Irish as well as Scottish fairy lore, the elves, though in the main harmless or at most mischief loving, have the bad reputation of stealing away little children from their cradles and leaving a changeling in their place who never thrives.

Fire Alarm: A system of telegraphic wires connecting a central office with convenient signal boxes in every neighborhood. The keys are held by the police or a neighboring house-holder, but sometimes the boxes open freely and are trusted to the public. The circuit is closed by a crank or hook. An automatic alarm in a building operates whenever influenced by heat.

Flagellants: A fanatical sect which sprang into notice at Pérouse in the thirteenth century during a time of plague. They held processions and flogged themselves as they walked naked about the streets until they bled. They declared that sins could not be remitted without such practices. The sect continued down to the sixteenth century, in spite of their being declared heretics by Pope Clement VI, and ninety of them were burnt at the stake.

Flying Machines: Heavier than air. The invention of the flying machine for so many centuries the goal of succesive inventors, marks an epoch of human progress, inspiring and conclusive. The spectacle of men venturing into the skies beyond the range of vision, of darting through space at terrific speeds; lifting over mountains with the ease of the eagle and crossing seas in veritable flocks, are triumphs which stir the emotions and inspire new ambitions in the entire race. But the triumphs of to-day have been won only after centuries of endeavors. As early as 400 B.C., Archtyas, an early philosopher of Tarenium is said to have devised a wooden bird. Leonardo da Vinci, the famous artist (1452-1519) built what was probably a successful gilder, and Henson, in England in the early forties, constructed an “Aerial Steam Carriage” remarkably like the dirigible of Count Zeppelin. Numberless inventors continued working on the problem, and finally the experiments and scientific work of Prof. Langley, Sir Hiram S. Maxim, Otto Lilienthal, Clement Ader, Octave Chanute and others proved that flight was at hand.

Friday: The sixth day of the week, named after Friggs, with wife of Odin. It is the Mohammedan Sabbath, and is a general fast day of the Roman Catholic Church. According to popular superstition, Friday was an unlucky day, and even now there is a general disinclination amongst old-fashioned seafarers to set forth on a voyage on a Friday.

•Taken from the 1912 Standard Illustrated Book of Facts.

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

March 14, 2011 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

"It is not necessary to tell me that you have an autograph of Hank Aaron and he will be dying soon."

 

I Am Buying Autographs – $99999

I am buying autographs of stars in sports, entertainment and famous historical figures.

Please – Autographs of deceased persons only. <=======

Please no autographs of living people. It is not necessary to tell me that you have an autograph of Hank Aaron and he will be dying soon. I won’t buy it.

 

“Here Is A Country Boy, Junior Johnson, Who Learns To Drive By Running Whiskey For His Father”

March 14, 2011 in Excerpts, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

Tom Wolfe’s great 1965 Esquire piece about a moonshiner-cum-NASCAR pioneer (“The Last American Hero Is Junior Johnson. Yes!“) married New Journalism to the New South. An excerpt:

The legend of Junior Johnson! In this legend, here is a country boy, Junior Johnson, who learns to drive by running whiskey for his father, Johnson, Senior, one of the biggest copper still operators of all times, up in Ingle Hollow, near North Wilkesboro, in northwestern North Carolina, and grows up to be a famous stock-car racing driver, rich, grossing $100,000 in 1963, for example, respected, solid, idolized in his hometown and throughout the rural South, for that matter. There is all this about how good old boys would wake up in the middle of the night in the apple shacks and hear an overcharged engine roaring over Brushy Mountain and say, “Listen at him — there he goes!”, although that part is doubtful, since some nights there were so many good old boys taking off down the road in supercharged automobiles out of Wilkes County, and running loads to Charlotte, Salisbury, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, High Point, or wherever, it would be pretty hard to pick out one. It was Junior Johnson specifically, however, who was famous for the “bootleg turn” or “about-face,” in which, if the Alcohol Tax agents had a roadblock up for you or were too close behind, you threw the car into second gear, cocked the wheel, stepped on the accelerator and made the car’s rear end skid around in a complete 180-degree arc, a complete about-face, and tore on back up the road exactly the way you came from. God! The Alcohol Tax agents used to burn over Junior Johnson. Practically every good old boy in town in Wilkesboro, the county seat, got to know the agents by sight in a very short time. They would rag them practically to their faces on the subject of Junior Johnson, so that it got to be an obsession. Finally, one night they had Junior trapped on the road up toward the bridge around Millersville, there’s no way out of there, they had the barricades up and they could hear this souped-up car roaring around the bend, and here it comes — but suddenly they can hear a siren and see a red light flashing in the grille, so they think it’s another agent, and boy, they run out like ants and pull those barrels and boards and sawhorses out of the way, and then — Ggghhzzzzzzzhhhhhggggggzzzzzzzeeeeeong! — gawdam! there he goes again, it was him, Junior Johnson!, with a gawdam agent’s si-reen and a red light in his grille!•

____________________________

Junior Johnson on a dirt track, 1964, Ascot Park, California.

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Some Movies Errol Morris Never Got To Make

March 14, 2011 in Excerpts, Film, Urban Studies | Permalink

"'Weirdo,' about the breeding of a giant chicken." (Image by Daniel Postellon.)

From Mark Singer’s 1989 New Yorker profile of the documentarian:

“Among the nonfiction movies that Errol Morris has at one time or another been eager to make but has temporarily abandoned for lack of investor enthusiasm are Ablaze! (or Fire from Heaven), an examination of the phenomenon of spontaneous human combustion; Whatever Happened to Einstein’s Brain? (portions of the cerebellum and the cerebral cortex are thought to be in the possession of a doctor in North Carolina, other parts are floating around here and there); Road, the story of one man’s attempt to build across northern Minnesota an interstate highway that no one else wanted; Insanity Inside Out, based on the book of the same tide, by Kenneth Donaldson, a man who, in his forties, was wrongly committed by his parents to a mental hospital and got stuck there for fifteen years; Weirdo, about the breeding of a giant chicken; The Wizard of Wendover, about Robert K. Golka and his laser-induced fireball experiments in Utah; and a perusal of Yap, a South Pacific island where stone money is the traditional currency.” (Thanks Longform.)

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“Some Real Mad Rock Here Today”

March 14, 2011 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Kyle talking about guitars. I have no idea, either. (Thanks Reddit.)

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Room Made Entirely From Chocolate

March 13, 2011 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

By Lithuanian sculptor Mindaugas Tendziagolskis.

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Alexander Graham Bell’s Telephone Sketches

March 13, 2011 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I’m sure Bell appropriated aspects of the telephone from other inventors, but this sketch is still fun to look at. (Thanks CrunchGear.)

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Old Print Article: Giantesses Succumb (1879-1890)

March 13, 2011 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

"The casket was lifted carefully out of the hearse by as many men as could well get under it to lend a helping hand."

Life didn’t last long for large ladies who were sideshow attractions at dime museums during the nineteenth century. The demise of such women was the subject of the following reports, which were written with the usual sensitivity of journalism of the period.

••••••••••

“A Huge Weight,” London Telegraph (August 29, 1890): “One of the biggest women on record has died in Paris. She was known as the Phenomenal Female, her real name being Victoire Tauntin and age only 19. Mlle. Tautin was not a giantess in height, but her girth was enormous and it took eight strong men to lift her out of her chair when she used to be conveyed for an exhibition to a music hall. The individual who engaged her found that she did not pay her expenses, owing to the cost entailed by her transit to and from the cafe concert, so Victoire retired from public life and lived quietly with her parents. Lately she had an attack of erysiplas, to which she succumbed. Her funeral was the event of the day in the suburban locality wherein she resided, and great interest was manifested by the neighbors in watching the lugubrious preparations for the poor phenomenon, whose remains were carried to the hearse and afterward to the grave on the shoulders of ten of the most robust men in the employ of the company  of metropolitan undertakers.”

••••••••••

“The Giantess,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (March 15, 1884): “The remains of Mrs. Jessie Reed, nee Waldron, the giantess who has for two years been on exhibition by Mr. Bunnell, were taken from Samuel Waldron’s undertaking shop on East Sixty-fourth street, New York, to-day, to the Union avenue Baptist Church, Greenpoint. The hearse was drawn by two stout horses, and was surmounted by plumes. The massive casket, which was three feet, six inches wide and three feet deep, was filled with flowers, the offerings of friends. A great crowd of persons awaited the arrival of the body, many of them being old friends and schoolmates of the giantess. The casket was lifted carefully out of the hearse by as many men as could well get under it to lend a helping hand.

‘Oh I hope they don’t let it fall. It would be fearful if they did,’ several women and young girls whispered to each other timidly, as they saw the men staggering under the weight of nearly 500 pounds.”

••••••••••

“The Death Is Announced Today,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (February 19, 1879): The death is announced to-day of an amiable young woman who occupied a more or less public position in the world as a giantess. She was a Mrs. Flandran, and the very physical condition which made her a museum curiosity produced fatal results. She was six feet high and suffered from obesity to such an extent that she weighed at the time of her death no less than 516 pounds. There was nothing very extraordinary about either her life or death, except her height, for her bulkiness was due to disease, and fat people die every year by scores of fatty degeneration of the heart. But apart from her physical state she seems to have been an unusually interesting young woman, for her gentleness, amiability and kindness won for her in her pseudo-professional career many warm friends. An obituary notice of the unfortunate invalid–for that appears to have been the case for many years–intimates that honorable gentlemen of all classes sought her hand in marriage. Of course it is only fair to suppose that many of these proposals had their origin in that prurient ambition to associate oneself with distinction. But doubtless more than one, and especially those in her own sphere, appreciated at their true value the gentle qualities of mind and heart which distinguished the circus curiosity.”

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Terrible Advice For Aspiring Models

March 13, 2011 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Some faces that actually became famous + worst hairpiece ever. (Thanks Found Footage Festival.)

Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

March 13, 2011 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

"Seeking owls especially." (Image by GalliasM.)

DEAD ANIMALS birds, critters, etc BIG or small FOR TAXIDERMY (BROOKLYN)

I teach a taxidermy class once a month and use feeder mice, but I would like to show how to taxidermy other animals…

SEEKING OWLS especially or any spotted furred animals…ANY ANIMALS WELCOME, reptiles, birds, rodents, etc

call SUE.

Ransom Riggs Collects Other People’s Memories

March 13, 2011 in Photography, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Ransom Riggs: “When I tell people I collect snapshots, I usually get a blank stare. So I made this video to help explain why I love them.”

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Listeria: Definition Of Five “E” Words (1912)

March 12, 2011 in Books, Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

Ear-ring: A very ancient form of personal adornment worn by both sexes in Oriental nations. In Anglo-Saxon times ear-rings were worn in Britain, but from the tenth to the fifteenth century were out of fashion. In Elizabethan days they were revived, and have since continued to be used, more or less. In early Victorian days they were common, then they fell out of fashion again; but there has been a revival of them to some extent in recent years.

Edison, Thomas Alva: One of the greatest inventors of our age. His mother was Scotch, his father Dutch; his education was acquired mostly by persistent reading. He early developed a passion for chemistry, and being then a newsboy on the Grand Trunk Railroad, established his first laboratory in an empty car. He became an expert telegraph operator and finally an inventor with an experiment station at Menlo Park and a laboratory at Orange, New Jersey. His inventions are all of practical utility, and number something over 700. Among the most important are the phonograph, electric fire-alarm, megaphone, the kinescope, vitascope and incandescent electric lamp. His latest achievement is the storage battery for the propulsion of street cars and auto-vehicles.

Education: The word implies eliciting the highest ability of the individual; aiming to make the best and not the worst of him, this is the highest duty and ambition of family and State. It is entirely different from memorizing or instruction. Plato said, “Good education is that which gives to the body and the soul all the perfection of which they are capable.” The Greek had no printing and few books, but he knew his notes, sang national noble hymns in inspired chorus; men and women danced gracefully, proudly, in honor of gods and heroes. Eyes were trained by the most perfect forms and colors of art; only beauty was allowed in the presence of a pregnant woman. Every child knew the resounding majesty of Homer, the lyric praise of noble ancestors, the tragedies which told the duty of man, and the destiny and hope of mankind; he heard the philosophy which spoke of the dignity of the soul. The great study of the Roman was oratory and law; the power of swaying the minds and will and lives of others, of advancing the destiny of eternal Rome. Modern education prepares for healthful and happy life, respect of God and man; the greatest good of the greatest number. It teaches self-denial, forethought, duty, loyalty, devotion, temperance, the laws of the seen and the unseen, the possibilities of the race. It develops health, mirth, song, strength, temperance, self-reliance, filial, parental and social obligation. It teaches the practical, finds the most natural and useful sphere of life, and should prepare hand, eye, thought for a life of usefulness.

Evil-eye: A faculty attributed by the superstitious and ignorant to certain persons, the cross-eyed particularly, who inflict injury or bring ill-luck, it is believed, to those they look upon. The sign of the cross with the fingers is supposed to ward it off.

Exhilarating gas: Laughing gas.

•Taken from the 1912 Standard Illustrated Book of Facts.

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Alain De Botton Preaches Pessimism

March 11, 2011 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

At least he stopped loitering in airports. (Thanks Open Culture.)

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“Dubai Is Las Vegas Without The Showgirls, The Gambling, Or Elvis”

March 11, 2011 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

"Dubai suffers from gigantism—a national inferiority complex that has to make everything bigger and biggest." (Image by David Pin.)

Great opening from “Dubai on Empty,” A.A. Gill’s sharp new Vanity Fair account of a sand-castle nation at high tide:

“The only way to make sense of Dubai is to never forget that it isn’t real. It’s a fable, a fairy tale, like The Arabian Nights. More correctly, it’s a cautionary tale. Dubai is the story of the three wishes, where, as every kid knows, with the third wish you demand three more wishes. And as every genie knows, more wishes lead to more greed, more misery, more bad credit, and much, much, much more bad taste. Dubai is Las Vegas without the showgirls, the gambling, or Elvis. Dubai is a financial Disneyland without the fun. It’s a holiday resort with the worst climate in the world. It boils. It’s humid. And the constant wind is full of sand. The first thing you see when you arrive is the airport, with its echoing marble halls. It’s big enough to be the hub of a continent. Dubai suffers from gigantism—a national inferiority complex that has to make everything bigger and biggest. This includes their financial crisis.”

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“Tokuda Had A ‘Lascivious’ Face And Was Invited To Try His Hand At Adult Films”

March 11, 2011 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

"Prohibited Nursing," "Maniac Training of Lolitas," "Forbidden Elderly Care," etc.

A man who came to his calling later in life, former travel agent Shigeo Tokuda entered his golden years and the porn industry at the same time. After more than 350 blue films, the 76-year-old is known as the “king of elder-porn,” a sub-genre of Japanese X-rated films in which seniors sex their youthful counterparts. John M. Glionna of the Los Angeles Times reports:

“Recently, Tokuda sat down at the offices of an adult film company to discuss life as one of Japan’s most veteran porn stars. Dressed in a blazer and casual shirt, he’s a slight man — about 5-foot-3, 140 pounds — who wears dentures and has a small but meandering Mikhail Gorbachev-type scar atop his balding head.

The Tokyo native was working in the travel promotion industry when he became a fan of order-in room porn flicks. Too shy to frequent adult movie stores, he tracked down the producers of his favorite DVDs. ‘At 59, I secretly hoped they would offer me some sort of senior discount,’ he recalls.

Tokuda befriended the firm’s producers, one of whom made him a proposition over drinks: Tokuda had a ‘lascivious’ face and was invited to try his hand at adult films.

In his first scene, filmmakers reduced the number of extras so Tokuda would feel less uncomfortable getting naked. His shyness quickly vanished along with his clothes, and he began slipping away from out-of-office travel company meetings to play porn actor. But after a 2005 stroke (not on the set, he says), he was moved to a desk job by his travel agency.

With no opportunity to slip out unnoticed, he retired — not from porn but from the travel industry. The rest, as they say, is Japanese porn history. Tokuda is now a brand name, with many projects bearing the Shigeo Tokuda moniker. A recent installment in his Forbidden Elderly Care series has been advertised with such slogans as ‘Don’t Be Ashamed of Getting Old!’ and ‘Lust Is Medicine.'” (Thanks Maginal Revolution.)

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Documentary About Early ’70s Baseball

March 11, 2011 in Sports, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

One-hour look at pitcher Ferguson Jenkins during the 1972-1973 seasons.

From an article about Ferguson Jenkins in the February 19, 2011 Vancouver Sun: “Jenkins, who was born and raised in Chatham, Ont., was in Winnipeg on Friday for the local unveiling of the new 59-cent peel-and-stick stamp issued in his honour during Black History Month.

The stamp includes a present-day image of Jenkins, the only Canadian inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, with a photograph in the background from a Sports Illustrated cover showing him in his pitching heyday.

‘This is humbling,’ Jenkins, who won 284 major league games, said.”


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