But if Detroit does file for bankruptcy, one of the great tragedies (at least, according to the NYT) is that the historical society might have to sell off all or part of its collection of “62 lovingly maintained classic cars”. This collection includes a 1924 two-door Hupmobile, Henry M. Leland’s 1905 Cadillac Osceola, a 1960 Chevrolet Corvair…and an AMC Pacer as well as a 1984 Dodge Caravan.
Archive for the ‘Clippings’ Category
Chapter 9, Chapter 9, Chapter 9…
Thursday, June 20th, 2013Obit watch: June 20, 2013.
Thursday, June 20th, 2013James Gandolfini roundup: NYT. LAT. A/V Club.
This makes me kind of sad: one of Gandolfini’s pending projects was “Bone Wars” with Steve Carell, about the 19th Century paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh. The Cope/Marsh story is fascinating, and I would have enjoyed seeing what Gandolfini and Carell did with it.
Also among the dead: thriller writer Vince Flynn. I’ve never read any of his novels, but I was aware of them: the Mitch Rapp books are ubiquitous in my local grocery stores, right up there with James Patterson and Lee Child. (I don’t say that with any snark intended; when your books are in every grocery store, you’re pretty much doing okay for yourself.)
Art, damn it, art! watch (#38 in a series)
Thursday, June 20th, 2013The paper of record has a story about a new exhibition at the Park Avenue Armory. (Despite the name, it is an exhibition hall, “with one of the largest open exhibition floors in the world”. But it did start life as a National Guard armory.)
The new exhibit is by Paul McCarthy, described by the NYT as a “revered Los Angeles video artist and sculptor”. The exhibition, “WS”, is described as a retelling of the story of Snow White.
What fun! Take the kids, right?
Whoa.
“an apothosis of the dark and deeply human themes”?
I have no joke here, I just like saying “highly unorthodox use of processed foods”. (Karen Finley, call your office, please.)
As the NYT notes, exhibiting something so…out there…that you don’t want to let minors in to see it is unusual by NYC art world standards: MoMA didn’t ban minors from the Marina Abramović retrospective (though they did put up warning signs), and the Brooklyn Museum recommended (but did not require) parental guidance for “Sensation”.
On the other hand, I did not attend either of those events, and the Wikipedia summaries are unhelpful in determining if processed foods were used in a highly unorthodox manner.
Also…
Wednesday, June 19th, 2013I’m going to wait to say anything about James Gandolfini; this is still breaking news, and by tomorrow the papers should have their obits and appreciations up.
I guess this kind of breaks the 1970s television theme, but, you know, you do what you gotta do.
Obit watch: June 19, 2013.
Wednesday, June 19th, 2013The A/V club and other reliable sources are reporting the death of legendary musician Slim Whitman.
(Yes, this does count as 1970s television: quoth the A/V Club, “That changed in 1979, with a saturation TV ad campaign promoting a greatest-hits collection by an artist who, the commercials swore, had sold more records than Elvis and The Beatles. The commercial simultaneously revived the 55-year-old Whitman’s domestic career and turned him into a pop-culture punchline.”)
Challenge. Accepted.
Wednesday, June 19th, 2013I never did like The Dukes of Hazzard.
However, the Wikipedia page on the General Lee is interesting.
Even if it doesn’t go into specifics about what kind of gas mileage a 1968 or 1969 Dodge Charger gets. (I have seen estimates elsewhere on the Internet ranging from 9 MPG to 11-13 MPG, so perhaps that tweet isn’t too far off. But those estimates and Wikipedia are distinguished by a notable lack of sources.)
Random notes: June 18, 2013.
Tuesday, June 18th, 2013I was all set to snark on this NYT headline:
For Its Latest Beer, a Craft Brewer Chooses an Unlikely Pairing: Archaeology
After all, craft brewers going back and doing beer anthropology isn’t exactly a new thing.
However, the paper of record gets a pass from me, because the brewer in question is Great Lakes Brewing Company, a personal favorite of mine.
Sam Kellner believed his son had been sexually abused by a Hasidic cantor. Mr. Kellner lobbied the Brooklyn DA to prosecute the cantor. As a result, he was shunned by his synagogue and other members of the Hasidic community.
The conviction of Mr. Lebovits was reversed:
On the other hand:
The NYT spin on this is that Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn DA, gets a lot of political support from the Hasidic community, and is therefore very deferential to their wishes. But if he is so deferential, why did his office bring the case in the first place? It seems like he could easily have ducked the prosecution by claiming the evidence was insufficient or some other issue. The NYT‘s timeline is a little fuzzy, but I’m picking up at least an implication that Hynes’s office had the tape in their possession at the time of the Lebovits trial.
(Also, if you go back to the NYT article on the reversal of the Lebovits conviction, the extortion plot is mentioned in passing by Dershowitz. But the actual reason given by the appeals court for overturning the conviction is not the alleged extortion plot, but a failure by the prosecution to turn over evidence to the defense in a timely fashion.)
Random notes: June 17, 2013.
Monday, June 17th, 2013NYT obit for the late Harold J. Cromer, also known as “Stumpy”, “half of the vaudevillian duo Stump and Stumpy”.
Recently, a bunch of gas stations in my area rebranded their associated convenience stores/markets as 7-11 franchises. I kind of liked this, as it is nice to be able to stop off and get gas and a Slurpee when it is 101 degrees outside. (Many of the stand-alone 7-11 stores in my area have closed over the past few years.)
But they just can’t stay out of trouble, can they?
More:
I wonder what the cops were drinking, and where they were getting it from. I also wonder if anyone is keeping track of the doughnut inventory at the seized stores.
Deborah Blum, author of The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
(Blum’s piece is tied to the M.D. Anderson poisoning scandal, which I thought about mentioning last week. But there really wasn’t a lot I could say about it; as Blum notes, ethylene glycol isn’t a particularly exotic poison, and the incident itself seems to be your basic boring lover’s spat.)
(Edited to add: Oh, so that’s where I found the Blum piece! Thanks, Tam! And I wasn’t aware Blum was writing regularly for Wired: I’d read some of her articles in Slate, but none since I gave up on Slate as a site publishing outlandish and ridiculous crap in an attempt to get page views.)
Random notes: June 15, 2013.
Saturday, June 15th, 2013NYT headline:
I think, with Father’s Day approaching, this is an important safety tip for everyone. A tie may be a good gift for Dad, if he has to wear ties and if you put some thought into it. However, I’d recommend staying away from ties with Nazi iconography, just as a general rule.
Randal Schwartz, call your office please.
(That was perhaps my only disappointment at YAPC. As I noted, I did get to shake Larry Wall’s hand, but I never saw Randal Schwartz; I’m not even sure if he was there.)
There’s a protest singer singing a protest song.
Another NYT headline:
Not Constantinople?
(Technically, I suppose that’s nobody’s business but the Turks. And, I guess, the IOC.)
Annals of law (#7 in a series).
Friday, June 14th, 2013It is a well known fact (at least among those interested in copyright, those obsessed with trivia, and those who wonder why restaurants make up their own birthday songs) that “Happy Birthday to You” is under copyright until 2030 in the United States (and 2016 in the EU).
But there is a significant dispute over whether this copyright is valid. Jennifer Nelson, a filmmaker working on a documentary about the song, has filed a lawsuit seeking to have the song declared to be in the public domain.
Random notes: June 13, 2013.
Thursday, June 13th, 2013Gun control works! How can a bunch of people with rifles and handguns defeat a heavily armed military? Just ask Syria!
More on our pal Louis Scarcella, the former NYPD detective whose cases are being reinvestigated: gee, there’s awfully similar language in many of the confessions he obtained.
Noted without comment:
Since Lawrence and I have both touched on this story, I thought I’d link to the followup: the “psychic” who claimed there was a mass grave in Liberty County has been ordered to pay $6.8 million in damages to the property owners. If I understand the HouChron correctly, this was a default judgment, as the psychic didn’t appear in court. (Insert your favorite psychic joke here.)
Unfortunate headline of the day.
Wednesday, June 12th, 2013“Texas lawyer gets 3 years, shot at census worker“.
Seems to me that Ms. Barnes has already had her shot (shots?) at the census worker, so why is the court giving her another one?
(Also: I told you so.)
From the legal beat.
Tuesday, June 11th, 2013I have previously written about the strange case of Carolyn Barnes, the local lawyer who was accused of shooting at a census worker, sent to the state mental hospital (where she continued to represent at least one client) and was later ruled competent to stand trial.
Ms. Barnes was convicted yesterday of assault with a deadly weapon.
She could be sentenced to up to 20 years in jail, though I have serious doubts that she will be given that much time.
In other news, the Statesman is reporting that Governor Perry is threatening to withhold funding for the “state’s Austin-based ethics-enforcement unit” unless Travis County DA Rosemary Lehmberg resigns. As you may recall, Ms. Lehmberg was convicted of DWI back in April and sentenced to 45 days in jail.
I apologize that the link stinks. The Statesman‘s new paywall goes into effect today, and I have been unable to find a link to this story elsewhere. (Edited to add: Link? What link? Seriously, I griped about the Statesman link but forgot to actually include it. Here’s a story from the HouChron “Texas Politics” blog that reports the same thing: the HouChron blogger suggests that this is part of an effort to cut off “a criminal investigation into the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas”.)
I haven’t decided what I’m going to do about the Statesman yet. Paying for digital access would give me a tax write-off for Low Fat Heavy Industries. On the other hand, the cheapest subscription is $9.99 a month. I already subscribe to the NYT and LAT for you, my readers, and I find it hard to justify $10 a month for the Statesman.
Random notes: June 10, 2013.
Monday, June 10th, 2013As best as I can tell, there has been no mention of Banks’s death in the NYT yet.
At dinner Saturday night, Lawrence, Andrew, and I were talking about how bad the Marlins (and Astros) are. I remembered that someone on FARK posted a link to a site that provides updated win-loss projections for each MLB team, but I was unable to find that site in my history, on FARK, or in Google.
“DeWayne Mann” on FARK was kind enough to respond to my inquiry with three links, which I provide here for bookmarking purposes:
CoolStandings, which currently projects Miami at 106.9 losses and Houston at 103.1.
Baseball Prospectus, which has Miami at 102 losses and Houston at 99.5.
FanGraphs, which has Miami at 104 losses and Houston at 99.
(As Dewayne notes, all three sites use a more sophisticated model than (winning percentage * 162). Based only on that calculation, the Marlins project out to 115 losses, and the Astros to 106. For comparison purposes, the 1962 Mets lost 120 games and had a .250 winning percentage. The 2003 Detroit Tigers lost 119 games, and had a .265 winning percentage.)
Art, damn it, art! watch (#37 in a series)
Monday, June 10th, 2013Back in 1995, an artist named Douglas Davis created an Internet-based work called “The World’s First Collaborative Sentence”, which…
Now we’re in 2013. The Whitney Museum of American Art wanted to bring back “The World’s First Collaborative Sentence”. But:
This raises some questions about the nature of digital art. If you change the code to make it work on newer hardware, are you changing the art itself? Could the Whitney have run the code on an emulator? Would that change the nature of the art as well? And even if you run the code in emulation, what do you do about broken links?
More:
Noted:
Dear digital artists: this is why it is important to make your code Unicode safe. (Yes, yes, I’m aware that Unicode 2.0 didn’t come along until 1996. This is a note to the future.)