So…from 2017 and Mike Duncan’s book tour, “The Storm Before the Storm” at Politics and Prose in DC. If you’re a “Revoutions” listener, you’ve heard the podcast version of this, but for those of you who are not (and for those of you who want to see what Mike Duncan looked like three years ago), here you go.
I get a particular kick out of his stories about his early writerly ambitions: wanting to write “Redwall” knockoffs, except the mice flew airplanes, and then later wanting to be the next Phil Dick.
Bonus: a more recent (July of 2020) interview with Mr. Duncan from “The Current” which is apparently something the Hatchette Book Group puts out.
Oh, yeah: it also decomposes into phosgene unless you stabilize it first. Which is a bit concerning…
Next: “I somehow convinced myself to order a full kilo instead.”
That’s a full kilo of…sodium cyanide.
“Does cyanide actually smell like almonds?”
This is right on the annoying border for me, so I won’t hold it against you if you skip the video and read the notes instead.
This one might be a little more interesting: the chemistry of arsenic, from the Periodic Videos folks.
As a side note to this, and because Lawrence and I have been talking about it, I went looking for videos on Shadows From the Walls of Death. I did find a few about the book (not death metal) but…they were all in foreign languages without subtitles.
Okay, just one more: “The Science Behind Shaped Charges”.
Igloo White was one of those interesting Vietnam War operations. The idea was: we’d airdrop sensors (frequently camouflaged to look like local vegetation) along the Ho Chi Minh trail to monitor enemy movements. The sensors would relay information to aircraft flying overhead, which would in turn relay that information to an operations center. The operations center was equipped with two “supercomputers” (according to Wikipedia, IBM 360/40 and later 360/65 systems) which would analyze the collected data and try to predict where the enemy was going to be, based on where they had been.
“Operation Igloo White” from Dark Docs.
Bonus: “Electronic Surveillance and Eavesdropping in the Vietnam War”, a 1969 DOD film.
Bonus #2, also by way of Dark Docs: “Operation Popeye”, the military’s weather modification program.
After WWII, a group of veterans returned to their homes in McMinn County, Tennessee. (Athens is the county seat.) The veterans found that McMinn County was run by a corrupt local machine, and assembled their own slate of reform candidates. However, the crooked local government decided that they were going to rig the elections in their favor. The machine, though, had not realized some facts of life:
You can figure that many (if not all) of those men were familiar with firearms, had combat experience, and at least some of them knew something about explosives.
So when the election took place on August 1, 1946, and the machine tried to rig the vote counting (even going as far as to beat and arrest GI poll watchers), the veterans took up arms and rebelled, in what is now known as “The Battle of Athens“.
Here are two short versions of the story:
A somewhat longer video, which is based in part on Mr. DeRose’s book:
This is a long video (about an hour) of a talk by Matt Green (a former judge in Alabama: as best as I can tell, he’s in private practice now specializing in DUI and constitutional law) about the Battle of Athens.
There’s a made for TV movie that you can find on the ‘Tube, but which I’m not embedding here for policy reasons.
Our friend Siegfried (of Siegfried & Roy) has died. Those guys opened Las Vegas to the possibility of a full-evening magic show. They lived large. They paved the way for @pennjillette and me. Here's an appropriately lavish obit in the New York Post. https://t.co/Meq4CrwL8vpic.twitter.com/wZskSwRJaK
Today, a couple of exotic destinations. “Wings Over The West Indies” from our good friends at Pan Am. What makes this interesting is that it is from the 1940s, and features the Sikorsky S-40 flying boat.
And, for a little dose of something slightly more recent and in color…”Wings to Yugoslavia”, also from Pan Am, but this time dating to the 1960s.
One more fun one: “Up and Over”, a promo film made by Sikorsky promoting Los Angeles Airways (LAA). LAA provided helicopter service from various points around LA to the airports and to Disneyland. They also carried mail.
The YouTube notes mention that they went out of business in 1971 after an acquisition with Golden West Airlines failed. What the notes don’t mention is that they had two bad crashes almost back to back (May 22, 1968 and August 14, 1968) that killed a total of 44 people. Which may have been a contributing factor…
Today I thought I’d indulge myself in a bit more random gun crankery.
(Speaking of random gun crankery: a side note to the Buntline conversation. I think I could actually get the funds together to purchase that, if I were irresponsible and really wanted it. But neither of those is true.)
Two short videos about Thell Reed, Hollywood quick draw trainer. This first one concentrates on “Django Unchained”. (Don’t go to the website listed in Wikipedia: it’s been taken over and is not safe for work.)
“Thell Reed: Hollywood’s Hired Gun”.
And here’s someone we hope you’ll really like: the legendary Arvo Ojala. This is an episode of “To Tell The Truth” featuring Mr. Ojala: it is the full episode, but Mr. Ojala’s segment is roughly the first eight minutes.
Bonus, but still on the short side: vintage video of a demonstration by Bill Jordan, Border Patrol agent, author, and no slouch when it came to quick draw himself. I know the YouTube notes aren’t in English, but the video itself is.
Finally, an extra-long bonus that hits three odd intersections: gun crankery, CanCon, and history. “Black Watch Snipers”.
I have another doctor’s appointment today (actually, two) so I’m serving up a variety platter based on some recent events.
It snowed here yesterday. Seriously, snowed. For several hours. In Texas.
It is supposed to be pretty cold today, too, so how about a refreshing cold weather drink recipe?
This recipe is different from the one given in How To Archer, specifically the addition of Creme de Cacao and Crème de menthe. (Also, eight ounces of peppermint schnapps to 12 ounces of hot chocolate sounds like a really good way to get messed up. So I’d recommend drinking these when you don’t have to go anywhere.) I should have picked up some schnapps, Creme de Cacao, and Crème de menthe when I was out…
We watched “Tombstone” Saturday night. Spoiler: I think we all rather liked it. However, me being who I am and the rest of us being who we are (the kind of people who have the Internet Movie Firearms Database open on their phones while we watch), of course I ended up discoursing on the Buntline Special during breaks.
This is a pretty good short video hitting some of the main points on the Buntline Special and Wyatt Earp.
Bonus: I don’t usually link to hickok45 since you should already be watching him. But I’m making an exception here because: “Cimarron Wyatt Earp Buntline Special” which is (as I understand it) an exact replica of the movie gun. And hickok45 also discourses some more on Buntline history.
It is kind of a good looking gun. And I want something in the Colt Single Action Army style. But:
I have the same problem hickock45 has with the 10″ barrel length: it just doesn’t seem handy.
I’m really not sure how well these guns are made (though hickock45 seems to think they’re okay).
What I really want in the SAA style is…an actual Colt Single Action Army in .45 Colt, not a substitute.
(I do have a New Frontier in .22 LR, but I’m thinking of trading that off. It seems surplus to needs, now that I have a Ruger Single-Six with both .22 LR and .22 Magnum cylinders.)
I’ve written before about “The Devil At Your Heels”, the Canadian documentary about Ken Carter and his five-year attempt to do a one-mile jump over the St. Lawrence River.
For those of you who might have been wondering and didn’t check Wikipedia: “Ken Carter – Stuntman To The End”. Or: the rest of the story after the jump attempt.
(One of my cow-orkers sent me this video originally, without any context. I didn’t realize until I went looking for it again that instead of being a semi-contemporary parody of 1970s educational films, it was actually a post-2000 parody of 1970s educational films, and part of a series called “Look Around You“.)
Short bonus, since the first video is long: from Numberphile, “e (Euler’s Number)”.
I kind of want to do some stuff with Newton, Gauss, Évariste Galois, and some other mathematicians. But I think next week I may do something with pi, and then something with i the following week.
Bonus: “The Gang Who Tried to Steal the World’s Largest Perfect Diamond”.
There’s a guy named Dan Howland who used to publish a acclaimed ‘zine called “The Journal of Ride Theory”. It was sort of a parody of academic journals, but dealt with amusement park and carnival rides. At least that’s the best way I can describe it. I missed the ‘zine when it was at its peak, but you can still get copies (including an omnibus book) from Lulu. At some point I ordered that: it may have been a package deal because I also got his amusing one-off, “Dome and Domer: The Increasingly Stupid Story of the Millennium Dome”.
For those unfamiliar with the Millennium Dome (and Howland does it much better justice than the Wikipedia entry) it was built to house the “Millennium Experience”, a one-year exhibition that ran from 1/1/2000 to 12/31/2000. It was also a legendary fiasco. (Three words: “robotic pubic lice“.)
Anyway, that was where I first heard about the Millennium Dome Heist, in which an inept group of crooks tried to steal diamonds from De Beers exhibition in the Dome, but were foiled by the Yard’s Flying Squad.
(Isn’t “Flying Squad” one of the best names for a police unit ever? Admit it, you want to be able to say “I’m part of the Flying Squad”.)
It’s been a while since I’ve done anything music related.
“No Fun”, a BBC documentary on the birth of punk rock.
Bonus: “Punk ’76”, another punk documentary. It seems to me that “No Fun” has more coverage of punk in America, while “Punk ’76” is primarily English, and specifically about the punk scene around Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s store.
I started working on this earlier this morning, but this is breaking just now: Tommy Lasorda. ESPN. No LAT, because you basically can’t read anything without a subscription and your ad-blocker disabled.
Rip. Tommy vs. The Phillie Phanatic may be the greatest moment in MLB history pic.twitter.com/u03IWuIRvw
— Jeremy (RONALDO HERNANDEZ STAN) Taylor (Swift lol) (@theteremyjaylor) January 8, 2021
It is a little late for this year (although the Christmas season actually ends tonight), but maybe for next year: “The Original Victorian Christmas Pudding Recipe”.
Are you hungry yet? How about some Victorian gingerbread?
We can wash it down with “Charles Dickens’s Favourite Brandy Punch Recipe”.
And finally, “Toasted Cheese with the Dickenses”. Complete with Victorian cheese toaster. This is a real thing that exists, and I kind of want one now.
Regular readers of this blog have probably figured out that I love a good spy story.
Have you ever heard of Lionel Crabb? I had, because the story was in a collection of great spy stories I have floating around somewhere.
Lt. Commander Crabb was a British frogman. On April 19, 1956, LTC Crabb disappeared while on a mission for MI6: he was exploring Ordzhonikidze, a Soviet cruiser that was visiting Britain on a diplomatic mission (with Nikita Khrushchev on board.)
His body turned up 14 months later. Maybe.
Bonus, combining spy stories with another of my loves: “The Secret Listeners”, a 1979 BBC documentary about radio intelligence during WWI and WWII.
