Heading home. Lack of content ahead. Will be getting in kind of late. Updates to follow.
Travel Day II: The Traveling!
June 20th, 2022Historical note, suitable for use in schools.
June 17th, 2022I am still on the road, reuniting with one of my tribes and having more fun than I am legally allowed to have.
But I didn’t want to let today’s anniversary pass, even if I don’t have time to do a full detailed post.
Today is the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break in.
Lawrence, we should add that to the list.
As a shiftless and lazy blogger who is on the road, I’m going to point to this Reason essay by Glenn Garvin, which I rather liked. Garvin’s one of the better crop of their current writers.
Travel day.
June 15th, 2022Light blogging ahead.
Updates will be catch as catch can through next Monday.
I was constantly hearing “Get to the Austin airport three hours early! It’s a cluster! Three hours ahead of your scheduled flight!”
So I got to the airport at 0330 for my flight at 0640.
My bags were checked and I was through security by 0400. And the TSA people were actually pleasant.
(“Why are you taking a flight at 0640?” Wasn’t my choice: I originally booked it for 0830, which I thought was more reasonable. But Southwest changed it.)
Obit watch: June 14, 2022.
June 14th, 2022Baxter Black, former “large-animal veterinarian” and NPR guy.
Black was keenly aware that he didn’t sound like anyone else on public radio, with former Morning Edition host Bob Edwards recalling that “he knew our audience and he knew how he fit in.”
“He would gear some of his commentary in that way, like the people who were against …. fur coats, use of fur, and Bax thought you should recycle roadkill and use the fur as clothing for dolls,” Edwards said. “So Barbie would have a fur coat from a dead possum or something. That was one of his tweaks at public radio right there.”
Obit watch: June 13, 2022.
June 13th, 2022Other credits include “Hardcastle and McCormick”, “Quincy M.E.”, “The Man with Bogart’s Face”, “Ghostbusters II”, “The John Larroquette Show”, and “Cradle Will Rock”.
NYT obit for Julee Cruise, which makes explicit something that the other obits only implied:
The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you live outside of the United States or are looking for other help, TVTropes has a good page of additional resources.
Obit watch: June 12, 2022.
June 12th, 2022Here’s a name to conjure with, for those of us who were fans of High Weirdness By Mail and related stuff in the 1990s: Peter Lamborn Wilson.
Mr. Wilson’s book “T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism,” was a slim volume first published by Autonomedia, Mr. Fleming’s company, in 1991. Mr. Wilson wrote it under a pseudonym, Hakim Bey. (He liked to pretend that his made-up alter ego was a real person.)
The book’s central premise was that one could create one’s own stateless society — the goal of anarchy — with simple and poetic acts like creating public art and communal exercises like dinner parties. It quickly acquired a cult following, particularly among those who frequented the aisles of alternative bookstores looking for inspiration on how to sidestep or disrupt the capitalist mainstream.
…
“T.A.Z.” seems to take its cues from the Situationist Manifesto and its prose style from Allen Ginsberg. A sample: “Weird dancing in all-night computer-banking lobbies. Unauthorized pyrotechnic displays. Land-art, earthworks as bizarre alien artifacts strewn in State Parks. Burglarize houses but instead of stealing, leave Poetic-Terrorist objects.”
Additional bullet points include exhortations to boycott products marked as Lite; hex the Muzak company; go on strike; dance all night; start a pirate radio station; put up posters; home-school your kids or teach them a craft; don’t vote; be a hobo.
…
He worked out his disillusionment with the failed promise of the 1960s — the revolution that never came — in provocative writing that appeared in avant-garde journals like Semiotext(e), where French intellectuals like Michel Foucault mingled with American Beats like Ginsberg and William Burroughs and radical feminists like Kate Millett and Kathy Acker, the postpunk novelist and performance artist.
By all accounts, Mr. Wilson was erudite about the recondite, a prolific author of some 60 books on topics ranging from angels to pirate utopias and all manner of renegade religions. He was for years an East Village fixture and the host of “The Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade,” a late-night program on WBAI, Manhattan’s countercultural radio station. On his show, he might declaim on higher mathematics, play a selection of esoteric music like Sufi chants or Greek rembetika, and review zines, the D.I.Y. journals that flourished in the late 1980s and ‘90s.
But because his writing often included erotic imagery of young teenage boys, he was controversial.
“I always had a fairly conflicted position about how to handle the issue,” Mr. Fleming said. “Whether to downplay it or try to defend it in some way. He identified as gay, but I never knew him to have a sexual partner, or an actual sex life. His sexual practices were what I call Whitmanesque, imaginal only.”
…
“He was a fascinating character,” said Lucy Sante, the cultural historian and author of books, like “Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York,” that tell stories of urban fringe dwellers. Ms. Sante often took Mr. Wilson to lunch — as many did; it was understood that you would pick up the tab — in Woodstock, N.Y., where Mr. Wilson was living for a time.
“He knew a lot about everything,” Ms. Sante said. “The thing we had in common was an interest in dropout culture, in all the ways of not participating in the charade of modern life. And he was encyclopedic in his knowledge of all that material. He was an eccentric, but also I think what he was doing was scattering bread crumbs for others to pick up.”
Obit watch: June 10, 2022.
June 10th, 2022Julee Cruise, musician. You probably recognize the name from “Twin Peaks”:
She also toured with the B-52s (“from 1992-1999 as a fill-in for member Cindy Wilson“).
Random gun crankery, some hoplobibliophilia.
June 9th, 2022This is going out to Bones. You asked, we provide. We’re running a full service blog here.
Obit watch: June 9, 2022.
June 9th, 2022Two interesting obits from the NYT for somewhat obscure people:
Jim Murphy. He specialized in history books for kids.
I’m a little old to be his target audience, but the books on yellow fever and the “blue baby” operation sound right up my alley.
Oris Buckner. He was a homicide detective with the New Orleans Police Department in the 1980s – the only black homicide detective at the time.
Then things went to hell. Briefly (the obit goes into more details) other homicide detectives beat witnesses to the killing of a police officer until they implicated two men, then killed both men, along with the girlfriend of one.
Mr. Buckner testified against the other officers. The local grand jury refused to indict them, but seven officers were eventually charged with federal civil rights violations. Three were convicted and sentenced to five years.
Obit watch: June 8, 2022.
June 8th, 2022Jim Seals, of Seals and Crofts.
Paul Vance, most famous for “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini”.
Firings watch.
June 7th, 2022No punny title, because it has been a busy day and we have multiple firings out of LA to report.
Joe Maddon out as manager of the Los Angeles Angels.
…
Derek Fisher out as coach of the Los Angeles Sparks (of the WNBA). 54-46 over “less than” four seasons, 1-4 postseason, and 5-7 to start this season.
And the Lakers, having just hired a new head coach, fired a bunch of assistants: David Fizdale, Mike Penberty and John Lucas III.
Obit watch: June 6, 2022.
June 6th, 2022Linda Lawson, actress. Other credits include “Sea Hunt”, “Hawaiian Eye”, and “Ben Casey”.
Alec John Such, drummer bassist [thanks, LP] for Bon Jovi.
Lawrence sent over an obit for Isidoro Raponi, who did a lot of practical effects work.
Obit watch: June 3, 2022.
June 3rd, 2022Brad Johnson, actor. Other credits include “The Outer Limits” (the 2000-ish revival), several appearances on “CSI: Original Recipe”, and “The Robinsons: Lost in Space”.
The last Howard Johnson’s. But there’s a quibble:
The Lake George, N.Y., location is closed, and the property is up for lease, listing agent Bill Moon of Exit Realty Empire Associates confirmed. However, Moon said, for the last several years, the restaurant wasn’t operated as a “traditional Howard Johnson’s experience.”
“It was a local lessee that was running a restaurant out of the Howard Johnson’s building,” he said.
Apparently, there’s a Kindle edition of The Oranging of America and Other Stories by Max Apple. (The titular story is about Howard Johnson and his personal assistant. It is a fun collection. Affiliate link.)
Ten Restaurants That Changed America by Paul Freedman. HoJo’s was one of them.
The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen by Jacques Pépin. Mr. Pépin worked for HoJo’s in the early 1960s.
“Eat My Globe” interview with Mr. Pépin, which is notable for the following:
…But the dish that everybody loved was the fried clams from Howard Johnson’s.
Baseball season is finally underway…
June 3rd, 2022…with the ceremonial throwing out of the first manager.
Joe Girardi out as manager of the Phillies.
The Phillies hired Girardi after the 2019 season to replace deposed Gabe Kapler. At the time, owner John Middleton hailed Girardi’s track record, including a World Series championship with the New York Yankees in 2009, and his reputation for blending old-school feel with the use of analytics and data.
But the Phillies went 28-32 under Girardi in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and 82-80 last season, missing the playoffs both times. They were 132-141 overall with Girardi at the wheel.
…
Obit watch: June 2, 2022.
June 2nd, 2022Marion Barber III, of the Dallas Cowboys. (He also spent one season with Chicago.) He was 38.
Barber led the Cowboys in rushing for three consecutive seasons. The highlight of his time with the club came in 2007, when he rushed for 975 yards with 10 touchdowns and was named to the Pro Bowl for a Dallas team that compiled a 13-3 record.
Barber finished his career with 4,780 rushing yards and 53 touchdowns. He caught 179 passes for another 1,330 yards and six touchdowns.
Krishna Kumar Kunnath, aka “KK”, Bollywood singer. He was 53.
KK had been performing in an auditorium packed with college students when, after singing his last song of the evening, cameras caught him wiping his brow as he was led offstage in a hurry.
He was declared dead at a hospital soon after. The cause was not yet known, his publicist said.