This seems to have been horribly buried in the Statesman, but noted Texas fiddler Johnny Gimble passed away over the weekend.
…
I can’t embed it, but here’s a great version of “Take Me Back To Tulsa” with George Jones and Mr. Gimble.
And I can embed this: a profile of Mr. Gimble produced by a Waco TV station.
Conceptual artist Chris Burden.
(Edited to add 5/12: NYT.)
I’ve touched on Mr. Burden and his work before, particularly the notorious “Shoot”. This is one work I was not aware of:
I’ve briefly touched on the whole Zetas/money laundering/horse training affair.
Latest news from the Statesman (sadly, paywalled, but there’s enough there to get the gist): Eusavio Huitron, one of the individuals previously convicted, has had his conviction reversed by the 5th Circuit.
I can’t find any other links, so I’m not clear on why his conviction was overturned. If I do turn something up, I’ll add an update here.
What prompts this? Today’s LAT:
Why the police shouldn’t use Glocks
I hate to be a wimp about this, but I don’t have either the time or the need to stress test my cerebral arteries this morning. I’m hoping that someone smarter than I am, like Tam, will take on this dreck: if not, maybe I’ll give it a shot at lunch.
My brother is a big fan of Tim “The 4-Hour Workweek” Ferriss. I haven’t read any of the Ferriss books: nothing personal, just haven’t gotten to them yet.
But this was linked from the Y Combinator Hacker News twitter, and deserves some linky love:
Some Practical Thoughts on Suicide
Some pull quotes:
Left unfixed, you’ll have more dead kids on your hands, guaranteed.
This, too.
Former Speaker of the House and noted author (“Reflections of a Public Man”) Jim Wright.
“Ironic or not?” is a game I used to play with one of my cow orkers at Four Letter Computer Corporation.
During the Great Bobblehead Scandal of 2012, I bought a John Wilkes Booth bobblehead.
I had it on my desk at work until this morning, when I accidentally knocked it onto the floor and…
Yes, Booth broke his ankles. Much like the actual John Wilkes Booth did when he got his foot tangled in the bunting while leaping out of the presidential box at Ford’s Theater.
(Or maybe he broke his leg. Or maybe he didn’t break anything at all in the leap, but his horse injured him later. I’m a little dubious about that story; the evidence for that seems to be “he didn’t run like he had a broken leg”. Well, maybe, but given that he’d just killed the president and was fleeing the scene, adrenaline may have done a great job of hiding a broken leg.)
What really kind of totes my goat is that Booth fell maybe three feet (if that) onto a carpeted office floor. Note to self: don’t buy stuff from “The Bobblehead LLC”.
Ironic or not? Before you answer…
This is not an Onion article.
“The Masonic Fraternal Police Department”. You know what the difference between fiction and the real world is? Fiction has to be believable.
In other news…
Odd that these places with “looser” gun laws have lower crime rates. Also odd that this is tied to the death of NYPD officer Brian Moore, because…
Early one October morning in 2011, two masked men with gloved hands smashed their way into a roadside pawnshop in rural Georgia, fleeing with 23 handguns.
Four years later, on a street in Queens on Saturday, a man raised one of those guns — a silver, five-shot Taurus revolver — and fired three times at New York police officers. A bullet struck Officer Brian Moore in the face; he died on Monday.
Yes. The gun was stolen, so of course Georgia’s looser restrictions on gun purchases are at fault.
Frank Olivo died last Thursday at the age of 66.
Mr. Olivo’s claim to fame? He was the Santa Claus who got booed and hit with snowballs at an Eagles game in 1968.
(Hattip: Jimbo.)
I haven’t found an obit that I like yet, but various reliable sources are reporting the death of Grace Lee Whitney, also known as Yeoman Janice Rand on the original Star Trek.
(Edited to add: A/V Club. NYT.)
Finally, and most personally upsetting to me, Ruth Rendell passed away over the weekend.
I got into a conversation with Lawrence a while back about who I would put into the first rank of mystery writers: I need to write up that conversation at some point. Honestly, there are large gaps in my knowledge of Rendell – I haven’t read very much of Inspector Wexford, for example. But the Rendell I have read has made a huge impression on me: I think I would put her into that first rank, even with the gaps.
I want to specifically mention one book of Rendell’s that just blew me away when I read it, and which seems undeservedly obscure: A Judgement in Stone
Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could not read or write.
That is the first line of the novel. Rendell has just told you who the murderer was, who was killed, and even why the crime took place. What else is there to tell? She has literally spoiled the entire novel in the very first sentence.
Except she hasn’t. The rest of the novel explains how Eunice Parchman’s illiteracy and ignorance inevitably leads her to shotgun a happy family to death. It is like a train that you see coming, but can’t get out of the way of.
The world is a lesser place for Ms. Rendell’s passing.
…some random crap. I don’t really have anything to say about the riots, except: “It’s Baltimore, gentlemen. The gods will not save you.”
The Carnegie Deli is temporarily closed. Rent dispute? Insect infestation? Nope.
Obit watch: Jayne Meadows, noted actress, sister of Audrey “Alice Kramden” Meadows, and Steve Allen’s wife.
Edited to add: Crap! And I completely forgot the original reason for this post. My friend Erin Palette goes to the Taurus booth at the NRA Convention, and gets treated like something scraped off the bottom of a shoe. Hilarity ensues.
Holy crap!
…
I’m writing this in haste, on my coffee break at work, so I haven’t had time to digest this. Possibly more later.
from Amazon.)