July 2008
9 posts
Mediocre Things
Look! New posts! My internet has been screwy, sorry about the delay!
Notice the consistently crappy photos? Are you someone who can take better pictures? Do you live in Philly?
In exchange for your skillz, I will etch-a-sketch you your very own personally chosen historical moment (or anything else you might want), take all the aluminium powder out the back and make it so you can keep it...
The Unknown Rebel
An iconic etch-a-sketch of an iconic photo from an iconic protest.
For Alexis M.
You Can't Sink a Rainbow
There are spies and then there are spies. Good spies covertly do their business and you never know they did it. Bad spies, and apparently French spies, blow up famous Greenpeace boats.
Major Alain Mafart and Captain Dominique Prieur, French agents, sunk the docked boat Rainbow Warrior because it was protesting French nuclear testing.
To review:
1) The French
2) “Rainbow Warrior”
...
The Devil and Led Zeppelin
Boleskine House. Home of Aleister Crowley. Holy place of Thelema, Crowley’s crazy made-up religion. Located on Loch Ness. “Haunted,” “creepy” and “cursed.”
Jimmy Page was a big fan of Crowley. He bought the house.
Then his Zeppelin band mate John Bonham died at one of Page’s other houses. The band split up, and as a result play only very, very...
He Makes Men
Once upon a time there was a cliff in New Hampshire that looked like a face. Then the face part fell in 2003. Now there is no face, but a picture of the face that once was on the mountain is on the New Hampshire quarter.
Good old native Hampshironian Daniel Webster said of the face: “Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoe makers hang out a gigantic shoe;...
Shocking, Really
Nickola Tesla should be in the history books alongside Edison (his awesome science rival), but he’s not because I don’t live in Serbia (there his face is on money!). Or maybe he is and I don’t remember.
The brilliant Serb-turned-American invented a boatload of stuff … including the Tesla coil! That’s the name of that glowing ball that shoots lightening and...
"I'm in Charge Here"
Hey, me too Alex! Haig was Reagan’s Secretary of State, and after the good ol’ Great Communicator got himself shot, Haig wanted to comfort the nation. Comfort … coup … same diff, right? People were pretty peeved, as the 25th Amendment and like every law ever says VP is next in line, and like, the President has to send this letter to the Speaker and President Pro Tempore....
A Fruit Kills a President
Who screams for ice cream (and strawberries)? President Zachary Taylor (not to be confused with Black Power Ranger Zack Taylor)! He ate so much that he (like Violet Beauregarde) turned in to a strawberry by dying from acute gastroenteritis (and thus the circle of life is complete).
For Steve R., who drops more history than Enola Gay.
I had to whittle them myself
I mean the actual etch a sketches.
Sorry it’s been so long. My internet at home seems incapable of handling any kind of photo uploads, but there are a bunch ready to go! Check back tomorrow!
For now, take a look at the totally awesome publicity:
Geekadelphia (Thanks Eric!)
Boing Boing
And … awkwardly … The New York Times (sort of!)
