Weekend Stubble

Bring Me The Bill

2009-07-12T14:41:00.002-07:00

I'm reading and signing The Book of William this Wednesday at...

Powell's Books
10th & Burnside
Portland, OR
7:30 p.m.

Sobbing Children and Singing Shillings

2009-07-12T13:37:00.005-07:00

I'm in the new music issue of The Believer with a piece on William Gardiner's obscure 1832 treatise The Music of Nature. The book was a great favorite of Emerson and Margaret Fuller, not least because Gardiner attempt to render ordinary sounds in musical notation:

Gardiner was fascinated with the sound of ordinary objects, like ringing true and counterfeit coins against a tabletop: "Half crowns having the sound of--

--bankers quickly discover the least deviation from the proper tone, by which they readily detect the counterfeits," he wrote....

The Music of Nature is about music in the way that Anatomy of Melancholy or Religio Medici are about medicine: it is an extraordinary digressive meditation. His music scholarship is no more reliable today than Burton's medical advice is, and yet how can one not be charmed by a text that observes that a glass of flat champagne rings with a purer tone than a bubbly glass does? What parent has not suspected that "Providence has bestowed upon children a power of voice, in proportion to their size, ten times greater than that of an adult"? Who would not want to believe his wonderful claim that "In a watchmaker's shop the timepieces or clocks, connected with same wall or shelf, have such a sympathetic effect... that they stop those which beat in irregular time"?

Gentlemen, My Work Here Is Done

2009-07-11T11:39:00.002-07:00

My latest Slate piece features a robot, a serial killer, and Cecil B. DeMille.

Everybody Loves Slush!

2009-07-05T22:27:00.002-07:00

On a weekend like this, you need...

(More) Fun with Library Microforms

2009-07-05T11:35:00.003-07:00

A headline I found this week in a 1907 New York Evening Mail:

Happy July 4th from Fry & Laurie

2009-07-04T09:48:00.002-07:00

(Hat tip: The Stranger)

Borrowing a Cup of Sugar

2009-07-04T08:33:00.010-07:00

Found in an 1897 New York Herald:

How Ralph Lost His Groove

2009-06-14T12:35:00.003-07:00

I'm in New Scientist this week with a piece on Ralph Guldahl, who in 1939 was the world's top golfer. But then something happened:

Along with the usual product endorsements and talk of film cameos, a more unusual offer came Guldahl's way: a book contract for a guide to golfing. He took two months out from his game to write the extensive accompanying text to Groove Your Golf, an innovative "Ciné-Sports" book that used high-speed photography of Guldahl in action on each page to create flip-book "movies". After explaining the use of each club, Guldahl left readers with the admission that even experts had to think carefully about their game; that nobody "is so good he never has to consciously be aware of a number of things to keep his swing in the groove". He then put down his pen and returned to the PGA Tour. He never won another championship.

After a few losing seasons, Guldahl left the circuit. What had happened to golf's greatest star? It was the book that did it, said some, and over the years that suggestion hardened into received wisdom. "When he sat down to write that book," Guldahl's wife Laverne asserted in 1972, "that's when he lost his game."

The real story, I found, turns out to be a little more complicated...

First the Bad News

2009-06-14T12:31:00.003-07:00

Via Boing Boing, a blog of bad news from the past...

(Vampire autos?)

Back to work!

2009-06-07T10:43:00.004-07:00

From Publishers Weekly:

John Glusman, at Harmony, acquired world rights to Paul Collins's Murder of the Century, about a Gilded Age homicide that sparked a tabloid war and led to the beginnings of modern forensics. Collins is a founding editor of the Collins Library imprint at McSweeney's Books and also teaches in the M.F.A. program at Portland State University; Michelle Tessler brokered the deal, and the book is slated for 2011.

(Also in PW -- another starred review for The Book of William!)

Dogfishing

2009-06-06T22:39:00.010-07:00

Those of you with long memories may recall the Monkeyfishing hoax of 2001 in Slate. This was a piece by Jay Forman which revealed the existence of a illicit sport on an island of former medical research monkeys in the Florida Keys, where locals went... well, Monkeyfishing:

Once we found a nice spot, we prepared to fish. Sturdy deep-sea poles were the preferred tackle. I've never heard of anyone landing a monkey on lightweight fly rods, but I suppose it is possible. I have friends who have landed tarpon on them, and tarpon are much bigger than monkeys. A fully-grown rhesus monkey tips the scale at around 30 pounds, while a tarpon can easily break 200.... Fruits were the bait of choice. Apples were good because they stayed on the hook well. Red Delicious were chosen over Granny Smith for the advantage in contrast.

Other journalists called bullshit on the piece, and it quickly fell apart. (A couple years ago, Forman finally confessed the whole thing to Jack Shafer.)

But while perusing the October 1897 issue of Recreation magazine today, I found -- wait for it -- "The New Sport: Bait-Casting For Fox Terriers"...

Coffee and Cigarettes

2009-05-31T22:32:00.006-07:00

One unexpected Wayback Machine trip produced by Google Books: it appears that all of New York magazine is available in full text, something that produces such charming finds as this pre-Starbucks cover story from June 27, 1977:

The results? Well, back in those days, you had to go to Zabar's or Macy's for good coffee:

Which you'd presumably follow up -- it being 1977 -- with a cigarette:

..."Decade"....?

Little House on the Amazon

2009-05-31T11:21:00.009-07:00

Galley Cat notes speculation on a patent filed by Amazon for a small building design. (The patent's here...) The Street weighs in with that claim that "If, indeed, Amazon were to embark on retail locations, analysts think it would only spell disaster. "

Well, maybe it depends on what you mean by a "retail location." It's true that you'd have to be bonkers to build a bricks and mortar bookstore these days. That means that either Amazon is bonkers, or... It's not a bricks and mortar bookstore.

Along with some good guesses at TechFlash (including a reprise/hangover of Amazon Fresh), I'll venture one that hasn't been raised yet: that this is not an outdoors structure at all, but rather a kiosk for rail stations and airport concourses. Specifically, it's for renting out Kindles.

Right now Amazon's the only place to get a Kindle, meaning that there's no in-store way to "try before you buy." Once Amazon's pretty well scooped up early adopters from their own customer base, they've got to start hitting John Q Public. The easiest place to do that is in railways and airports filled with travelers ready to spend on books and magazines for their trip. Why not spend the same money, plus a modest deposit off the credit card, on a preloaded rental Kindle?

And, of course, if you get hooked on the Kindle during your flight... why, they'd also be happy to sell you one as well. It's a way for Amazon to expand their reach into a natural market, all while keeping a tight rein on overhead by keeping clear of big-box retailers and other middlemen.

While Amazon's Terms of Service prevents owners from renting out Kindles, it doesn't prevent the company from doing it. (In fact, digging around reveals that they did indeed try a Kindle student rental pilot program last year.) And if they're doing a fresh load-up of the books and mags with each rental, the publishers won't care either.

We'll see. But if you notice a bunch of workers building stuff by that transfixingly awful magician mural in SeaTac, don't say you weren't warned...

Science Coverage Explained

2009-05-30T11:55:00.003-07:00

From PhD Comics, via The Stranger:

"Not Even Wrong" Hits the Stage

2009-05-24T11:47:00.007-07:00

S'true! "Wild Boy" is debuting this week at the Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, California -- it's a stage adaptation of "Not Even Wrong" by Ugly Betty and Lipstick Jungle executive producer Oliver Goldstick.

There are now stage versions of a "Paul," "Jennifer," "Morgan" and "Uncle Marc" ... something I find both flattering and totally surreal.

Oliver first encountered the book during some down time on the Ugly Betty set, and actually flew up to meet us -- in fact, I took him to the house in the Hawthorne where the events of the book took place, and then headed over to the Pied Cow, where he laid out a series of index cards wrestling with a plot -- and I realized just how extraordinary it was that he was taking an absurdly discursive memoir with a nonverbal lead and actually turning it into a recognizable story.

Shows start this Friday, and run through July...

Flying Purple People Tweaker

2009-05-24T09:04:00.003-07:00

In the Guardian coverage of the Hay Festival, nature author and forager John Lewis Stemper warns from experience that if you eat the wrong mushrooms from the English countryside, you become simultaneously heavy and light, and then everything turns purple.

Tape Oddity

2009-05-17T15:06:00.004-07:00

After my Believer piece a couple years ago on the Birotron -- a 1970s analog sampling keyboard constructed from 8-track tapes (!) -- I heard from a documentary maker who wanted to find inventor Dave Biro for the documentary she was making about the Mellotron.

The Mellotron, for non-gearheads, is basically what the Birotron was meant to replace -- check out the awesomely L7 demo video above. It was analog sampler intended for home cocktail parties. But the instrument was instantly hijacked by rock musicians -- check out the strings in "Space Oddity" -- or Paul McCartney in Abbey Road Studio 2 demonstrating "Strawberry Fields" on his:

Anyway, now the Mellodrama documentary is making the festival rounds. Check it out!:

Recreated Victorian Village for Sale

2009-05-16T11:20:00.002-07:00

From the Guardian:

The entire collection of the Shambles, a museum of Victorian life recreated as a small town on an acre of land, has been split into 2,300 lots and is up for grabs.... From the taxidermist's shop, a pair of stuffed guinea pigs (guide price £10-£15) has piqued the interest of collectors, and a very battered, stringless double bass that Jenner-Fust had wanted thrown away has attracted a surprising number of inquiries. Very collectible items that are bound to do well include a vast array of stoneware, enamel signs and metal tractor seats, which turn out to be surprisingly desirable.

Inexplicably, they don't link to the auction itself -- it's here.

We Inspire Complete Coincidences

2009-05-10T20:56:00.008-07:00

Amazon, last seen on Slate not answering questions about corporate philanthropy, now has a new web page up -- complete with an application form for "nonprofit author and publisher groups that share our obsession with fostering the creation, discussion, publication, and dissemination of books."

(Hat tip to Dizzyhead Ed!)

Penguin Geeks Are Go!

2009-05-09T13:38:00.003-07:00

The Guardian's books blog finds a wonderful website on old Penguin sci-fi covers.

Headline of the Week goes to...

2009-05-09T11:23:00.004-07:00

"Hat for Hitting People."

Though I think Malcolm McDowell established the correct hat for hitting people as the bowler.

Scanners

2009-05-03T22:22:00.004-07:00

New Scientist turns up a new patent for rapid infrared scanning over at Google Books:

...Bindings cause pages to arch up either side of the spine - bending text and making it hard to interpret. However, last week Google was granted a patent (US 7508978) on an answer to this problem. Its trick is to project an infrared pattern onto the open page spread. This lets a pair of infrared cameras map the three-dimensional shape of the pages by detecting distortion to the pattern. This in turn allows the distortion of the text to be determined - and therefore the degree of correction needed to read it accurately.

Meanwhile, the patent for the infrared Flashing Earring Heartbeat Monitor goes tragically unused:

Somewhere There's a Town with More Rain Than Portland...

2009-05-03T00:17:00.003-07:00

...and that town's name is Carrbridge:

The sun may be out, but storm clouds are gathering over the tiny Highland community of Carrbridge. For come rain or shine, the BBC's weather forecast invariably predicts showers, infuriating the village's 700 residents.

Now they have declared war on the corporation...

Action!

2009-05-02T23:55:00.006-07:00

Len Deighton's Action Cook Book -- the long-lost 1965 gem by (yes) the airport-novel writer, which I pressed upon the public a few years ago in the Village Voice and on NPR -- has been reissued!

Well, reissued in Britain, but still. Pay airmail and make yourself a terrine:

First one out of the gate...

2009-04-26T23:43:00.004-07:00

...a starred review in Kirkus!