New Orleans

“Even after the Super Bowl victory of the New Orleans Saints, I have noticed a large number of people implying with bad jokes that Cajuns aren’t smart. I would like to state for the record that I disagree with that assessment. Anybody that would build a city 5 feet below sea level in a hurricane zone and fill it with Democrats is a damn genius”. – Larry the Cable Guy

Filed under: at least someone's having fun, politics

Architecture

The modern Bauhaus box of Gropius and van der Rohe and the banal cement pourings of Le Courbusier are lost on me.  If you want to know what really grabs my interest, it is a place that has actual design.  I don’t know how I got to it, but somewhere I came across La Confiteria Ideal in Argentina.  Look at the photos of this restaurant’s main hall and tell  me it does not floor you:

Now look at this building that used to stand in the center of Pittsburgh (Wabash Station):

that I got from the Shorpy archive.  My God does that give me a thrill.  I thought my favorite pie wedge shaped building in the world was the Flatiron Building (of which I have a poster dominating my dining room), but its continued existence is all that keeps this long lost gem from winning my heart.  Gems like Ebbets Field and League Park have long since been destroyed, but at least Wrigley Field is still with us.

Filed under: observations, tribute

Unraveling Slavery

I’m a history buff, and just tonight through the wonderful Explorator was I able to read the story behind the actual unraveling of slavery that happened during the course of the Civil War.

It wasn’t a result of the war, as many people still believe, but it happened because of the war.  It didn’t happen from the top, but as the result of a horse ride conducted under the white flag of truce.  It all sprang from the conversation between the Union general, who was a wily and skilled lawyer back home in Massachusetts, and the Confederate colonel, who was Southern gentry.  In the end, the general came up with a well accepted wartime rule that worked as well as balancing angels on the head of a pin, so that the peculiar institution which many didn’t want abolished, even in the North, with the many who were uncomfortable with its existence and its abolition equally, and even with the emancipators, could find a way to accept and live with the results.  It wasn’t Fort Sumter, and it wasn’t the Emancipation Proclamation, but it was an in-between incident which should’ve never become a forgotten part of Civil War history.  But if you read it and pass it on, it will not be.

Filed under: fact nugget, tribute

Proof of Nazareth’s Existence in the Time of Christ

“And would you want to see, if seeing meant that you would have to believe.”
- Joan Osbourne, One of Us

So they found a foundation of a house, then they let the archaeologists take over inspection of the site, where they soon found tile, ceramics, and pottery dating the house to pre-Roman conquest times.  Up until now, there were a number who denied the existence of biblical Nazareth, saying that since the town’s evidence began way after Roman times, that there was no town there at the time of Christ.

The more work gets done, the more things get pieced together.

Filed under: fact nugget

Irritating Phrases

Oxford University came up with a list of their ten most annoying phrases back in 2008.  Go look their for their list.  I have my own.

• not necessarily Say yes when you mean yes and no when you mean no.  Quit being mealy.
• actually No I want it fictitiously.
• networking What a way to completely disinfect a business relationship building opportunity by giving it this name.
• for your convenience No company ever does something for your convenience.  The job of the company is to maximize profit for the shareholder.  If suckering you into a list of fees by giving you a mirage of either control or convenience helps them do this, all’s the better for them.  Whenever you get a rider in your monthly bill outlining changes in your service agreement for your convenience, look behind you to make sure they’re at least putting a dab of lubricant on the tip of their dink before they give it you with a running start.
• with myself No, you’re not going to dinner with Hedda, you, and myself, you’re going with Hedda, you, and me.  Just using a longer word doesn’t make it either right or more cultured.
• keeping it real Acting like a felon does not make you in touch with the downtrodden, especially when they choose to live in a way that downtrods themselves, without society’s help.  Flashing gang signs to the camera when you’re in the middle of a foam filled dance floor of a club you paid a $100 cover charge to get into on holiday doesn’t make you street, or gangsta.  In a more just world it would get you shot, fo’ shizzle, my nizzle.

Filed under: observations

Poor Ted

Source Credit.

Filed under: at least someone's having fun

For the Love of the Dog

The story of a dog sitting loyally by its dead owner’s grave after the major floods in Brazil last month has turned out to be false, but it nonetheless sheds light on true stories of dogs who have been so faithful, even beyond death.  Greyfriar’s Bobby is an example from 1800′s Scotland of a terrier who lay by his master’s grave for the last 14 years of his own life, true to the end.  In 1930′s Japan, there was Hachiko, who went every day to the train station to wait for the deceased owner who would no longer come.

But here are happier stories of dogs who get to greet their owners returning from war.  This veteran came home after a 15 month tour in Iraq:

And this one of a returning Afghanistan soldier:

And here’s a double team of love:

The loyalty of the dog is also noted in Homer’s Odyssey:  when Odysseus returns home, blind and in rags, but his old dog Argos recognizes him right away, and runs to be with him and dies at his feet.  A dog will never up and leave you for someone with more money, it will never talk bad about you when you’re not around.  All it wants out of life are the bare necessities of survival, and in return you get its commitment for life.

Update:  loyalty to one’s injured friend, from the Japan tragedy:

Filed under: tribute

Balloon Buster

The first war pilots were a brave and crazy bunch, and had a certain panache with their exploits.  The Red Baron, for instance, painted his plane fire engine red as if waving his arms and screaming “come and get me if you can” when everyone else was into the new camouflage idea.

Then there was the Belgian air ace Willy Coppens.  Popping surveillance balloons was his specialty, when that was the hardest thing to do at the time, and a true trick to pull off.  Now the Germans decided to make a balloon specially for Mr. Coppens himself.  They fitted a balloon with all of the explosives they could get into it.  Of course when you do something like that, someone has to brag, and word gets around.

The Germans were so proud of their little plot that word of the scheme eventually got back to Coppens himself, who decided that after they went to all that expense and effort, it would be rude not to go have a look at this balloon.  When he got there, he discovered that the Germans had really made a day of it, with dozens of soldiers and staff officers standing around to watch the fireworks. The balloon itself was still being winched up and was, crucially, only at half its intended height.  The resulting explosion sent his plane rocking through the sky like a kangaroo on a pogo stick, yet it remained intact. If the low height had saved Coppens, it proved disastrous for those below, with the resulting fireball killing and maiming dozens of the watchers on the ground.

Hahahahaha.  Now c’mon, the whole mental image of this episode of Jackass has to get you laughing, too.  A bunch of rear detachment guys dying of boredom when their brothers were dying of bullets and disease on the front, who had nothing better to do than to stand idly by to watch a crazy Belgian blow himself up with their idea of a joke, getting bettered by him.  The balloon that was designed to blow up everything within 500 feet got 250 feet into the air when the Belgian plane comes over the horizon.  Oh, s***. First you say it, then you do it.  Now who’s the idiot?

Filed under: fact nugget, tribute

Sunday Remakes

Here’s some songs that I think are just as good as they are by the original artist.  I understand the argument can be made that nothing can match the original, but sometimes someone can add that one spice to make the soup a little more flavorful, nonetheless.

You Really Got Me This is the original by the Kinks.  Van Halen added an extra helping of kick to blow the doors off of the song.  This commercial shows how they took a song with a lot of swagger and turned it into one with brass balls:

A Change is Gonna Come Sam Cooke’s version overflows with heart, as well as melancholy and pained hope.  Seal’s version begins with the same soulful wail, but he punches through the song with a more determined air.  He doesn’t wish for change to come, he tells it that it will:

The Heart of the Matter Don Henley’s version is the version.  But when Henley himself says that India Arie did a better job with his song than he did, he is the one who would know:

Listen to your Heart Roxette simply owns the song.  But DHT makes regret the subject:

C’e Sempre un Motivo Tribute Bands make serious coin from duplicating the acts to whom they’re making tribute.  Adriano Celentano has a pretty snazzy hit here.  The singer of the Celentano tribute band Lui e gli amici del Re is pretty much his twin not only in looks, but in voice and mannerisms.  Here’s his version of this classic (added bonus, two smoking hot dancers):

Filed under: observations

Coffee House

I’d rather hang out in a coffee house than a bar any day.  First, there’s no alcohol (except in some with liquor licenses, and even there it’s subdued).  That means no drunks with whom to deal.  My only beef is that social interaction is a lot more difficult than in a bar.  People are a lot less likely to go for spontaneous conversation.  In Chicago proper it’s all about posing like a peacock and looking bored and disinterested, like there’s nowhere else in the world they’d rather be than right there – and that goes for the staff as well.  In the Region everyone is in his or her bubble.  They need to make a coffee house that’s just like a bar, so I can have the best of both worlds:  being around alcohol-free people, and being able to shoot the bull.

Filed under: observations