ARCHIGRAM—AN ARCHITECTURAL COLLECTIVE OF WHIMSY
JONATHAN MEADES’ “SIGHTBITES,” in the London Review of Books, May 21, 2020, summed up Archigram perfectly: “They formed in the early 1960s and over the next decade or so produced … Continue reading
GOODBYE, MOORE’S LAW. HELLO TO THE TOP
IN 1975, INTEL founder Gordon Moore predicted that the number of transistors in a semiconductor would double every two years. Moore’s Law, as it came to be known, held true … Continue reading
ON TUMBLING ICONS
WE AMERICANS AREN’T the only ones soul-searching about what to do with historic icons that no longer reflect modern times. In the London Review of Books, June 12, 2020, Rebecca … Continue reading
ETYMOLOGY: JINGOISTIC, JINGOISM
THE WORD “JINGOISTIC” came to mind, even before Trump’s trumped-up photo op at the West Point commencement on June 13, 2020. It might have been my memory of him standing … Continue reading
CELEBRATING A STEAM PUNK ZEPPELIN BUSTER PART 2
NOEL PEMBERTON BILLING had a fertile imagination, exemplified by his four-winged P.B. 31E Zeppelin buster. We continue the tale of this quadruplane in Part 2 today and view one in … Continue reading
CELEBRATING A STEAM PUNK ZEPPELIN BUSTER PART 1
THE 1917 P.B. 31E Nighthawk was Supermarine Aircraft’s first design, an utterly bizarre steam punk Zeppelin buster, from this English firm destined, two decades later, to produce the legendary Spitfire. … Continue reading
GLOBAL TRUTHS AND THINGS TO PONDER
YESTERDAY’S CELEBRATION OF global—and extraglobal—adventurer Kathy Sullivan got me thinking about planet Earth and its physical extremes, its heights, depths, and shape. Here are tidbits gleaned from a variety of … Continue reading
DR. KATHY SULLIVAN—WORLD TRAVELER EXTRAORDINAIRE
I’VE BEEN AT 30,000 ft. in jetliners and 282 ft. below sea level at Death Valley’s Bad Water Basin in a car. However, Kathy Sullivan’s achievements make me look neighborhood-bound … Continue reading
A VOYAGE TO LAPUTA, BALNIBARBI, LUGGNAGG, GLUBBDUBDRIB, AND JAPAN PART 2
YESTERDAY IN PART 1, we learned why Jonathan Swift included Japan among fanciful destinations in Gulliver’s Travels and also why he chose anonymous authorship for this satire. Today in Part … Continue reading
A VOYAGE TO LAPUTA, BALNIBARBI, LUGGNAGG, GLUBBDUBDRIB, AND JAPAN PART 1
THE ITINERARY ABOVE is actually the title of Part Three in Gulliver’s Travels, published anonymously in London in 1726. Why, I wondered, did Jonathan Swift include Japan with these outlandish, … Continue reading
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