CELEBRATING THE GLOBE THEATRE
THEATER IS REOPENING in the U.S. and, in time, in other parts of the world as well. Let’s celebrate this by recalling a classic venue: London’s Globe. Here are tidbits … Continue reading
BI SHENG’S MOVABLE TYPE
BI SHENG WAS unknown to me until I read that he, not Gutenberg, first devised movable type. This prompted me to dig out the research books, fire up the Internet. … Continue reading
A FLYING CAR? A ROADABLE PLANE?
WE HAVE UPSIZED drones proposed today as just-around-the-corner flying cars. But it’s interesting that we’ve already been there, done that. Here are tidbits about the 1921 Tampier Avion-Motorcar, not exactly … Continue reading
JUST DON’T CALL HIM “OPPA”
“A VICIOUS CANCER,” said Kim Jong-un, “is corrupting attire, hairstyles, speeches, behaviors.” State media warned that, if unchecked, North Korea would “crumble like a damp wall.” Image by Bloomberg from … Continue reading
MEDIEVAL MEN GOT THE POINT—AND BUNIONS TOO
JUST AS MANY women today pay a painful price for wearing squeeze-toe stiletto heels, stylish medieval European men suffered from what BBC News, June 11, 2021, called the “Cambridge bunion … Continue reading
READING—A LONG VIEW
TODAY’S TIDBITS TAKE a long view on reading and its celebration of our living in one of two pivotal periods: the transition of script to print and from print to … Continue reading
$1.2 MILLION, EVENTUALLY, FOR LOSING A DEBATE WITH EINSTEIN
THIS IS A WIN-WIN story in the annals of theoretical physics. In 1905, Albert Einstein published the equation E = mc2, thus positing that energy and mass are essentially two … Continue reading
I WISH I’D SAID THAT. AND I SHALL.
I CONTINUE TO encounter comments I wish I had said. And, paraphrasing Oscar Wilde’s quote, I offer here several good ones originally appearing in the London Review of Books. Fries … Continue reading
HURRAH FOR THE FBI’S ANOM!
THE VOICE OF AMERICA reports “800 Arrested in Global Organized Crime Investigation,” June 8, 2021. VOA says “Operation Trojan Shield involved police raids in 16 countries in which 250 firearms … Continue reading
THE OUIJA CAPER
TWO PALS USED outlandish means to escape from an Ottoman prison camp during World War I. Chris Jennings’ “Breaking Out of Prison With a Ouija Board and Some Clever Tricks” … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 