SUNSPOT RESEARCH—FROM BASIC COUNTS TO DEEP WITHIN
EVERY 11 YEARS or so, our Sun churns itself into creating a wealth of spots and ejecting immense bursts of energy. These sunspots and solar storms have an effect on … Continue reading
OPERATIC DEATHS
OPERA IS DRAMATIC. There’s little reason to expect operatic deaths to be anything resembling natural causes. Here are tidbits of demise from several operas, the plots described in Sir Denis … Continue reading
ETYMOLOGY: TINHORN, TIN-POT
FOR A WHILE there, I thought I had completed my Etymology for Our Times series. (Google “SimanaitisSays Etymology” for a sampling.) However, on July 4, the bone-spur-challenged president’s reality TV … Continue reading
POM ON RACECAR BODYWORK, 1920–1939 PART 2
YESTERDAY, WE took a brief look at future shock in motor sports’ past decade. Today, we examine earlier enthusiasts’ future shock with the help of Pomeroy’s The Grand Prix Car, … Continue reading
POM ON RACECAR BODYWORK, 1920–1939 PART 1
PAST GENERATIONS EXPERIENCED more future shock than we do. For example, Sherlock Holmes contended with the introduction of electric lighting, the telephone, the automobile, and the aeroplane. Even past generations … Continue reading
SPACE TRIPPIN’
I MARVEL AT WACKOS who believe that NASA’s six manned Moon visits were hoaxes. People of this sort tend to profess that the world is flat, jet contrails contain mood-altering … Continue reading
LIVING IN A TOURIST ATTRACTION
BARCELONA THRIVES AS being popular with tourists. Ana Viladomiu, a resident of this beautiful city, sees this as something of a mixed blessing, as described in Raphael Minder’s “What’s It … Continue reading
ON OPIOIDS PART 2
OPIOID ADDICTION IS plaguing the country. Tidbits on this epidemic are gleaned at SimanaitisSays yesterday and today from “A Blizzard of Prescriptions,” by Emily Witt in the London Review of … Continue reading
ON OPIOIDS PART 1
IN 1984 I suffered from an extruded disc. The extreme pain of this malady introduced me to hydrocodone-based Vicodin, a painkiller that helped me through the problem. A standup art … Continue reading
GETTING EVEN—THEATRICALLY PART 2
WHEN WE LEFT Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, his life of French polymath/entrepreneur was complicated by a court case involving business dealings with the late Joseph Paris Duverney. Today in Part … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 