FATHER KNOX’S RULES—AND HOAX
FATHER RONALD KNOX was an English theologian with fascinating credentials: an Anglican priest who converted to Roman Catholicism, a famed Sherlockian, and a perpetrator of a hoax that predated Orson … Continue reading
NEW CAR NEWS
THIS NEW YEAR’S SimanaitisSays is appropriately Janus-like. It looks back at late-2020 Automotive News tidbits and looks forward to the future of the automobile. And, as leavening agent, these tidbits … Continue reading
DID SHAKESPEARE CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS?
PEOPLE WHO KEEP track of such things identify only three references to Christmas in all of Shakespeare’s plays. On the other hand, the Bard’s Christmas season lasted longer than ours. … Continue reading
MR. DUNNE’S FLYING WING—IN 1910! PART 2
JOHN WILLIAM DUNNE was more than a pioneer aviator. His D.5 aeroplane displayed the extreme innovation of a flying wing, almost a century before Northrup’s B-2 stealth bomber. And his … Continue reading
MR. DUNNE’S FLYING WING—IN 1910! PART 1
JUST SEVEN YEARS after the Wright Brothers demonstrated controlled, heavier-than-air, powered flight, British aviator John Dunne designed and piloted his flying wing: The 1910 D.5 was a tailless swept-wing craft … Continue reading
TWO SONS’ LEGACIES—ONE OF THEM, THE FERRARI 196 S DINO
ENZO FERRARI’S ELDER son Alfredo was born in 1932. Named after his paternal grandfather, he soon acquired the nickname Dino, short for Alfredino. Were he to have a son, Enzo … Continue reading
ON IMMANUEL KANT ET AL
I WAS PERUSING my secondhand copy of The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, this time around, getting around to reading its editor Clifton Fadiman’s introductory notes (for the first time, … Continue reading
MY EGYPTOLOGY STARTED WITH CLEOPATRA’S NEEDLE PART 2
YESTERDAY, I BEGAN sharing tidbits from two entertaining book reviews, both discussing Toby Wilkinson’s A World Beneath the Sands: The Golden Age of Egyptology. Today’s Part 2 continues digging in … Continue reading
MY EGYPTOLOGY STARTED WITH CLEOPATRA’S NEEDLE PART 1
I CAN RECALL encountering Cleopatra’s Needle on London’s Victoria Embankment, just down Carting Lane from the Savoy Hotel. It was during one of my “early retirement” sojourns; I’d stay a … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 