ARITHMETIC CAN BE MOD
MODULAR ARITHMETIC made a brief appearance in “Edo Toggles and Models”: In particular, 2010 was a Year of the Tiger. What’s more, modular arithmetic shows up on clock faces, in … Continue reading
EDO TOGGLES AND MODELS
EDO IS the traditional name for Tokyo. The Edo period is also known as the Tokugawa Era, honoring Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun of a clan that ruled Japan between … Continue reading
AN ARMCHAIR TOUR OF ARIZONA, THANKS TO THE COPPERSTATE 1000
A FRIEND who lives outside the U.S. asked me about the state of Arizona. She has never visited there, so I thought I would share some photos and memories of … Continue reading
SUZ’S LOVE NOTES
DAUGHTER SUZ sent me two e-mails, the first reading “Can I have one? Please?? xo.” The second one read simply, “Bwahahahaaa!!!!” followed by four red hearts. Each was accompanied by … Continue reading
WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS
“WE’LL ALWAYS have Paris” is more than a line from Casablanca. It’s an affirmation of civilization. Here are four recollections of the City of Light, from 1931, 1954, 1962 and … Continue reading
LULUS ON MY MIND
I SEEM to be encountering an inordinate number of Lulus in my life. SiriusXM “Radio Classics” just broadcast “Too Many Crooks,” a segment of Orson Welles’ The Lives of Harry … Continue reading
STUTZ AT LE MANS
LE MANS 24-hour races in the late 1920s were dominated by British Bentleys: They won 1927 – 1930. However, at the same time, the American carmaker Stutz set a Le … Continue reading
VIRTUAL REALITY—30 YEARS ON
CYBERSPACE HAS attracted me since I first heard of it in William Gibson’s 1984 novel Neuromancer. The concept gained academic cred in another book, Cyberspace: First Steps, a 1991 collection … Continue reading
DE SEVERSKY—A REAL FIGHTER
TODAY’S TITLE is multi-tasking. There’s Alexander de Seversky, the Russian-American aviation pioneer. And there’s his P-35, a precedent-setting aircraft that showed the best and worst of government procurement processes. The … Continue reading
BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A CURLICUE? I’M A LITTLE SHORTHANDED HERE
AT A recent book exchange, I swapped six bags of my literary has-beens for one bag of treasures. (The affair was enlivened when I mistakenly put a copy of the … Continue reading