TRAINS AND MUSIC
RECENT MINI-ESSAYS here on trains (www.wp.me/p2ETap-1JO, http://www.wp.me/p2ETap-1K2) and on music (www.wp.me/p2ETap-1Jz) got me thinking of trains and music. (And now you know how my mind works.) It turns out my collection of … Continue reading
STROTHER’S CAR CULTURE
STROTHER MACMINN taught automotive design at the Art Center College of Design for five decades, with disciples throughout the industry. He was also instrumental in establishing Toyota’s Calty Design Research … Continue reading
DIANA BARNATO WALKER
LIKE FATHER, like daughter. Or at least if the metrics are a love of the good life, of adventure—and of things that go fast and make plenty of noise. Diana … Continue reading
BARNATO’S BLUE TRAIN BENTLEY(S)
JOEL WOOLF “Babe” Barnato, British financier, international sportsman, one of the Bentley Boys, heir to South African diamond and gold mining wealth, was dining at the Carleton Hotel in Cannes, … Continue reading
LE TRAIN BLEU
THE ENGLISH, with a presence in the French Riviera since 1840, all but invented the idea of a Mediterranean resort. And the Companie Internationale des Wagons-Lits et des Grand Express … Continue reading
OPERA GOSSIP
IT’S TIME to approach once more the “razor edge of absurdity” that constitutes opera. This time around, I’m tapping an entertaining book, Opera Anecdotes by Ethan Mordden, and other gossip … Continue reading
De HAVILLAND DRAGON RAPIDE
THE DRAGON Rapide may well be my favorite aeroplane. And of Dragon Rapides and their World War II Dominie siblings, my favorite livery is that of G-ADDD, an aircraft of … Continue reading
JASPER FFORDE’S WORLD
I’M DELIGHTED to share the alternative world of author Jasper Fforde and his Thursday Next series, from The Eyre Affair to the one I’m reading now, One of our Thursdays … Continue reading
U.S. AIRCRAFT PRODUCTION—WWII
A MOTIVATED workforce, techniques of mass production—and even some topographical deception—played important roles in U.S. aircraft production during World War II. In Picture History of World War II American Aircraft … Continue reading
HENRY FORD LORE
WHAT WITH his putting America on wheels, paying his workers enough to aspire to those wheels (albeit controlling the workers’ private lives as well), being strongly anti-war, but also notoriously … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 