January 7, 2009
In which I know it's over, but still I cling
See my photographs of Coney Island; the one above comes from curbed.com.... Read more
December 29, 2008
Vintila Banescu
The New York Times rarely comes close to the tenor and topic of a Paul Auster story, but consider this: The 1975 Alfetta was hardly pristine. Panels had been replaced, its body was pierced by splotches of rust, and its maroon coat was faded by the sun. But it was still an Italian sports car, designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, and it still made people stop. Mr. Banescu, who often wore a beret, was shy but friendly. Sometime in early May, the Alfa stopped moving. Neighbors noticed, but then perhaps forgot: In Brooklyn, it was the summer of the parking spot, when the city announced that it was suspending the alternate-side parking rules in various neighborhoods as it replaced street-cleaning signs. Mr. Banescu’s car became one of dozens, maybe hundreds, of cars allowed to sit in the same space for months this summer.... Read more
December 5, 2008
H.M.
In 1953, he underwent an experimental brain operation in Hartford to correct a seizure disorder, only to emerge from it fundamentally and irreparably changed. He developed a syndrome neurologists call profound amnesia. He had lost the ability to form new memories. For the next 55 years, each time he met a friend, each time he ate a meal, each time he walked in the woods, it was as if for the first time. And for those five decades, he was recognized as the most important patient in the history of brain science. As a participant in hundreds of studies, he helped scientists understand the biology of learning, memory and physical dexterity, as well as the fragile nature of human identity. A few months ago, the City Editor of The New York Times published comments on how the paper chooses subjects for its obituaries. And Bruce Weber wrote about writing obituaries.... Read more
November 25, 2008
Astroland
Some photographs of Astroland, being dismantled and packed in to shipping containers.... Read more
November 23, 2008
In which we pour a Pernod on the kerb
The New York Times sounds the death knell for the French café: In 1960, France had 200,000 cafes, said Bernard Quartier, president of the National Federation of Cafes, Brasseries and Discotheques. Now it has fewer than 41,500, with an average of two closing every day. In Paris, Bernard Picolet, 60, is the owner of Aux Amis du Beaujolais, which his family started in 1921 on Rue de Berri. “The way of life has changed,” he said. “The French are no longer eating and drinking like the French. They are eating and drinking like the Anglo-Saxons,” the British and the Americans. “They eat less and spend less time at it,” Mr. Picolet said. People grab a sandwich at lunchtime and eat as they walk or sit at their desks. They stand in line to buy prepackaged espresso sachets, to drink coffee at home ....... Read more
June 24, 2008
Ayveq
Ayveq died yesterday (this last story uses a photograph of mine as the illustration). Ayveq the Walrus Photographs of Ayveq, which, curiously, I have never uploaded to flickr.... Read more
June 23, 2008
Harry J. Aleo
Harry J. Aleo, the colorful and plain-spoken horse-racer, real-estate dealer, and baseball player (baseball player!), died over the weekend. Although I knew him from the signs in his 24th–Street storefront, he had led, by all accounts, a rich and sincere life. I will never recover from that first shock of seeing a Reagan poster in Noe Valley.... Read more
June 17, 2008
Oddly, the law won
From Wikipedia: Just after "I Fought The Law" became a top ten hit, Bobby Fuller was found dead in a parked automobile near his Los Angeles home. The police considered the death an apparent suicide, however many people still believe Fuller was murdered. The investigation was botched from the start. The scene was not taped off and no fingerprints were taken from the scene. A witness also had clamied seeing a Police Officer throw a can of gasoline found at the scene into the trash.[1] Police later changed the cause of death to "Accident". He was found with multiple wounds all over his body and covered in gasoline leading many to speculate that the perpetrators fled before they could set the car on fire. He is buried in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills) in Los Angeles. Dead at age 23, Fuller barely outlived his idol, Holly, who died at 22.... Read more
May 14, 2008
Robert Rauschenberg
The New York Times's obituary has a good summary of Robert Rauschenberg's career and influences. Mr Rauschenberg died on Tuesday.... Read more
April 30, 2008
Albert Hofmann
The New York Times obituary; the BBC report (with a classic photograph); and the Albert Hofmann Foundation. I often think of Albert Hofmann's first deliberate trip -- on a bicycle, riding home from his laboratory. update My father pointed out Albert Hofmann's speech at his hundredth birthday celebration, and some comments on the speech Hofmann gave.... Read more
April 11, 2008
Donnell Library Center
An encomium of the Donnell Library Center, which is closing to make way for a luxury hotel-condo building; a picture, a thousand words: Seeing these empty shelves stunned me; even though I knew the library was closing, I did not count on having my muscle memory (here is Calvino; here is Wodehouse; here, sometimes, are copies of Murder Must Advertise) thrown off completely. The empty shelves brought home the imminent closing of the library, and I wound up trudging to the Young Adult section upstairs to find a book. Some (adult) fiction remains on shelves adjacent the science and history sections, but most of the collection is headed to storage in anticipation for the summer-time closing of this library.... Read more
February 21, 2008
Jim Jones
Jim Jones, the longtime guitarist for Pere Ubu, died.... Read more
February 4, 2008
Sheldon Brown
Sheldon Brown died last night. His writings on cycling, photographs of his bikes and exploits, and peerless attitude towards creating community will live on. Several years ago, I made a detour in to the Harris Cyclery to see just where this man held court. Sheldon "CaptBike" Brown was the personality that characterized all that is good about cycling and about community. In an era of instantaneous, plentiful communication, he had a distinctive and constructive approach to writing email; he posted excellent, informative essays on practical and technical aspects of cycling on his web site; and his many other interests revealed him to be a lively, loving man.... Read more
January 21, 2008
Edgar Allan Poe
Belatedly, and reminded by fresh news reports of the Poe Toaster, I celebrate the life of Edgar Allan Poe. In the dead of night, someone came again to the Baltimore cemetery, as happens every Jan. 19. When the figure melted into the darkness, three red roses and a half-filled bottle of cognac were found at the grave site. Once more, tribute had been paid to Edgar Allan Poe, poet and master of horror; born Jan. 19, 1809, in Boston; died Oct. 7, 1849, in Baltimore and buried in the cemetery of Westminster Presbyterian Church. For years — exactly how many is a matter of dispute — a person who has come to be known as the Poe Toaster has made an annual pilgrimage to the site. This year, nearly 150 people gathered outside the cemetery, but Jeff Jerome, above, the curator of the Poe House and Museum, said the toaster was able to avoid being spotted, The Associated Press reported. The first line I encountered by Poe is cemented in memory: "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could ; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge." The story that unfolds in The Cask of Amontillado has chilled and enchanted me as no other. Although Poe's poetry and stories have all gripped me, none has stuck in my mind as much as this, with its passionate dialogue and diabolical, calculated protagonist. I read it just after starting primary school, and I wonder (now) how one explains jokes about Masonry to eight-year-olds. In those days, each new story or poem I read offered beautiful new vocabulary: niter, flaçon, roquelaire, motley, and the hypnotic plural flambeaux.... Read more
John Stewart
">John Stewart died today. Widely known for his work with The Kingston Trio, he also produced four dozen solo albums. He also wrote (and sang, on the canonical Monkees recording) Daydream Believer, one of the most pervasively catchy sugary pop songs ever.... Read more
December 8, 2007
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen died. This memorial booklet (PDF) represents some of the significant influences of Stockhausen's work: the spiritual, language, and the sound of sound.... Read more
November 10, 2007
Washoe
Washoe, the first non-human primate to use sign language, died. Roger Fouts wrote an excellent book, Next of Kin, about his work with Washoe.... Read more
November 9, 2007
Donnell Reading Center
The Donnell Reading Center, a NYPL branch library I visit at least weekly, will become a fancy hotel.... Read more
October 24, 2007
Lance Hahn
Pitchfork reports that Lance Hahn of most excellent rockers J Church died.... Read more
October 3, 2007
ESG
Through Metafilter, I discover that ESG are calling in quits after thirty years of just-under-the-radar hip-hop and funk. I heard of them in 2000, when Soul Jazz reissued "A South Bronx Story" and I got a copy.... Read more
September 23, 2007
Joe Chiodo
Joe Chiodo died a few weeks ago. A memorial video is on the YouTube: I won (and lost! and won again!) a fortune on the lovingly-worn shuffleboard table at Chiodo's, the tavern at the foot of the Homestead High-Level Bridge.... Read more
September 17, 2007
On obituaries
For many years, the New York Times's tradition of researching and publishing excellent obituaries has introduced me, if only upon the occasion of their death, to many riveting characters, to some quiet personalities, and given me the opportunity to reflect on some historically significant events. Over the past few weeks, I have read with increasing dismay the story of Joe O’Donnell, “a longtime White House photographer” who supposedly took the iconic photograph of John, Jr saluting his father's coffin, and served in the now-defunct United States Information Agency. I have felt dismay at the story of his deception, and of his habit of casually taking credit for others' photographs — a habit that went undetected, partly because press agencies did not credit photographers by name in the 50s and 60s. Some of the dismay is at the dishonesty of the photographer, and some at the newspaper that published the obituary, a newspaper that has suffered through several troubling episodes of inaccuracy and outright fraud in its reporting these past few years. The newspaper's Public Editor today published a thoughtful piece on the problem, noting specifically that the practice of interviewing close associates would have paid off in this story. This is the most interesting and significant piece that the office of the Public Editor, an ombudsman-type position that has been held by two prominent journalists, has yet produced. Also in today's paper, a beautiful obituary of Eva Crane, whose scholarship and passion brought new science to the study of bees.... Read more
September 7, 2007
Madeleine L'Engle
The New York Times, Aram, and others bid adieu to Madeleine L'Engle, whose writing transcends genre, philosophy, and generations. I have never fallen for characters as completely as I did for the Murry family (and for the spelling of young Denys, which somehow enchanted me).... Read more
August 16, 2007
Max Roach
Max Roach died today. Read Peter Keepnews's obituary in The New York Times.... Read more
May 15, 2007
Jim Gray
Last month, The Register published a memorial to Jim Gray, the Turing Award winner and computer-science researcher.... Read more
April 12, 2007
Rubin Caslow
Brooklyn-based maker of excellent whitefish salad Rubin Caslow died. The Associated Press sez: Rubin Caslow, the chairman of the largest producer and distributor of smoked fish in the country, has died. He was 86. Caslow, whose Acme Smoked Fish Corp. in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, sells certified kosher smoked salmon, herring, whitefish and pickled lox, died Sunday at his home in Roslyn, on Long Island, his granddaughter Emily Caslow, said Wednesday. The business had modest beginning, with Caslow's grandfather, Harry Brownstein, selling lox and chubs to small stores from a horse-drawn wagon in the early 1900s. Brownstein later opened a smokehouse, at a time when there were hundreds of them in Brooklyn. Today, Acme sells more than 7 million pounds of smoked fish around the country to such food specialty emporiums as Zabar's, Balducci's, Barney Greengrass and Russ & Daughters, among others. It operates out of an 80,000-square-foot facility in Greenpoint that includes tanks for brining and a huge forced-air smoker. In 2000, the privately held family-run company added the Blue Hill Bay brand, a preservative-free, dry-cured line of nova, gravlax, hot-smoked salmon, cold-smoked yellowfin tuna, brook trout, and jarred herring fillets. Caslow, the son of Russian immigrants, grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. He is survived by his wife, Charlotte, and sons, Robert and Eric, who took over the business several years ago, seven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, Emily Carlow said. The funeral was in Great Neck on Tuesday. Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed... Read more
April 1, 2007
Antonio Branduzzi
Antonio Branduzzi of Il Piccolo Forno in Pittsburgh died in January. April 26, 1949 - Jan. 9, 2007 Wednesday, January 10, 2007 By Bob Batz Jr., Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Antonio Branduzzi, a Tuscan immigrant beloved for his sweet personality as well as the tortes and other treats he made at his Strip District bakery, died yesterday at St. Clair Hospital. He was 57. The cause was complications from heart failure he suffered on Dec. 20, said his wife, Carla. Mr. Branduzzi, of Scott, was co-owner, with his wife, of Il Piccolo Forno, "the Little Oven," on 21st Street in the Strip. The bakery/pasticceria was next to and open to La Prima Espresso, making for one of "the" gathering spots in the city. One of the main, warmest ingredients was Mr. Branduzzi's personality, which his wife summed up in one word: "Embracing." Coffee shop regulars yesterday morning were somberly quiet in tribute to the man who was anything but. Leaders of Slow Food Pittsburgh and other foodies lauded him as a force for good food. But Mr. Branduzzi was more than that. The moustached, bald and round-bellied baker -- with sweat on his brow, flour on his apron and a lot of Italian in his speech and gestures -- was one of the distinct characters in the daily drama that is Pittsburgh. As he told a visiting and hungry National Geographic writer in 2003, "I came here from Lucca, Italy, 17 years ago, and I felt right at home. Maybe because a lot of Lucca was already here." His wife, born and raised here, met Mr. Branduzzi on a trip to her father's village near Lucca. When her father returned there to die, Mr. Branduzzi comforted her. As she told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2005, "I felt it was my destiny to marry him." While the couple lived in the village, their first-born, Domenic, was born. But they wanted him to grow up in Pittsburgh. So while she started cooking at a local trattoria, Mr. Branduzzi, who had worked as a craftsman making picture frames, became a baker's apprentice. When they moved here in 1987, they put their new skills to work at the Common Plea restaurant, she as a line cook and he as a sommelier, before he started working nights as a baker at La Normande. It was around 1991 that they started making mele, or fruit turnovers, and other pastries for La Prima Espresso. The goodies were such a hit that owner Sam Patti suggested they set up shop in the back. In 1992 the couple moved next door and opened Il Piccolo Forno bakery, where in recent years they also sold soups and salads and pasta for lunch. The sauce of the day was up to Mr. Branduzzi's whim. When it was gone, it was gone. But he wanted customers to savor it, and so many did. "You know how some people can play a musical instrument by ear? He could play food by ear," said Mr. Patti, who described his friend as "a gentle, gentle soul." The bakery's menu brochure noted one of the rules he'd learned in the Old Country: "Fare tutto con amore" -- make every recipe with love. His friend, Larry Lagattuta, summed up Mr. Branduzzi's way as, "Never telling. Just doing." He recalls spending a night baking with Mr. Branduzzi at home and all the things he learned, including how Mr. Branduzzi loved American rock and soul music. Mr. Lagattuta also learned that he himself wanted to become a baker, and went on to open Enrico Biscotti in the Strip. "Here is a guy who, with his gentle way, literally changed my life." He shared everything from baking "secrets" to stories with many others in town. "His hands were connected to his heart and his brain, and people felt it," said his friend and fellow baker Ray Werner, who frequently was comforted by Mr. Branduzzi's trademark "Hey, what you gonna do? It's OK." Mr. Branduzzi made regular trips back to Tuscany, where he enjoyed hunting -- everything from birds to boar to porcini mushrooms. He also loved playing poker when he could, which wasn't much, since he went to work at 3:30 a.m. Mostly, he cooked. He and his wife always made food for gatherings of the Associazione Lucchesi nel Mondo, Pittsburgh Chapter, where he was a board member. Mr. Branduzzi and his wife also helped out at the restaurant their son, Domenic, opened in the spring of 2005 in Lawrenceville, Piccolo Forno. With his work ethic, passion for real ingredients, conviviality and generosity, Mr. Patti said, "He just embodied everything food is."... Read more
March 23, 2007
vir1
Thanks to archive.org, you can see my web site from ten-plus years ago. Roffle.... Read more
December 25, 2006
October 14, 2006
Gillo Pontecorvo
Gillo Pontecorvo died. Mr. Pontecorvo will be remembered best for “The Battle of Algiers,” a stark portrayal, shot in black and white, of the bloody uprisings that led to Algeria’s independence from France in 1962. Admired and honored when it first appeared, it received renewed acclaim when it was rereleased in the United States in 2004. A. O. Scott, writing in The New York Times, called the film “astonishing cinema vérité” and “a political thriller of unmatched realism and a combat picture remorseless in its clarity.” The movie was based on a book by Saadi Yacef, who had been the leader of the insurgent cell in the Algiers Casbah that the French crushed in 1957. He survived capture and, after Algerian independence, approached Mr. Pontecorvo to make the film. “Had it been up to Yacef, the result would have been pure propaganda,” the author Michael Ignatieff wrote in The New York Times Magazine in 2004. “Pontecorvo held out for a deeper vision, and the result is a masterpiece, at once a justification for acts of terror and an unsparing account of terror’s cost, including to the cause it serves.” The film depicts a cycle of escalating violence and torture as revolutionaries of the National Liberation Front attack fellow Arabs and the French police, who then retaliate, only to provoke more attacks. Mr. Yacef also produced the film and had a starring role as the leader of the revolutionaries. Indeed, the cast of the film, shot on location in the Casbah, consisted almost entirely of nonprofessional actors, adding to its grim documentary quality. “The Battle of Algiers” won the Golden Lion for best film at the 1966 Venice International Film Festival. (Mr. Pontecorvo directed the festival for four years, starting in 1992.) But its legend grew as it was used as a kind of training film by both urban guerrillas and the authorities trying to suppress them. The Black Panthers studied the film in the 1960’s, and in 2003, months after the war against Iraqi insurgents began, the Pentagon screened the film for military and civilian war planners.... Read more
August 31, 2006
Naguib Mahfouz
Naguib Mahfouz died. His lush portrait of Cairo rich and poor is the image I have of the city, steeped in colonial misery, and in the throes of invigorating social and political change.... Read more
July 11, 2006
May 26, 2006
Desmond Dekker
The New York Times report that Desmond Dekker, the "King of Blue Beat", the "King of Ska" died. Through his song "007 (Shanty Town)" I first heard of the rude-boy culture of cool which held me obsessed through my college years. Somewhere I have a black-and-white photograph of myself with Desmond Dekker, backstage at The Metro or The Aragorn in Chicago.... Read more
January 31, 2006
Nam June Paik
One of the unexpected and interesting assignments I received during junior high school came as part of an art class: visit the modern art museum, and write about one of the pieces we enjoyed. I saw a breathtaking and startling three-dimensional installation by Nam June Paik. Paik died yesterday.... Read more
January 25, 2006
Why don't you tell me what really happened?
Chris Penn died. His final scene in Reservoir Dogs ranks amongst my favourite spluttering speeches of all (movie) time. The culminating "Why do'n't you tell me what really happened?" gives me chills and chuckles.... Read more
December 2, 2005
Routemasters
Next week marks the last regular run for the bus emblematic of London: the double-decker Routemaster. Some Routemasters will continue to circulate on so-called heritage routes, but most are being dismantled for parts or repurposed as tourist buses in other cities. And some of the legion adoring fans of the red double-decker (the first LEGO kit I built, in fact, was of a Routemaster) have made the best tribute site ever. For Routemasters, that is. Back on the domestic front, a new less-than-admiring site about MUNI promises the lewd low-down on a lifestyle reliant on MUNI (is'n't that tautological? style and MUNI?). Can municide's author, Doug, pull off anything to compare with munihaiku dot com? With anonymously-contributed gems like "Waited forever. / And then you showed up for me. / Seven in a row.", it's hard to top for the title of "Best Onling Writing About Public Transit". For non-Lower Haight residents, those 17 syllables can only describe the ineffable 22-Fillmore. SFist notes that it's more fun to walk in the rain than stand around waiting for MUNI in the rain. Word to that. To MUNI's credit, the agency is working with the community around Geary Boulevard to determine whether bus rapid transit will work. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but yes!, it will work: the 38 Geary is one of the most heavily-used lines in San Francisco (and thus, the Bay Area), and used by commuters, tourists, and vagabonds alike. It cuts across the entire northern part of San Francisco, and provides access to key densely-built and populous neighbourhoods (Pacific Heights, Japantown); business areas (Downtown, Civic Center, Tenderloin); and the beach. It runs on a wide roadway. This route is an ace in the hole for rapid transit. Politicos, planners, and plebians alike will all win big if this is built. Rapid Transit along Geary Boulevard will make people happy; in fact, it has the potential to change the way the city moves, for the better. But it will never be, because this is California, USA, and the agency in charge is MUNI, San Francisco MUNI, which cannot maintain its headways, cannot fit into its budget, and reduces service while increasing fares. Buses all over the country honoured Rosa Parks, who died recently, with black ribbons and posters, as well as by designating the front seat of the bus as a quiet, symbolically empty, space. MUNI put up very nice posters on buses a few weeks ago, but they were all stolen within minutes of installation.... Read more
October 28, 2005
Paul Pena
Paul Pena, the subject of the energetic Genghis Blues, died earlier this month after a lengthy battle with pancreatic cancer.... Read more
October 15, 2005
Edmund Bacon
Edmund Bacon died: His 1967 book "Design of Cities" remains one of the key texts for architecture students. Bacon, born in Philadelphia to a staunchly conservative publishing family, maintained his influence long after his retirement as the city's chief planner in 1970. At 90, he lashed out at city leaders for banning skateboarders at a park adjacent to City Hall, saying, "Show me a skateboarder who killed a little old lady and I'll reconsider."... Read more
October 12, 2005
In which there's someone who knows and trips you when you fall
The San Francisco Museum of History screened Trina Lopez's short documentary, A Second Final Rest: The History of San Francisco's Cemeteries. The film garnered awards at the Womens Film Festival and at the Documentary Film Fest. Afterwards the film-maker answered questions -- she has great poise, and the Q&A session was as informative as the film itself. Beginning in '01 with a Health Ordinance, San Francisco city fathers began pushing the various burial grounds: first westwards, and then south'ards. The public rejected the first official edict, in '14, to clear out completely, but by the mid-century all the interred had been moved to Colma ("City of the Dead"), a necropolis with its own BART stop. Several years ago, I began writing a story in which the citizen of Colma, some 2 million strong, rose up and persecuted the grey-bearded city fathers, and especially "Sunny Jim" Rolph, who worked the hardest to shoo all them bones. San Francisco still has bodies in The Presidio, a military graveyard; in the church-yard at Mission Dolores; in the Columbarium; and a one-off, Thomas Starr King, interred at the church on Franklin and Geary. Jim Blackett's San Francisco Cemeteries is a handy reference site; Ms Lopez drew her inspiration from Dr Weirde's Weirde Guide to San Francisco, now online at sfgate.com.... Read more
October 4, 2005
August Wilson
The New York Times has a special and colourful obituary of August Wilson. I saw several of his plays at the Pittsburgh Public Theater, and my father gave me several beautiful editions of his plays when I was growing up in an entirely different part of Pittsburgh from where Mr Wilson's plays are set.... Read more
August 31, 2005
Goodbye, Kepler's.
Kepler's bookstore in Menlo Park has closed, after fifty years. Bookstore closings bring sadness: "It's like a relative in the family dying," Roy Borrone, owner of Cafe Borrone next door to Kepler's, told the Weekly late Wednesday morning. He said he relocated his restaurant from Redwood City to Menlo Park to be adjacent to Kepler's when it moved across El Camino Real to its present location in the late 1980s. Neil Gaiman remonstrates us: "Remember, if you have a local bookshop you like, buy your books there. Otherwise it could happen to you." I say that this goes for any local shop: flowers, groceries, clothes, whatnot.... Read more
June 8, 2005
DIA baggage-handling automation
United Airlines will finally abandon the automated baggage-handling system that has plagued them for the past decade at Colorado's second-largest art collection Denver International Airport.... Read more
May 26, 2005
Ismail Merchant
The first day I cut school was in ninth grade, ostensibly to watch a video-tape of A Room With A View. Ismail Merchant, one half of the team that made the film, died yesterday. A noted patron of the arts, cook, and producer, he epitomised high-low film-making.... Read more
April 12, 2005
Did they pour one on the kerb as well?
Graff memorials for JP II: http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2005/04/12/remembering_the_pope_streetstyle.php; http://www.taleoftwocities.org/2005/04/pope-moves-to-spanish-harlem.php (name-checked by CNN); http://www.curbed.com/archives/2005/04/11/pope_john_paul_ii_in_the_les.php.... Read more
March 20, 2005
As good as gold*
John De Lorean has died, just as the futuristic car he developed in the 80s sees a resurgence in popularity. I first heard his name when my third-grade teacher, Dr Martin, announced that one of the fifth-graders (Jason Galbreath? John Galbraith?) had won a DeLorean and a year's subscription to Playboy by correctly answering a tricky math question (or it may have been a DeLorean filled with Playboy bunnies). --- * stainless steel... Read more
March 3, 2005
February 5, 2005
I got it, I'm gone.
Raiford Chatman Davis, known to the world as one half of Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, died today.... Read more
January 5, 2005
Into heaven he goes
H. David Dalquist, creator of the aluminum Bundt pan, the top-selling cake pan in the world, has died at 86. January 5, 2005 Creator of Popular Bundt Pan Dies at 86 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 2:05 p.m. ET EDINA, Minn. (AP) -- H. David Dalquist, creator of the aluminum Bundt pan, the top-selling cake pan in the world, has died at 86. Dalquist, who died at his home Sunday of heart failure, founded St. Louis Park-based Nordic Ware, which has sold more than 50 million Bundt pans. Dalquist designed the pan in 1950 at the request of members of the Minneapolis Chapter of the Hadassah Society. They had old ceramic cake pans of somewhat similar designs but wanted an aluminum pan. Dalquist created a new shape and added regular folds to make it easier to cut the cake. The women from the society called the pans ``bund pans'' because ``bund'' is German for a gathering of people. Dalquist added a ``t'' to the end of ``bund'' and trademarked the name. So all Bundt pans and Bundt cakes stem from Dalquist. For years, the company sold few such pans. Then in 1966, a Texas woman won second place in the Pillsbury Bake-Off for her Tunnel of Fudge Cake made in a Bundt pan. Suddenly, bakers across America wanted their own Tunnel of Fudge cakes. The Bundt pan is the biggest product line for Nordic Ware, which sells a variety of pots and pans and other kitchen equipment. More than 1 million Bundt pans are sold each year. Dalquist founded Nordic Ware after returning from duty with the Navy during World War II. He graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in chemical engineering. He is survived by his wife, Dorothy Margerite Staugaard Dalquist, four children and 12 grandchildren.... Read more
November 14, 2004
Wu-Tang are for the children!
I suppose this article answers the question: "How do you write an obituary for someone named Ol' Dirty Bastard?" Short Answer: You refer to him as "Dirty", not "Mr Bastard".... Read more
October 26, 2004
October 19, 2004
She loved to argue.
Margaret Sloan-Hunter died last week. I met her on the 71 Haight bus, when she boarded at the Fillmore St. stop and began chatting with me.... Read more
October 15, 2004
October 5, 2004
The sincerest form of flattery
Janet Leigh died this past Sunday, which also saw the "Itchy and Scratchy and Marge" episode of The Simpsons reappear in syndication. Janet Leigh appears in three of my favourite films: Touch of Evil; Psycho; and The Manchurian Candidate. Of her chilling rôle in Psycho, she remembered Hitchock saying, "Whatever I put you in, the audience would immediately think of 'Psycho.' It wouldn't be fair to the picture or the character." That scene has been parodied almost as often as Grant Wood's American Gothic. And the Simpsons episode has a go at the famous shower scene from Psycho.... Read more
September 25, 2004
Razzmatazz in peace
Ed Zelinksy, whose Musee Mecanique brings old-tyme laffs and joy to San Francisco, died Thursday.... Read more
September 10, 2004
Spinning in his grave
Donald Leslie, inventor of the speaker of the same name, died at the age of 93.... Read more
