Appear at Midnight

Stefurov, 1883 // Connellsville, 1897

2009-11-10T16:31:00.000-08:00

John Picus "Jack" Quinn, born Joannes (Jan) Pajkos (July 1, 1883 - April 17, 1946), was a pitcher in Major League Baseball.
Born in Stefurov, Slovakia (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), Quinn emigrated to America as an infant with his parents Michael Pajkos and Maria Dzjiacsko, arriving in New York on June 18, 1884. His mother died near Hazleton, Pennsylvania shortly after the family's arrival in the US, and Quinn's father moved the family to Buck Mountain, near Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania. In 1887 Quinn's father remarried, to Anastasia ("Noska") Tzar, who is frequently, and mistakenly, listed in baseball encyclopedias as Quinn's birth mother.
Quinn spent his early years working as a coal miner and blacksmith, while playing recreational ball for mining teams. He got his start as a professional in an unusual way: While watching a semi-pro game in Connellsville, the 14-year-old Quinn threw a foul ball back from the stands to the catcher, hitting his mitt right in the middle. The visiting manager, from the nearby town of Dunbar, was impressed by the throw, and he offered Quinn a contract. Quinn went on to spend 23 seasons in the major leagues with eight different teams. He won 247 games and lost 218 games, also collecting 57 saves. Quinn debuted on April 15, 1909 and he played until he was 50 years old; his final game was on July 7, 1933.
Quinn's professional longevity enabled him to achieve several age-related milestones. He is the oldest ML player to win a game, to lead his league in a major category (saves, in 1932), and to start games in the World Series (with the Philadelphia Athletics, in 1929) and on Opening Day (with the Brooklyn Dodgers, in 1931). He was the oldest to hit a home run in the majors, at age 46, until 47-year-old Julio Franco did so in 2006. He was the oldest person to ever play for the Cincinnati Reds, and at the time of his retirement, the eight teams for which he had played also constituted a record, which has since been broken. He was also the last major leaguer who had played in the 1900s decade to formally retire (not counting Charley O'Leary, who in 1934 made a comeback stint). Finally, he remains the oldest player to play regularly, having pitched 87 1/3 innings in 1932 at age 48 and 49, and 15 innings in 1933 at age 49 and 50. (Franco and Phil Niekro were also regular players at age 48, but were one and five months younger respectively during their seasons at that age.)
During his career, Quinn played alongside 31 different members of the Baseball Hall of Fame and collected two World Series rings in three tries. He was also one of the last pitchers in baseball permitted to throw the spitball, grandfathered in along with sixteen others reliant on the pitch when it was banned in 1920. He frequently used his spitball after he was grandfathered in, in addition to his fastball, curve, and changeup.
Quinn died in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, at the age of 62.

http://www.modis.ispras.ru/wikipedia/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_players_with_100_triples.html

Bremen, 1838!

2009-08-20T17:22:00.000-07:00

Nosferatu's scriptwriter Henrik Galeen, had previously gained a reputation for his horror/fantasy and Expressionistic work through his co-direction and scripting of the 1914 version of Der Golem and Der Student von Prague (1920) and his script for the 1920 version of Der Golem. Later he was to script Waxworks (1924) and write and direct Alraune (1927), cementing his position as the major collaborator on all of the best German fantasy films. His technique for maintaining the multiple perspectives and the fragmentary nature of Stoker's novel was to frame the story as the chronicle of an unidentified narrator, inserting texts, letters, newspaper clippings, diary and log book entries and documentary footage similar in style to the arachnid footage later used by Buñuel in L'Age d'Or (1930). Murnau further added to this fragmentation with an extensive and complex use of cross-cutting between scenes. Whereas Stoker's novel is contemporaneous (1897), Galeen's script is set at the time of "The Great Death in Wisborg in the year 1843 A.D." In the English language version, the intertitles have altered the location and era to Bremen, 1838, with the historian's name given as Johann Cavallius. The English language version alters several other plot details and sadly, loses the lyrical, Expressionistic character of Galeen's original intertitles. The original has, as Eisner notes, "oddly-broken lines. prolific use of exclamation marks, words in capitals, and letter-spaced lower-case matter. [a] staccato rhythm. with its incomplete sentences, clauses, phrases and idiosyncratic punctuation." For simplicity's sake the remainder of the article will refer to the film's location as Bremen.

http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/00/8/nosferatu.html

Barbegal, 1940

2009-07-18T00:41:00.000-07:00

- The concept was simple, but the application is impressive. Barbegal was an immense flour mill, dating from the 4th century A.D. The power to drive the millstones came from 16 waterwheels, arranged in two parallel rows of eight. Each row ran downhill so that the water dropped from one wheel to the next, driving all eight in turn before running into a drain at the foot of the hill.
- Near the top of the ridge is a sign dedicated to the man who first investigated the site in 1940, Fernand Benoit: "Thanks to his efforts we have a better understanding of the technological innovation of the Roman Empire." Contemporary evidence of multiple mills during the Roman era is rare.
- While looking over the site, several other groups of intrepid travelers arrived at the site. Most struggled to make sense of the rubble dotting the hillside. I lent my Scientific American illustration to two of the groups. While one travel book alleges that the site is "well preserved," a healthy imagination is still important.

http://www.waterhistory.org/histories/barbegal/

Ponteland, 1956

2009-05-12T06:09:00.000-07:00

In due course, the Darras Hall branch extended westwards by about 10 miles to a colliery at Kirkheaton, which closed in 1926. The post Great War motor bus services killed off the passenger trains to Ponteland and Darras Hall, which were withdrawn in 1929. The Darras Hall line was used for wagon storage until the 1950s but the branch was a busy one.
My First acquaintance with Ponteland was in April 1954 when, in my very first job as a Relief Station Master, I went to Ponteland to cover the vacancy on the retirement of Tom Scott who had been the Station Master for over 30 years. Tom had built up a huge coal sale business, which he retained, he drove a brand new Ford Zephyr and moved out of the Station House to a property in Darras Hall. Obviosly, he was not a typical pensioned railwayman. The business of the station was mainly agricultural, with two large 'cattle cake' distributors operating from the station. Apart from the Station Master, staff consisted of a porter signalman, goods porter, lorry driver (a 5ton Bedford) and a railhead lorry from Newcastle. In those days the Cattle Mart gave rise to regular business for the daily goods train.
My first visit to Ponteland lasted some time until Mr Ridley became Station Master but although under 50 he died suddenly in 1956 and I went back again. In that spell. I had a unique experiance. A farmer called Gilbert Evans came to see me to ask if I could organise a special train to remove him to Seamer in Yorkshire where he had bought a new farm. In due course, animals, machinery.stores and furniture were all loaded up and the special train took the Evans family to their new life.

http://railways-of-britain.com/branchingout.html

Bookshelf : best of, 2005-2009

2009-03-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

10/10
-------------
The Catcher in the Rye (J D Salinger) 2005
Eastern Approaches (Fitzroy MacLean) 2007
Ripley's Game (Patricia Highsmith) 2009

9/10
-------------
Blue Highways (William Least Heat-Moon) 2005
Cities of the Red Night (William S Burroughs) 2006
Deliverance (James Dickey) 2008
The Devil in the White City (Erik Larson) 2005
A Fan's Notes (Frederick Exley) 2007
5 on the Outside (Vern) 2006
The Great Port (Jan Morris) 2005
Hollywood (Charles Bukowski) 2007
Junky (William S Burroughs) 2007
A Kiss Before Dying (Ira Levin) 2005 and 2007
The Lathe of Heaven (Ursula K Leguin) 2005
North Dallas Forty (Pete Gent) 2005
Roadside Picnic (Arkady and Boris Strugatsky) 2007
The Road to Oxiana (Robert Byron) 2008
The Shadow of the Sun (Ryszard Kapuscinski) 2007
Tender is the Night (F Scott Fitzgerald) 2006
This Bloody Mary is the Last Thing I Own (Jonathan Rendall) 2007
Ubik (Philip K Dick) 2008

------------------------------------------------------------------------

pre-2005

American Psycho (Brett Easton Ellis) 10/10
AWopBopaLooBopALopBamBoom (Nik Cohn) 9/10
The Bogey Man (George Plimpton) 9/10
The Boys on the Bus (Timothy Crouse) 9/10
The Chain of Chance (Stanislaw Lem) 9/10
Child of God (Cormac McCarthy) 9/10
The Cry of the Owl (Patricia Highsmith) 9/10
Deep Water (Patricia Highsmith) 9/10
The Demon (Hubert Selby Jr) 9/10
Dispatches (Michael Herr) 9/10
Factotum (Charles Bukowski) 9/10
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972 (Hunter S Thompson) 10/10
Fiasco (Stanislaw Lem) 9/10
The Great Gatsby (F Scott Fitzgerald) 9/10
The Great Shark Hunt (Hunter S Thompson) 9/10
Guide for the Film Fanatic (Danny Peary) 10/10
The Informers (Brett Easton Ellis) 9/10
Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad) 9/10
Lights Out for the Territory (Iain Sinclair) 9/10
The Press (A J Liebling) 9/10
Shadow Box (George Plimpton) 9/10
Time Out of Joint (Philip K Dick) 9/10
The Weight of the World (Peter Handke) 10/10
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Haruki Murakami) 10/10
Wise Blood (Flannery O'Connor) 9/10

Dogger Bank, 1931

2009-02-17T17:12:00.000-08:00

The tremor began at around 1:30am on June 7, 1931 with its epicentre located on the Dogger Bank, 60 miles (100 km) off the Yorkshire coast in the North Sea. The effects were felt throughout Great Britain and in Belgium and France. The earthquake resulted in damage at locations throughout eastern England. The town of Filey in Yorkshire was worst hit with the spire of a church being twisted by the tremor. Chimneys collapsed in Hull, Beverley and Bridlington, and Flamborough Head suffered crumbling of parts of its cliffs. Rather less seriously, in London the head of the waxwork of Dr Crippen at Madame Tussauds fell off.

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/1931-Dogger-Bank-earthquake

Wichita, 1952

2009-01-19T16:43:00.000-08:00

February, 1952, firemen became sandbaggers again, as the Little Arkansas River flooded out of its banks.
Another old timer bit the dust, a 1914 Seagrave which had been turned into a Wichita Fire Department wrecker, overturned while pulling in an engine that had just rammed a telephone pole. The old machine was retired, as was the mechanic who was injured in the mishap.
An ordinance, banning the sale or use of fireworks inside the City limits was passed.
Fire Prevention Week that year opened with the Kroger Company Warehouse fire, $500,000 loss.

http://www.wichitagov.org/CityOffices/Fire/History/10/1952.htm

Bookshelf 2008

2008-12-28T12:51:00.000-08:00

Allan Dwan - The Last Pioneer [8?] Peter Bogdanovich
Born Yesterday [6+] Gordon Burn
Crisis [8] Hamilton Jordan
=Deliverance [9] James Dickey
The Edge of Running Water [7] William M Sloane
Francis Bacon in the 1950s [6+] Michael Peppiatt
Frenzy* [5] Arthur LaBern
Getting to Know the General [8] Grahame Greene
The Great God Pan [6+] Arthur Machen
Hegemony or Survival [8] Noam Chomsky
I Am the Cheese [7] Robert Cormier
In Siberia [8] Colin Thubron
Jack London - A Life [7] Alex Kershaw
James Benning [8] Barbara Pichler & Claudia Slanar (eds.)
=The Kraken Wakes [8] John Wyndham
Late Victorian Holocausts [7] Mike Davis
Lincoln - A Foreigner's Quest [7] Jan Morris
Miracles of Life [7+] J G Ballard
Monsieur Hire's Engagement [6] Georges Simenon
Negative Space [8+] Manny Farber
=On the Road [8] Jack Kerouac
Planet of Slums [8] Mike Davis
The Postman Always Rings Twice [7] James M Cain
=Red Harvest [7] Dashiell Hammett
Renegade [8] Mark E Smith
The Road to Oxiana [9] Robert Byron
Robinson In Space [8] Patrick Keiller
=The Tremor of Forgery [8] Patricia Highsmith
=Ubik [9] Philip K Dick
=Vanity of Duluoz [5] Jack Kerouac

* aka Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square
= re-reading

9/10 : Deliverance; The Road to Oxiana and Ubik
8+/10 : Negative Space
8/10 : Crisis; Getting to Know the General; Hegemony or Survival; In Siberia; James Benning; The Kraken Wakes; On the Road; Planet of Slums; Renegade; Robinson In Space and The Tremor of Forgery

Meyers Legde Alt, 1986

2008-12-27T08:59:00.000-08:00

1887. Inactive since 1945. 26 m (85 ft) square cast iron tower incorporating 3-story keeper's quarters, mounted on a square skeletal foundation. Like the Eversand Range Lights, the Meyers Legde lighthouses guided ships on a secondary entrance to the Weser from the north. Also like Eversand Range Front, the interior of the lighthouse was gutted by fire at some time after deactivation. In 1986, ledges were added to the tower as nesting sites for cormorants, and this lighthouse is also now white with bird droppings. Located about 3 km (2 mi) east of Eversand Range Front Light. Accessible only by boat. Site open, tower closed.

http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/lighthouse/deu1b.htm

Hamsteels, 1910

2008-11-28T07:06:00.001-08:00

Flynn, Peter, 07 Oct 1910, aged 49, Hewer, He was hewing in a bord 9 yards wide, the seam being 7 feet high including a band 2 feet 9 inches thick in the middle. The band stone projected about a foot beyond the bottom coal, and under this space a pair of gears had been set close up to the coal. While he was kirving in the bottom coal the front side of the band fell on to him leaving the gears standing. An inclined sprag set higher up the band would have prevented the accident.

http://www.dmm.org.uk/colliery/h024.htm

Chequamegon Point, 1896

2008-11-22T11:28:00.000-08:00

Four concrete anchoring pads were cast in place at Chequamegon Point, and the skeleton iron tower was erected to the point at which it was ready to receive the light. However, with the appropriated funds exhausted, work was discontinued on both towers on October 3, 1896 to await additional funding. Congress appropriated the additional $1,500 on July 14, 1897, and the AMARANTH returned to Long Island with a work crew soon thereafter, with work assuming a feverish pace throughout the 1897 season of navigation.

http://www.terrypepper.com/lights/superior/chequamegon/index.htm

Creston Flats, 1894

2008-10-13T15:42:00.000-07:00

1894 : June : B.C. : Heavy snowfall and quick melt in late spring. Floods swamp much low lying land. At Nelson, a record high water mark of 30 feet above average was established on the West Arm.
1894 : June : I.R. 148A, N-WT. : Four chiefs of the Kainai “Fish Eater” band swap 50 horses for 50 head of cattle, beginning the Kainai cattle industry.
1894 : June 3 : B.C. : the “Cyclone” on Kootenay Lake wrecked Kaslo and mauled Boswell’s new wharf. Much of Alberta and B.C. Exploration dyking on what is now “Creston Flats” was destroyed at around 4:00 in the afternoon.

http://www.crowsnest-highway.ca/timeline.pl?page=8

Sumner, 1882

2008-08-05T16:53:00.000-07:00

Charles Henry Gordon was born in 1843 in Lawrence Co, IL, died in 1926. He served in Co E of the 5th Illinois Infantry during the Civil War for the Union Army. Married Ellen E Baird (b. 1845 in Wabash Co, IL, d. 1938). I have information naming 5 of 6 children. Edna, Frances, Charles, Della(Dell), Jane(Neena) and Henry Owen. Charle Henry was employed as a stone keeper according to HOO. birth certificate.Henry Owen Gordon, youngest son of Charles and Ellen was born 22 Jan 1882 on farm outside Sumner, IL. He died 10 Aug 1966 while staying in Sarasota, FL at his daughter Jeannette. She is still living. He is buried in Sumner, IL. Married Viola(Vida) Fiscus (b. 9 Nov 1886 Sumner, IL, d. 22 Oct 1951, Lawrenceville, IL) There children were Charles Henry and Jeanette (b. 18 Aug 1910)Charles Henry their son was born 6 Mar 1909 in sumner, IL. He died 4 Dec 1982 in Kansas City, MO, burial in White Chapel Cemetary. He attended school at Hanover (near the Ohio River) and Purdue to study Chemical Engineering. married 7 May 1936 to Catherine Elizabeth Maduska.

http://boards.ancestry.com/localities.northam.usa.states.illinois.counties.lawrence/459.2/mb.ashx

Windsor, 1892

2008-07-10T04:37:00.000-07:00

SAGINAW
Other names : none
Official no. : C69524
Type at loss : propeller, wood, carferry, 4 car
Build info : 1873, Port Huron Dry Dock [A. Stewart], Port Huron
Specs : 142x26x10, 365 t.
Date of loss : 1892, Mar 6
Place of loss : Windsor, Ont.
Lake : Detroit R.
Type of loss : fire
Loss of life : ?
Carrying : ?
Detail : She burned at her layup dock. She had been laid up since 1884.The hull was later recovered and converted to an odd-looking tug, a well-known wrecker in the Detroit River area until broken up about 1940.

http://www.boatnerd.com/swayze/shipwreck/s.htm

New York, 1854

2008-06-23T09:06:00.000-07:00

Hamburg bark ELBE, Schwensen, arrived at New York on Sunday, 8 January 1854 (passenger manifest dated 9 January 1854), 43 days from Hamburg, with merchandise and 201 passengers, to Beck & Kunhardt. "Has seen large quantities of wrecked stuff: Dec. 27, lat 40, lon 67, passed a number of planks and some hogsheads with the heads painted red. Has experienced heavy westerly gales."

http://www.geocities.com/mppraetorius/com-el.htm

off Bremerhaven, 1881

2008-06-10T04:09:00.001-07:00

Roter Sand
1885. Inactive since 1986. 28 m (92 ft) round cast iron, brick lined tower with primary and secondary lanterns and a triangular gallery, built on a steel caisson. Keeper's quarters incorporated in the tower. Lighthouse painted with red and white horizontal bands; the base of the tower and roofs of the lanterns are black. Werning has a page with a great photo, and Tim Boettger also has a good photo. One of the world's great waveswept lighthouses. Construction of the tower posed enormous difficulties; the first attempt failed when a storm overturned the incomplete caisson on October 13, 1881. The light was downgraded in 1964, when Alte Weser took over its function as the landfall light for Bremerhaven.

http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/lighthouse/deu1b.htm

Whickham, 1870

2008-06-02T03:11:00.000-07:00

(17/07/1870) Funeral of Harry Clasper at St. Mary's church in Whickham. An estimated 100,000 to 130,000 people lined route of the funeral from the Tunnel Inn, at the mouth of the River Ouseburn to the church. The funeral cortege could not make its way through Sandhill due to the huge numbers of mourners, and so the coffin had to be placed aboard a barge at the High Level Bridge, and rowed up the Tyne.

http://www.nerowing.com/rowhist/clasper.html

San Francisco, 1906

2008-03-10T16:30:00.000-07:00

Agassiz in the Concrete
The Agassiz statue is the most famous of all images related to Stanford’s earthquake history (Figure 4). During the 1906 temblor, the stone shelf supporting a marble statue of Swiss naturalist and geologist Louis Agassiz on the second story of the north wall of the Zoology building (now Building 420) failed, causing the statue to plunge into the ground below. There are several accounts of the outcome. One student wrote, “A big marble statue of Agassiz was toppled off his perch on the outside of the quad and fell foremost into the ground (right through a cement walk) up to his shoulders, and still sticks there, legs in the air and his hand held out gracefully. People came running from the quad with such sober faces, but when they saw him they couldn’t help laughing, and one fellow went up and shook hands with him.”
“Agassiz in the concrete” remained a legend associated with the earthquake period. According to one account, “Many stories were told about Agassiz’s natural instinct that when the earthquake came he decided to stick his head underground to find out what was going on in the earth below and with his finger pointing saying, ‘Hark! Listen!’ […] Out of the four statues only Agassiz evidently aroused his searching curiosity.” (The other statues honored Johann Gutenberg, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander von Humboldt. Von Humboldt, Agassiz’s mentor, still stands next to him today, but the others were removed when the building became the Law School (Figure 5).) President David Starr Jordan wrote, “Somebody—Dr. Angell, perhaps—remarked that ‘Agassiz was great in the abstract but not in the concrete.’” What was most extraordinary about the incident was that the statue was imbedded into the ground below nearly to the hips but only broke at the nose. The nose was refastened and the statue was returned to its original place, this time better secured.

http://quake06.stanford.edu/centennial/tour/stop3.html

South Shields, 1857

2008-03-08T09:24:00.000-08:00

February 20. An alarming explosion of gas occurred this morning, in the ship Prince Phillippe, of Ostend, then lying in the river at South Shields. The vessel had received a cargo of coals on the 18th, when the hatches had been incautiously fastened down; but in what manner the gas had been ignited was not ascertained. The vessel was reduced to a mere wreck; a sailor, named Mars, was blown to a great distance and drowned in the river, and several of the crew received very serious injuries.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TxcHAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA392&lpg=PA392&dq=%22shipping+in+the+wear%22&source=web&ots=T4UsyzN8rx&sig=7YT1dHCVe1h6Nag27aUDnGhgchM&hl=en#PPA393,M1

Liverpool/Manchester, 1857

2008-02-20T15:26:00.000-08:00

Easily the most stunning picture in the show is Rockets and Blue Lights to Warn Steamboats of Shoal Water (1840). It has taken almost 150 years to get from Liverpool to Manchester, having failed to make its scheduled appearance in the latter city's 1857 Art Treasures of Great Britain exhibition. Its owner refused to allow it to be transported by rail, insisting that it go by road. Fate intervened, and the horse-drawn cart carrying it was struck by a train at a level crossing, causing the owner to take fright and have the picture returned to him immediately.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20031106/ai_n12732011

BOOKSHELF 07

2007-12-22T16:43:00.000-08:00

An American Dream [N.Mailer RIP] 5/10
Bambi vs Godzilla [D.Mamet] 6/10
Blackpool Vanishes [R.Francis] 6/10
A Bloody Good Winner [D.Nevison/D.Ashforth] 7/10
The Damned Utd [D.Peace] 7/10
Eastern Approaches [F.Maclean] 10/10
A Fan's Notes [F.Exley] 9/10
Hollywood [C.Bukowski] 9/10
Junky [W.S.Burroughs] 9/10
Kingdom Come [J.G.Ballard] 8/10
A Kiss Before Dying [I.Levin RIP] 9/10
The Last Words of Dutch Schultz [W.S.Burroughs] 6/10
Murder in Samarkand [C.Murray] 8/10
Pages From a Cold Island [F.Exley] 8/10
Ripley Under Ground [P.Highsmith] 8/10
Roadside Picnic [A.Strugatsky and B.Strugatsky] 9/10
Seagalogy ['Vern'] 8/10
The Shadow of the Sun [R.Kapuscinski] 9/10
The Shah's Last Ride [W.Shawcross] 8/10
This Bloody Mary is the Last Thing I Own [J.Rendall] 9/10
Tsukiji : The Fish Market at the Center of the World [T.Bestor] 7/10

Iquique, 1884

2007-11-10T16:00:00.000-08:00

Polynesia : An iron full-rigged ship built in 1874 by Reiherstieg Werft, Hamburg.
Dimensions 61,85×10,22×6,41 meters [202'8"×33'5"×21'_"] and 492 CL, 1070 GRT and 985 NRT. Rigged with double topsails and single topgallant sails.
1874 Launched at the shipyard of Reiherstieg Werft, Hamburg, for F. Laeisz, Hamburg. Assigned the German signal RHDG.
1878-1879 In command of Captain J.H.C. Schwaner.
1877 Sailed from Hongkong to Anjer in 70 [?] days. [Meyer]
1878 Sailed from Scilly to Acapulco in 116 days.
1878 Sailed from Acapulco to San Francisco in 25 days.
1879 Sailed San Francisco to Queenstown for orders in 140 days.
1880 Sailed from Singapore to the Channel in 129 days.
1880-1882 In command of Captain J.P.M. Thedens.
1883-1886 In command of Captain C.F.E.J. Bahlcke.
1882/1883 Sailed from Lizard Point to Rangoon in 116 days.
1883 Sailed from Rangoon to the Channel in 117 days.
1883 Sailed from Lizard Point to Valparaiso in 92 days.
1884 Sailed from Valparaiso to Iquique in 12 days.
1884 Sailed from Iquique to the Channel in 118 days.
1884 Sailed from Lizard Point to Valparaiso in 89 days.
1884/1885 Sailed from Caleta Buena to the Channel in 123 days.
1887-1890 In command of Captain A. Reitmann.
1890 January 12 Sailed from Iquique with a cargo of 11239 sacks of nitrate. Under command of Captain Reitmann and with a crew of 17 men.
1890 April 22 Passed Lizard Point.
1890 April Grounded at Beachy Head and was later sold to be broken up.

http://www.bruzelius.info/Nautica/Ships/Merchant/Sail/P/Polynesia(1874).html

Helsinki, 1996

2007-11-04T16:30:00.000-08:00

It was the spring of 1998 when we went to a local library, wondering how we could find more places. After having tried some quite senseless and random searches in the library database, we came across a strange title: "Satakunta Sahaa Suomessa" (some hundred sawmills in Finland). It sounded like something that had to be checked.
The yellow book was available in the shelf, so we took a look at what it had to offer. First impressions were stunning: the book really introduced nearly a hundred (okay, about 80 but anyway) Finnish sawmills, complete with photos, detailed descriptions of history and even approximate location information. The book was only two years old and most of the included targets had complete buildings remaining, not just "memories" except a few places. Truly a dream book! That's why we soon named it the yellow bible.
After having loaned the book and inspected it thoroughly we did a couple of test trips in nearby to find some of the places. Then we did a whole 4 day trip following a route based on locations introduced in this book. These first attempts were not too uplifting, since the places had either been demolished (Piikkiö, Iloniemi, Koskenkorva), they had new use (Pyhäjärvi, Nokki, Mainiemi, Tuiskula) or we just couldn't find them (Holm, Saikonkoski). But later, the book has been really useful and it has to be considered the most important single information source for our adventuring activities. I don't believe there are many targets in the book that would still be around that we haven't already visited, or tried to visit.
It's a fact that the material for yellow bible was gathered in 1994. It's already ten years ago now, and since old and unused buildings are really endangered it's natural that as a target reference the yellow bible is slowly becoming obsolete. But the book itself is still highly recommended for anybody interested in industrial history, architecture or anything related to sawmilling. Quite many public libraries have this book, and it's quite seldom loaned. Also, the book store Granum sells it nowadays for a ridiculous (cheap) price.
Although we may not always fully support what the bureaus and all kinds of official departments do, this time all credit must be given for the Finnish National Board of Antiquities for publishing the yellow bible. And of course above all to Mr's Timo Kantonen and Erkki Härö who did the actual job. This must be the best book ever written of the subject.

The yellow bible:
Satakunta Sahaa Suomessa
Kulttuurihistoriallisesti merkittäviä saharakennuksia ja -ympäristöjä
Timo Kantonen
Museoviraston rakennushistorian osaston julkaisuja 18
Helsinki 1996

http://www.dm-exp.org/gallery/raamattu.html

New York, 1916

2007-09-10T14:49:00.000-07:00

With Hidden Noise
or A Bruit Secret

Original Version: Easter 1916, New York
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection
ball of twine pressed between two brass plates
joined by four long screws
assisted readymade11.4 x 12.9 x 13 cm

This Readymade was a collaborative exercise that Duchamp completed with the help of his
friend Walter Arensberg. Duchamp instructed Arensberg to loosen the long screws holding the construction together, place a small object inside the ball of twine, and not inform him or anyone else what it was. What rattles inside when With Hidden Noise is shaken remains a mystery to this day. Duchamp explained in a 1956 interview,

"Before I finished it Arensberg put something inside the ball of twine, and never told me what it was, and I didn't want to know. It was a sort of secret between us, and it makes noise, so we called this a Ready-made with a hidden noise. Listen to it. I don't know; I will never know whether it is a diamond or a coin" (Sanouillet & Peterson 135).

As a result, this piece is designed for action and not just to be looked at.

http://arthist.binghamton.edu/duchamp/Hidden%20Noise.html

Wilshire Boulevard, 1969

2007-09-08T09:49:00.000-07:00

Lanton Mills is a Western. Sort of.
The sparse plot recounts the story of two cowboys (Terrence Malick as “Tilman” and Harry Dean Stanton as “Lanton Mills”) who set off on horseback to rob a bank. On the way, they stop to see their boss, the “Old Man”, only to discover he has been murdered by another cowboy, John Sparks (Warren Oates). After Oates announces his claim to fame as the “slowest gun in the West” Stanton cursorily shoots him (an easy feat given cowboy Sparks' leisurely draw time!). It seems to take forever for Oates to die, and his dying is punctuated by lots of nonsensical banter and funny business. At last the two protagonists ride off again through the scrubbrush. There is a fade-to-black and in the next shot reveals our two heroes riding their horses in the middle of traffic on Wilshire Boulevard. A muscle car follows slowly behind them, and there is no hint to whether or not the cowboys are surprised by their new surroundings. They enter the bank, a glass-doored, orange-carpeted behemoth, and suddenly they seem to notice they're out of place. Gun cocked, Stanton falteringly declares “Nobody get upset now!” in a voice so soft no one hears him. Meanwhile, Malick delightedly grabs publicity brochures and office equipment off the desks, apparently thinking that they are some form of money. With the help of their antiquated guns, the two finally succeed in robbing a teller of two sacks of “petty cash,” but not before he pushes the emergency button.
What makes this sudden time shift intriguing is its uncertain parameters. Have the cowboys actually time-traveled, falling out in a world completely foreign to them? A comment the Malick character makes when he hears the police sirens belies this idea. He mutters wryly: “Well, it all goes to show, you can't hear radar.”

http://www.rohstoff-filmmagazin.org/contributions/Terence_Malick_Schwartzman.html