“That final evening, he oversaw Harris’s last meal: ‘He’d asked for pizza, and I directed that it be Tombstone Pizza—'”
Tad Friend writing in The New Yorker about now-retired San Quentin spokesman and unofficial execution director Vernell Crittendon. The Harris mentioned was executed in 1992.
“The Santa Fe Opera and the City of Albuquerque have teamed up to present a live simulcast of Puccini’s opera, La bohème at the beautiful green Tiguex Park.”
Saturday, August 11, 8:30 — free!
Now, how about some free Shakespeare?
David Pogue finds A Car Inverter Almost Worth Blogging About. Seemingly $50 well spent.
A good point, instead of all those cigarette lighter receptacles, why don’t auto manufacturers just build-in an inverter?
And while they’re at it, how about a radio-controlled automatic clock (just set the time zone)?
Vanity Fair has a lengthy piece where they just tear Judith Giuliani apart — and Wonkette has a LOL point-by-point summary.
There’s good news and bad news.
First the bad news. She’s a lying, nasty, gold-digging bitch who’s real name is Judi, not Judith.
The good news. Rudy might already be shopping for wife number four.
“She was living in Scotland as a single mother, and her apartment was unheated, so she would go to the local café and write, while her daughter slept in the baby carriage. She eventually quit her job and lived on public assistance to finish the book.” (The Writer’s Almanac)
And so the book was published in 1998 and today she is a billionaire (a first ever for an author).
J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, 42 today.
According to another source Rowling has denied the lack of heat in her flat: “I am not stupid enough to rent an unheated flat, in Edinburgh, in mid-winter; it had heating.” Still, a good Dickensian touch, that.
A best line, first appearing here one year ago:
“On the Web, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.”
— David Weinberger, with a play on Andy Warhol’s maxim, as quoted by Nicholas Lemann in The New Yorker.
Tourist: We’re going to the opera tonight!
Waitress: Wonderful! Which opera are you going to see?
Tourist: Phantom!
Waitress, after stunned silence: … You’re gonna love it!
–Del Frisco’s, 6th Ave
“Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary shall investigate fully whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to impeach Alberto R. Gonzales, Attorney General of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.”
House resolution said to be introduced Tuesday, via MSNBC.
“I don’t understand where the nativist, anti-Mexican crowd gets off insisting that every one must read, write, and speak English when they so clearly are incapable of it themselves.”
TRex at Firedoglake discussing the wingnut blogosphere.
Lists of the Top 10 rafting trips and Top 10 city bike rides from Sunset Magazine. The Grand Canyon leads the former; Albuquerque’s Paseo del Bosque Trail the latter.
Link via Grasping Reality with Both Hands.
Saturday, setting aside Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
El Morro National Monument is two hours west of Albuquerque on NM 53 (via I-40 to Grants).
A reliable waterhole hidden at the base of a massive sandstone bluff made El Morro (the bluff) a popular campsite. Ancestral Puebloans settled on the mesa top over 700 years ago. Spanish and American travelers rested, drank from the pool and carved their signatures, dates and messages for hundreds of years. Today, El Morro National Monument protects over 2,000 inscriptions and petroglyphs, as well as Ancestral Puebloan ruins. (El Morro National Monument)
At El Morro we took the entire 2 mile loop, past the pool and inscriptions, then around the end of the bluff, along the northwestern side, up the switchbacks 250 feet to the top. On the top, the trail (marked only by cairns and parallel lines carved in the rock in some places) goes up one side of the V-shaped bluff to near the point, then back the other side and eventually down via many, many steps. The views on top are gorgeous, including the look down into the lovely canyon between the two sides of the V.
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In the desert, water determined the route. The sandstone bluff at El Morro channeled rain and snow melt into this pool at the base. It’s about 10 feet deep (at present). |
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El Morro is most famous for the petroglyphs and inscriptions in the sandstone near the pool. Leaving our mark (“tagging”), seems to be an inherent characteristic of our species. |
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One of many historic inscriptions left by Spanish and then American passersby between 1605 and the 19th century (and, alas, a few more recent). |
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One view of the bluff, this from the north side on the way up. |
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This from the top of El Morro looking back at same rock shown above. That’s NM 53 down below. |
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Soaring, almost hawk-like, the ravens seemed to enjoy the view as much as we did. |
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At the top of the bluff the ruins of Atsinna, home to more than 1,000 ancestral Puebloans from 1275-1350. Pictured are the remains of just a few of the 875 rooms that originally stood in the three-story structure. |
Closer to Albuquerque, El Malpais National Monument is south of I-40 along NM 117 (Exit 89) and along NM 53 between Grants and El Morro.
El Malpais means the badlands but this volcanic area holds many surprises. Lava flows, cinder cones, pressure ridges and complex lava tubes dominate the landscape. A closer look reveals high desert environments where animals and plants thrive. Prehistoric ruins, ancient cairns, rock structures, and homesteads remind us of past times. (El Malpais National Monument.)
Some of the lava flows at El Malpais are just 2,000-3,000 years old, not even yesterday by geological standards. It’s a rough, dark lava-covered landscape, quite different from the surrounding area, though vegetation is making its comeback. NewMexiKen visited the entrance to Junction Cave (actually a lava tube) in the El Calderon area just off NM 53. Boots, gloves and three flashlights per person are recommended to explore the cave — so, some other time. We also took the drive to the Sandstone Bluffs Overlook off NM 117; a great look at the surrounding lava flows. Lastly we took the short walk to La Ventana Natural Arch, along NM 117, 18 miles south of I-40.
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In shorts, without gloves or backup flashlights, Junction Cave (actually a lava tube) was inviting only for its rush of cool air. Note the cinder rocks. |
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Some of the fascinating geology along the cliff just west of La Ventana Natural Arch. |
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NewMexiKen failed to get what I’d consider to be a good photo of La Ventana, New Mexico’s largest accessible natural arch. (La Ventana means the window.) The sun was too directly overhead. Alas, I guess that just means another trip. |
El Cafecito in Grants is a great little place to eat — breakfast, lunch or dinner. Good New Mexican cuisine at eye-popping prices (like two beef and bean burtios, rice, beans and two sopapillas for $7.25). Caution though, El Cafecito is not open Sundays. Exit 85, on the right well past motel row but before “downtown.”
Click each photo to move to the next.
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Taking my clue from David Denby’s look at the evolution of romantic comedies, A Fine Romance, Sunday evening NewMexiKen watched It Happened One Night with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. The 1934 Frank Capra film is considered the first wacky romantic comedy — a genre culminating most recently with Knocked Up. Any 73 year old film will be dated; even so this one is totally enjoyable. And it doesn’t take too much imagination to realize what a breakthrough it was. Gable was 32 and Colbert 30 when they made the movie, which won all five top Oscars — best picture, best actor, best actress, direction and screenplay.
Denby had this to say about the film:
As everyone agrees, this kind of romantic comedy—and particularly the variant called “screwball comedy”—lifted off in February, 1934, with Frank Capra’s charming “It Happened One Night,” in which a hard-drinking reporter out of a job (Clark Gable) and an heiress who has jumped off her father’s yacht (Claudette Colbert) meet on the road somewhere between Florida and New York. Tough and self-sufficient, Gable contemptuously looks after the spoiled rich girl. He’s rude and overbearing, and she’s miffed, but it helps their acquaintance a little that they are both supremely attractive—Gable quick-moving but large and, in his famous undressing scene, meaty, and Colbert tiny, with a slightly pointed chin, round eyes, and round breasts beneath the fitted striped jacket she buys on the road. When she develops pride, they become equals.
The cinema added something invaluable to the romantic comedy: the camera’s ability to place lovers in an enchanted, expanding envelope of setting and atmosphere. It moves with them at will, enlarging their command of streets, fields, sitting rooms, and night clubs; rapid cutting then doubles the speed of their quarrels. Out on the road, in the middle of the Depression, Gable and Colbert join the poor, the hungry, the shysters and the hustlers; they spend a night among haystacks, get fleeced, practice their hitchhiking skills.
NewMexiKen read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Meanwhile, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
Even so, over the weekend I also read Jean Shepherd’s In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash
Meanwhile, I’ve also been re-reading Edward Abbey’s classic Desert Solitaire
“If the primary were held today, we don’t know who we’d vote for. If the general election were held today, we’d vote for the Democrat.”
Ditto.
At the California State Fair, 350 different wines entered the Chardonnay competition …
Anyway, of the 350 in the blind tasting, the winner was Charles Shaw, better known as “Two Buck Chuck.”
Functional Ambivalent — who drinks Sauvignon Blanc — has more.
Click image for larger version and to learn more.
Edd “Kookie Kookie lend me your comb” Byrnes is 74.
Blues guitarist Buddy Guy is 71.
Oscar nominee (direction and co-writer, The Last Picture Show) Peter Bogdanovich is 68.
Paul Anka is 66. Anka is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is 60
Oscar best actor nominee Laurence Fishburne is 46.
Lisa Kudrow is 44.
Two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank is 33.
The Hall of Fame manager Casey Stengel was born on this date in 1890.
MANAGED NEW YORK YANKEES 1949-1960.
WON 10 PENNANTS AND 7 WORLD SERIES WITH
NEW YORK YANKEES. ONLY MANAGER TO WIN
5 CONSECUTIVE WORLD SERIES 1949-1953.
PLAYED OUTFIELD 1912-1925 WITH BROOKLYN,
PITTSBURGH, PHILADELPHIA, NEW YORK AND
BOSTON N.L. TEAMS. MANAGED BROOKLYN
1934-1936, BOSTON BRAVES 1938-1943,
NEW YORK METS 1962-1965.
A few Casey-isms:
“Can’t anybody here play this game?”
“Good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa.”
“He’d (Yogi Berra) fall in a sewer and come up with a gold watch.”
One of the most remarkable Americans, Henry Ford, was born on this date in 1863. The following is and excerpt from Mr. Ford’s New York Times obituary in 1947:
Renting a one-story brick shed in Detroit, Mr. Ford spent the year 1902 experimenting with two- cylinder and four-cylinder motors. By that time the public had become interested in the speed possibilities of the automobile, which was no longer regarded as a freak. To capitalize on this interest, he built two racing cars, the “999” and the “Arrow,” each with a four-cylinder engine developing eighty horsepower. The “999,” with the celebrated Barney Oldfield at its wheel, won every race in which it was entered.
The resulting publicity helped Mr. Ford to organize the Ford Motor Company, which was capitalized at $100,000, although actually only $28,000 in stock was subscribed. From the beginning Mr. Ford held majority control of this company. In 1919 he and his son, Edsel, became its sole owners, when they bought out the minority stockholders for $70,000,000.
In 1903 the Ford Motor Company sold 1,708 two-cylinder, eight horsepower automobiles. …
With this material he began the new era of mass production. He concentrated on a single type of chassis, the celebrated Model T, and specified that “any customer can have a car painted any color he wants, so long as it is black.” On Oct. 1, 1908, he began the production of Model T, which sold for $850. The next year he sold 10,600 cars of this model. Cheap and reliable, the car had a tremendous success. In seven years he built and sold 1,000,000 Fords; by 1925 he was producing them at the rate of almost 2,000,000 a year.
He established two cardinal economic policies during this tremendous expansion: the continued cutting of the cost of the product as improved methods of production made it possible, and the payment of higher wages to his employes. By 1926 the cost of the Model T had been cut to $310, although it was vastly superior to the 1908 model. In January, 1914, he established a minimum pay rate of $5 a day for an eight-hour day, thereby creating a national sensation. Up to that time the average wage throughout his works had been $2.40 a nine-hour day.
The entire obituary is really rather fascinating reading.
Douglas Brinkley’s Wheels for the World (2003) is considered a good biography of Ford and the Ford Motor Company.
If you saw Jaws or read it, you will remember the harrowing story Quint (Robert Shaw) tells of surviving the sinking of the cruiser Indianapolis. It was on this date in 1945 that the ship, which had carried the Hiroshima atomic bomb, was torpedoed by the Japanese. According to the USS Indianapolis CA-35 web site:
At 12:14 a.m. on July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in the Philippine Sea and sank in 12 minutes. Of 1,196 men on board, approximately 300 went down with the ship. The remainder, about 900 men, were left floating in shark-infested waters with no lifeboats and most with no food or water. The ship was never missed, and by the time the survivors were spotted by accident four days later only 316 men were still alive.
Shark attacks began with sunrise of the first day (July 30) and continued until the survivors were removed from the water almost five days later.
The Navy web site includes oral histories with Indianapolis Captain McVay and Japanese submarine Captain Hashimoto. The Discovery Channel has a wealth of material.
The site dedicated to the Indianapolis is perhaps the best source.
In Harm’s Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors (2001) by Doug Stanton is a book on the voyage, the sinking, the survivors and McVay’s court martial.
Not a very good ROI.
My blog is worth $27,662.46.
How much is your blog worth?
From one year ago — Someone else’s Sweeties.
Scott Horton argues that the Romanticism of Sir Walter Scott altered the Southern character and led to the Civil War. A fascinating short essay, which includes this quote from Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi (1883).
Sir Walter had so large a hand in making Southern character, as it existed before the war, that he is in great measure responsible for the war. It seems a little harsh toward a dead man to say that we never should have had any war but for Sir Walter; and yet something of a plausible argument might, perhaps, be made in support of that wild proposition. The Southerner of the American Revolution owned slaves; so did the Southerner of the Civil War: but the former resembles the latter as an Englishman resembles a Frenchman. The change of character can be traced rather more easily to Sir Walter’s influence than to that of any other thing or person.
NewMexiKen would argue that the influence extends to this day.
Still Albuquerque’s best blogger, Chantal gives us A survival guide for albuquerque kids headed to the santa fe opera. Not to be missed, regardless of whether you live in New Mexico or like opera.
Two vehicles approach an intersection from opposite directions. Both are required to stop. One arrives shortly before the other and signals to turn left. The other arrives seconds later and intends to continue straight. There is no cross traffic.
Which vehicle has the right of way?
“I have long been of the opinion that the entire history of American popular culture — maybe even of Western civilization — amounts to little more than a long prelude to ‘The Simpsons.'”
A.O. Scott in his review.