2012-01-31
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William Gibson, interviewed at The Verge.
Whether it’s a sign of that same desire to burrow under the surface of the city, or just because I have a lack of imagination, I’ve found myself visiting the same places repeatedly: New York five times, now (and more to come, I’m sure), Berlin twice (and, again, I’d love to return), Paris perhaps four times (with more yet to see), San Francisco (three times before I moved here), and of course London (multiple times before I moved, and then ten years of infatuation). I like Gibson’s justification, anyway.
2012-01-20
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“1895: A woman holds an early Kodak camera which was sold with the film already loaded. The entire camera was returned to the factory for film processing”
Via The Guardian.
This is still a popular pose for photos of top-viewfinder cameras. I like that she’s carrying a second camera, too.
2012-01-05
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2011-10-24
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On October 24, 1929, the New York Stock Exchange crashed, triggering the great depression.
October: not a good month to be a stockbroker. (Previously; See also.)
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On October 22, 1907, the Knickerbocker Trust Company, one of the largest trusts in America, went belly up as a consequence of the Panic of 1907. Crisis was averted financier J. P. Morgan and others agreed to put up a lot of their own money to save the economy. The crisis was triggered by a failed attempted to corner the market on stock of the United Copper Company. The photo shows commotion on Wall Street during the panic.
2011-07-03
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Ferdinand Mount in the subscriber-only LRB article Get off your knees, a review of a biography of Charles Bradlaugh, noted Victorian atheist, campaigner and politician.
As an atheist, he wasn’t allowed to take the oath of office in the Houses of Parliament, to which he as elected in 1880, for six years. The passage above describes the legal manoerver (well, I’d use the word “hack”) that the new Speaker used to finally let him take his seat.
2011-06-13
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2011-04-19
Commemorating 1906
If San Francisco has a defining event, it’s the 1906 earthquake. The city’s seal depicts a phoenix because of the many fires when it was a gold rush town in the 1850s, but the most recent city-wide conflagration (and the most devastating) was the one that followed the temblor that year.
It’s hardly surprising, then, that even after a century, people remember. Every year, at 5:12 in the morning, they gather at Lotta’s Fountain, at the junction of Market and Geary. I thought I’d join them. Despite fog and the threat of rain, there were about few dozen people when I arrived at quarter to five, and by the time of the motorcade (which carried the youngest of the living survivors, himself 105) there were probably over a hundred people there, a good chunk in period costume (including the MC).
What surprised me was the tone of the event. The earthquake was, if not the worst natural disaster in US history, one of them, but this gathering was surprisingly lighthearted. Yes, there was a minute’s silence, and a wreath hung from the fountain, but there was also upbeat singing, and the sounding of the sirens of the fire and police trucks around the traffic island was taken more as celebration than memorial. Still, perhaps that sums up the spirit of the city- coming through a tragedy, regathering and rebuilding, taking it in its stride.
Nonetheless, more to my liking was a follow-up, at Church and 20th, not far from the corner of Dolores Park (which itself turned into a tent city, a refugee camp before that label existed, in the wake of the disaster). There, one of the few hydrants that kept working still stands, and (combined with the firebreak of the park) it saved the Mission and Noe Valley from the worst. During the 1960s, Doc Bullock started painting that hydrant gold, and now it’s turned into an event.
The J got me there before the tourist jalopy, let alone the dignitaries (no doubt taking good care of their elderly passenger), and I was far more impressed by the tone, with the fire chief, Joanna Hayes-White, passing the microphone and paint to a succession of people, young and old, who had short stories of family caught up in the event, or dedications to other earthquakes around the world, or simply thanking the city for their welcome. I’m very happy to have attended, and I’d recommend anyone who lives in the area to get up early next April 18th and attend.
2011-04-12
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Yuri Gagarin, who became the first man in space on the 12th April, 1961.
2011-03-31
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vegansaurus!: Redefining Vegetarianism: Oh NO he didn’t! (via kkr !)
He retracted that later, but to be honest, I’m more annoyed about this:
his new restaurant, Nopi (he’s even re-defined London’s Soho; Nopi is an acronym for the Northern Piccadilly quarter where he’s opened)
Er, no. Just no. Soho’s been called that for three hundred years, and you don’t get to come in and rebrand it with a stupid restaurant name. Maybe - possibly - if your little venture is still there in a century we’ll think about it, but before then, can you bugger off back to Portobello Market with all the other posh gits and confine your overpriced cakes to the forsaken corners of West London? (Oh, and that store in Islington, but that place hasn’t been the same since the Great Estate Agent Takeover of the mid nineties, anyway.) Thanks.
