Archive of Penny Dreadful and Dime Novel Artwork
From BoingBoing.
| Pulp Fiction | Web Reference | 1910s | 1900s |
This is the funniest thing I've seen all week! The Shining Trailer Remixed. Via Waxy.
Update: Meme has hit the New York Times; full story here
| Remix Culture |
Last Wednesday I had a very odd experience, and since I have banished personal life posts from my own blog, I’ll blog about it here. Last Wednesday (the astronomical end of summer), I went to the funeral of a family friend, a woman who was possibly the nicest and most helpful of the many non-family volunteers who helped take care of my mother when she was dying from ALS. Her name was Sharon Norgaard, which won’t likely mean anything to you, but it will some day to Google.
The experience was very strange because it was rather like going back in time to see my mother’s funeral from an outsider’s perspective. I was in the same chuch for the memorial service part, with many of the same people attending. Eulogies were very similar in tone to those for my mother, to the extent I remember my mother’s funeral Sharon’s oldest daughter is a friend of mine from high school, but she was 3 years behind me, so she’s onlya year older than I was then. The minister even mentioned Sharon’s caring for my mother as a particularly noteworthy example of her generosity.
Sharon, like my mother, got the benefits and problems of a long decline. She first had her breast cancer nearly 15 years ago, put it into remission through treatment and, what seems likely for her, sheer force of will. But it came back, as the Grim Reaper sometimes does, and wouldn’t be denied this time. Sharon was a fighter, so she rode the Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC) as often as she could, and personally raised over $80,000 for cancer research. Equally importantly, she passed on her strength to her children, who all rode the PMC with her once or more, and were sad but stable at the gathering after the interment. (Yankee/WASP values of stoicism . . . )
/. reports that Armed Dolphins Released Into Gulf of Mexico accidentally during Katrina. Armed dolphins? Didn't we learn from the Bat Bomber fiasco?
| Animals | Military |
The Citizens Band. "Weimar cabaret, as filtered through Edward Gorey and Jacques Brel," says Debbie. A bit of Tom Waits, adds I. Last night and tonight only; get there early so you can get a spot at the front of the crowd to actually see.
David Mamet, of all people, gives (profanity- and Rebecca Pidgeon-free) advice to the Democratic party: raise, dammit, raise! Poker party (LA Times, needs registration, use BugMeNot, blah blah). Maybe we need to send copies of House of Games to Dean, Reid, et al?
| David Mamet |
| Netiquette |
"I realize that animal husbandry has to do with reproduction, I’d like to think women’s health is slightly elevated above the particulars of inseminating a farm animal." -- pesky'apostrophe on the appointment of a veterinarian, Norris Alderson, to head the FDA's Office of Women's Health.
| Wadministration | Your Blank of the Day |
I know why Mark suggested that I read the "Book of the New Sun" series by Gene Wolfe. (It's a tetralogy, printed in two volumes: Shadow and Claw and Sword and Citadel.) It's the kind of book that makes you immediately want to talk to someone who's read it, or grab the lapels of strangers on the train and say "Have you read Gene Wolfe? Read Gene Wolfe! Read Gene Wolfe!!" There are a few other mind-bending books I'd put in this category -- Infinite Jest, Gormenghast, and House of Leaves come to mind. The Book of the New Sun is an extraordinary work: a bildungsroman, a philosophical and religious meditation, a science fiction novel set thousands of years in the future yet with a medieval feel, a quest, a puzzle. I would have to write a very long review to do it justice. Instead, here's a brief list of authors that these books share an affinity with: Kafka, Borges, Ursula K. LeGuin, Joseph Campbell, Mervyn Peake, Dickens, Pynchon, The Brothers Grimm, Mary Shelley. This isn't "literary science fiction," this is literature.
There's a sequel, The Urth of the New Sun, which is next on my list. Incidentally, I picked up another Gene Wolfe novel, Castleview in a used bookstore for three bucks. Make sure it's the last Gene Wolfe book you ever read, because it's very disappointing. Well, they can't all be masterworks.
| Science Fiction |
Lynn sent this over: Brooklyn Pizzeria Needs Help After Katrina:
Lost everything to Katrina. My name is Todd Duvio I own Brooklyn Pizzeria in New Orleans. We were doing a great business, until Monday August 29th when Katrina blew through. My business was in almost 4 feet of water, everything gone. I need to see if anyone could help us rebuild. My place was decorated with all types of New York memorabilia I need all the help I can get, we put our life savings in this business. I could use any type of New York items, Brooklyn especially.. maps, photos, posters, t-shirts, hats etc. I'm not asking for cash, We need all that we can get... we were doing a great business prior to this tragedy.
| New York | New Orleans | Hurricane Katrina | Pizza |
After two and a half years, I've left Computers for Youth. Next month I'm starting to work at DonorsChoose, an online philanthropy marketplace. Public school teachers propose projects for their classrooms -- anything from basic supplies to field trips. Individual donors can then go online and pick projects that appeal to them. The money goes directly to buy the supplies that are shipped to the teacher, and the donor gets letters and pictures from the class. It's a great organization, and I'm really excited about joining. They're in NYC, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, and the Carolinas; I'll be the Executive Director of their New York division. I'll be starting in mid-October, and am taking some time off before then.
Right now is an excellent time to check out DonorsChoose. Teachers are using DonorsChoose to propose "Classroom Care Packages" for students dislocated by Hurricane Katrina. And if you give before 9/30, you'll help DonorsChoose win the Amazon Challenge. Ten organizations, including DonorsChoose, were selected nationally. The one that raises the most money through Amazon by the end of September gets an additional million bucks. Go give!
| DonorsChoose | Philanthropy | Charity | Non-Profit Institutions |
Does this story hit a geek trifecta, or what? Nature reports:
Luca Mori was studying maps of the region around his town of Sorbolo, near Parma, when he noticed a prominent, oval, shaded form more than 500 metres long. It was the meander of an ancient river, visible because former watercourses absorb different amounts of moisture from the air than their surroundings do.His eye was caught by unusual 'rectangular shadows' nearby. Curious, he analysed the image further, and concluded that the lines must represent a buried structure of human origin. Eventually, he traced out what looked like the inner courtyards of a villa.
His blog is here, if you're curious and / or want to brush up on your Italian. Story via Waxy.
| Maps | Mapping | History | Archaeology | Italy |
You can tell the second one's an ad, because the label is still visible.
Top: New York City, 2001, Post 9/11, from Here Is New York
Bottom: Stoli Ad, 2005.
| Advertising | Badvertising | Alcohol |
Many other Photoshopped visions of a Goth World over at Worth1000.
| Goths |
The calendar lies, really. It's not September 11th. We keep changing, like an particle jumping between eigenstates, from September 10th to September 12th, from reading movie reviews to reading casualty reports, from buying ice cream to buying bandages and batteries, from worrying about dinner to worrying about destruction.
I wrote that two years ago.
Last winter I came out of the subway, and ascended the stairs into unexpected snow. I love snow, city snow even, but suddenly -- there I was again. My heart racing. An ice grip constricting my throat. It wasn't snow, but ashes.
Oh no, I thought. Don't take the joy of snow away from me, too. I stood quite still, just watching the white flakes in the air, unable to move into the present, into September 12th, into 2004.
I wrote that last year.
This year, it's September 13th. Finally.
It's not that 9/11 has receded in my consciousness. I still deal with PTSD. It still comes back. Sunday I drove across the Brooklyn Bridge, and remembered the postal employees handing out water on the Brooklyn side. Sunday night I was grilling in our backyard, drinking a beer, looking up at the Towers of Light. That's where they were. There they are. And here I am.
So why is it September 13th? What's changed?
I'll be honest, things haven't been easy as of late. September's here again. The TV is showing us bodies again. Death, destruction, a million people trying to go somewhere, just to be safe. Again, it feels like there's so little I can do. Give some money, send some supplies, read the papers, write a blog post, get angry, get sad, get depressed, get numb.
But some things have changed. I've changed. Things are generally easier. I don't think about ashes that much any more.
And, this time, the nature of the disaster has changed. After 9/11, we confronted evil. Evil brought terror and death and destruction into our lives. We knew who the evildoers were, and as much as we grappled with what might have been done before, or what to do next, the object of our anger and rage was clear. Al Qaeda.
This time, there are no evildoers, at least not on a grand scale. One can't blame the hurricane, and I refuse to blame God. Instead, I rage against the incompetent and the corrupt. (What else can one call the elevation of Michael Brown to a position where lives are at stake?) Sins of omission are of a different moral order than sins of comission.
And this blog has changed. After 9/11, Ishbadiddle was a huge source of support for me. This little electronic community, mostly of friends, and some mostly pleasant strangers, and everyone trying to work through this together. Over time, that need faded for all of us, I think. And, over time, Ishbadiddle has become less of a group blog, and more of my own personal thing. It's not the community it used to be, and few posts receive comments any more. It's just happened that way, for a lot of reasons. Online communities evolve; more Ish posters have their own blogs now; there were too many heated arguments; people have lives. Lots of reasons.
But it's not my support group any more. Which is a good thing, I think.
After Katrina, I kept writing about it, trying to write it out, but feeling frustrated. Where is everyone? Hello? Is this thing on?
Of course, Rule Number One of Blogging is: Write For Yourself. If you're waiting for feedback, hit counts, kudos, a freaking medal or something, forget about it. Write for yourself, and if people read it, so much the better.
And, of course, just because folks don't comment doesn't mean they aren't reading, or even acting. I got an email from a friend -- a regular here, whom I won't name, as not everyone believes that charitable acts should be publicized. After this post, he and his family sent a bunch of supplies to one of the shelters listed. He wrote: "It isn't always easy to see the ripples we create when we throw rocks in the ocean. I imagine it is hard to know what effect a single person can have on a disaster as immense as Katrina with things as singular as blog postings."
And that made it all worth it. Really.
So, let me explain. No, that will take too long. Let me sum up:
Ish has changed, and I can't expect it to be what it was. (This isn't a please-post-and-comment guilt post, honest.)
I'll write what I want, and that's that. The response may be none, or it may be invisible to me (hi, lurkers!), but that don't matter.
And, finally, it's no longer a good idea for me to deal with Hurricane Katrina by blogging about it. I have a lot of other stuff to write -- a massive backlog of book reviews, for instance. You can all safely assume that I'm still concerned with Katrina and still doing something about it; I'll assume the same of all of you.
~~~
So it's September 13th. The air is clear, although I know it's not always. That sometimes the air is filled with anger, with ashes, with thunder. With things that cannot be understood, not easily. An airplane falling from the sky. The cries of the sick in an abandoned hospital, waiting for a rescue that never came. We take in this same air, we breathe it in, it becomes part of us. Toxic fumes, toxic memory, the exhalations of the dead, it's all in the air, inescapable, undetecable. And still we breathe in, breathe out. Still there's oxygen for our brains, our hearts, our very guts. There is song also in that air, and the breath of sleeping children.
Breathe in. How will you use that next breath? The world's inspiration?
| Essays | Hurricane Katrina | PTSD |
(Detail, click for full version)
Lord Peregrine Fairchylde rides to the rescue! More complete information at the Medieval Disaster Relief Center. You have to love the Society for Creative Anachronism at times like these.
| Society for Creative Anachronism | Disasters | Maps |
Where is Snowball? As usual, Ftrain gets it right.
| Hurricane Katrina |
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that FEMA gathered firefighters from around the country, and put them to use handing out flyers. And posing for photo ops with President Bush. Via tpm
A (partisan) Timeline of Katrina events.
And finally, via peksy', the story of one New Orleans resident's experience at the Convention Center. I've excerpted the entire article below the fold, but here's the pull quote:
"Denise said yes, there were young men with guns there. But they organized the crowd. They went to Canal Street and "looted," and brought back food and water for the old people and the babies, because nobody had eaten in days. . . . The people thought there were being sent there to die."
Continue reading "The Train Wreck Called The City Of New Orleans" » | New Orleans | FEMA | George W. Bush |
First: Give, and give generously. Cash is needed and there are many organizations on the ground in the Gulf Coast working for relief. Here are some places that Ishbadiddlers have given to:
Red Cross
Union for Reform Judaism
Salvation Army
Humane Society
So far our readers have generated $900 in donations. Let's make it more, folks. To add your own contribution to the total, you can email me, leave a comment here, and/or log the contribution on NZ Bear's "Blog for Relief" website (choose "Ishbadiddle" as the "weblog that encouraged you to make your contribution").
Second: Volunteer. You can help the Katrina PeopleFinder Project by doing some simple data entry. NZ Bear has a list of other web-based relief projects.
Third: Stuff. Ordinarily cash is the bestest thing to send, but Catherine Bohne at the Community Bookstore in Park Slope is organizing supplies. Again. {After 9/11, she turned the Community Bookstore into a local volunteer center, gathering supplies for Ground Zero -- it was an amazing and inspiring thing. See my post here, and some news articles here and here.} Here's the latest from her bulletin board:
Hi Everyone --Okay, I think we're ready . . . .
1. SHIPPING:
Tomorrow morning, asap, I'm going to open a UPS account specifically for sending stuff down South.
UPS comes to the store everyday, anyhow, so this will ensure that stuff gets out as quickly as possible.
If you'd like to contribute to shipping, you can makes checks payable to "United Parcel Service" directly, drop 'em at the store, and I'll send them in to cover *that* account.
(Obviously, when we're done with this, we can decide what to do with any money that's leftover, should that happen.)
2. WHERE IT'S GOING:
An amazing woman named Susan White has spent the weekend on the phone and has identified 4 places, all of which have:
-taken in evacuees
-have NOT been contacted by major organizations yet
-are desperate for supplies
-and been spoken to directly by Susan, checking exactly what they need as of *today*They are:
The Baton Rouge River Center
275 South River Road
Baton Rouge, LA 70802
tel: 225-389-3030The Women's Center
222 Veteran's Blvd.
Suite C
Denham Springs, LA 70726
tel: 225. 665-0214Marksville City Hall
Attn: Hurricane Relief Coordinator
Myron Gagnard
427 North Washington St.
Marksville, LA 71351
tel: 318. 253. 9500
(this place is distributing to other places, too)The St. Vincent de Paul Society for Katrina Evacuees
Ozanam Outlet
610 Memory Lane
Houston, TX 77037If you would like to send donations (see below, for what to send where) directly, yourself, please do. I'd encourage you to check with the store daily, though, to make sure you're sending what they need most. I've put their phone numbers, so you *could* call, but if 900 of us start calling daily, we'll probably drive them nuts.
3. DONATIONS (What They Need):If you want to bring donations to the store, we're happy to sort, package, and send them out.
Here's what each place needs:
Baton Rouge River Center
-currently has over 6500 evacuees living there so we might want to focus on them first.--They need:
Towels
Socks
Slippers
Water
Diapers
Baby Bottles
Pacifiers
Non-perishable food
Sheets
Pillows
Sleeping Bags
The Women's Center needs:Formula
Baby Food
Toddler Food
Diapers
Wipes
Juice
Maternity Clothes
Ensure
Depends
Pedialyte
Small boxes of Goldfish crackers
New Underwear
New Socks
Sheets
Blankets
New Pillows
Towels
Q-tips
Paper Towels
Toilet Paper
Hygiene Products
!No Grown up clothes!
!No Toys!Marksville needs:
Baby Items of all Kinds
Hand Sensitizer
Pillows and Blankets
Baby and Children's Tee-shirts
Over the counter pain relievers
Coloring books/crayons/board games/children's books
Okay. That's it for now.If you'd like to help sort, box, etc., please feel free to just drop by . . . when we get to a point where we have enough to need that kind of help, I'll send out a general email, then you can rush on down.
If you have other ideas for things to do (one woman had a great idea about a fundraising dinner), I'd also encourage you to stop by. I'm getting dozens of emails already, and can't really promise to answer them in a timely way. (Plus, I get 'em all confused . . . ) I'm happy to help connect people who are interested in working on the same sorts of projects (like the fundraiser).
More soon!
Love,
Catherine
If you're in Brooklyn and can help out, the Community Bookstore is on 7th Avenue between Garfield and Carroll. Their number is 718-783-3075 should you want to call and see what they need today.
| Hurricane Katrina | Katrina Blog Relief Day | Ishbadiddle Relief Fund | Park Slope | Brooklyn |
I don't even know where to begin.
The more I read about what is going on in the Gulf Coast, and specifically in New Orleans, the angrier I get. I simply cannot fathom how our rescue efforts could have gone so badly.
There are a million homeless. There are possibly 10,000 dead. (Bear in mind that the toll from 9/11 turned out to be lower than initially feared; with refugees scattered over many states it will take months to account for all the missing.)
Here is a situation where anyone in the world can go online and read the pleas of the trapped, and get their exact addresses -- and yet no rescue comes.
A navy ship, the USS Bataan, has been stationed nearby for days -- but is still awaiting word from FEMA to help with its water, food, medicine, and helicopters.
The Red Cross, while able to distribute aid to the region, is prohibited from entering New Orleans itself because its "presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city."
First Mother Barbara Bush thinks that the refugees are doing very well because they may get to move to Texas: "What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. . . . And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this -- this [she chuckles slightly] is working very well for them." (Here's the audio clip.)
More: watch this video of Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish. He starts by saying that "the bureaucracy has committed murder" and then completely breaks down toward the end:
Sir, they were told like me. Every single day. The cavalry is coming. On the federal level. The cavalry is coming. The cavalry is coming. The cavalry is coming. I have just begun to hear the hooves of the cavalry. The cavalry is still not here yet, but I have begun to hear the hooves and were almost a week out.Three quick examples. We had Wal-mart deliver three trucks of water. Trailer trucks of water. Fema turned them back, said we didn't need them. This was a week go. We had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a coast guard vessel docked in my parish. The coast guard said come get the fuel right way. When we got there with our trucks, they got a word, FEMA says don't give you the fuel. Yesterday, yesterday, fema comes in and cuts all our emergency communications lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in. he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards said no one is getting near these lines.
...
The guy who runs this building I'm in. Emergency management. He's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said. Are you coming. Son? Is somebody coming? And he said yeah. Mama. Somebody's coming to get you.. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday. And she drowned Friday night. And she drowned Friday night. [Sobbing] Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us. The Secretary has promised. Everybody's promised. They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For god's sakes, just shut up and send us somebody.
More: Watch this clip of Geraldo Rivera and Shepard Smith reporting on Fox from New Orleans. Geraldo breaks down, Smith refuses to let Hannity spin his "perspective."
On the political front: David Brooks is ashamed of the President. Michelle Malkin calls for the head resignation of Michael "Brownie" Brown, head of FEMA..
Further to the right, the American Spectator blames black culture, the ACLU, and the NAACP. And then there are those who blame New Orleans' sinfulness, abortionists, etc. And of course gays. Oh, and witchcraft.
Heroes: Three Duke students drove down to NOLA, went to the Convention Center, and rescued seven people. Of course to do that, they had to pretend to be journalists, since volunteers aren't allowed in. (Via pesky'.)
Heroes: 6-year-old Deamonte Love who held together a group of five toddler refugees.
Heroes: Jabbar Gibson, the kid who rescued a bunch of refugees when he commandeered an abandonded schoolbus. Too bad they're calling him a "looter" though.
Meanwhile, Condi Rice advises that "The Lord Jesus Christ is going to come on time.... If we just wait."
Meanwhile, President Bush can't wait to see Trent Lott's rebuilt house.
Meanwhile, the director of homeland security for New Orleans says that"it's criminal within the confines of the United States that within one hour of the hurricane they weren't force-feeding us. It's like FEMA has never been to a hurricane."
More reading, if you can bear it:
No Quarter points out that despite the White House spin that local and state governments were slow to act, FEMA did not follow its own National Response Plan.
Laurie Garrett, a Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations, has some thoughts on the health ramifications of Katrina.
Kerim has written lots more on Katrina.
More on FEMA's failures here, here, and here.
And all for the want of a nail.
Next: What you can do to help
| Hurricane Katrina | George W. Bush | Louisiana | Barbara Bush | FEMA | Disasters | Crusaders | Condoleeza Rice | David Brooks | Michelle Malkin |
I saw this ad for the History Channel's series on Rome on the back of a magazine:
Since then I've seen it on a huge billboard here in New York. I guess this is what you call bad timing, since the word "Superdome"now only brings to mind scenes of chaos and suffering. More on the historical inaccuracies of the ad as well.
Pull it!
| Advertising | History Channel | Rome | New Orleans | Superdome | Hurricane Katrina |
| Hurricane Katrina | Disasters |
