[Today on Literary Frontier, our third and final excerpt from a biography of Karl Howell Behr, survivor of the RMS Titanic. Author Django Haskins is a singer, guitarist, and prolific songwriter. He's also Behr's great-grandson. In case you missed them, check out Part One and Part Two .] PART THREE For those in Titanic 's lifeboats, the hours passed slowly in a freezing daze. The starry sky was vast and brilliant but, in the absence of a moon, provided almost no [...]
The mathematics of living is invisible, ghosted like dry erase marker on my father’s whiteboard. The mathematics of bicycling, however, is about to be much, much clearer. Bike academia is back! When I was a kid, my mathematician father had his office in our basement. One wall was dominated by a whiteboard, which had not yet appeared in “regular” schools, and thus considered by my friends to be military grade. On it he wrote incomprehensible codes in the slanted writing of a scientist. That whiteboard was mysterious as nuclear engineering (for all I know, it may have been [...]
bike is the new black [Today we're thrilled to have a guest cycling post by Jeff Wilser , acclaimed author and syndicated columnist, expert on the art of modern manhood, and perhaps the only ex-Marine with a Master's degree in Creative Writing.] A year ago I switched to biking. It seemed like the thing to do: better for the planet, better for my butt. (Confession: I care more about my butt than the [...]
[Our weekly urban cycling column appears on Tuesdays] Post Crash Face Last year I broke two of my front teeth in a bike crash. I was drunk; the street, icy. - After the crash, I didn’t ride for a few days. But pretty soon, within a week or two, really, I was back at it again. Now I ride more than ever. More carefully sometimes, though more recklessly too sometimes. Seems like human nature. Go figure. - Here’s some [...]
The Dahon (Folded) For the aspiring cyclist Mark Twain has this solitary piece of advice: tackle “one villainy…at a time.”Although I am a knowledgeable rider, Twain’s counsel resonates as an apt description of my cycling experience in New York: I’m an Englishman who has lately been forced onto the pot-holed roads by escalating subway costs (and an expanding midriff), but my bicycle commute - to the upper west side from Harlem - has a tendency to throw various villainies at me simultaneously. Let me give you a virtual backie (Brit informal: a ride on the back [...]
Jay-Z at Yankee Stadium The difference between Jay-Z and Eminem is comparable to the difference between New York and Detroit. Historically, both have had incredible highs and recent lows. In spite of Kanye West , Chris Martin, Drake , and Beyoncé, Jay-Z was in control throughout his set and the unmistakable center of attention. Compared to Eminem, his set included much more; perhaps like New York, he might be too big to fail. Detroit and Eminem, however, still have work to do to reinvent or re-invigorate and at the moment, [...]
Between the Northern & Southern Stages [ Lollapalooza has rocked Chicago for six straight years as the reincarnation of a '90s music festival founded by Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell. Last weekend, Chi-town native Marisa Ptak soaked in Lollapalooza 2010: three days of music, heat, rain, and fashion. Below, her dispatch from the festival, with enough new tunes to last the rest of the summer.] FRIDAY - Day 1 - Get your [...]
Outside Lands Festival Day 1 Saturday August 14 was crisp, overcast and the start of the third annual Outside Lands Music and Art Festival, billed as a weekend of Music, Food, Wine and Art (note: copyright infringment). Cast primarily on the old polo field in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, Outside Lands delivered as promised with a minimum of traditional festival logistical headaches, making for a very enjoyable weekend by the Bay. Organizers seem to have learned from criticisms levied in previous years when the event [...]
If, and we’re talking about a pretty speculative ‘if’ here, you’re ever asked who was the most famous fencer in history, you’d be well within your rights to stare blankly at your interrogator based on the sheer ridiculousness of her question. Obviously, you’d say, it depends on which blade was in question: foil, épée, or saber . Obviously. At such point, however, you’d be the fool as the unquestionably greatest fencer in history is Lucien Guadin, master of both the foil and épée. A winner of multiple medals at the three different Olympic games during the [...]
More than any other, the question I am asked by friends when it comes to cocktails is "What basic liquor should I get?" Good question. We've already covered the basic hardware for setting up a home bar ; this week's post will focus on the necessary software. Many of you no doubt have a motley assortment of booze, usually in the kitchen, perhaps left over from a long-ago party. Upon closer examination of your cache, you may find yourself wondering: "Dear God, why do we have a bottle of butterscotch schnapps?" [...]
Given the current state of the United States’ overseas military adventures, one doesn’t need to be a retrograde crank to think wistfully back to when our country first began flexing its fledgling imperial might; a time when wars, while nasty and brutish, were at least short. The Spanish-American War began in the spring of 1898, concluded by mid-summer, and resulted in the annexation and de facto colonization of Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. War with Spain was goosed along when the USS Maine exploded in Havana harbor [...]
The word "cocktail" has come to mean practically any mixed drink, from semi-homemade abominations of flavored vodkas mixed with juice to anything ending in "-tini." As a term, however, "cocktail" originally had a more specific meaning and an emphatically American origin in the rough politics of our country's hard-drinking early years. The cocktail traces back to the May 6, 1806 edition of The Balance and Columbia Repository , in which one itemized cost of a failed election bid was listed as "25 do[zen] cock-tails." [...]
“Have you ever wanted to pick up a totally random hobby?” she asked. “Yeah," he said. "Calligraphy.” She didn’t think it was random enough. She assumed he didn’t understand the word random, which means without aim. Without reason. “I mean something unique,” she said. “Something nobody’s ever done before.” She reached for the soap. They were showering together, as they had lately, once a week. “Like what?” “I don’t know,” she said. “Making cork creatures. Making little animals out of cork.” [...]
When she burns the toast, she thinks of him The coffeemaker had been first to mutiny. The toaster watched him garnering his strength over the weeks, saw the way he spitefully released bitter liquid, heard the rumblings under his breath and the steam that hissed as dangerously as a whisper in the ear when held at knifepoint. And whenever the Woman wasn’t looking, he bubbled over, leaving dark tracks of grounds down his sides and little muddy puddles on the counter. What fire brewed beneath that cool chrome exterior! The Woman hadn’t polished him in months, [...]
[Today, we present the first installment of Guard This House, a portrait of a family told from four points of view. Each chapter occurs during one of the four seasons, and takes its title from one of the four celestial animals corresponding to the cardinal directions in Chinese Astronomy.] The main threats to tigers are poaching, habitat loss, and population fragmentation . -www.tigerhomes.org PART ONE: THE BLACK TORTOISE - [...]
[Today, we continue with Guard This House , a four-part portrait of a family told from four points of view. Each chapter occurs during one of the four seasons, and takes its title from one of the four celestial animals corresponding to the cardinal directions in Chinese Astronomy.] PART TWO: THE GREEN DRAGON - NICHOLAS - SPRING Alice rolls over in bed to face me and tells me she never wants to leave her Nueva México. I pull [...]
[Today, we continue with Guard This House , a four-part portrait of a family told from four points of view. Each chapter occurs during one of the four seasons, and takes its title from one of the four celestial animals corresponding to the cardinal directions in Chinese Astronomy. Before you read the following, check out Part One and Part Two .] THE RED BIRD – CHARLOTTE – SUMMER I [...]
[Today, we conclude Guard This House , a four-part portrait of a family told from four points of view. Each chapter occurs during one of the four seasons, and takes its title from one of the four celestial animals corresponding to the cardinal directions in Chinese Astronomy. Before you read the final chapter below, check out Part One , Part Two and Part Three. ] THE WHITE TIGER – BRIELLE - [...]
Sometimes I view this as a religious symbol. Haters gonna hate, and Weezer hating may have reached its pinnacle this year, especially with the highly publicized " We will offer Weezer $10,000 to break up " petition. I may be in the minority of "hip" rock critics of the 21st century, but I think there's something about Weezer that will always be compelling. Whether it is the crisp, pop goodness of the Blue Album or the LOST hyping Hurley , Rivers and gang prove that they truly know their craft. Many of my friends [...]
In March 1975, folk singer Jim Sullivan drove into the New Mexico desert and disappeared forever. Days after he was reported missing, police found his car abandoned in the middle of nowhere. His guitar, wallet, luggage and datebooks were still inside, along with a few copies of one of his last releases, U.F.O. , a one shot deal for a small record company called Monnie. This record has been notoriously difficult to find and has acquired a cult following among purveyors of pop music ephemera. This month, Jim Sullivan [...]
Frontier Psychiatrist
Numbers: 25 or 6 to 4
Boards of Canada – Reach For The Dead
L D R U – The Tropics
