Day 11: The Twisted Circus Of NBA Mascots

originally published January 11, 2012 Today’s column will be rather photo-heavy, not because I’m trying to cheat my word-count (the whole “one picture is worth a thousand words” adage has come to mind before, and I have to say, I like the math), but because I’m going to be discussing a topic many people aren’t […]

Day 10: Supertramps, The Super-Tramp, & Supertramp

originally published January 10, 2012 Question: which came first, the concept of a ‘supertramp’ species, which is an ecological term referring to an animal with high dispersion among many different habitats, or Supertramp, the British rock band? If you answered the British rock band, then clearly you knew I was going for the less “logical” […]

Day 9: Don’t Mess With The USS Unadilla

originally published January 9, 2012 In April of 1861, as the Civil War became a reality, the US Navy came to the realization that they would probably need to kill a lot of people in the very near future. For that reason, they went into rapid production on 23 new gunboats, all of which were […]

Day 8: Poe Pens A Pretty Putrid Play

originally published January 8, 2012 In December, 1835, Edgar Allen Poe’s footprint on the literary world was so fresh, pre-Victorian hipsters would have proudly nailed down this period as the time they started reading him, before “The Raven” topped the hit parade and everyone knew about him. He had won a minor prize for a […]

Day 7: WCBS-FM, New York City’s Oldies-Folks Home

originally published January 7, 2012 Bringing you the Stax of Wax from way back in the Pax(t), I present today’s topic: New York City’s WCBS-FM, 101.1 on your dial, provided your dial is located in New York City. I have clicked through numerous radio stations on Wikipedia in search of writing material, and this is […]

Day 6: Anti-Art – Art’s Middle Finger To Itself

originally published January 6, 2012 For every great piece of art, there is a piece of anti-art. For every bold statement, scraped from the most tender and painful wound on an artist’s soul and splattered desperately upon a canvas or shaped into clay, there’s someone else who says, “You know what? Fuck art.” And so […]

Day 5: Leckhampstead, Berkshire: Home Of The Gun-Clock & SuperSheep

originally published January 5, 2012 Today we journey across the ‘pond’, eat some ‘crisps’ then take a ‘lorry’ to a small ‘towne’ in southern England called Leckhampstead. Knowing those crazy Brits as I do (and I know three or four of them), they’ll pronounce it “Leckumsted”. It’s a beautiful language – I encourage everyone to […]

Day 4: Don’t Know Much About Malacology

originally published January 4, 2012 “Cesare Maria Tapparone-Canefri (1838 – 6 August 1891, Quattordio, Italy) was an Italian malacologist.” That sentence is the entire text (minus an extensive bibliography) of the Wikipedia article that started my fingers a-tapping today. My interest was somehow piqued by this sentence, mostly because I had no idea what a […]

Day 3: Greenlandic Cinema: Yes, There Is Such A Thing

originally published January 3, 2012 Like most people, I have always thought of Greenland as a desolate snowscape, abandoned except for the few wayward Vikings who still call it home. I did not expect to be learning about its vibrant film industry. Today I came across Nuummioq, the first feature film produced entirely in Greenland. […]

Day 2: Lady Blue and the Trough of TV Cop Shows

originally published January 2, 2012 Every year, approximately 35 new pilots are aired on network television (source: my propensity for made-up numbers). Of those, about 600 are cop shows, each looking for a unique slant on the genre: He’s a veteran cop from the gritty inner-city streets of Hartford. She’s a Holstein-Friesian, raised on corn […]