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EXPANDING ON ENGLISH MYTHS PART 1
MYTHS ARE ur-memories, tales of our striving for one thing or another. The London Review of Books, October 11, 2018, discussed two English myths that even us ’Mericans recognize: St. George slaying the...
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EXPANDING ON ENGLISH MYTHS PART 2
ST. GEORGE, HIS DRAGON, and Robin Hood and his Merry Men are familiar myths. Yesterday in Part 1, an article in the London Review of Books got us started with contrasts between St. George’s event and...
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TOSCA’S (AND HARE’S) ROME PART 1
MY COPY OF Augustus J.C. Hare’s Walks in Rome is its Seventeenth Edition, published in 1905. Even in 2018 it’s still a charming guidebook for visiting the eternal city. And in 1905, Walks in Rome could...
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TOSCA’S (AND HARE’S) ROME PART 2
IT IS PERHAPS coincidental that my copy of Hare’s Walks in Rome was published in 1905, only five years after the premiere of Puccini’s Tosca at Rome’s Teatro Costanzi on January 14, 1900. Yesterday in...
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ON NORWEGIANS, A MAZE, AND A PARTY FOR “MATH’S NOBEL”
NORWEGIAN MATHEMATICIAN Hans Munthe-Kaas helped to design a new botanical garden at his institution, the University of Bergen. As reported in Science magazine, October 12, 2018, “The result debuted on...
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IS HE AN INSTIGATOR OR AN INCITER? AN ETYMOLOGICAL DISCUSSION
RECENT VIOLENCE in the U.S. and around the world raises the question of whether Donald Trump’s rabble-rousing rally pronouncements have a deleterious effect. Is he an instigator, an inciter, or merely...
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THE MURPHY-BODIED, R&T-FEATURED, KATHARINE HEPBURN-DRIVEN BUGATTI TYPE 38
INTERESTING CARS OFTEN have fascinating histories. I was inspired to write about the Murphy-bodied Bugatti Type 38 when I rediscovered its Salon article in the March 1956 issue of R&T. In itself,...
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THE ATLAS OBSCURA EXPLORER’S GUIDE
THIS BOOK IS subtitled “For the World’s Most Adventurous Kid,” and it is a fine addition to my collection of guidebooks, Baedeker’s and all. “For ages 9 and up,” it reads; I clearly qualify and I bet...
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THE ROLLS-ROYCE MERLIN—REFINEMENTS REWARDED
ENGINEERING IS a process, not a result. An excellent example of this is development of the Rolls-Royce Merlin aircraft engine, renowned for powering the Avro Lancaster, de Havilland Mosquito, Hawker...
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HURRAH FOR TILLY SHILLING—ENGINEER, RACER, AND MORE PART 1
I LEARNED ABOUT Beatrice “Tilly” Shilling while researching yesterday’s SimanaitisSays on the Rolls-Royce Merlin aircraft engine. This engine played a major role in Britain’s and the Allies’ defeat of...
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