Rod McKuen, Bestselling Poet in American History; Decline of the Motel, Pilates
PLUS: The Real Agatha Christie, Weird & Wondrous Jelly, Tom Stoppard
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐:
๐๐ก๐๐ญ ๐๐๐ฉ๐ฉ๐๐ง๐๐ ๐ญ๐จ ๐๐จ๐ ๐๐๐๐ฎ๐๐ง?
Dan Kois | Slate | October 10, 2022
Rod McKuen was the bestselling poet in American history. Once upon a time, McKuen was one of the most famous and prolific creatives in the world. Sixty million books sold. One hundred million albums sold. He was a regular on late-night TV. He released dozens of albums, wrote songs for Sinatra, and was nominated for two Oscars. He was a flashpoint in the battle between highbrow and lowbrow, with devotees revering his plain-spoken honesty and Dick Cavett mockingly calling him โthe most understood poet in America.โ Every year on his birthday, he sold out Carnegie Hall.ย ย What happened? Why doesnโt his legacy endure beyond the bargain bin at used record stores?
Saturday Evening Post | YouTube | (4m 35s)
In the early 1950s, more than 40,000 motels dotted the American landscape. But by the late 20th century, most had closed or fallen into disrepair. Why did so many vanish?
๐๐ข๐๐ ๐จ๐ง ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐ซ๐ข๐๐ง๐ญ ๐๐ฑ๐ฉ๐ซ๐๐ฌ๐ฌ
Lucy Worsley | Air Mail | August 27, 2022
She is remembered as the incarnation of her most beloved character, the elderly, provincial Miss Marple. In reality, the adventurous, globe-trotting Agatha Christie was the opposite.
Katherine Rosman | NY Times | October 14, 2022
Long after the death of Joseph Pilates, the exercise programโs magnetic founder, his disciples are battling over his legacy.
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐:
๐๐๐๐๐: Man is ready to die for an idea, provided the idea is not quite clear to him.
โ Paul Eldridge
๐๐๐๐๐: Meet the Duo Molding the Weird, Wondrous Future of Jelly | From disturbingly realistic gelatin portraits to a jiggling Buckingham Palace, Bompas & Parr are pushing the wobbly envelope. | In 2007, Sam Bompas and Harry Parr launched Bompas & Parr, a creative studio specializing in food art. Since then, theyโve made everything from the largest jelly ever attempted to a giant โflavor-changingโ jelly that used sound and light effects to transform while participants consumed it. Elaborately shaped gelatin desserts have long entranced people. โPart of the reason it was a status symbol is the same reason that it is now a social media sensation: it acts as an optical lens, it catches the light,โ Bompas says.
๐๐๐๐๐: Tom Stoppard | New Yorker Radio Hour. The playwright Tom Stoppard talks to Andrew Dixon about his latest and perhaps final play, Leopoldstadt, which traces the history of a Jewish family in Vienna through the first half of the 20th century, including two world wars and the Holocaust (31m 50s)
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐: How Californiaโs Bullet Train Went Off the Rails | Ralph Vartabedian | New York Times (no paywall) | Oct. 9, 2022 | The NY Times discovers this important story a bit more than a decade after everyone else. โAmericaโs first experiment with high-speed rail has become a multi-billion-dollar nightmare. Political compromises created a project so expensive that almost no one knows how it can be built as originally envisioned.โ
๐๐๐๐๐: Hรกvamรกl | Vimeo | Wasted Talent | 11m 55s | Atmospheric short film about a group of surfers catching waves between the islands and islets of the Lofoten archipelago in the far north of Norway
๐๐๐๐: Wyoming Highways | WILLIAM NOTTER
Most of the traffic is pickup trucks
caked in bentonite from the methane roads,
or one-ton flatbeds with dually axles
and blue heelers balancing on the back.
But the blacktop slicing through rabbit brush flats
and weather the color of heated steel is perfect
for opening up a highway-geared American car
from the days of cubic inches and metal.
You could wind that Detroit iron up
to a sweet spot well above the posted limit,
where torque will casually pull the grades.
The car would rock on the springs, and growl
from deep in the carburetor throat
yanked wide open, gobbling down pure light.