[Click any image for enlarge. Background story and more found here.]
Railroad Inspection Cars
Author: Bunk Strutts
Boogah Boogah.
Le Chat Lego
Amtrak’s Best Mustelid Poll
I’m sorry to report that due to DNA analysis, skunks are now classified as mephitids and are no longer members of the mustilid family. That’s okay because honey badger is.
[Live Amtrak poll found here. More mustilid stuff here.]
BONUS: This is what a skunk sounds like.
Haptotropic Hot Links
Kometenmelodie 2, Kraftwerk (1975)
From the album Autobahn, Comet Melody 2 was released in August 1975, and was named after the appearance of Comet Kohoutek in March 1973. An earlier version of the song, Kohoutek-Kometenmelodie was released in December 1973.
Hurricane Helene:
The Aftermath.
Peachtree Creek.
In Defense of CSU’s Hurricane Forecasting.
A WARNING regarding electric vehicles and saltwater.
Decycling [via Bunkerville].
You can’t choose teal or turquoise.
“Toys for you boys, too!” [via The View From Lady Lake].
Screams Before Silence is a documentary of the October 7 atrocities. [Disturbing, NSFK]
Bill Moyers interviews mental patients in Any Place But Here (1979)
[via Memo Of The Air].
THE BEST old-school link dump site Everlasting Blört turned 24 this week, and Mme. Jujujive posted some Greatest Hits. Congrats.
[Top image: Frank Zappa’s basement More about the Z House here.]
From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago. 15 years ago.
Saturday Matinee – Lurrie Bell & Billy Branch, Omar & The Howlers, The Andreas Diehlmann Band, and Playing For Change
Lurrie Bell and Billy Branch are two modern day blues masters. Branch is a roots blues promoter and historian with a direct link to Willie Dixon, while Bell is the son of harpslinger and Blues Hall of Fame inductee Carey Bell. In 1977, Bell and Branch were considered members of the “New Generation of Chicago Blues” and both have made significant contributions to the genre.
Omar and The Howlers features Kent “Omar” Dykes:
“He hails from McComb, MS, a town with the distinction of being home turf for Bo Diddley. Omar started playing guitar at twelve where he took to hanging out in edge-of-town juke joints playing with Wakefield Coney and other authentic blues greats in the middle of the night when his parents were asleep.”
The Andreas Diehlmann Band is a German power trio who crank out Texas blues ala ZZ Top, with vocals to match. Diehlmann is backed by Jörg Sebald on bass and Tom Bonn on drums.
Playing For Change: Legendary multi-instrumentalist John Paul Jones, accompanied by Stephen Perkins, Susan Tedeschi & Derek Trucks, and over 20 musicians and dancers from seven different countries perform a rework of the 1929 original release by Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the most destructive river flooding in U.S. history.
Prayers to those who lost loved ones and were otherwise affected by Hurricane Helene, one of the largest to hit the US in recent history. The cleanup effort required is mind boggling.
Porch time begins at porch time. See you tomorrow.
The .Gif Friday Post No. 874 – The Restless One, Raising Puppies & The Competition
Stonefinger
“To the person who left a painted rock that looks like a severed finger on the Arroyo Verde hiking trail, you’re my kinda people! I put the rock back to freak out the next passerby.”
[Found here, h/t Kirk W.]
Liberty [updated]
[Update: Image is NOT Isabella Eugénie Boyer; see below.]
The face of the Statue of Liberty. Isabella Boyer’s life is like an exciting novel. She was born in Paris, the daughter of an African pastry chef and an English mother. Isabella had a special beauty and, at age 20, she married Isaac Singer, the sewing machine maker, who was 50 years old. After Singer’s death, Isabella became the richest woman in the country. It is not surprising that she was chosen as the model for the Statue of Liberty, as she embodied the American dream. Widowed, Isabella traveled the world and married the Dutch violinist Victor Robstett, becoming a countess. He became a prominent figure in America and Europe, and met the French sculptor Frédéric Bartholdi at a world event. Bartholdi, impressed by her beauty and history, used her face as a model for the Statue of Liberty. Isabella married a third time and died in Paris in 1904 at age 62, but her face lives on in the iconic statue in New York, symbolizing freedom and American pride.
[Found here, h/t Eaglesoars]
UPDATE: The top image appears to be the work of Bas Uterwijk and is an A.I. generated image of Aphrodite, not Isabella Eugénie Boyer (who may or may not have been the model for the Statue of Liberty).
More about the viral photo here, here and here.
[h/t Gabriel]
Antiquarians
“Collectors like Hollister, left, and Porter Hovey, sisters with an appetite for late 19th-century relics like apothecary cabinets and dressmakers dummies, are turning their homes into pastiches of the past.”
New York Times 29 July 2009
[Found here.]
Creepo Amusement Parks
[Descriptions and more in here.]
Tacky Raccoons 