[Wiki] Fly Geyser is not an entirely natural phenomenon; it was accidentally created by well drilling in 1964 exploring for sources of geothermal energy. The well may not have been capped correctly, or left unplugged, but either way dissolved minerals started rising and accumulating, creating the travertine mound on which the geyser sits and continues growing.
Tuba Skinny on a hot, steamy New Orleans day, playing James Scott’s “Climax Rag” from 1914. Pay attention to the girl on cornet – she knows exactly how to do it right – and before you assume that the girl on bass drum is only there for eye candy, check this out:
That’s Erika Lewis & Tuba Skinny performing at The Louisiana Busker Fest in Abita Springs 21 April 2013. BTW, the band is from Tasmania. Now, how ’bout some Leon?
Church became the first stewardess to fly (though not the first flight attendant, as German Heinrich Kubis had preceded her in 1912). On May 15, 1930, she embarked on a Boeing 80A for a 20-hour flight from Oakland/San Francisco to Chicago with 13 stops and 14 passengers.
That works out to a potty break about every 90 minutes en-route. In those days, synchronization was everything.
Anyone know who these guys were? I’m guessing mid-late 1920s, tried to identify the trumpet player with no luck. The clarinet/baritone sax player is the only one wearing spats, so he may be the band leader.
“It’s A Gas” features King Curtis on sax, 1963 [via].
The origins of Mad Magazine – 1954 Senate Subcommitee on Juvenile Deliquency, led by progressive Senator Estes Kefauver (D), moved to censor comic books.
Mountain of Dinosaurs [Rasa Strautmane, USSR 1967] was an anti-soviet propaganda film. Watch it for the nuances before you read the following.
The short warns about what happens if powerful stewards meant to care for individuals actually stifle those they are charged to protect. Dinosaurs didn’t die because of climate change, the short says, but because their eggs became so thick-shelled in response to colder temperatures that the baby dinosaurs couldn’t hatch. The shells (yes, the eggshells speak) mindlessly drone that they are doing their “duty,” but by growing thicker and thicker they kill the nascent sauropods. The scene is the saddest dinosaur cartoon I’ve ever seen, and it seems to be a metaphor for the Soviet government suppressing the rights of individual citizens. Indeed, the death of dinosaurs was not only used by Americans to issue dire warnings — they are an international symbol of extinction.