Scott Bradlee is back with another great vintage cover. This time taking Beyonce’s hit single ‘Drunk In Love’ back in time to the 1940′s with singer Cristina Gatti. Cristina’s great voice and the big band definitely makes this unique cover totally different from the original. Right in the middle, it feels like something is missing then that sax hits. Amazing.

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A man approached me at the information desk.

Man: “You’re a girl, will you make a copy for me?”

Me: “Pardon me?”

Man: “My girl at the office is out for a while and I need some copies made. Could you do it for me?”

Me: “I’m happy to show you how to make copies. I’m sure you’ll find that even boys can do it these days!”

Today, I would like to personally declare all  the”create a personal brand” stuff bullshit.

oil and tempera on panel

Historical Photo: Streetcars on an Inclined Railway, Cincinnati, 1904

Not a map, but included because this is possibly the strangest piece of transit infrastructure I’ve ever seen. Discovered while researching the post about Cincinnati’s abandoned subway, this photo shows what happened when that city’s streetcars met the steep hills surrounding the downtown area.

At this time, the streetcars were used in conjunction with four of Cincinnati’s five inclined railways: the Mount Adams Incline, Mount Auburn Incline, Bellevue Incline, and the Fairview Incline. The cars would be driven onto the platform, which was level and was equipped with rails and (in most cases) overhead trolley wires. The platform, riding on its own rails, would then be pulled up the hill by the cable, carrying the streetcar. Upon reaching the top, the streetcar could simply be driven off the platform onto the standard track along city streets. The 1872-opened Mount Adams Incline began carrying horsecars in 1877, and it was later strengthened for use by electric streetcars, which were much heavier.

More information on the inclines here.

(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

BERy System Route Map, 7th Edition


Cover, with awesome BERy logo


Take the El to the airport!


Inset of the downtown area


Legend

Submission – Historical Map: Boston Elevated Railway System Map, c. 1946

Kindly sent my way by Ross Howard from his personal collection is this great old map of the Boston Elevated Railway (or BERy).

Ross thought it may have been from the 1930s, but a little Googling has revealed that this version – the seventh edition – was released in 1946-1947, making it the last BERy map before its operations were taken over by the MTA, itself a predecessor to the current MBTA.

The map itself is a fine example of precise mid-20th century cartography, making good use of minimal colour. I also like the great typography and the wonderful compass rose logo on the cover. The house ad for travelling via “El” to the Airport is interesting: shuttle buses still run from the Blue Line to Logan to this very day.

Upon returning this book, a patron kindly informed us that all mentions of meat products had been crossed out and veggie-friendly descriptors had been added.

Today in Rob Ford, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford violently tackled a journalist on his way into City Hall. But we at the Wire know that this is neither Ford's first tackle, nor is it his best one. Here are the Rob Ford tackles of record, in order from least amazing to best. 

Near miss: the Women's Hockey Victory Celebrant

I could write a novel about the man standing just to the left of Ford at the moment of a Canadian women's hockey team Olympic win. First, he is denied a victory hug from the man in front of him, who instead joins the herd of whooping Toronto legislators. He looks around for someone, anyone, to hug instead. The only man in range: Mayor Rob Ford. Canada's national pride retreats from this one man's heart in the face of Ford's thunderous jumping and he freezes in place for a moment. Now a shell of a Canadian human being, the man half heartedly returns the high five of his intended co-celebrant.  While not strictly a tackle, Ford surely broke something in this man. 

Honorable Mention: The Man with the Camera

Ford's final gallops towards his office are the stuff of legends at City Hall. When he regularly arrives for work, usually between 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m., The final trot to his office usually quickens in pace, and regularly doubles as a contact sport. It's rare that everyone escapes unscathed. 

Sometimes, to avoid the violence, Ford just doesn't show up for work at all. Most recently, Ford took the Monday off after a video appeared of showing Ford loaded and trying to hail a cab in front of City Hall on Saturday night. 

Second Runner Up: Councilwoman Pam McConnell 

This tackle is from the day Rob Ford lost most of his powers as Toronto mayor, so Ford was already having a bad day when he decided to literally take down Councilwoman Pam McConnell with him. The collision apparently left her with a fat lip. 

First Runner Up: Ford's Best Journalist Tackle Yet 

Today raised the stakes, though. In what was probably one of the more violent scrums in Toronto city hall history, Ford called on his experience as a high school football player to ram through a reporters like a running back breaking tackles. At one point, when sealing the edge just before heading for pay dirt — er, his office — Ford used a forearm shiver to evade the last would be tackler — er, cameraman — and take off down the field with three offensive linemen — er, security guards. Ford was avoiding reporters after new documents were released this morning that seems to pant a picture of Ford and his former driver, the accused extortionist drug dealer 'Sandro' Lisi, as part of a criminal conspiracy. Their actions, police say in the documents, are "indicative of drug trafficking." The investigation is still ongoing, and Ontario provincial police were recently brought on to handle oversight. You really should watch the full video of Ford's walk to City Hall today: 

Champion: Rob Ford, the Only Person Who Can Take Down Rob Ford 

Of course, Rob Ford will probably never top the moment at which he managed to tackle himself. Toronto hosted and eventually won the Grey Cup, the Canadian Football League's version of the Super Bowl, two years ago and Ford could not make it through the weekend without some kind of blooper. In fact, this may have been his one shining moment, if we can borrow a seasonally-appropriate phase. Ford fumbling and bumbling on his ass, literally, is probably the best metaphor for his political career. It was a sign of things to come. 

After 49 years as one of San Diego’s cornerstone cultural institutions, the San Diego Opera will unexpectedly fold at the end of this season. The institution’s executive committee and Ian Campbell, its general & artistic director and CEO, recently concluded the company’s only viable course forward was to cease operations and the opera’s full board of directors confirmed that assertion in a 33-1 vote Wednesday. Staff was notified Wednesday afternoon that the company’s final production with be the last performance of “Don Quixote” on April 13 and it will “conclude operations” by June 30.

JUSTICE Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court’s fiercest liberal, turned 81 last week. She has survived two bouts of cancer, in 1999 and 2009, and didn’t miss a beat after breaking a pair of ribs in 2012. Though stooped and molasses-like on her feet, Justice Ginsburg shows no signs of intellectual decline, questioning lawyers with slicing precision during oral arguments. She also stays in physical shape: though she has given up water-skiing, the justice can still drop and give her trainer 20 “male” pushups.

But some of her strongest supporters say Justice Ginsburg’s 21st year on the bench should be her last. With Barack Obama on his way out in 2017, a Republican in the White House would have the opportunity to replace her with a conservative who could tip the balance on abortion rights, same-sex marriage, racial equality, gun control and many other critical issues.

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Our friend Jason Polan, an artist and noted Taco Bell enthusiast, sent us this report from the front lines of the battle to turn things that are not tacos into tacos.

I just tasted three new Taco Bell breakfast items!  

 I got an email yesterday morning from a man at a pr firm inviting me to an event this morning at the Taco Bell. I set my alarm for 8:30 so I could press snooze seven times before getting up, which still started my day earlier than I almost ever do. How does anybody get anything done before 10am? It is so hard.  

I did drink some water and brush my teeth and get dressed and then look at a mug in the sink and then look where the Taco Bell was in my phone.  I went outside and whenever I go out earlyish in the day (if I have to go to an airplane or something) I am always amazed other humans are doing anything that early.  I usually stay up late.  My body just felt weird and cold and weird as I walked to the train station.  I took an E Train to 34th Street and walked down past the big post office (it is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for self-service!) to the Taco Bell.

 As I approached, I passed a wall I think on 30th Street on the downtown side of the street that was facing uptown that had neat colors.  I wanted to take a picture of it for Instagram but the lighting was kind of gray outside and I thought I would check it after I left Taco Bell in the hopes that the sun had come out but now that I am at the Apple Store typing this I just remembered I forgot to do that (good story!).  

 When I got to Taco Bell there were signs on the front windows saying it was closed for a private event.  I walked in and a guy checked that my name was on his iPad and welcomed me and told me to go up to another guy.  I introduced myself to a lady who was with the pr firm because the guy was talking to someone.  She was nice and asked me who I worked for and I told her about Taco Bell Drawing Club and she had read about it on The New York Times!  She told me what I could order (and referred to me as “a friend of the brand” which I thought was funny).

 I don’t remember the names but one was a waffle with eggs and cheese and a sausage (that you can get with bacon instead) and another was a hexagonal crunchwrap supreme with bacon and eggs and cheese and a hash brown and the other was cinnamon balls.  I got everything (it was FREE!) and a coffee and then talked to the lady more.  There were five or six people behind the counter making the stuff and nobody else was in line so they were all focusing on your order and it took a while (or, not a while, it took like four minutes, but a while for Taco Bell which usually takes about 35 seconds.  I think they were just being particularly careful with these new things. 

The lady said I could take a video/set of pictures/gif of myself taking my first bite of the new items on a camera next to the front register to use for Facebook/twitter etc. if I wanted to but I was too uncomfortable to do that because of the very bright light attached to it and they were screening the already made videos on a big TV next to it.  

 I went and sat at a table and looked at what I got.  The box for the waffle taco said “right now I’m eating a waffle taco and you’re not” which I thought was kind of not terribly nice and possibly conceptually flawed.  If you are eating a waffle taco with someone they will see this writing upside down while they are eating, and they are probably eating a waffle taco too, right?  

Maybe this sign is meant to be a word balloon from inside the box.  Maybe there is a little turtle in there eating your waffle taco and he is just telling you what is going on.  In which case, this is not conceptually flawed but a nice way of giving a little turtle a voice.  I will probably think about this for the next three hours.  

Another guy then sat at the table.  He had already eaten and I introduced myself and he was really nice.  He writes for a website called Thrillist and it was a little bit of a relief to have somebody else there to talk to who was trying the new items.  I opened everything up and put it all together and then put syrup and salsa on everything because I wanted the full experience and then I started trying stuff.  The waffle taco was sweeter than I thought it would be and I liked the hash brown in the crunchwrap supreme shaped thing.  I liked the cinnamon balls!  

 A man came up to us and said hi and was kind of jokey and made a kind of inappropriate sexual reference joke about the cinnamon balls which was abstract enough to not be totally skeezy but realistic enough to make me feel skeezy for connecting it in my head.  He then said there were actually thirteen (I think he said thirteen) new items they are unveiling though there were just three today.  He said they didn’t want to go overboard with us tasting things and I said I would have eaten all of that (not jokingly) and he laughed.  Everybody was really positive and into Taco Bell.  I was really in my element!  

 As I was walking out the door they gave me a Taco Bell travel coffee mug and said, “You can open it later,” with kind of a wink.  I opened it right when I got outside the door and it had a twenty-dollar Taco Bell gift certificate in it. Is that weird to give to “press” people?  If so, I don’t care.  I am using it and if you want a taco and you’re with me I will use it to pay for yours, too. Because I would hate to be in a situation where I was eating a waffle taco and you were not.

Newly reunited post-rock outfit Slint have revealed dates for their first U.S. tour in seven years. The jaunt begins in Boston in late April and culminates with an appearance at Forecastle Festival in the band’s hometown of Louisville. See the full docket below. The tour coincides with the band’s reissue of Spiderland, due out April 15th through Touch and Go Records. The collection includes the seminal album, which has been completely remastered from the original tapes by Bob Weston, as well as 14 previously unreleased demos, outtakes, and more.

Slint Paradise Rock Club, Boston, MA Tue, Apr 29, 2014 07:00 PM

Elon Musk:

On Tuesday, under pressure from the New Jersey auto dealer lobby to protect its monopoly, the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, composed of political appointees of the Governor, ended your right to purchase vehicles at a manufacturer store within the state. Governor Christie had promised that this would be put to a vote of the elected state legislature, which is the appropriate way to change the law. When it became apparent to the auto dealer lobby that this approach would not succeed, they cut a backroom deal with the Governor to circumvent the legislative process and pass a regulation that is fundamentally contrary to the intent of the law.

Cogent and persuasive.

The response from New Jersey auto dealers? Makes them sound like characters from The Sopranos:

“This Musk guy, he wants all the profits for himself,” says Tom Dougherty, a 25-year veteran of the business who now works in sales at the BMW dealership in upscale Princeton, New Jersey. “They wanted to go direct, which means no sales force. That’s cutting out a lot of people. No way that’s gonna fly.”

A Farewell to Ted and Heather Kilpatrick Presented by: Free Pourin' Highballs & Friends

An eighteenth-century pattern book consisting of 36 ink drawings showing precise iconometric guidelines for depicting the Buddha and Bodhisattva figures. Written in Newari script with Tibetan numerals, the book was apparently produced in Nepal for use in Tibet. The concept of the ‘ideal image’ of the Buddha emerged during the Golden Age of Gupta rule, from the 4th to 6th century. As well as the proportions, other aspects of the depiction – such as number of teeth, colour of eyes, direction of hairs – became very important. The V&A have produced a good guide to the iconography of the Buddha, including the 32 Lakshanas or special bodily features.

Our research offers two alternative explanations. First, there’s race. The feeling of social exclusion stemming from their ethnic background might push Asian Americans away from the Republican Party. Many studies, like Henri Tajfel and John Turner’s work on the psychology of intergroup relations, have shown that one’s identification with a broad category of people—be it on the basis of language, ethnic or racial solidarity or some other trait—is important politically. Republican rhetoric implying that the (non-white) “takers” are plundering the (white) “makers” has cultivated a perception that the Republican Party is less welcoming of minorities. That might help explain why Asian Americans, despite their “maker” status, prefer the Democratic Party—even if the GOP doesn’t discriminate against Asians specifically. And many Asian-Americans do feel like they don’t get equal treatment. According to the 2008 National Asian American Survey, nearly 40 percent of Asian Americans suffered one of the following forms of racial discrimination in their lifetime: being unfairly denied a job or fired; unfairly denied a promotion at work; unfairly treated by the police; unfairly prevented from renting or buying a home; treated unfairly at a restaurant or other place of service; or been a victim of a hate crime. We found that self-reported racial discrimination was positively correlated with identification with the Democratic Party over the Republican Party.

Tuesday evening, a commuter on the T in Boston observed a man approach a woman and — without any prior interaction — tell her to lose weight. The observing passenger was outraged on the woman's behalf and, unable to confront the man before he got off the train, took to Craigslist to air her grievances in what might be the most appropriately scathing missed connection of all time:

Read more...

Grounded in the theory that ideas, emotions, and even events, can manifest as visible auras, Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater’s Thought-Forms (1901) is an odd and intriguing work. Benjamin Breen explores these “synesthetic” abstractions and asks to what extent they, and the Victorian mysticism of which they were born, influenced the Modernist movement that flourished in the following decades.

Tonx co-founder Tony Konecny:

The popularity of capsule coffee systems like K-Cups and Nespresso is a marketing marvel. GMCR estimates that around 13% of all U.S. households have one of their devices. But the real money comes from not from the razors but the blades. Ounce for ounce, consumers are generally paying anywhere from $35–60 a pound for the ground coffee inside these capsules. Lock-in is lucrative.

That’s an insane price for mass-produced quality coffee. The appeal of these machines escapes me — I wouldn’t want one even if the coffee prices were roughly in line with regular market prices. But at these prices it just seems nutty. Is it because they can brew just one cup at a time?

Update: Full disclosure: Tonx has been a recurring DF sponsor, but my interest here is in what people see in these pod brewers.

It made us angry to see great products like Google Reader shut down for no good reason. It was frightening when we heard The Old Reader might have to close its doors.

It’s easy to shrug your shoulders and just hope that there will always be great free software for content delivery. And if you do eventually have to join some closed social network, it can’t be that terrible, right? It might be controlled by a giant Internet company, but hey, it’ll be free, right?

Why Freemium is the Thing

Since we introduced Premium pricing for The Old Reader, we’ve gotten some thoughtful comments, as well as some pushback. Why should I pay for a technology that’s always been free? Isn’t the whole point of RSS that it’s part of the free Internet? I want to explain why we’re here and why we’ve adopted the Premium pricing plan ($2/month for 500 subscriptions with full-text search).

RSS has been neglected and abused, but as I’ve said before, I believe it will be the preferred content-delivery format once people tire of private/closed networks. Twitter, Facebook and the rest aren’t delivering content- they’re delivering you to advertisers. RSS doesn’t fit that model. That’s why the big players aren’t supporting it. 

Get Your Sponsored Content Somewhere Else

One of the most common questions we get is why didn’t we just bring in advertising. We settled on the freemium model because its the one that supports the service the best while doing the least harm. The more I use Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms, the more I see the subtle and insidious ways they control what I see, what I do, and what I can say, all in the name of advertising.

We’re trying to provide something the closed Internet doesn’t do- give you unfiltered access to the content you choose. The value in RSS is that it doesn’t try to make money by observing your online habits and feeding you sponsored content. But there are costs to making that possible.

We can learn more about you by building closed systems and tracking and targeting your every move and serving up ad content. But as we’ve said, ads introduce bias and distract from the primary purpose of RSS readers. RSS should aggregate the content you choose from the web, not push advertising to you.  

Besides, ads won’t work. Most of you won’t look at the ads. You will do what I do- block them with Adblock or some other tool or just flat out ignore them. Advertisements that don’t get attention don’t pay any bills. Then we’re forced to find ways to make those ads effective, or lose advertisers. That means putting our resources into forcing you to watch more ads, click on more ads, or some other gambit that has nothing to do with getting the content you want.

Finally, an RSS reader knows a lot about people’s interests, but we don’t want to exploit that fact. We should be using that information to find more stuff you like, not selling it to advertisers. We believe in privacy and do our best to protect it. To maximize ad revenues we’d need to violate your privacy to some degree.

It’s Not a Free Ride

But why should Premium users have to pay the bill for the free users? It’s important to remember that this is a social network, and the more friends you have to share with, the better. Not all your friends will be Premium/power RSS users. But the more people using the service, the more great content you can find. (And not sponsored content from advertisers.)

In addition, we hope that over time we are able to attract more and more of our free users to Premium accounts. We know it’ll be a small percentage but we’re working hard to build incredible functionality worthy of a small monthly fee. Besides, I know you’ve heard the “it’s less than cup of coffee” line a thousand times, but we REALLY think it’s a reasonable amount for the power you have. If you’re a power user, know that the money we make from your subscription will be plowed into development. Real, honest-to-goodness development.

I know that there are still free RSS readers available. The Old Reader was completely free until a couple weeks ago. And for the VAST majority of our users it still can be completely free. The freemium model is important because we’re focused on making this a sustainable service that won’t be closing.

In The Words of a Wise Man…

Our goal isn’t just to keep The Old Reader chugging along, but to build an online platform and community that is an alternative to the Facebooks and Twitters of the world. I think Dave Winer said it best when he wrote in our blog comments:

We have as a community, been boring the hell out of users.

This what happens when a product doesn’t introduce any new features for 10 years! :-)

I’m talking about RSS, as a product — vs its competitors, Twitter and Facebook, which have been actively pushing new goodies for users.

We are not doing that in RSS.

So if we want to get users on board, and other developers, we have to move.

Everyone’s been doing it for themselves, and no one has been willing to go first with a new feature that might delight users, and inspire their competitors to follow them.

If we want to have a good open alternative to Twitter and Facebook, we have to do some new stuff!

We’re committed to the open web and giving you the best possible reading experience without sneaking in ads. And we’re also not going to be using your private information to sell you anything or help others sell you anything. That’s not just a promise. That’s the principle behind Premium membership. 

Critics note that the model is limited by its strict chronological structure. However, those critics are mostly Asian, and therefore biased.

Stephen Clark of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association said that his organization was supportive of 90 percent of the legislation but raised concerns about current license holders and a possible dramatic change to the bar and restaurant landscape. "What this legislation fails to address in its current form is how to treat those operators that have a license," said Clark.

It is not a speakeasy because speakeasies don’t serve ramen.

Join us for an interactive evening of conversation and live performance with Marissa Nadler, celebrating her new record ‘July’.

How To Build Modern Furniture by Mario Dal Fabbro, McGraw-Hill, 1957
(back cover table of contents!)