Diamond Jim

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• Commented on Photos of science fiction writers' nests
  Wasn't this featured on BB previously? I have it bookmarked and I wonder where else I could have found the link. Joe Haldeman is way my favorite. I wish I could tell what fountain pen he's writing with....
• Commented on Charles Babbage comic
  Cool, but what I'd really like to see illustrated is the meeting between Babbage and C.L. Dodgson. Dodgson wanted a Difference Engine; Babbage politely informed him that none were available, and otherwise, just as one would expect, they got on...
• Commented on Blog about awful library books
  I gather what they mean is books that are outmoded (CARE AND FEEDING OF YOUR EIGHT-TRACK, though that isn't an actual example) and therefore worthy of "weeding" from libraries, so "awful" is at best misleading. Apart from numerous instances of...
• Commented on The Whistling Island of La Gomera
  Where I first heard of La Gomera: ". . . the Gomerians whistling from the high ravines (terrific falls, steepness, whistling straight down the precipice to a toy village lying centuries, miles below . . .) [snip] and you listened...
• Commented on Vanity Fair illustrator Ed Sorel
  In spite of being a copyeditor, I loathe spelling nitpicks, but--it's "Sorel" with one ell. As is clear from his signature. That said, I've always loved his work--he might be the last great cartoonist left from the New Yorker's golden...
• Commented on Elsevier has <em>an entire division</em> dedicated to publishing fake advertorial "peer-reviewed" journals
  Even without the fake journals, Elsevier is a lump of concentrated evil in the academic publishing sphere. Here's a link to supplement Cupcake Faerie's @3: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2008/11/elsevier-beyond-the-pale-of-scientific-respectability.ars They've been pulling this stuff since I was an academic, way back in the...
• Commented on Swine Flu Portraits from Mexico City
  The Mayor of Toronto (who may actually be a more prolific tweeter than Xeni, believe it or not) linked to a remarkable set the other day: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthpicturegalleries/5243655/Decorated-swine-flu-surgical-masks-in-Mexico.html...
• Commented on Monasteries as hotels
  There's a humongous church in Greenwich Village, on West 10th or 11th or 12th Street, that was converted to co-ops not long before I moved to New York in 1983--the earliest example of such conversion I know of. It's the...
• Commented on Putumayo Presents India music compilation
  Slightly OT because this thread is about CDs, but for me the go-to site for Bollywood musical clips is http://sparklehayter.blogspot.com/. Completely OT, Sparkle Hayter's comic mystery novels are also well worth checking out. No affiliation, just a fan....
• Commented on How to get a better line from your fountain pen's nib
  Echoing earlier comments, Wim Geeraets is both very insane and very, very lucky. If he'd ruined his Pelikan M800 nib a new one would have cost him around two Franklins. A new Waterman Edson (whose nibs, unlike Pelikans, are not...
• Commented on Playlist of great movie themes
  Bernard Herrmann needs to be on this list several more times, particularly for NORTH BY NORTHWEST....
• Commented on European Anatomy Museums on Flickr
  I didn't know about the photography ban--I hope you'll add the drawings to your Flickr stream at some point!...
• Commented on European Anatomy Museums on Flickr
  Certainly an enticing collection. I haven't had time to examine it all, but I'm surprised that none of the pictures I've looked at happen to be from the Hunterian Collection of the Royal College of Surgeons, London's version of the...
• Commented on Maggot cheese that tries to eat your eyes
  I was all ready to write to Anthony Bourdain about this, but of course he's beaten us all to it: http://anthony-bourdain-blog.travelchannel.com/read/my-summer-vacation-social-studies...
• Commented on Women in science group want a female Doctor Who
  She'd never agree to spend six months a year in Wales, but there's one woman who was positively born to play the Doctor, once you think about it. Tilda Swinton....
• Commented on Photo gallery of female body builders
  Am I the only one who's reminded of Robert Mapplethorpe's book of photos of female bodybuilders, with text by--of all people--Bruce Chatwin?...
• Commented on Soviet bunker as theme park
  I'm two days late to this one--thank goodness Retchdog nailed it at #1!...
• Commented on Fake NYT hits streets: Iraq War Ends
  Anonymous @43, not to be a pedant or anything, but "Steal This Book" was written by Abbie Hoffman....
• Commented on Librarian fined $500 for saying nice things about his daughter's book
  Too bad the daughter didn't illustrate that other play of Shakespeare's. You know, the one where the guy insists on his pound of flesh....
• Commented on Spicy chili kills amateur chef
  As someone who has suffered from anaphylactic shock, I think Michaelrn @19 has it right. I've had attacks characterized by intense itching followed by syncope, or as civilians call it, fainting. Not pretty when it happens on the subway, but...
• Commented on Cards as Weapons, by Ricky Jay
  Wow, I have a copy in not at all bad condition, but no way am I selling it either. I didn't know 52 Assistants was ever filmed. Jack Womack once sent me into paroxysms of envy by recounting how he'd...
• Commented on Mary Blair's Alice in Wonderland
  Android can speak for him- or herself, but I'm at a loss to understand why one has to be "grumpy" to dislike the work of Jon Scieszka, or to think that Lewis Carroll told Alice's story quite well enough that...
• Commented on Public Squares art group celebrate Toronto blackout anniversary
  This event can't have been all that disruptive. I live two blocks away--I can see the intersection from my balcony and the Seven-Eleven whose lighted awning is visible at the left of the photo is where I buy my milk--and...
• Commented on Kafka's porn stash goes public
  Is this the James Hawes whose terrible novel RANCID ALUMINIUM was turned into one of the worst movies ever made (with himself as the screenwriter)?...
• Commented on Jack Womack's underappreciated masterpiece, "Random Acts of Senseless Violence"
  Try reading it on a New York City subway some time. People will clear a space around you. Oh, and like everything of Jack's, it's a damn terrific book....
• Commented on Jewelry created from plasticized human milk
  Casein has been used to make fountain pens for nigh on a hundred years. Pen expert and nib customizer Richard Binder explains on his site (www.richardspens.com) that casein is "A material of which pens are made, a durable plasticlike substance...
• Commented on LA Times on guerrilla gardeners
  Good on all guerilla gardeners, but give props to their grandfather, Adam Purple, and his still-missed Garden of Eden. http://www.geocities.com/rev-les-ego/gardenofeden.html...
• Commented on Futuristic 1931 miniatures depict NYC in 1980
  Sounds impressive, but probably doesn't measure up to the New York City Panorama--the 1964 World's Fair's version of Google Earth. http://www.queensmuseum.org/panorama/about.htm...
• Commented on HOWTO make "rotten shark"
  Anthony Bourdain calls this "the single worst, most disgusting and terrible tasting thing" he's ever eaten, and that's really saying something. Check out the Iceland episode of No Reservations (and even better, the special behind-the-scenes episode about how miserable a...
• Commented on The lost NY Times steampunk feature
  "Paul Di Filippo, the author of 'The Steampunk Trilogy,' the historical science fiction novellas that lent the culture its name." Oh, please, NYT. Is K.W. Jeter (who, ahem, only coined the word) ever gonna get any respect? First he's misidentified...