As Arte Johnson used to say: "Very interesting"

An interesting piece of art -- located in Stockholm, Sweden (I think).

MAN IN INDIA EATS ENTIRE FOOD SUPPLY AT ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT JOINT

Amit Varma writes in the Hindustan Times about how doctors in a South Indian town had to curb the appetite of a gentleman named Rappai. College students took sweet revenge on a restauranteur with Rappai’s help. On several occasions, the cops had to intervene to rein in the monstrous eater. He took an “unlimited meals” coupon and emptied the day’s food -- three buckets full of rice, one bucket of fish curry and 10 kg cooked meat -- in no time at all. Finally, law-enforcement officers had to be called in to end his sumptuous feast.

MARLIN EXACTS REVENGE ON FISHERMAN

A marlin fisherman in Bermuda was nearly killed by his would-be prey on Saturday. After Ian Card hooked a 14 foot marlin, it jumped from the water, speared Card near his collarbone, and pulled him into the ocean. Card is recovering from surgery. No word on the marlin. (From the Associated Press with photo by Carlos Bentos [but not the same Marlin])

THEY'RE A HOT ITEM BUT THEY'RE NOT NEW

Electric/gasoline hybrids are a hot item today, but are not new. This 1916 Woods Dual Power was an early attempt to combine the advantages of both forms of power. Owned by the Henry Ford Museum, the Woods Dual Power had a 14-hp four-cylinder gasoline engine and an electric motor. It was only produced two years, although the Woods Electric had been in production since 1903. More interesting facts can be found at the Detroit Evening News joyrides (http://info.detnews.com/joyrides/index.cfm), (Photo by Richard A. Wright).

SPEED RECORD SHATTERED IN L. A. TO SAN DIEGO TRIP IN JUST 5 3/4 HOURS

July 24, 1907: Harris Hanshue shattered the speed record for driving between Los Angeles and San Diego, The Times reported.

"Hanshue covered the 140 miles of the coast route in 5 hours and 45 minutes. He left the Hotel Alexandria at 4:30 o'clock and arrived at the Hotel Brewster in San Diego at 10:15," the newspaper said. Driving a two-cylinder Reo similar to the 1906 Reo shown above (which is owned by Clem Campbell of Milan, Michigan), he knocked nearly 1 1/2 hours off the previous record of seven hours and 10 minutes.

"While the average pace set during the run was a little over 24 miles an hour, at the beginning of the journey the roads were better, and Hanshue reeled off 63 miles in the first two hours," The Times said. "After this he found the going very rutty and was compelled to slow down."

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO DISCOVER ANOTHER YOSEMITE VALLEY ??

Restoring this spectacular glacial gorge that John Muir considered one of the national park's scenic treasures could cost $3 billion and possibly as much as $10 billion according to a state report released Wednesday.
About twenty miles northwest of the spectacular Yosemite Valley once lay a similar but smaller valley known as the Hetch Hetchy. (The name comes from the Miwok language, meaning "grass-seed valley" or "acorn valley.") The free-flowing waters of the Tuolumne River raced through the valley floor. Waterfalls cascaded over magnificent granite cliffs. The photo above shows the Hetch Hetchy Valley in the early 1900s and in the photo below we see the same view today.

Meanwhile, the population of faraway San Francisco was growing steadily in the early 1900s. Officials began searching for new supplies of water for the city. After considering several possibilities, they selected the waters of the Tuolumne River and decided to build a dam across the river to form a reservoir in the Hetch Hetchy Valley.

When plans for the dam and reservoir were announced, John Muir and other conservationists objected. Muir said that the flooding of the Hetch Hetchy would be like destroying one of nature's great cathedrals. In spite of Muir's spirited objections, Congress in 1913 approved the building of the dam and reservoir. Muir was greatly saddened when he heard the news. Brokenhearted, he died a few months later.

Construction of the dam began in 1914 and was completed within nine years. An aqueduct carrying water from the reservoir to San Francisco was in full operation by 1934. Today the Hetch Hetchy provides San Franciscans with about 85 percent of their water.

Above we see the Hetch Hetchy today. The valley has been flooded since 1914.

AN INCREDIBLE VIEW

It's more than a mountain. Denali National Park & Preserve features North America's highest mountain, 20,320-foot tall Mount McKinley. The Alaska Range also includes countless other spectacular mountains and many large glaciers. Denali's more than 6 million acres also encompass a complete sub-arctic eco-system with large mammals such as grizzly bears, wolves, Dall sheep, and moose.
The park was established as Mt. McKinley National Park on Feb. 26, 1917. The original park was designated a wilderness area and incorporated into Denali National Park and Preserve in 1980.

How were Mickey Spillane's books viewed by America's mid-century intelligensia? Like a .45 slug in Decency's gut. Like a thick-fingered punk . . .

. . . unsnapping Literature's bra. Like Style's one-way ticket to hell. But the critics didn't know Mickey Spillane, and it turns out that Spillane knew a lot about how the public would react to his writings. In 1947, tough guy Mike Hammer put a .45 slug just below his naked lover's navel, a killing shot that also served as a starter's gun for American pulp fiction. Whatever literary social constraints that might have existed before disappeared as the paperback version of Mickey Spillane's sex- and violence-filled "I, the Jury" became a postwar publishing phenomenon.

It can be hard sometimes to look back and see the importance of little events before they echo, or to look at the creation of a cliché and recognize it as fresh in its moment. But that's what Spillane's debut novel was. A small book that barely sold as a hardcover, "I, the Jury" went on to shatter some norms, create others and transform the world of the paperback novel. And it added a core of darkness to literary perceptions of the American hero, with Spillane, who died Monday, establishing Hammer as what writer Robert Parker described this week as a "vigilante lone wolf."

"I don't know that [Spillane] did anything that hadn't been done already, but he did it pulpily, with a coarse bravado," said Parker, a former English professor and creator of Spenser, a sharp and hard-edged Boston private eye. "Mick was nothing if not pulpily garish. Vulgar, in the best sense of the word." (You can read the article by Scott Martelle in its entirety at www.latimes.com).

ROSEMARY CLOONEY REINVENTED HERSELF AND EACH TIME SHE BECAME AN EVEN GREATER TALENT

"Rosemary Clooney (1928-2002),an American musical treasure
and one of the best friends a song ever had." Completing 6 decades as one of America’s most beloved entertainers, Rosemary Clooney garnered numerous awards and may best be recognized for her starring role with Bing Crosby in “White Christmas.” The Wall Street Journal called this Girl Singer “A pop icon and spoken in the same breath as Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald.” Her last recording with Concord Records, "Sentimental Journey" garnered her a Grammy Nomination. She was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award on February 28, 2002.

Born May 23, 1928, in Maysville, Kentucky. The distinctively unpretentious, deep, rich, and smooth voice of Rosemary Clooney earned her recognition as one of America's premiere pop and jazz singers. According to Clooney's record company press biography, Life magazine, in a tribute to America's "girl singers" named her one of "six preeminent singers ... whose performances are living displays of a precious national treasure ... their recordings a preservation of jewels." First-class crooner Frank Sinatra stated, as was also reprinted in Clooney's press biography, "Rosemary Clooney has that great talent which exudes warmth and feeling in every song she sings. She's a symbol of good modern American music."

HERE'S TODAY'S ASTRONOMY "PICTURE OF THE DAY" -- pretty neat, huh ??

We all knew this day would come . . .

MORE COOL ART TO MESS WITH YOUR HEAD

AN AMERICAN FIRST

• In 1924, Walter Hagen became the first American golfer to win the Open Championship at Hoylake. Hagen, facing a tricky, downhill six-foot putt at the 72nd hole to claim his second Open title, appeared stunningly nonchalant in simply stepping up and knocking the ball into the cup. Asked afterward if he had, in fact, been aware that the putt was to win, Hagen famously replied, "Sure I knew, but no man ever beat me in a playoff." That was a splendid bit of bravado, considering that only nine months earlier, Gene Sarazen had turned out his lights on the 38th hole of the 1923 PGA Championship finale.

GRAND SLAM IN 1930

Bobby Jones, right, and journalist O.B. Keeler pose by the major trophies Jones won in 1930, when he took golf's Grand Slam. Jones won the British Open Championship at Hoylake after winning the British Amateur, the U. S. Open and the U. S. Amateur earlier.

BEFORE THERE WERE TRACT HOMES THERE WERE "DO IT YOURSELF KITS"

"It fairly breathes happiness," this ad said of a Pacific kit home. (circa: 1919)
This page from a Pacific Homes catalog details all the parts needed to build a house, along with numbers.
Materials were delivered by box car to the local train station.

FOR ONCE IN OUR LIFETIME

Jason Bay (2006) was the first Pittsburgh Pirates position player to start an All-Star game since 1944.

From the Gateway Arch "you can see forever"

The Gateway Arch is the nation's tallest monument, glinting like a jetliner in the Midwestern sun. From 16 windows across the top, you can see 30 miles east or west. The elevator trip costs $8 and takes you 630 feet into the air. For a little perspective, that's 75 feet higher than the Washington Monument. Look down and you'll see the Mississippi River - the same one that hypnotized Mark Twain and T.S. Eliot, both from St. Louis - which has riverboat rides and floating poker games. (J.B. Forbes / St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

HOW THE BRAIN REGISTERS COLOR, TEXTURE AND MOVEMENT

Brian Wills

The Happy Lion
963 Chung King Road, L.A.

Unconventional materials such as dental floss, vinyl tape, varnish and basswood are used in paintings to investigate optics and how the brain registers color, texture and movement.

Through Jul. 29

Hours: Wed.-Sat., noon-6 p.m. through July 29

Information: 213-625-1360 www.thehappylion.com

FANGED KANGAROOS AND THE "DEMON DUCK OF DOOM" ONCE ROAMED AUSTRALIA

Before there were cuddly koalas, hordes of flesh-eating kangaroos, "demon ducks" and marsupial lions roamed Australia's outback, according to paleontologists' recent fossil discoveries announced Wednesday.

A team from the University of New South Wales working in the eastern state of Queensland made the discoveries in three new fossil deposits. Many of the fossils are older than 24 million years; one of the deposits is thought to contain fossils up to 500 million years old. A saber-toothed kangaroo and a 10-foot-tall bird scientists nicknamed the "demon duck of doom" were among the largely unknown species uncovered. The remains of a meat-eating kangaroo with wolf-like fangs were found as well as a galloping kangaroo with long forearms that could not hop like a modern kangaroo. Because they didn’t hop, these were galloping kangaroos, with big, powerful forelimbs. Some of them had long canines (fangs) like wolves.

The species of large birds found at the dig had well muscled-in teeth, not for grazing. These things had slicing crests that could have crunched through bone and sliced off flesh. Very big birds … more like ducks, earned the name "demon duck of doom", some at least may have been carnivorous as well. The illustration above shows a Goatsucker -- perhaps a relative of the fanged kangaroo.

PICKFAIR WAS AS ELUSIVE AS CAMELOT

It was Pickfair. The Beverly Hills estate fused the lives and names of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, two of the most famous movie stars in the world. They made 1920s Hollywood a virtual kingdom, themselves its king and queen, and Pickfair its Camelot. But really, it turned out that Pickfair was as elusive as Camelot and as mutable as L.A. itself.

Over nearly a hundred years, the hunting cabin became a comfortable home, then a mansion, then a grand makeover, then a fixer-upper, and finally, in spite of its pedigree, a teardown, with a mega-mansion built on its bones. Its 15 or so acres ended up cut and cubed like a Waldorf salad. Pickford, its first, fabled chatelaine, died a recluse in her upstairs bedroom. Its second chatelaine, Pia Zadora, made some bad films and some better albums, a never-quite star whose rich husband could buy her Pickford's home but not her talent.

Like all L.A. real estate stories, Pickfair's incarnations can be charted in its price. Before World War I, when Beverly Hills was still wilderness, a banker spent $3,000 on the rustic lodge and wild land. By 1920, Fairbanks had forked over $35,000, and built himself and his bride a bigger place.

The original neighborhood was a whimsical, back-lot jumble of architectural styles all on the same street: Craftsman, Colonial, Greek classical, ranch house, Spanish stucco, half-timbered Tudor. Pickfair, in its near-century of life, has incarnated something of almost all of those styles.

The hunting bungalow became a sprawling green-gabled, copper-roofed Tudor-Colonial with what was reputed to be the first private swimming pool in L.A. (with an inflatable shark toy).

Here, over the next dozen years, the golden couple of the silver screen hosted the world's royalty alongside Hollywood's. Garbo and Chaplin broke bread with Britain's Prince George, son of one king, brother of two more. Einstein and Lindbergh dined on plates that Napoleon gave to Josephine.

In 1927, confident in her status as first lady of the film world, Mary offered Pickfair to Calvin Coolidge as a summer White House. Coolidge declined.

The architect Wallace Neff, whose name carries more star power now than many of the luminaries he designed homes for, was summoned to Pickfair in 1932. Tear it down, he told Doug and Mary, and start over. After they said no, Neff settled for building an L-shaped veranda and the east and west wings that Doug and Mary would soon occupy separately and sulkily until they split up in 1936.

Into the 1970s, Pickfair ran on Emily Post white-glove rules. Mary observed the charity garden parties from her upstairs bedroom window, watching to see that no ladies in pantsuits showed up at Pickfair.

By the time Mary died in 1979, only about three acres of her kingdom remained. Pickfair looked modest in a neighborhood of mogul mansions. Its original six rooms had grown to 22 and then to 42, but in 1980 a prospective buyer had fretted at having only eight servants' rooms.

Jerry Buss, the Lakers owner, bought it in 1980 for a price shaved from $10 million, to $8 million, to $5,362,500. The probate judge who dropped the gavel on the sale remarked, "It must be a fixer-upper." Some waggish journo renamed it "Bussfare," but the name didn't stick, and neither did Buss. He didn't so much take the place over as keep it up, updating the plumbing and kitchen and restoring the woodwork. It was too big for his empty-nest bachelorhood, and in 1988 Pickfair was sold for $6,675,000, to businessman Meshulam Riklis and Zadora, his wife.

Which brings us to Pickfair in the era of the mini-estate, an oxymoron that evidently troubles no one, because they're popping up from Tustin to Santa Clarita. As lot sizes get smaller, the houses on them get bigger. Pickfair — which seemed so grand in the 1920s — was converted in the 1990s into a town in miniature, with spa, gym, salon, sound studio, massage room and disco. The guesthouse built for Zadora's secretary was slightly bigger than the original Pickfair itself.

Here is where L.A. and older America part company: In the L.A. arm-wrestling match between history and housing, the market wins. In 1990, the Pickfair contractor announced that termites were in residence at 1143 Summit Drive. Pickfair was a teardown. The bulldozers, unimpeded by interfering preservationists, put an end to a legend of 70 years, which is a very long time in such a very new town as this.

Now the Venetian palazzo put up in its place, the one with the spa and the sound studio and the decorating ideas from Versailles and the Sistine Chapel, has also been sold, to a neighbor, for close to $18 million — reduced, after more than a year on the market, to less than half its asking price. In parallel with the evolving demographics of the metropolis at its feet, Pickfair's newest master is an immigrant, Korean-born businessman Corry Hong. He'd heard of the place, and "the more I know," he says, "the more I understand and appreciate the architecture and history." When Riklis signed the papers, Hong saw tears in his eyes; "He told me, 'Corry, you're responsible, enjoy this precious place' … I will cherish that."

Other cities might have made a monument of Pickfair. Other cities shudder at the shock of the new, at the razing of something venerable. Here, we have no shock of the new. We embrace the new, revel in it — its cleanness, its unburdened blankness. It's the shock of the old that unsettles us, makes us uneasy with the outdated, the obsolete, the inconvenient detritus of former lives and old tastes. And Pickfair? Will Rogers, the humorist and Beverly Hills' first mayor, used to say the biggest part of his job was telling tourists how to get there. Now, he'd just direct them to the history books.