The Dixie Square Shopping Center in Harvey, IL was left trashed and smashed after Jake, Elwood, and hundreds of cops tore it up on the set of ‘The Blues Brothers.’ Jalopnik could the inside story of what happened to the mall after it was used for the movie. Once the crew left (the mall in [...]
history
Yes, Margaret Thatcher died this morning. Politics aside, this caught my eye: Margaret Thatcher helped invent soft-serve ice cream, so says The Atlantic’s Megan Garber. Thatcher, you see, before she was a politician, was a research chemist. The future prime minister, then Margaret Roberts, received a degree in chemistry from Oxford in 1947. And she [...]
“The Exploding Hearts are the biggest “what if” in the history of Portland music.” So begins the Willamette Week’s fascinating look back at the ill-fated power-pop-punk band that released one album, ‘Guitar Romantic‘, ten years ago this week. Sadly, on the way home from a series of concerts in San Francisco just fourth months later, the [...]
A long lost interview with Doors front man Jim Morrison has been animated as part of a newish series from PBS called Blank on Blank. Blank on Blank has my undivided attention with this rare 1969 interview between journalist Howard Smith and Morrison, in which Morrison confesses that his late-in-life fatness was desirable. It’s funny [...]
Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Lawrence Kasdan met over several days in 1978 to spitball ideas for a movie about an adventurous archaeologist whose weapon of choice was a bullwhip. The New Yorker has a nice recap of the transcript of that spitballing session for what eventually became Indiana Jones, obviously. I love the quote [...]
Care for a tipple? Rye whiskey using George Washington’s own recipe will soon go on sale at the first president’s Mount Vernon estate in Virginia. The presidential home reconstructed Washington’s distillery and will make more than 1,100 bottles of unaged whiskey available beginning April 4. The bottles sell for $95 each. Mount Vernon says the [...]
From left to right: Thom Yorke, Phil Selway, Ed O’Brien, and Colin Greenwood. That’s four of the band’s current five members back in the mid-80s when they were originally called On a Friday. [via kottke]
A few things you might not have know about ketchup before reading this fascinating history/etymology of the condiment: Ketchup originates from Fujian, China, which is odd because traditional Chinese cooking is typically devoid of tomatoes. Actually, that’s a bit of an overstatement as tomatoes play practically no part in China’s diet. Where did the tomato [...]
As it turns out, beer (and alcohol more generally) allowed early humans to break away from their social constraints, which paid more dividends than typically found at a kegger. Five core social instincts, I have argued, gave structure and strength to our primeval herds. They kept us safely codependent with our fellow clan members, assigned us [...]
What can the history of transportation in America teach us about the future of private automobile ownership in America? Quite a bit, actually, according to Maurie Cohen, an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Environmental Science at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Cohen reasons that the automobile is no different from other [...]
