Oh, Those Germans! Insane Method of Transporting Deathly Ill Sailors in 1905

Sure, the idea of going back in the past has its temptations.  Hobnobbing with a young Einstein.  Enjoying the pleasures of Gay Paree.  Killing off a certain Austrian street artist. But getting sick in the past is not one of them.  Witness this 1905 German Naval method of transporting sick or wounded sailors from one… Continue reading Oh, Those Germans! Insane Method of Transporting Deathly Ill Sailors in 1905

Johnny Cash Has Five Minutes to Live!

Johnny Cash, Five Minutes to Live - 1961

He’s a goddamn door-to-door maniac! He’s a milky faced, baby-faced cruel psychopath of a guitar-strumming KILLER. It’s our favorite warbler–Johnny Cash, in the late noir thriller Five Minutes to Live, directed by Ludlow Flower, Jr., who cast his wife Cay Forrester in the role of imperiled housewife Nancy Wilson. Definitely late noir:  it came out… Continue reading Johnny Cash Has Five Minutes to Live!

Twilight Zone: “We All Know What Became of Bonnie Beecher”

And I chose Bonnie Beecher, and we all know what became of Bonnie Beecher. William Froug, in The Twilight Zone Companion, by Marc Scott Zicree These are the curious words uttered by Twilight Zone producer William Froug, in reference to a May 22, 1964 episode  titled “Come Wander With Me.” What Froug was so upset… Continue reading Twilight Zone: “We All Know What Became of Bonnie Beecher”

BZhRK Barguzin Russian Rail Missile Had Precedent with Peacekeeper Rail System, 1986

Peacekeeper Rail Garrison Car Cutaway, 1986

Over at Popular Mechanics, Kyle Mizokami reports that Russia is developing a rail-mounted system of mobile ICBMs that will constantly rove the country, making “the country’s nuclear arsenal more mobile and thus more difficult to locate in wartime.” Fantastic idea.  But it’s hardly a new idea. The Peacekeeper Rail Garrison Car Program was developed by… Continue reading BZhRK Barguzin Russian Rail Missile Had Precedent with Peacekeeper Rail System, 1986

“Forever” Mid-Century Homes of Steel and Concrete: Invisible, Forgotten Whittier Hugheston Meadows

Forever House, LA Times Ad - 1953

Honeysuckle Lane.  It sounds too good to be true, too mid-century-modern-suburban, like Desperate Housewives’ Wisteria Lane or a David Lynch dream.  But it did exist in the imagination of two Southern California brother developers, two famous MCM architects, and it still does exist today.  And it promised a new kind of building that would never… Continue reading “Forever” Mid-Century Homes of Steel and Concrete: Invisible, Forgotten Whittier Hugheston Meadows