BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE:OBJECTS, THINGS, IDEAS, ETC.

COAL

“Not all coal is the same. The lowest ranks –the
closest to peat—are lignite and the sub-bituminous
coal, known in Britain  as brown coal.  These have
been estimated to make up nearly a third of proved
global reserves, but are not much exploited in areas
where higher-grade coal is available, because they
produce a lot of  smoke and relatively little heat 
(they are also difficult to transport  and store, not 
least because they can spontaneously combust).”

Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite. “Tesco and a Motorway”
In London Review of Books (9 September 2021)

**
A CHUNK OF WOOD

Dorothy Kilgallen’s “dad also won Dorothy’s heart by
bringing a chunk of wood from actor Rudolf Valentino’s
coffin. Jim had carved the letters ‘DMK’ on it.”

Mark Shaw. The Reporter Who Knew Too  Much
(Franklin, TN: Post Hill Press, 2016)

**


COATS & A JACKET

“(JIMMY) Durante came out in a raccoon coat and
a hat pulled down over his forehead. ‘ Take off your
hat and coat and awhile,’ Jackson called. Durante 
pulled off the raccoon coat ], and under it was 
another fur coat. When he took this off, there was 
another fur coat. When this one was pulled off, 
there was still another coat. Durante got that 
one off and now was in a full dress coat, which 
he tugged off and showed that he still had on a 
dinner jacket.
  ‘Did you expect a storm?’  Jackson called from
 a chair.
   ‘I didn’t expect it. I brought it with me.’”

Jimmy Breslin. Damon Runyon: A Life (New York:
Ticknor & Fields, 1991)

**

ON THE PAPER  AND OIL-BASSED INK THAT THE LONDON 
REVIEW USED TO PRINT ITS UK ISSUES


“A forty-page issue requires eight metric tonnes 
of paper, shipped from Finland in rolls nearly two 
metres wide, to fulfill just the UK part of the 
print run (roughly 55,000 copies, about 60 per 
cent of the total) . The oil-based ink is fixed 
onto the paper by spraying it with water and running 
it through vast ovens, a process known as heat-setting. 
Instead of drying, the ink sets
Like cooling wax. After that the paper is flung 
four metres up onto air-blowing rollers to dry, 
then it’s cut and the magazine assembled.”

Malin Hay. “Paper Cuts” in The London Review of Books
(24 March 2022)

**

GETTING TO THE POINT

“A nib is not a pen – not even a steel pen – though
the word is often used in that sense: it is the point
of a pen. Nevertheless, the word ‘nib’ takes us back
to the very beginning of writing, the invention of
which was ascribed by the ancient Egyptians to the
God Thoth. He was the scribe of the gods and was typified on earth by the sacred Ibis, the bird which stood on the river flats writing mystic signs on the
smooth mud with his long pointed beak. And this beak
may rightly be called a ‘nib,’ for the word ‘nib’ is the
same as ‘neb,’ which means a beak.”

Basil Hargrave. Origins and Meanings of Popular 
Phrases & Names (London: T. Werner Laurie Ltd.,
MCMXXV

ON FLIP BOOKS

"The oldest known documentation of the flip book 
appeared on 18 March 1868, when it was patented 
by John Barnes Linnett under the name Kineograph
 ("moving picture"). They were the first form of 
animation to employ a linear sequence of images 
rather than circular (as in the older phenakistoscope).
 The German film pioneer, Max Skladanowsky, first 
exhibited his serial photographic images in flip
 book form in 1894, as he and his brother Emil did 
not develop their own film projector until the 
following year. In 1894, Herman Casler invented 
a mechanized form of flip book called the Mutoscope, 
which mounted the pages on a central rotating 
cylinder rather than binding them in a book. 
The mutoscope remained a popular attraction 
through the mid-twentieth century, appearing 
as coin-operated machines in penny arcades and 
amusement parks. In 1897, the English filmmaker
 Henry William Short marketed his "Filoscope", 
which was a flip book placed in a metal holder to 
facilitate flipping.
By 1948, an "automated multiple camera" for the 
production of "Pocket Movie flip book" portraits 
was marketed in the USA.This was a relatively 
early use of the term "flip book" that turned 
more common from the 1950s onward."

From WIKIPEDIA

**
DEATH RAYS

"The most spectacular of the proposed application
of electricity was the death ray, a concentrated
beam of electricity that could destroy people. 
Vehicles, or structures. H.G.Wells is usually 
credited with first imagining the death ray 
wielded by the invading Martians in his 1898
War of The Worlds, and may have been inspired 
by the discovery of x-rays a few years earlier."

John J. Corn and Brian Hoppigan. "Yesterday's
Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future
(The John Hopkins University, 1984)