Read Uncle John’s Fast-Acting Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader Online
Authors: Michael Brunsfeld
BUFFY BITS
• In the 1998 season Buffy, ironically, fell in love with a vampire. That character, named Angel (played by David Boreanaz), was so popular he got his own show,
Angel
. It aired from 1999 to 2004.
• Among the actors who launched their careers on
Buffy:
Sarah Michelle Gellar
(Scooby-Doo)
, Seth Green
(Austin Powers)
, and Alyson Hannigan
(American Pie)
.
• In the episode “Hush,” demons that can only be killed by a human scream steal the voices of everyone in Sunnydale, leaving them free to run wild. More than half the episode is dialogue-free. Whedon received
Buffy
’s only major Emmy nomination for this nearly wordless episode—in the writing category.
But too cold for swimming: There are more than three million lakes in Alaska.
Musical taste is very subjective. But how many times have you found yourself in a music store, staring at thousands of CDs by artists you’ve never heard of, wondering which ones are worth listening to? It happens to us all the time—so we decided to offer a few recommendations. They’re not necessarily weird or obscure…just good
.
S
TEVIE WONDER
Innervisions
(1973)
Soul
Review:
“When Wonder discovered that he was stretching the limits of what pop could include, the most visionary of his albums was undoubtedly
Innervisions
, an interconnected suite of songs—many of them segue right into each other—but it’s not of the self-indulgent variety implied in the hazy album title.”
(The Best Rock N’ Roll Records of All Time)
ELLA FITZGERALD & LOUIS ARMSTRONG
Ella and Louis
(1957)
Jazz/Pop
Review:
“An inspired collaboration. Both stars were riding high at this stage in their careers. Equally inspired was the choice of material, with the gruffness of Armstrong’s voice blending like magic with Fitzgerald’s stunningly silky delivery. Gentle and sincere.”
(All-Time Top 1,000 Albums)
VOICES ON THE VERGE
Live in Philadelphia
(2001)
Folk/Pop
Review:
“Take four up-and-coming female singer/songwriters, put them in a room with some acoustic guitars, and turn on the tape recorder. The disc is not merely a round robin—the women sing and play on each other’s songs, expanding one another’s styles. It showcases the best of what these women have to offer and lets their hidden talents emerge.”
(Rolling Stone)
STONE ROSES
Stone Roses
(1989)
Rock
Review:
“As close to perfection as pop gets. The songs are wonder-rockets, a mixture of styles segueing beautifully thanks to production so flawless it’s as if the producer was playing a violin. It weaves an atmospheric spell without ever sounding nostalgic.” (
Musichound Rock: The Essential Album Guide)
The Grand Canyon gets more snowfall annually than Minneapolis, Minnesota.
SWAN SILVERTONES
Love Lifted Me
(1956)
Gospel
Review:
“Some of the best hard-gospel harmonizing from the mid’50s, most notably ‘How I Got Over’ and ‘My Rock’—the group’s toughest sides, with firm conviction from lead soloists Solomon Womack, Claude Jeter, and Paul Owens.”
(All Music Guide)
ROLLING STONES
Let It Bleed
(1969)
Rock
Review:
“The record kicks off with the terrifying ‘Gimme Shelter,’ the song that came to symbolize the death of the utopian spirit of the ’60s. But the entire album, although a motley compound of country, blues, and gospel fire, rattles and burns with apocalyptic cohesion.”
(Rolling Stone’s Top 500 Albums of All Time)
PIXIES
Doolittle
(1989)
Alternative Rock
Review:
“The band’s surf-doom bubblegum never sounded so playful. The swift success was built on two gigantic singles: the puzzling but catchy ‘Monkey Gone to Heaven,’ and jaunty pop hit ‘Here Comes Your Man.’ But everything about
Doolittle
struck with a speedy punch and finds its groove in pockets of mysterious wildness.”
(Spin’s 100 Greatest Albums 1985–2005)
YOUSSOU N’DOUR
Eyes Open
(1992)
World Music
Review:
“N’Dour is a Senegalese singer-songwriter with an amazing voice, but a successful marriage of First and Third World music is a tricky balancing act. Confident and pointedly cosmopolitan,
Eyes Open
is an epic-size record that lays claim to a universe of pop while never dropping its West African accent.”
(Rolling Stone)
PATTY GRIFFIN
Living with Ghosts
(1996)
Folk
Review:
“Less a folk album than a rock recording without the rhythmic clutter. Think Melissa Etheridge with much better songs.”
(Musichound Folk: The Essential Album Guide)
MANU CHAO
Clandestino
(1998)
Latin
Review:
“An enchanting trip through Latin rock, reliant on a potpourri of musical styles. The best songs benefit from Chao’s freewheeling delivery which incorporates balladry, chorus vocals, rapping, and spoken-word passages. There are so many great ideas here that it’s difficult to digest in one listen.”
(All Music Guide)
A can-do kind of guy: Harry Houdini could open cans with his teeth.
Contrary to what the history books say, the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) built in 1904 was not New York’s first subway. More than 30 years before, someone built one in secret
.
U
NDERGROUND MAN
Alfred Ely Beach (1826–1896) was a patent lawyer, inventor, and the publisher of
Scientific American
magazine. From his office window in New York City, he could observe pedestrians, horse-drawn carriages, and wagons navigate the congested streets below. He dreamed of building a luxury transportation system that would travel
beneath
the streets of Manhattan. But Beach feared interference from City Hall, which was run by the infamously corrupt politician, “Boss” Tweed. Rather than ask permission beforehand, Beach devised a scheme.
In February 1868 he applied for a permit to build an underground “pneumatic dispatch” system, a letter-mailing tube similar to what drive-through banks use to whisk deposits from cars to the teller. He chose a location in an area of Lower Manhattan that was generally deserted in the evenings. Then he made a secret deal with the owner of Devlin’s Clothing Store at the corner of Murray Street and Broadway to let him use the store cellar as his base of operations.
THE BIG DIG
Every night, Beach, his 21-year-old son Fred, and a team of workmen would meet in the merchant’s cellar to dig. Equipped with picks, shovels, wheelbarrows, and a hydraulic boring device that Beach had designed and built himself, they painstakingly hollowed out a tunnel nine feet in diameter and a block long. Secrecy was of the utmost importance: if the political bosses got wind of the operation, the whole thing could be shut down. Rather than risk it, the unwanted rock and dirt were bagged and whisked away in special wagons with muffled wheels, so as not to make any sound. Even the lines of track, ties, and railcars were slipped in piece by piece through the store basement under the cloak of darkness, and assembled underground.
Wire they doing it? Scottish farmers frequently put braces on the teeth of their sheep.
It took 58 days to dig the 300-foot-long tunnel to the corner of Warren Street and Broadway. Once the track was laid, the passenger car in place, and the lobby built, Beach installed the piece of equipment that would power his underground railroad. The Roots Patent Force Blast Blower, or “Western Tornado,” as the workers called it, was a steam-driven, 100-horsepower wind machine that would blow the train car to one end of the line and suck it back to the other. In test run after test run, the gale force whisked the car quietly along the track at a brisk speed of 10 mph. The air that pushed and pulled the car was vented to the street above, blowing hats off unsuspecting pedestrians’ heads.
BEACH PARTY
Finally the day came for Beach to unveil his magnificent creation. On February 26, 1870, he threw a lavish party and invited all of Manhattan’s elite to attend. Those who rode the 22-seat passenger car with its upholstered seats and glass-globed lamps marveled at its luxury. Party guests waited their turn in the elegantly appointed lobby, lounging on velvet settees surrounded by lovely frescoes, a water fountain, and an aquarium filled with goldfish. They listened to music played on a grand piano as they waited to take the nearly silent ride on Beach’s pneumatic subway. The next day the
New York Herald’s
headline proclaimed, “Fashionable Reception Held in the Bowels of the Earth!”
Now that his secret was out, Beach felt certain that the public would support a clean, elegant, and comfortable transportation system that ran all the way to Central Park. Of course, the state legislature would want to support it, too. He envisioned it covering five miles and carrying 20,000 passengers a day.
YOU CAN’T FIGHT CITY HALL
Soon New Yorkers were lining up to take subway rides at 25 cents a trip. They were all for it, but Boss Tweed was against it. When the state legislature passed a bill approving the building of Beach’s subway system at the cost of $5 million in private funds, Tweed used his political clout to force Governor John Hoffman to veto the bill. Hoffman then pushed the legislature to give Tweed $80 million in
public
funds to build an elevated railway.
Undaunted, Beach continued to rally the public’s support for a subway, and in 1873 (after Tweed was imprisoned for fraud), the air-blown subway was again considered. This time, Beach’s nemesis was millionaire financier and Manhattan landlord John Jacob Astor III. Astor worried that tunneling beneath the city streets would collapse many of the buildings he owned aboveground, and was especially concerned about the city’s tallest building at the time—Trinity Church with its 281-foot spire.
The top 3 fast foods in America are pizza, chicken nuggets, and hot dogs.
With Astor and other landlords against him, Beach finally gave up. He closed the pneumatic subway, locked the doors, and walked away. By the time he died in 1896, his elegant subway experiment had been all but forgotten.
A LAST HURRAH
Elevated trains began carrying passengers in New York City in 1870, and dominated the public transit service for three decades. The first subway—the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT)—opened in October 1904, carrying 150,000 passengers from City Hall to 145th Street on its first day of operation. Other lines soon followed.
In 1912 workers installing the new “BMT” subway line accidentally broke through the wall of Beach’s lobby and discovered his secret subway. Chandeliers still hung from the ceiling, and the passenger car, although badly deteriorated, sat poised on the track. The workers took some photos and a plaque honoring Beach’s pioneering efforts to build a subway was erected. Then the workers pressed on with their own labors.
What happened to Alfred Beach’s secret subway? It’s still there at the corner of Warren Street and Broadway, with the lights out and the doors locked, entombed underground.
* * *
NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND
• World’s first subway system: the Tube, built in London in 1863.
• First subway system in the U.S.: Boston’s MTA, or “T,” in 1897.
• First subway in Latin America: El Subte, Buenos Aires, in 1913.
• Asia’s first subway: Ginza Line, built in Tokyo in 1927.
The palace of the Sultan of Brunei has 257 toilets (but no
Bathroom Readers)
.
FABULOUS FLOP: THE DELOREAN, PART II
Here’s the second part of our story about one of the most unusual—and unsuccessful—cars ever made. Part I is on
page 163
.
R
EADY…OR NOT
By the start of 1981, the DeLorean Motor Company was up and running and about to manufacture its first cars. When John DeLorean agreed to build his manufacturing plant just outside Belfast in Northern Ireland, the British government put up $97 million in financing. The first of 500 test cars rolled off the assembly line on January 21, 1981, and by April the company began producing cars for sale. The first DeLorean shipments arrived in the United States in June.
BAD CARS
As predicted, DeLoreans were overpriced, overweight, and underpowered. The company knew this and had resigned itself to selling an under-performer. But what caught executives—and the first buyers—off-guard was how badly the first cars were constructed. Few if any of the plant workers in Northern Ireland had worked on an assembly line before; many had never even owned a car…and it showed. In one early shipment of 250 DeLoreans, 150 of them wouldn’t start; they had to be pushed off the freighter by hand.