Another tech piece for Slate, on offline access to Web services in general and Google Gears in particular…
Mr. Wizard is Dead, and I’m Confused
Sad news from Southern California: Don “Mr. Wizard” Herbert, who taught several generations of kids to mix beakers of liquids together to produce strange and educational results, has passed away at the age of 89.
When I heard the news, what came to mind was the same thing that always comes to my mind when I think of Mr. Wizard: that one of my high school science teachers had told us that he had taken science classes from Herbert. I’ve kinda taken a certain pride in the notion that I studied science with one of Mr. Wizard’s students–which is an odd thing to take pride in, given that I was a truly terrible science student.
But Herbert’s obit, or at least the one in the LA Times, seems to suggest that he was an actor, not a teacher. I’m now confronted with the possibility that my teacher was one of millions of Mr. Wizard fans, and was speaking metaphorically. Or I had a false memory. Or something.
(Actually, I think it’s possible that many of my memories of my school days are groundless: For years, I had vivid memories of watching the first moon landing at kindergarten in 1969. Until someone gently pointed out to me that I wouldn’t have been in class in July…)
More on the Des Moines Peanuts Artist
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Back in 2005, I posted an online reprint of a very, very unusual Des Moines Register and Tribune supplement, in which Charlie Brown and Lucy pay a visit to that newspaper’s headquarters. It was probably one of the most-read items I’ve ever published here–among other things, I got Boing Boinged.
In the original post, I guessed that the artist, Bob Davenport, was a staff artist at the paper. Now his nephew–also a Bob Davenport, by the way–has posted a comment on my original piece confirming my guess and providing some details about the man behind the supplement and his other work.
More Harry on Slate
I’ve written another piece for Slate. On…a piece of furniture. A really interesting one. From Microsoft. Here it is.
Columbian Art
I’ve blogged before about the amazing yearbooks that Columbia published in the 1930s to promote its slates of films. They go for big bucks at auction, but last year I was able to acquire the 1935 edition for a semi-reasonable price. I did so, of course, because it included a promo for His Scrappiness. But the whole darn thing is kind of amazing.
I don’t know most of the films promoted in its pages, and can’t say whether they were any good. I have no idea who painted these spreads, or whether they were used only in the presumably small-circulation yearbook. But I do know that this is some of the most spectacular promotional art I’ve ever seen.
Whatever happened to the art of movie ads, anyhow?
Billie Joe Lives!
One of the best things I saw at D: All Things Digital had absolutely nothing to do with technology, so I’m not going to blog about it at PC World. Here, however, there are no rules. So here, after a brief commercial message, is Jill Sobule singing a kind of amazing song about…Bobbie Gentry.
Quotes I Like
(With apologies to Mark Mayerson)
“There are two kinds of entertainment–circus and art.”
–George Lucas, this afternoon at D: All Things Digital, which I’m blogging about at PC World.
Cartoon Fans on Slate
Slate has been one of my favorite sites for a long time, and I’m happy to say that I’ve been doing a little writing for them lately. Here’s a new piece on GrandCentral, a service for folks with too many phones.
Meanwhile, Slate has taken notice of the 1943 Disney employee manual that Jerry published on Cartoon Brew and linked to it–neat!
A Worthwhile Rerun
I’m beginning to bring existing content on this site into WordPress, and at least in some cases, I’m enjoying revisiting stuff I’d more or less forgotten was here. This remains a thing of bizarre wonder.
You Never Know What’ll Show Up
Mike Barrier has a fascinating, fascinatingly-illustrated piece on recently-discovered story sketches by Webb Smith for the landmark flypaper sequence in Playful Pluto. Or maybe they’re visual notes by that sequence’s animator, Norm Ferguson. Or possibly they’re by someone else.
Like Mike, I hope the collective wisdom of smart animation scholars can come to a definitive conclusion about who did these sketches–but even if it can’t, they’re a major find.