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Pinball Is A Game Of Skill, Not Chance

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Pinball was illegal in New York City from 1940 till 1976. The above short explores the surprisingly troubled history of pinball in New York and why it was banned there for over 35 years. The ban was lifted when WWII ended and the state finally (and rightfully) determined that pinball is a game of skill and not a game of chance. The great Big Story explains:

In 1940, pinball machines were banned in New York City. Like most contraband, this simply pushed pinball underground. After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, the “Salvage for Victory” campaign called on Americans to turn in scrap metal to bolster the war effort. As a result, then New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia went on a hunt for pinball machines. By February 1942, more than 3,000 machines has been confiscated, turning roughly 2,500 of them into one ton of metal for the war. Unfortunately for pinball enthusiasts, the ban in New York lasted for decades, outliving LaGuardia, who died in 1947.

New York Public Library Has Over 670,000 Digitized Items And Some Very Cool Tools To Access Them

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Acrobats far from their mountain home -- grizzly bears in a street at Jacksonville, Florida. [1905] 1870?-1906?Acrobats far from their mountain home — grizzly bears in a street at Jacksonville, Florida. [1905] 1870?-1906? via NYPL stereograph collection

Earlier this week the New York Public Library enhanced access to over 670,000 digitized files in its massive database of digital collections. This includes access to free books, paintings, newspaper clippings, digitized streaming video, prints, botanical illustrations, photographs, maps, manuscripts, sheet music, menus, hundreds of thousands of public domain images, and more. Some of the documents date back as far as the 11th century

Best of all, NYPL has created some really cool tools to search, access and utilize the collection.

All of the Public Domain items are “No permission required. No restrictions on use.” They digitized these items specifically so that people will reuse and remix for your personal projects. So much so that NYPL announced the NYPL Labs PAID Remix Residency for artists, information designers, and software developers that is designed to spur transformative and interesting new uses for their digital collections. If that isn’t enough NYPL is adding high-quality machine-readable metadata to the hundreds of thousands of assets and providing an API!

Well done, NYPL. Go forth and reuse!

via Coudal

The End Of An Era

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I was aware that CBGB’s was closing soon, but it wasn’t until last sunday when I was surfing the net that I found out that one of my favorite ole punk bands would be one of the last to play at the infamous venue. Bad Brains played there on Monday & Tuesday of this week. And to top it all off MVD Entertainmaent released Bad Brains – Live At CBGB 1982 just three weeks ago. You can watch it it’s entirety below. The first 30 seconds tell you all you need to know, but I suggest you do like I have all morning, and crank this shit up the whole way through!

Not only was the Bad Brains show this week one of the last shows at CBGB but it’ll probably some of the last shows by the full line up. See, it’s a well know fact in the punk rock world that the lead singer, HR, is absolutly off his rocker. Completely mad. This can be witnessed in this video of Monday’s show were he wore a motorcycle helmut for a duration of the concert. You can see they rocked it out on Tuesday though. As you can tell the both the band and the venue are not what it was in 1982. I’m just glad I had a chance to go there during my trip to NYC this summer.

CBGB’s is dead, long live CBGB’s!

Bright Lights, Big Pity

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I’m back and back to normal. NYC was turbo-incredible. I’m not really sure how to describe the city in a single blog entry so I won’t even attempt it. So much happened that I’m not really interested in trying to rehash it all for you. On top of that, I left my camera at my brothers the other night so you’ll have to wait a while for pictures as well.

I’ve given NYC a hard time in the past. And I still think it deserves a hard time. There isn’t enough glass, brick, and steel in the entire city to contain it’s ego. But I’d be damned if a New York city doesn’t change you a little bit. Of all the things offered to me in NYC, I think a different perspective was the one I enjoyed the most. I have a new lust for NYC and a greater appreciation for all that home has to offer as well. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to get there and it’s good to be back.

The Good People Of New York

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First off, I loved Thisbe Nissen’s first effort, a collection of short stories entitled “Out of the Girls Room And Into The Night“. Go buy it. Now. But I’m disappointed to announce that her début novel “The Good People Of New York” just didn’t do it for me. It just fell flat. Glossing over he fact that at least two chapters of this novel were taken nearly straight from her collection of short stories, the story just didn’t seem to work. Thisbe Nissen seems to be long on incident and short on plot so I would suggest sticking to her short stories. Thisbe’s writing remained strong and there are moments of true brilliance, and more rarely, heart felt emotion. But the books downsides outweighed the upsides in my opinion. The pacing seemed strange, granted it’s difficult to encapsulate 20 plus years in less than 300 pages, but the speed was jerky; it slowed and accelerated awkwardly.

For a book that is about relationships, in “The Good People Of New York” Nissen did little to develop the relationship between the main characters Roz and her daughter Miranda. And to further muddle things, several characters created brief emotional relationships with each of the main characters but none of these interactions or affairs were built upon with conviction. Individuals simply breezed in and of the novel making impacts whose craters Thisbe neglected to explore.

The novel, however, was enjoyable and worth my time. I didn’t hate it but I surely didn’t love it. There were sections were Thisbe really shined (see below). I’d recommend this book to those interested in reading about mother/daughter relationships but I definitely won’t be reading it again.
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