Posts Tagged ‘Jefferson Airplane’
“Here, are the stiffening hills”*…
The San Francisco street grid dates to the 1839 plan of Swiss ship captain and surveyor Jean-Jacques Vioget, who laid out the city on a north–south, east–west grid without regard to its topography. Subsequent plans extended the grid, except for its inflection south of Market Street…. and continued the practice of honoring geometry over topography, resulting in some of the steeper streets in the world.
Photographer Dan Ng explored…
What would San Francisco be without its steep hills?
Well for one, if would be much easier to walk around and without much effort. It would be easier to park a car and not have to curb the wheels. We would not have runaway vehicles and tennis balls.
On the other hand, we would not have cable cars, beautiful views and quaint neighborhoods. We would not have the many movies and postcard images to view. In fact, San Francisco would not be San Francisco.
By tilting the camera, I attempted to “level” the hills. These images whimsically portray the streets of San Francisco…flat. But thank goodness it isn’t!
See his more of “leveling” photos: “The Streets of San Francisco… but Flat?”
And on the subject of city streets: using OpenStreetMap, Andrei Kashcha’s City Roads project lets you enter any town or city in the world and generates a map of all the streets within its city limits.
* Rhondda Valley,” Collected Poems
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As we seek balance, we might spare a thought for Paul Lorin Kantner; he died on this date in 2016. A musician, he’s best known as co-founder, rhythm guitarist, and occasional vocalist of Jefferson Airplane, a seminal San Francisco psychedelic rock band of the counterculture era. He continued these roles as a member of Jefferson Starship, Jefferson Airplane’s successor band.
Coincidentally, one of his his Airplane co-founders, Signe Toly Anderson, died on the same day.
“Four legs good, two legs bad”*…
Manchester-based design firm Dorothy commissioned illustrator Tracy Worrall to create “Rock ‘N Roll Zoo.” It’s a collection of prints featuring 77 fantastical animals inspired by song titles. Included are playfully literal depictions of The Doors’ Peace Frog, Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell, and other strange beasts rock stars have used as lyrical metaphors… animals are grouped by species, so the Pixies’ “Monkey Gone to Heaven” gets to hang out with the Beastie Boys’ “Brass Monkey,” the Kink’s “Apeman,” and the Goodies’ Funky Gibbon; while the various pigs of rock–the Beatles’ “Piggies,” Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” and Pink Floyd’s “Pigs on the Wing”–are lumped into the same sty…
In addition to the full print, [there are] boxed set collections, including the Indie Kid collection (featuring “Elephant Stone” by The Stone Roses, “Monkey Gone to Heaven” by Pixies and “Beetlebum” by Blur) and [as below] the ’80s collection (featuring “Bat Out of Hell” by Meatloaf, “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor, and “Hungry Like a Wolf” by Duran Duran)…
More at “An Illustrated Guide To Every Animal In Rock Music.”
Just as our ancient ancestors drew animals on cave walls and carved animals from wood and bone, we decorate our homes with animal prints and motifs, give our children stuffed animals to clutch, cartoon animals to watch, animal stories to read.
– Diane Ackerman
* George Orwell, Animal Farm
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As we walk the dog, we might recall that it was on this date in 1998 that a federal judge in St. Louis ruled that the Fort Zumwalt High School marching band would not be allowed to play Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” in its ’60s medley. The song had been banned by the high school superintendent on the grounds it promoted drug use…. even as one waxes nostalgic, one notes that “White Rabbit” was the nickname of Owsley Stanley, the Bay Area’s preferred purveyor of LSD.
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Judging books by their covers…
When Charles Dickens moved into Tavistock House in 1851, he decided to fill two spaces in his new study with bookcases containing fake books, the witty titles of which he had invented. And so, on October 22nd, he wrote to a bookbinder named Thomas Robert Eeles and supplied him with the following “list of imitation book-backs” to be produced.
(Source: The Letters of Charles Dickens; Image of Dickens, c.1860, via.)
History of a Short Chancery Suit
Catalogue of Statues of the Duke of Wellington
Five Minutes in China. 3 vols.
Forty Winks at the Pyramids. 2 vols.
Abernethy on the Constitution. 2 vols.
Mr. Green’s Overland Mail. 2 vols.
Captain Cook’s Life of Savage. 2 vols.
A Carpenter’s Bench of Bishops. 2 vols.
Toot’s Universal Letter-Writer. 2 vols.
Orson’s Art of Etiquette.
Downeaster’s Complete Calculator.
History of the Middling Ages. 6 vols.
Jonah’s Account of the Whale.
Captain Parry’s Virtues of Cold Tar.
Kant’s Ancient Humbugs. 10 vols.
Bowwowdom. A Poem.
The Quarrelly Review. 4 vols.
The Gunpowder Magazine. 4 vols.
Steele. By the Author of “Ion.”
The Art of Cutting the Teeth.
Matthew’s Nursery Songs. 2 vols.
Paxton’s Bloomers. 5 vols.
On the Use of Mercury by the Ancient Poets.
Drowsy’s Recollections of Nothing. 3 vols.
Heavyside’s Conversations with Nobody. 3 vols.
Commonplace Book of the Oldest Inhabitant. 2 vols.
Growler’s Gruffiology, with Appendix. 4 vols.
The Books of Moses and Sons. 2 vols.
Burke (of Edinburgh) on the Sublime and Beautiful. 2 vols.
Teazer’s Commentaries.
King Henry the Eighth’s Evidences of Christianity. 5 vols.
Miss Biffin on Deportment.
Morrison’s Pills Progress. 2 vols.
Lady Godiva on the Horse.
Munchausen’s Modern Miracles. 4 vols.
Richardson’s Show of Dramatic Literature. 12 vols.
Hansard’s Guide to Refreshing Sleep. As many volumes as possible.
Your correspondent is headed for the stacks in the Bodleian, where wi-fi signals do not penetrate; regular service will resume in a week or so… In the meantime, readers will find many more inspiring indices and edifying enumerations at Lists of Note, from whence the treasure above.
As we check to be sure that we’re wearing at least a bit of green, we might send revolutionary birthday greetings to guitarist and co-founder of Jefferson Airplane, Paul Kantner; he was born on this date in 1941…
“If you can remember anything about the sixties, you weren’t really there.” (source)
… and to “the ‘noir prophet’ of the cyberpunk movement,” author William Gibson; he was born on this date in 1948.
“The future is already here. It’s just not very evenly distributed.” (source)
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