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hungydory95 · 2 years

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Against the Day

So many things interweaving and folding into each other and layered like turbulent waves, narratives, dreams, alternate realities and shifting timelines that steer ever so gently away from the axes of orthodox American and world history and into something that resembles it but isn’t quite and so many concepts and so many of it amazing, and so many entertaining, lovable, repellant, hilarious, dramatic and vividly written characters, who skirt as their world does on a perfect balance between normalcy and surreality in the incredibly richly written world [or worlds on worlds and then some] that Pynchon has dreamed up here. And all of this is explored through political power plays, espionage plots, dense and complex mathematical and esoteric divulgences that explore the intersection between science and the arcane and otherworldly, de Sadean displays of sexual abandon, and earnest appreciation of comic strips and dime store adventure novels from the time period it’s set in, and time travel and the mechanics of the universe and especially light, light in everything it illuminates and everything it blinds, and “Gravity’s Rainbow” esque explorations into the colonial consciousness of Europe and the scramble for Africa inseparable from war and capitalism, its exploitation acting as the central unifying axis on which lie all these themes and motifs and setpieces, and so many more things, too many to possibly name in one review lest the review be longer than the book. Reading this novel is like watching a neverending parade in an alternate dimension, and the reader just has to trust that Pynchon take them to the most cerebral outer regions of one’s imagination possible. It’s a novel that is not only viscerally enjoyable to read in its total encapsulation of genre fiction, but also acts as a sort of thesis statement on the reclusive author’s thematic interests, obsessions and everything in between, in a DMT torpedo explosion of weird history that reads like a hallucinatory sci-fi western family saga set at the end of the Gold Rush era during the technological boom of that age, all under the vast shadow of the approaching First World War. His best? Maybe “Gravity’s Rainbow” is still too strong and too iconic to be beat, but “Against the Day” may very well be my personal favorite so far and one that’s just as rewarding.

This is my sixth read of a Pynchon novel, and though I’ve gotten much joy out of his earlier work already, I think in a lot of ways my experience of “Against the Day” left me with more concrete articulations of why Pynchon works for me, which til now I hadn’t been able to form thoughts as strongly on the specifics of. Pynchon has a vast interest in history, but throughout all his stories history is in some way distorted, bent at unrecognizable angles, with real history often weaving into Pynchon’s own wild creations, to the point where the line between real history and imagination, of storytelling is made dubious. But has it ever not been blurred? Is history not stories, folklore, words passed down to generations, cycles perpetuated in a mobius loop not only by those that hold the reigns of power, but also the ones they lord over who make the stories [and do the labor, though they are not rewarded their wages?] The freedom Thomas Pynchon has to cross reality and myth into one, and indeed make the case that both are integral to one another, just as he makes the case for Light and Time in this work, and indeed too many dualities to name, is the highest strength of his novels, especially all three of his centerpiece works.

I admit, for most of its page count I really did not know where the story was going. But this is why Pynchon, contrary to what some seem to think, doesn’t write as a statement of his own intellect, but that he trusts that readers will subsume themselves into the world he has created, the end of the horizon never in sight but still dotted end to end with intrigue, absurd and poignant plotlines alike just waiting to be flipped through and gradually uncovering the connections, motifs, rungs on this mobius loop that run together. To give in to this book is to give in to the logic of the impossible, yet in the impossibility and the fantasy and the enormity of this alternate world[s] feels so strictly real to me as a place that could exist on some branch of the Yggdrasil somewhere, and I think in general that’s why Pynchon’s work hits a chord with me so much [and I will return to this concept later in the review].

It’s easy to be intimidated - this book really is enormous. Every time the plot seems to have reached its limit of expansion, a new thread is unfurled, a new connection established, and the world expands even further, and it never gets tiring, and though there are some plots I don’t care for as much as others, there’s something at least extremely interesting both singularly and collectively about every narrative hall of mirrors that Pynchon takes you down, so the momentum may slow at times but it is never broken. There are so many intertwining subplots, characters and relationships, conceptual washes of extremely entertaining craziness and things so above my ability to understand that I started to just accept some of the Quaternion stuff etc. for what it was, because there’s so much verve, and so much enthusiasm and love for craft and genre yet also so much more mature in its town of voice than “Gravity’s Rainbow”, whose brilliance can maybe weave into its bleakness - but “Against the Day” transcends the pessimism of that book and approaches the gravity and possibility of change, of revolutionary action and a world where imperial powers are not unstoppably powerful, powerful as they are. This is a book in which Pynchon is his most ideological and unrelenting in his empathy for the underclasses as the “light” that shines into the future annals of history, our real world future’s but also all possible futures in worlds where oppression must be culled, by violent means, by the ones the oligarchs and their apparatuses have oppressed.

I love the narrative ethos of the novel, everything just kind of happening together in this torrential storm of plots on plots, prose running off into peaks and valleys and Borgesian mirror-mazes where Pynchon will land you somewhere with no recollection of how you got from one setpiece or turn of phrase to something completely different but just as tickling to the imaginative faculties, and often making you laugh your ass off in the process of navigating these slinking sentences - and really, how else could we view history when it is all happening so close together and explored via so many angles, avenues, refractions of light that bend it in so many rotating directions away [but also toward] the real world history of the time period that birthed modern capitalism and elucidated the selfishness of the white man’s consciousness? This book really is about Everything to do with the eras of men like Rockefeller [seen in the capitalist Scarsdale Vibe, whose ideology illuminates the blatant fascism of the frontier era’s worst progeny] and labor exploitation throughout the nineteenth century and how the Civil War too lead to the conditions enabling the Great Wars, exploring both the bourgeois conscience in its exaltation of warfare and profit but also of all those eccentric and endlessly varied proles living under the heel of this era, and so much of history, fact and fiction occupying this enormous mass. It could seem aimless, but the characters are experiencing time and history just at the same time the reader is. We experience time in the way they do, multiple angles and stories spiderwebbed [Traversed…?] over one another so we can experience the full weight and bustling momentum of an entire time period. It is an unbelievably ambitious novel in every respect.

I’ve been trying to articulate what exactly I love about Pynchon’s characters for the longest time, and this book is no exception, because of everything about his writing they’ve always been subjected to the most criticism and it’s no exception here - that they’re “flat”, one-dimensional, do not follow arcs etc. But after completing “Against the Day” I think that couldn’t be further from the case, and that these are not only his richest and most captivating characters ever, but there’s something about them that I genuinely feel works the way my brain works, and I have to thank this novel especially, because it finally helped me to understand some things about what draws me towards certain modes of character writing that many seem to unanimously consider flat or unsatisfactory [as this is a common criticism I see of books I love where I specifically am drawn to the characters, not least of all this one].

Something about how my mind works [probably due to neurodivergence but I’m far past the tedium of mapping out the specific causes of my own personal Brain Quirks™ because that would be as labyrinthine as this novel] is that I see things in moments, I’m able to see the big picture but the big picture, like this book, is often existentially terrifying, so my mind tends to default to seeing things in fragments, specific memories disconnected from one another that sort of act as waypoints between each other rather than one congealed whole. So while reading this book, despite the abundance of divergent plotlines that rarely ever converge [or, if they do, they converge in the most surprising of ways, kinda like how my memories do], I never once felt it was directionless or “going nowhere” as the layman might say. This also is not to say AtD doesn’t have a bigger picture - because it most certainly does, it just doesn’t happen on a primarily reflexively narrative level [and I’ll expand on that later].

But what carries all of it is the characters. There are so many of them that you’re simply not going to remember every one, but that’s actually a strength rather than a flaw. Like, some of these people will show up, disappear for hundreds of pages, and I’ll either dimly remember them or be like “hey, it’s so-and-so from when Kit was at Gottingen” etc. etc. And like my brain is weird, I concede that I’m never going to be on the same wavelength as many people in that regard, but like this is how most people have relationships with other people right? Sometimes you will see your friend for a while, lose contact for a long time, and then have a coffee however long down the line, and add an entire lifetime of people you meet on top of that and that’s sort of how it works, right? Even my best friend and I can go for literal months without talking and then spend however much time catching up, before we won’t speak for a long time again, just because life sort of gets in the way. That’s sort of how I felt reading “Against the Day”, these characters felt like people because just like real people, nobody has an arc, a predetermined trajectory in which their life unfolds because nobody’s life has an author, and I don’t think the metatextual touches here would be as prominent if Pynchon hadn’t known what he was doing in this sense.

Someone would, I imagine, counter this by saying that Pynchon’s characters aren’t realistic, that they don’t act like “real” people so therefore any of his attempts at realism don’t ring true. But even if “pure realism” weren’t generally the least interesting axis on which to view art imo [and also steeped in deep unexamined ableism because of its implication that there is some sort of “baseline reality” to how people must act, but that’s a tangent that would take me far elsewhere so I won’t go into it here], I still wouldn’t agree - Pynchon’s characters work because they make perfect sense within the world he establishes. This is a world where wild things happen and people take it in stride, where the supernatural of some nebulously yet still richly defined sort exists, where there are sentient dogs, people getting high off dynamite compounds, where funky sex seemingly happens at the drop of a hat and where flyboys from adventure stories clash with Agarthan gnomes, etcetera, you get the point. If the world is wacky, why can’t the characters be on the same wavelength? And why would that lead someone to care about them any less? Even if they don’t make rational sense, they make intuitive sense, and this is the basis from which I have always viewed characters. Logic does not need to take precedence over our emotional brain when judging characters, because people overall think a lot less rationally and far more emotionally than they think they do in reality. Pynchon’s characters are completely sincere and emotionally rich despite their limited page times, even if they don’t act “normal”, whatever the fuck that means. And with the exception of maybe one-off gag characters, he enriches every character here with something raw, and human, and true, even if it’s only a small thing, something that flits into our memory, because every human you exchange even one sentence with on the street is a complex actor beyond any reckoning, and I think that’s what Pynchon is really going for here.

And like, even with all that in mind, so many of the players here are emotionally and narratively textured in general, to the point where even by "traditional" narrative standards I would be entirely invested in them. Throughout every page my heart ached for the Traverse family, of the ruthless transgressions upon justice dealt to them by the Vibe corporation and their capitalist ilk, and the pain of Lake's fall into victimhood of patriarchy that is capitalized upon by men like Vibe. I gasped, laughed and stayed glued to my page, as though I was right there with the Chums of Chance on their aerial adventures, feeling right at home with these charming and wonderfully affectionate parodies of dime store genre fiction, worried for what was to become of them when they begin to realize the vastness of the apparatuses surrounding them. I burned to see Cyprian free himself, of all notions of gender and sexuality and time, to go beyond what was expected for him as a gay [possibly trans?] man in a time where his desires were not acceptable due to the material conditions put in place by the cisheteronormativity of the capitalist system. These characters pulled me in and they never let go, and like another reviewer said, there is so much to their lives that it cannot possibly be contained by the book, even with this page count - they will just keep going and going, free of trajectories, free of "arcs", and all we're seeing is chunks of these peoples' journeys in a world too big to be anything other than bursting past its limits. Do we really expect to be able to see everything, to know every step on every path these characters take, that we all take?

And holy shit even if the narrative itself doesn't congeal to some huge, grand final statement that Wraps Everything Together in a Neat Package [life doesn't do that, amirite?], the absolute depth of thematic substance here certainly does with flying colors. If there's one main thing this book got me thinking about throughout every chapter, it's political leftism's place in modern history and a realization of how prominent anti-establishment sentiment has been throughout world history, in times we would think to be antiquated and rigid by our hypermodern standards. But for as long as oppressive hierarchy has existed, so have those who wish to shatter the chains that bind them unnaturally. What "Against the Day" explores is the rich's eternal war against the proletariat, for they understand the threat the underclasses present to their status and power, and how the bourgeoise's extermination of labor movements throughout the nineteenth century lead to the rise of counter-establishment modes of thinking; for better [anarchism, Marxism] or worse [fascism, the ultimate evil progeny of the Great Wars]. The values of the Enlightenment that we see in "Mason and Dixon" remain unfulfilled, distorted by the "criminal actions of the rich" who have taken the reigns by the very fundamentals on which our system of greed and exploitation is foundationally structured. One of the grand lies of capitalism is that it is the "natural" system, that any opposition to it will fail as there is no system that supposedly integrates "natural" human behavior as our current apparatus does. But if, as we have seen throughout the entire history of this hegemony, there are constantly those under its heels who are fighting to dismantle it, those suffering materially and both clearly and invisibly at once and demoralized from the wages they earn but are not given, then does that not suggest the power structures we live and suffer under are not nearly as natural as those who must enforce it, for their own power, claim?

The wide-eyed ideals of the frontier era, much like that of the Enlightenment before it, sounded nice on paper [to turn an anti-socialist argument back in the direction it came, if I can be so crass]; and it may have been a freedom of new ideas [some, as said before, for the better], but the fact still remained that it was not a material freedom for the overwhelming majority of those still existing under the artificial sovereignty beset upon workers by the capitalist class, and the institutions they uphold [patriarchy, neoliberalism, etc]. Under the inseparably self-serving materialist framework of capitalism, these bright-eyed gestures toward "freedom" are rationalized by the elite classes into the "fuck you, I got mine" attitude that informs our national culture, reinforcing a sense of selfishness that is almost spiritual in how deeply ingrained it is into the philosophy of America and the west as a whole. I think what Pynchon is getting at a lot here, especially with millionaire antagonist Scarsdale Vibe's hypocritical Christian faith, is the integration of capitalism as religion in our national language; that we cannot oppose it because its word is law, as much religion depends on subservience to a "natural" authority in the form of deities. Unlike faith, which is more incorporeal, modern society repeats these motifs in a fashion that is material, where if the underprivileged even so much as question the system we live under it is comparable to questioning what is written in stone, or the laws of the universe - there's that whole "human nature" thing again. This "freedom" then means the freedom to lord over those who the class capable of reaping the benefits of "freedom" deems arbitrarily beneath them, as a result of systemized hierarchy in the forms of monetary power - the idea that, like in Calvinist Christianity for instance, there are those "naturally chosen" and those who are not. These value sets lead to the enabling of those like Scarsdale Vibe, the "chosen" privileged, who are encouraged to take this internalized "right" to the power they hold to its inevitable end state - fascism.

The book's exploration of the approaching darkness of World War I and II is the main axis on which all these themes lay, and it's in this aspect that the novel feels highly of apiece with "Gravity's Rainbow" especially, as it directly explores the conditions that made the world in that book possible. The bourgeoise, in times where their status is threatened [as it is by the emerging ideas in the pre-war period this book is set], have proven that there is not one moral reservation they will have when it pertains to upholding the hegemony. And what better way to keep the population at bay with War, of the capital W sort? War has always been, at its core, the ultimate tool of power and dominance, blazing its trail of manifest destiny throughout all corners of history ever since post-communal civilizations emerged. War is the perfect practicality for those at the highest rung of the societal ladder, not only in its direct enabling of hierarchy itself [for one example, patriarchy emerging due to women being commodified as political leverage by male-dominated governments in wartime], but its usefulness in being a means of controlling and culling the population. And what better way to do that than the dark horizon of the Greatest War in History [well, until the one we see in "Gravity's Rainbow", of course]? Are we not seeing the same thing now with the pandemic, in which the elite can diddle about while people die because mass death is the perfect distraction from the rich's glorified crime syndicate circus? And war is ALWAYS going on, because the elect cast eternal war on the preterite for as long as their power is under attack, as we see here in this book, when World War I has not yet begun but the pieces are all in place, when workers and minorities and the underprivileged are still dying and suffering left and right because of a handful of white Christian bastards want to have their cake and eat it too. This ties into a quote from GR I've always loved, one that I think "Against the Day" narratively illuminates in its focus on the pre-war period - "The real War is always there. The dying tapers off now and then, but the War is still killing lots and lots of people. Only right now it is killing them in more subtle ways".

All this ties into possibly the thing I love most about Pynchon's writing - his total willingness to tackle political subjects and anti-capitalist sentiment without neutering his intent in a way which would make his work palatable to liberals in any fashion. Toni Morrison, in her introduction to "Sula", talks at length of the apprehension writers [especially those of marginalized backgrounds] are conditioned to approach political subtext in their works with, and with the vast derision many still have today towards the "politicization" of storytelling [mostly, I've noticed, when tackling issues of the oppressed that conservatives find uncomfortable], this unfair attitude still abides in common, flimsy literary criticism. Pynchon, like Morrison and basically every writer worth their salt, doesn't care one whit about kowtowing to the demands of pro-capitalist cisheteronormative standards; art is inherently political, because all art is created under an apparatus which influences the creator in both conscious and subconscious ways, and the boldest writers will take this a step further and explore every angle of sociopolitics. This may be the reason why I don't find Pynchon as confusing as his reputation suggests; because in the middle of the sometimes incomprehensible dreams he cooks up, Pynchon is never afraid to tackle the Big Ideas in ways that illuminate the surrounding chaos and interweaving absurd plotlines in ways that I've always found immensely enriching.

And what's crazy about it, too, crazier than any of the hallucinatory shenanigans Pynchon adorns his narratives with, is that even with all the bloodshed, all the working class suffering, the tears and sweat and grime covering its underclass characters as they struggle to make it in this ever-darkening world, this is genuinely one of Pynchon's least pessimistic novels, in every sense. “Gravity’s Rainbow”, for all its immense brilliance, clearly felt like the work of a younger and angrier mind, not any less genius but one far less hopeful about where the world was heading. “Against the Day” is the yang to “Gravity’s Rainbow”’s Yin, QUITE LITERALLY the light to its dark. The underclass is not powerless - we are not doomed to suffer and have our bones ground to dust in the slaughterhouse of late capitalism - in fact Pynchon makes the case that it may well be just the opposite, that WE are the inevitable, that WE are the ones who make the future, whose light beams into all of history and drowns the bourgeoise's darkness.

There will always be suffering. But where there is suffering there is the chance of redemption, of restructuring the world in the way we want, a way in which suffering does not have to be writ into the laws and mechanics of the systems in which we live. That, to me, is the core of “Against the Day”, even with its phantasmagoria of themes and moving pieces - that there is hope in the struggle, that there’s something better than this, and it’s one we have to work at hand in hand, reaching out across all of us marginalized by the apparatus that dictates the vast majority of our pain. Capitalism is not everything, it is not fallible, it is only as strong as us - and we, together, with all the right tools in place, can become stronger than it. Emotionally, spiritually, we already are. And now we must make it materially so. Together, we fly toward grace.

"He couldn't say when exactly, but at some point Frank came to understand that this bearer of light was his soul, and that all the fireflies in the tree were the souls of everyone who had ever passed through his life, even at a distance, even for a heartbeat and a half, that there existed such a tree for each person in Chiapas, and though this suggested that the same soul must live on a number of trees, they all went to make up a single soul, really, in the same way that light was indivisible. "In the same way," amplified Gunther, "that our Savior could inform his disciples with a straight face that bread and wine were indistinguishable from his body and blood. Light, in any case, among these Indians of Chiapas, occupies an analogous position to flesh among Christian peoples. It is living tissue. As the brain is the outward and visible expression of the mind."

#thomas pynchon #against the day #book review

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literalmuscoveycompany · 5 months

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Story of How I Met the Emperor of Russia (Nobbily Serving England)

So, I Thomas Randoph served England as an ambassador for my great country of England, directly under Queen Elizabeth. #PortraitsOrItDidntHappen

This isn’t the most exciting adventure, but I think this deserves to be here. I left England for a voyage to Russia in 1568 and remember enough of the journey. We had forty people, half of them gentlemen strangely who wanted to see the world I guess. We sailed to the North Cape and got lucky, we somehow avoided any storm or sea disturbances. It made to a boring journey but we made our way eventually to Cape Gallant. We sailed into the bays and eventually set anchor.

The voyage was largely boring but we did manage to see sperm wales and to swim when we landed. We were able to fish and build up a good store of food. Eventually being at St. Nicholas we went to the nearby Abbey. Strangely the building was made exclusively of wood. Stranger still were the superstitious Monks, dressed ominously in black hoods, the whole space was small. I was horrified to see that monks are given to drunkenness WAY too often, they never seem to preach but they love their drinks. Still they were nice, the man in charge gave us some strange bread, a sheep, preserved fish, which was quite nice of him. The town itself was small but the English Company had built four houses so we could stay there.

This whole part of the country was boring. Mostly it was pasture, farmland, and forests with the occasional river and already cold temperatures. It was clear just stepping outside that we were far North. After three weeks of travel inland we found a man who could bring word to the Emperor, ahead of our arrival. Everyday we had an allowance of meat and drink which sustained us.

The next major town we reached was Colmogro which also was all built of wood and sparsely populated. The people here were rude and drank far too much. I am sure they engaged with many other abominable vices. Here again the English company had some space, this land and nice houses given to us in the past by the emperor.

It isn’t even worth describing the other towns until we reached Vologda, they were all the same. Weird wood buildings. Rude people. Drunkenness. We stayed in company properties. Even though the whole thing took weeks it was so monotonous it largely blends together in retrospect. Overall not great for a trip but we had not come for leisure, we came to service the queen (and maybe make some money with trading priviledges).

We passed through more towns. Eventually we sailed on a river which spead up the journey. The English company had a bark which was a weird kind of boat but it worked quite well and it brought us to Moscow at long last.

When we made it to Moscow no one received us which was odd. Still, we eventually found someone relevant and were brought to a house maintained by the Emperor for thr Ambassadors and company. It was a nice and large house. Eventually it became clear just how well we were going to be taken care of and that the Emperor was paying for it all. We had servants and anything we needed but still nobody asked for an audience with us.

Finally, after more than four months of just waiting in this house, enjoying our time on the Emperor’s dime even though we agreed it was odd no one had asked us to do any official business, we were told to be ready to meet the Emperor on the 20th of February. When the day came two officials came, I as the Ambassador had a borrowed horse but for everyone else we had to walk the whole way which they griped about the whole way there. Needless to say, four months of doing nothing will lead even the proper laborers of a crew to be weak when the time for action returns.

I made it to an office and sat with a chancellor for several hours until the Emperor sent for me. I entered on a staircase into a massive room. There had to be 300 nobles in there easily all well dressed. In acknowledgement to meeting the emperor I took off my hat but I received only odd looks so I ackwardly put it back on.

The emperor was clearly ready for guests and I had an interpreter who easily communicated my message to the Emperor. The Emperor asked after our Queen Elizabeth, asking about her health and state, before welcoming me and starting to ask me still more questions. Once I was finished they gave me an elaborate silver cup and we left, coming home to a virtual feast.

Eventually, it was time for me to speak with the Emperor this time more privately and a night a Duke was sent to fetch me. It was bitterly cold to be forced into the Russian winter but I wasn’t going to quit over that so I soldiered on.

When I arrived things went smoothly. After three hours of discussion into the early hours of the morning we talked. I returned home and waited for six weeks until the Emperor wrote saying that he was meeting all our demands for priviledges and specifically responded to my particular requests. He also commended me on how well I represented our crown and country while visiting. The mission was fully accomplished and to boot we were sent back with an ambassador from Russia, Andrew Savin, who could help further develop our trade and diplomatic relationships.

The whole journey back was meandering and long. Much of the novelty of travel had long since worn off but eventually we made it back to sea, disembarking in July and at long last reaching London in September.

TLDR: We went to Russia and it took FOREVER but it wasn’t the worst experience even if the people are mostly drunkards. We made it to the Emperor who was more than well equipped to host, and I as ambassador secured more trade privileges for England.

#MuscovyCompany #schoolproject #16thcenturylife #PrincipalNavigations #ThomasRandolph

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ledenews · 1 year

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The Remains of One Hoppin’ Hotel in Photos – Part 2

Lunch at the Tea Room in the basement of Stone & Thomas was special because the place was proper despite a lunch-counter kind of menu. There were napkins and polished silverware perfectly placed on each table, and the eateries patrons were usually dressed in clothes usually reserved for Sunday services. The food, though, was prepared out of site, and the atmosphere was fair less casual than what was found inside an Elby’s or Burger Chef. The Tea Room – if space was even available, that is – was a part of “going to the city” for thousands of residents throughout the Upper Ohio Valley when they made the trek to downtown Wheeling during the 1950s through the 1980s. Main and Markets streets during those days offered a wide array of commerce with everything from hammers and nails to fine jewels and silk neckties. Most communities up and down the Ohio River were stoked by local industry and five-and-dimes like G.C. Murphy anchored the downtowns in cities like Martins Ferry and Moundsville, but Wheeling served as the metropolis for the region because, throughout the history of the Friendly City, it was where everyone came to find everything they could possibly need. That began to change, though, during the 1980s because the Ohio Valley Mall featured the new trend in the retail industry, and that was one-stop-shopping like downtowns offered but now a roof covered consumers as they strolled from store to store inside the biggest one-story building anyone had ever seen. Stores like Stones and L.S. Good suddenly became anchor stores at the mall, so the existing business owners began leaning on live entertainment more than ever. The Best Western Wheeling Inn was very popular when Jamboree USA hosted two shows each Saturday in downtown Wheeling. “That’s when we heard a lot more about what shows were at the Civic Center and the Capitol (Theatre), and the (Best Western Wheeling Inn) was packed every weekend,” recalled Lynne Walton, a former bartender at the Riverside Lounge that operated inside the hotel. “I had always heard there were a lot of Canadians that came to Wheeling for the Jamboree shows, and that was true. There were more than I imagined. “The businesses leaving downtown was a topic people talked about a lot, but it didn’t seem like it was doomsday or anything,” she said. “The hotel seemed like it was always crowded.” That’s because there was always a party in the bar and on the balconies of the former Best Western Wheeling Inn. Fabulous Fanny’s was the first bar inside the Wheeling Inn when the hotel first opened in the early 1980s, and it was a small pub tucked away just off of the lobby and behind an Elby’s. Then came the Riverside Restaurant, a popular eatery that kept the Boury family in the food service business following the 1988 sale of 73 Elby’s locations in four states to Elias Brothers. “The food was great, too,” Walton remembered. “I didn’t wait on many of the tables back then, but we had a lot of people who sat at the bar to eat their dinners while they met with their friends. “With all of the news about the hotel and the demolition that’s coming sometime soon, I’ve thought about a lot of the people I used to work with and all of the friends I made,” she added. “So many people are really sad to see it go, but the Riverside closed a long time ago and that was really surprising to me because of the view from that back deck. Everyone always wanted to sit there.” While the front signage for the Wheeling Inn and the Riverside was removed late last week, a demolition date has not been finalized by the owners, the Wheeling Convention and Visitors Bureau. “There are steps that have to be taken, but we’re moving forward with all of it so that corner can have a new future,” said Frank O’Brien, the executive director of the Wheeling CVB. “The most important step has been taken, and we’re having a lot of conversations about what could be next for that part of our downtown.” The glasses used at the Riverside Restaurant were still in place when the Wheeling CVB the hotel in mid-January. The area of the hotel where the Riverside Restaurant operated had not been utilized by the most recent owner at the time of the January 17th purchase. The inside of the former Riverside Restaurant has been heavily damaged by water over the years. This area of the former Fabulous Fannie's Lounge was used as a banquet area when the bar was closed, and most recently for storage for old mattresses and furniture. An Elby's Family Restaurant and a Young's Cafeteria did business in the hotel several years ago. Fabulous Fannie's was one of the most popular bars in the valley let alone downtown Wheeling. These two pink booths were very popular seating areas at the former Riverside Restaurant. The spa area was located in the basement of the Wheeling Inn. The hot tub was a popular destination for hotel guests for many years. No one is sure how long the champagne bottle has been next to the spa's hot tub. When the Best Western Wheeling Open re-opened in the early 1980s, the entrance to the hotel was staffed with greeters and bell boys. Read the full article

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matzenmcgraw0 · 2 years

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Tips For A Successful Runny Marketing Field design

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#erp

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lordoftherants · 4 years

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#photography #pulp fiction #dime store novels #noir #diorama #thomas allen #art

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scarofthewind · 3 years

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Domestic Moments w/ the Slashers

A/N: Thomas’ made me sad because I want that more than anything omg. Enjoy!

Warnings: None, fluff

word count: 510

Tip jar (every bit helps!)

Jason Voorhees: Despite his hate for water, he makes an exception for you. Really enjoys the way the sun light makes your skin glow as you both swim around the lake. Thinks it’s funny if you feel something touch your foot and you practically shoot out of the water faster than you got in.

Norman Bates: Lives for the moments when you first wake up, curled against him and basking in the light flowing past the curtains. No words are said but the act of him pulling you closer and intertwining his fingers with your own are more than enough.

Charles Lee Ray: He loves showing you off so going out on dates are his favorite. Enjoys seeing you all dolled up to go out with him whether it be to the movies or to get dinner. Spends money on you like you’re worth every single dime because to him, you are.

Thomas Hewitt: He’s a simple man with simple pleasures. He loves it watching the sun set from the porch swing you both sit on, with either a glass of tea or lemonade in his hand. If you have kids, nothing makes him happier than watching them catch fireflies in the summer nights.

Bubba Sawyer: Lives for going to the farmers markets with you. All the fresh vegetables and fruits money can buy, all set out with cheaper prices than any grocery stores in the area. He always carries the basket for you, approving of certain produce items. He doesn’t like zucchini or squash and will put them back when you’re not looking.

Bo Sinclair: He enjoys helping you clean the house. The smell of citrus cleaning products and your perfume make him find the enjoyment of wiping down the windows. Often more times that not, you and him will get sidetracked and start singing and dancing along to the music coming from the radio rather than moping the floors. Catches you when you almost slip and fall.

Vincent Sinclair: Loves waking up to the smell of something good being made in the kitchen. Will come out of the bedroom with his hair messy and boxers hanging low on his hips, watching as you make breakfast. He will come up behind you and watch you make the food, pressing chaste kisses to your neck and enjoying your laughter when they tickle you.

Brahms Heelshire: On the rare occasions that he wants to show affections other than small touches, he loves to dance in the living room with you. It’s the only time he changes the opera music to something more ballroom. He’s actually a very good dancer and never steps on your toes.

Michael Myers: Reads the newspaper every morning like he’s an old man. You always have his coffee, plain black, ready for him when he wakes up and it makes him feel at ease. Loves talking about any dreams you two might’ve had or how you slept; he has to know that you slept peacefully with no nightmares or he’ll be upset.

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omniversecomicsguide · 2 years

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BOOK OF THE DEAD - WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Featuring… TWO-GUN KID

DEATH: Listed in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #20 as "not yet been depicted" (This is a bit of an unusual one as the assumption was that, as a 'western hero' who operated in the 1870s, the Two-Gun Kid must have died before the modern age)

The original Two-Gun Kid (Clay Harder first appeared in Two-Gun Kid #1, 1948) was the main character in a series of dime-store novels. It's unknown if there was a real Clay Harder in the Marvel Universe or if he was purely fictional. But novels had a huge influence on Matt Hawk who took up the identity of the Two-Gun Kid himself (Two-Gun Kid #60, 1962). At one stage, the Two-Gun Kid had interacted with a time-lost team of Avengers (Avengers #142-144, 1975-1976) and ended up travelling through time to the present day (Avengers #147, 1976). He even gained Reserve Avenger status before returning to his own time (Avengers #174-175, 1978).

It was assumed that he'd remain there and die in his own era (Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Deluxe Edition #20, 1988), but he actually found himself returning to our present once more (She-Hulk #4, 2006), though some discrepancies suggest this Two-Gun Kid is from an alternate timeline. His return to his own time has not yet been depicted and he was last seen as a member of the Desert Stars (Fear Itself: Youth in Revolt #4, 2011), though if this is the same Two-Gun Kid, he must return to his own time at some stage as his death in 1939 (Marvel Project #1 , 2009) influences Dr Thomas Halloway to become the original costumed Angel (Marvels Project #2, 2009 / Marvel Comics #1, 1939).

YEARS DEAD: At this stage, he's Schrodinger's Cowboy as he's both dead and alive.

CREDITS:

Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition #20 Art: John Severin & Josef Rubinstein

The Marvels Project #1 Story: Ed Brubaker Art: Steve Epting & Dave Stewart

#official handbook of the marvel universe #book of the dead #two-gun kid #marvels Project #marvel universe #marvel westerns

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handeaux · 3 years

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17 Curious (And Occasionally Famous) Cincinnati Dogs

Early Aeronaut

Richard Clayton, proprietor of a watch shop on the corner of Sycamore and Second streets in Cincinnati, gained international fame in 1835 when he flew a balloon from Cincinnati to Monroe County, Virginia. Shortly after liftoff from an amphitheater on Court Street, between Race and Elm, Clayton released a parachute which descended slowly to earth. Suspended from the parachute was a little (and unnamed) dog, who was returned safely to its owner. The owner refused large sums of money to part with his pioneering aeromutt.

Lusus Naturae

Cincinnati witnessed the birth of a most unusual dog in 1858. A bull terrier owned by Smith Betts of Western Row (today’s Central Avenue) gave birth to a litter including a puppy with three normal legs and a foreleg from which, where a paw should have been located, was a perfectly formed puppy head. According to the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune [17 May 1858]: “The little curiosity was as lively as a cricket, but Mr. Betts procured the service of a lad, who, for a dime, drowned it in the canal.”

Dog Days At The Zoo

In its early days, the Cincinnati Zoo offered displays of dogs. On the Zoo’s opening day in 1875, visitors could view a Newfoundland, two mastiffs, some poodles, “Danish hounds” (Great Danes) and greyhounds. Some of these dogs were trained performers, but others merely illustrated unfamiliar breeds. Cincinnatians could purchase dogs from the Zoo if they wished. The Zoo advertised Saint Bernard dogs especially as “docile . . . but a terror to tramps and evil-doers.”

A Canine Con Artist

Attorney John J. McCarthy had a friend who owned a dog. The dog preferred the company of Mr. McCarthy to that of his actual owner. As the Enquirer [27 January 1891] told it, the dog, on command, would sit up, wear a hat and smoke a cigar while displaying the “most sage look.” McCarthy turned down multiple offers to sell the dog, repeatedly explaining that he did not own the mutt. Some buyers persisted, however, to the extent that McCarthy took their money and turned over the dog. After every purchase, however, the dog was back at McCarthy’s feet within the hour.

A Dog With A Job

Willie Theobald was a clerk at the American District Messenger Office on Vine Street in 1894 and he owned a dog named Purp who followed him to work. In the days before email and faxes, a lot of business communication traveled through the city by messenger and Willie supervised a troop of young messengers – and a dog. While Willie sat at his desk, making assignments, Purp accompanied messengers on their rounds and often delivered messages on his own. Purp waited patiently until the receipt book was signed, then trotted back to Willie to await his next task.

A Vet’s Pride

Veterinarian L.A. Anderson was known throughout Cincinnati because of his dog, Jeff, esteemed to be the smartest canine in town. One day in 1894, Jeff was, as was his habit, holding the reins of his master’s horse while Dr. Anderson attended to some business. When a rainstorm blew up, Jeff led the horse onto the pavement and under the awning of a nearby store. As the rain abated, Jeff led the horse back into the street to await Dr. Anderson’s return.

It’s Not easy Being Green

Oscar A. Stuckenberg, a clerk in the city engineering office, donated to Cincinnati’s Natural History Museum the freshly deceased body of a greyhound pup which had died 36 hours after birth, 23 February 1897. The color of its coat was distinctly asparagus green, except the head, which was the ordinary grey color. Museum curators scrubbed the corpse with soap, then soaked it in alcohol for several hours, but were unable to remove the color. “Mr. Stuckenberg's assurance that the pup was born with the green color can not be doubted,” they concluded.

Pug In Lieu Of A Ring

Margaret Harrison was one of the most sought-after young ladies in Cincinnati, if not for her own charms then for the riches of her father, Learner Blackman Harrison, president of the First National Bank. She accepted the proposal of Ezra Howard Child, son of a wealthy Massachusetts manufacturer but, it being 1900, thought engagement rings were too old-fashioned for a modern couple and requested a dog instead. Margaret’s fiancé complied, and a pug, decorated with a white satin ribbon, accompanied her throughout the ceremony, attended by one hundred guests, at her parent’s house on Grandin Road.

Cincinnati’s Most Intelligent Dog

Word got around in 1902 that Prince, a white and brown water spaniel owned by Mr. and Mrs. Walter M. Wirthwine of Evanston, could do anything except speak. The Wirthwines talked to Prince continually as they trained him and this, it was believed, educated Prince to understand every word spoken, so that he followed every command to the letter. Although 10 years old, Prince was described as frisky as a puppy, and much beloved by the neighbors on Harvard Avenue.

Cincinnati’s First Police Dog

Visitors to the Greater Cincinnati Police Museum are greeted by the stuffed remains of a scruffy mutt in a display case. This is Handsome, beloved companion of the Cincinnati Police who patrolled Rat Row, Sausage Row and the other unsavory neighborhoods that constituted what is now The Banks but was once known as The Bottoms. Handsome’s feats of investigative skill spread far and wide. On his demise in 1915, the cops chipped in and had Handsome preserved through taxidermy. For a while, he decorated police headquarters, but he’s now at home in the museum.

An Extra Leg

In 1926, somebody dropped off an unusual dog to Hamilton County Sheriff Richard Witt who, back then, also served as the county’s dog catcher. There was nothing wrong with the little puppy except that it had five legs. Witt turned the little fellow over to his deputy, Charles “Buck” Hauser, who promised to take care of it. Hauser had a history with freak animals; he also provided a home to a three-legged rooster.

Danny Dumm’s Greyhound

Cartoonist Harold E. Russell inked daily sports highlights for the Cincinnati Enquirer over a 52-year career that ended only with his death in 1966. Along the way, Russell is credited with inventing mustachioed Mister Red and the Cincinnati Royals logo. He also created a miniature alter ego named Danny Dumm who provided commentary on Russell’s cartoons for decades. In 1928, promoting racing meets at a Springdale greyhound track, Danny adopted a dog and the Enquirer ran a contest to name the pooch. Inundated with thousands of entries, Russell got two assistants to help him pick the eventual winning name – Big Swig – submitted by Miss Evelyn Klopp of Norwood.

Big Jon & Sparkie’s Pooch

For a decade, beginning at WSAI in 1948 and later on the ABC network, the most popular show on radio, “Big Jon & Sparkie,” was produced here in Cincinnati. Big Jon was the show’s host, Jonathan Arthur Goerss. Sparkie was an elf from the Land of Make Believe who wanted to become a real boy. Most of the characters were based on writer Don Kortekamp’s Cincinnati childhood, including Sparkie’s mischievous dog, a Boston toy terrier named Bunny.

Uncle Al’s Dog

From 1950 to 1985, it seemed mandatory for every kid in Cincinnati to appear at least once on WCPO’s Uncle Al Show. In addition to host Al Lewis himself and his wife, Wanda, aka “Captain Windy,” the show featured a multitude of supporting characters. Many of the subsidiary roles on the Uncle Al Show were created by artist and set designer Thomas York, including Ringo Rango the cowboy, Lucky the Clown, Chief Red Feather, Charley the Horse, the Merry Mailman and, of course, Pal the Dog.

Hattie The Witch’s Hound

At least two generations of Cincinnati children grew up with the Larry Smith Puppets, from his days on the Uncle Al Show on WCPO-TV through his decade-long run as the host of Larry Smith’s Cartoon Club on WXIX-TV. In addition to “Batty Hattie from Cincinnati,” Teaser the Mouse and Rudy the Rooster, the central canine character in this puppet menagerie was Snarfy R. Dog.

WEBN’s Program Director

When radio station WEBN first went on the air from a small, blue Considine Avenue house on “Price’s Mountain,” the owner and chief on-air personality, attorney Frank Wood Sr., was meticulous in crediting the talents of program director Miles Duffy. Visitors to the station may have suspected something funny about a dog bowl labeled “Miles.” In fact, Miles Duffy was a cocker spaniel, drafted into that significant position to give the impression WEBN’s employee roster was larger than it was. When Miles went to doggy heaven, the Woods had him taxidermied.

Cincinnati Reds In The Dog House

No review of Cincinnati dogs could be complete, of course, without featuring Marge Schott’s Saint Bernards, known as Schottzie and Schottzie 02. Reds managers were subjected to rubdowns with dog hair in often-vain attempts to attract good luck, groundskeepers had to pick up dog poop off the field, players had to dodge the beasts during pre-game warm-ups and the dogs sat front and center in the team photos during Schott’s ownership of the team.

#cincinnati dogs #danny dumm #marge schott #uncle al #larry smith #big jon and sparkie #cincinnati zoo

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ink-fox-414 · 3 years

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My timeline of Bendy - Part 7 (1940-1941)

1940

• 1939-1940 - Grant Cohen makes an audio log that Joey is planning a big project.

• 1940 - Alice the Aviator, Or, Give Them Heck, Angel! comic is released; Barley appears in the comics; Dime-Store Comics are discontinued.

• 1940 - Bendyland development begins; Bertrum Piedmont is hired; Lacie Benton and other Bendyland employees are hired.

• May 19, 1940 - Bertrum makes an audio log that his ideas being rejected.

• 1940 - Bertrum shows Joey the Bendyland game concepts; Bertrum makes an audio log about Joey calling him Bertie in front of investors.

• 1940 - Wally makes an audio log of his suggestion to the Bendyland workers about games; Bertrum works on animatronic Bendy; Lacie makes an audio log about her work and animatronic Bendy.

1941

• 1931-1941 - Joey makes motivational audio logs about the power of faith and dreams.

• 1939-1941 - The Great Depression ends.

• 1940-1941 - The first version of the Ink Machine is created, Murray Hill installs pipes;

• 1940-1941 - Allison Pendle is hired; Joey introduces Allison to all employees except Susie; A recipe for special ink is created.

• 1940-1941 - Susie makes an audio log of how she noticed that Sammy and Allison were talking.

• 1940-1941 - Construction Corruption is released; Partnership with Gent Corporation begins; Thomas is sent to work in the studio; Gent office is built next to the Administration.

• 1940-1941 - Ink Makers are created, many Gent things and mechanisms are installed; New pipes are installed; Thomas makes an audio log about pipes; Wally and Thomas make an audio log installing pipes.

• 1940-1941 - Wally makes an audio log of being unhappy with Thomas; Thomas makes an audio log of being unhappy with Wally.

• 1940-1941 - The second version of the Ink Machine is created; Joey officially introduces it to the staff.

• 1940-1941 - Joey makes an audio log where he suggests that Susie be part of his small project and revive Alice; Susie makes an audio log of Joey offering her some opportunity.

• 1940-1941 - Susie has lunch with Joey again.

• December 1940-1941 - Joey asks employees to donate items.

• 1941 - Promotional Comics release begins; Construction Corruption comic is released; Edgar appears in the comics.

• 1941 - Employee Handbook is released.

#grant cohen #joey drew #alice angel #bendyland #bertrum piedmont #lacie benton #wally franks #bendy theory #bendy #bendy and the ink machine #bendy crack up comics #murray hill #allison pendle #susie campbell #sammy lawrence #thomas connor

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tabloidtoc · 4 years

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OK, October 19

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Pregnant Princess Eugenie betrayed by her own dad -- Queen Elizabeth bans Prince Andrew from delivery room

Page 1: Big Pic -- Lea Michele and husband Zandy Reich enjoying a leisurely stroll with their son Ever in a stroller in face masks

Page 2: Contents

Page 3: Contents

Page 4: Demi Lovato moving on -- a heartbroken Demi is picking up the pieces after splitting from her fiance Max Ehrich

Page 6: When Kris Jenner shocked fans with her announcement that Keeping Up With the Kardashians was ending she didn’t explain why she decided to pull the plug on the show after 20 seasons but now she’s gearing up for a big TV interview in which she’ll reveal the real reason she’s calling it quits which is ironically because there’s too much drama going on with her family and she wants to see her children happy again

Page 7: It’s a good thing Taylor Swift has been sheltering in place at her Nashville farm and not at her posh pad in New York City where bullets were flying outside her $18 million Tribeca townhouse during an armed robbery at a sneaker store next door, after just one season on The Talk Marie Osmond has been unceremoniously given the boot because her ex-cohosts Sharon Osbourne and Sheryl Underwood threatened to quit unless she was canned because they felt Marie didn’t bring anything to the table and just made it difficult for them to get their ideas across plus they thought she was too refined and too nice and too polished, Emma Stone’s recent hush-hush wedding to Dave McCary has her ex-boyfriend Andrew Garfield crying the blues and ever since Emma and Dave were spotted wearing matching wedding bands Andrew has been telling people that he’s happy for Emma but everyone knows that deep down it must be devastating for him because she was the love of his life

Page 8: Red Hot on the Red Carpet -- stars are chic in suits -- Emily Blunt, Sandra Oh, Gugu Mbatha-Raw

Page 9: Olivia Palermo, Charlize Theron

Page 10: Who Wore It Better? Lily-Rose Depp vs. Kaia Gerber, Mj Rodriguez vs. Kat Graham

Page 11: Brie Bella vs. Kyle Richards

Page 16: News in Photos -- Gwen Stefani modeled one of the new styles from her L.A.M.B. eyewear collection while shooting a campaign

Page 17: Brie Larson and her boyfriend Elijah Allan-Blitz wore masks at a grocery store, Drew Barrymore posed on the set of her new talk show, Katie Holmes and boyfriend Emilio Vitolo Jr. had dinner with his dad Emilio Vitolo Sr.

Page 18: Kidding Around -- famous parents can’t get enough of their mini-me’s -- Prince William and sons Prince George and Prince Louis, new dad Artem Chigvintsev and his son Matteo, pregnant Ashlee Simpson enjoyed a day of shopping with daughter Jagger

Page 20: Wells Adams out on a run, Keo Motsepe and Anne Heche take a selfie, Alessandra Ambrosio spending a day at the shore

Page 21: Arnold Schwarzenegger and his girlfriend Heather Milligan took their two-wheelers out for a spin

Page 22: Farrah Abraham clad in a patriotic bikini in Venice in California, Olivia Jade and boyfriend Jackson Guthy on a dinner date

Page 23: While guest-hosting the Ellen show Stephen “tWitch” Boss created a TikTok video with wife Allison Holker and guests Addison Rae and Derek Hough, Irina Shayk served looks for designer Nicole Benisti’s Fall/Winter 2020 campaign

Page 24: At the Hometown Heroes Live Music Festival Snoop Dogg honored his late friend Tupac Shakur with fellow headliner Nelly, Helen Mirren stunned while attending Prince Albert II’s Monte-Carlo Gala for Planetary Health, Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly

Page 25: Ireland Baldwin getting her tresses dyed back to blonde, Kaley Cuoco filming a scene for her show The Flight Attendant

Page 26: Inside My Home -- Armie Hammer and Elizabeth Chambers’ historic home -- the spouses of 10 years are calling time on their marriage and saying farewell to their L.A. hideaway

Page 28: Julianne Hough and Brooks Laich’s divorce is off

Page 29: Ryan Gosling will turn 40 in November and there’s just one thing he wants for his birthday -- baby No. 3 with longtime girlfriend Eva Mendes because he loves being a dad and is eager to grow their family and Eva is totally on board and the couple who already have two daughters would be thrilled to have a baby boy, after quarantining in Big Sky in Montana for months Justin Timberlake is itching to get back to work in L.A. but his wife Jessica Biel doesn’t want to let him out of her sight -- while Jessica likes the slower pace of Montana Justin is bored as hell but Jessica wants Justin around to help with their son Silas and their new baby boy but everyone knows she’s afraid Justin will go back to his old habits

Page 30: Rebel Wilson’s romance with hunky new businessman beau Jacob Busch is heating up and the two have been inseparable since she returned to L.A. last summer after shooting a TV series while Down Under -- they hang out at her house cooking healthy meal and exercising and go for hikes in the canyons and Jacob is wonderful and generous and sweet and he loves her sense of humor, Kim Kardashian is close to ending her marriage to Kanye West but she’s holding off on filing court papers until she finishes mapping out the details of her post-divorce life, Oh Baby -- these couples secretly welcomed little ones -- Amanda Seyfried and Thomas Sadoski welcomed their second child which was a boy, Billie Lourd and Austen Rydell welcomed a boy named Kingston Fisher Lourd Rydell, Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix welcomed a son named after Joaquin’s late brother River

Page 32: Cover Story -- Princess Eugenie’s royal baby drama -- the mom-to-be is worried her disgraced father Prince Andrew will steal the spotlight for all the wrong reasons -- Queen Elizabeth is set on making sure that Eugenie and her great-grandchild are spared any future embarrassment caused by Andrew because she’s had enough of his reckless behavior -- Prince Andrew is crushed by Eugenie’s decision to keep him out of the delivery room and is hoping she’ll reconsider

Page 36: Sandra Bullock -- wedding and baby and a tell-all -- she is planning for a family-focused future and ready to clear up rumors from her past

Page 38: Parenting the Pandemic -- Ex Factor -- these former couples may have their differences but they make it work for the sake of the kids -- Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale, Khloe Kardashian and Tristan Thompson

Page 39: Tarek El Moussa and Christina Anstead, Anderson Cooper and Benjamin Maisani, Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck

Page 40: Interview -- Demi Moore -- the star talks about her bravest roles including her latest in the pandemic thriller Songbird

Page 42: Primetime Babes -- how this fall’s hottest stars stay in tip-top shape -- Gabrielle Union, Hilary Swank, Nicole Scherzinger

Page 43: Lily Collins, Nicole Kidman

Page 46: Style Week -- Becky G’s new collection of sunglasses with Dime Optics

Page 48: What’s Hot Right Now -- be a trailblazer this season in a statement-making jacket -- Iskra Lawrence

Page 49: Mad for Mascara -- Rosie Huntington-Whiteley

Page 50: Think Pink -- shop these pretty items that support breast cancer awareness month

Page 54: Entertainment

Page 55: Q&A with Candace Cameron Bure

Page 58: Buzz -- VanderBump Rules -- Brittany Cartwright and Jax Taylor the latest Vanderpump Rules couple to announce they are expecting celebrated the news at a gender reveal party and among these guests were current costar Lala Kent and their former castmate Stassi Schroeder both of whom are also pregnant

Page 60: Sound Bites -- Jane Fonda recalling the time she told Kim Kardashian West she had a beautiful butt, Millie Bobby Brown on doing arts and crafts during quarantine, Drew Barrymore revealing her experience on the dating app Raya

Page 61: Catherine Giudici joking about how her life revolves around poop with three kids, Sharon Stone on how she was madly in love with Robert De Niro before the two starred in 1995′s Casino, Chace Crawford joking about the time he turned down an offer to become a Chippendales dancer

Page 62: Horoscope -- Libra Cardi B turned 28 on October 11

Page 64: By the Numbers -- Julia Garner

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tracyshomesick · 3 years

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25 things that were invented in NYC.

1. Toilet paper: In 1857, Joseph C. Gayetty began selling packs of “medicated paper for the water closet” out of his wholesale shop at 41 Ann St. The paper was made from pure Manila hemp and treated with aloe. Best (or worst) of all, each sheet was watermarked with his name.

2. Chicken ’n’ waffles: After its 1938 opening, Wells Supper Club in Harlem was the last stop for jazz greats like Sammy Davis Jr., Gladys Knight and Nat King Cole. Catering to its night-owl talent, Wells created the perfect dish for acts who’d missed dinner but couldn’t wait till breakfast: leftover fried chicken on a sweet waffle.

3. Chewing gum, a New York invention, was first manufactured in 1870 by Thomas Adams in a warehouse on Front Street. Called ''Adams New York Gum No. 1,'' it was made from chicle, a form of sapodilla tree sap chewed in the Yucatan and Guatemala.

4. The Waldorf Salad: The Waldorf Astoria boasts two inventions on this list, the first of which is its classic salad, which combines lettuce, apple, celery and walnuts. It was first served in 1896.

5. Teddy Bears: In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot an injured black bear while on a hunt. Inspired by the story, Morris and Rose Michtom, candy-store owners from Brooklyn, sewed a plush bear and displayed it, calling it “teddy’s bear.” The toy was so popular, they gave up candy and opened a factory to make the cuddly critters.

6. The Tom Collins: In 1874, a hilarious joke swept through the city: A prankster would tell a friend, “I was at [insert local saloon], where Tom Collins was saying [insert insult] about you!” The offended party would rush off to defend his honor, but there was no Tom Collins. (Cool joke, bro.) Inspired by the prank, New York mixologist Jerry Thomas created the recipe in 1876.

7. Coal-fired pizza: Pizza was cooked with wood fires until Gennaro Lombardi introduced the tasty magic of coal. Legend has it he served the first coal-fired pie in 1905. Cooking pizza that way is technically illegal now, but the ovens of a few select haunts around the city were grandfathered in, including Lombardi’s, Totono’s and Patsy’s.

8. Scrabble: Out-of work architect and anagram lover Alfred Mosher Butts conceived this wordy board game in 1931 while living in Jackson Heights, Queens. The street sign on Butts’s corner in Queens now reads “35t1H4 a1V4e1n1u1e1” after the famed letter-scoring system.

9. Spaghetti primavera: When this faux Italian dish (fresh vegetables and Parmesan cream sauce on pasta) was served at Le Cirque in 1977, it was, according to The New York Times, “the most talked-about dish in Manhattan,” much to the chagrin of head chef Jean Vergnes. The classically trained Frenchie was so offended, his cooks had to prep the dish in a hallway—yet later he claimed its invention.

10. The remote control: Nikola Tesla conceived of a radio-controlled boat way back in 1898. The idea was so novel that nobody believed such technology could exist.

11. Sweet’n Low: Fort Greene entrepreneur Benjamin Eisenstadt teamed up with his chemist son, who found a way to create saccharin in powdered form (before it could only be a liquid or a pill). He named his pink-label brand after a Tennyson poem.

12. Eggs Benedict: Stockbroker and bon vivant Lemuel Benedict woke up one morning in 1894 with a raging hangover and booked it to the Waldorf Astoria hotel, where he ordered a poached egg, crispy bacon, toast and hollandaise sauce. Legendary maître d’hôtel Oscar Tschirky was such a fan of the creation, he added it to the hotel’s menu.

13. The Bloody Mary:  Fernand “Pete” Petiot imported his tomato-juice-and-vodka concoction from Paris to the St. Regis hotel’s King Cole Bar. Catering to the spicier local tastes, Petiot added Worcestershire sauce, lemon and a dash of cayenne and black pepper.

14. Credit Cards: You have John Biggins of the Flatbush National Bank to thank for those interest charges and late fees: In 1946, he created the charge-it program, which issued customers bank credit cards for use at local Brooklyn merchants. The shop owners would then deposit the sales slips at the bank, who would then bill cardholders.

15. Baked Alaska: In 1876, the pioneering pastry chefs of lower-Manhattan restaurant Delmonico’s conceived of piping-hot sponge cake topped with crispy meringue and filled with ice cream, naming this miracle of food science in honor of the country’s newest territory.

16. General Tso’s Chicken: While exiled in Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War, chef Peng Chang-Kuei created a spicy-and-sour chicken dish as an homage to a famous Hunanese general. When he jumped ship to New York in the 1970s and opened Peng’s, the dish became a huge hit— after he added sugar to the recipe.

17. Frozen Hot Chocolate:  Stephen Bruce, the cofounder of iconic East-Side restaurant Serendipity 3, kept the recipe of this decadent dessert a secret for 40 years. Bruce recently revealed that the famous frozen treat is 14 kinds of cocoa mixed with crushed ice and topped with whipped cream. (The types of cocoa still remain a mystery.)

18. Air conditioning: In 1902, Willis Carrier created his “apparatus for treating air” to keep the humidity from warping the paper at a printing plant on Grand St in Bushwick. Saving workers from the sweltering summer heat was just a fortunate side effect.

19. The Reuben Sandwich: Alright, this one’s contested, but many say Arnold Reuben, owner of Reuben’s Delicatessen, invented the meat-and-krout combo in 1914. Legend has it, the sandwich was created for a famished actress, who came in after a show, using the few ingredients left on the deli shelves.

20. Mr. Potato Head: When New Yorker and toy designer George Lerner first created plastic facial features to stick on real vegetables, toy companies worried that food wasting wouldn’t fly with a postwar public. But in 1952, Hasbro bought Lerner’s  idea and made the first TV ad ever for children’s playthings, selling a million units that year.

21. Hot dogs: Coney Island baker Charles Feltman had the genius idea to serve hot sausages in a  bun for a dime each. His frank fortune bought him a beachside empire of hotels and beer gardens, until former employee Nathan Handwerker opened Nathan’s Famous and sold his dogs for only a nickel.

22. ATMs: the first money-dispensing device was conceived in 1939 by Luther George Simjian, who convinced the City Bank of New York (today’s Citibank) to test his contraption for six months. The bank declined to use the machine after that, because “the only people using the machines were a small number of prostitutes and gamblers.”

23. Cronuts: Dominique Ansel labored for months to perfect his doughnut-fried, fluffy hybrid from heaven. The pastry, which debuted in May 2013, still inspires down-the- block lines each morning.

24. Children's Museums: The Brooklyn Children's Museum, located in Crown Heights, opened in 1899 and was the country’s first museum dedicated to the education of kids. It was also the first to introduce a “hands-on” policy for its exhibits.

25. Hip-hop. Enough said.

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