Newclear Proliferation

Well read

What will our Nanny Mayor take on next after his war on the Supersize Soft Drinks (WMDs)? I have a suggested target that could benefit us all: Subterranean Sprawl. MTA riders share a very small space, and generally we do it well. And some people are just going to take up more space based on body size. Fine. But do we really need to artifically expand what God (and/or McDonalds) gave us? On both sides, no less? Let's tighten it up people. We all just need a little personal space.

I once witnessed this episode on a 1 train: A very slight young woman began to sit down onto a bench on which three people were sitting. Her slightly larger would-be seatmate (also a young woman) refused to slide over, even though there was plenty of room. "These are for three people, not four," she lectured. Hey, New Yorkers, let's make getting three on a bench comfortably a goal for 2012?

Opening Day (Again!)

We need a Spaceman (courtesy Boston.com)

The dreaded All-Star Break is over. The Red Sox start the second half of the season at exactly 500 (43-43). It's like cleaning the slate (except they are spotting their archrival, the New York Yankees, 9 1/2 games).

The photo above comes from 1977, when the Sox finished with a record of 94-67, tied with the Orioles for 2nd place just 2 1/2 games behind the Yankees. Don Zimmer was the manager and Bill Lee one of the starting pitchers. According to Chad Finn on Boston.com, if you look closely at the picture you can see Ferguson Jenkins curled up in the backseat of the bullpen cart. Sleeping one off, according to Finn.

Tonight, Bobby Valentine will hand the ball to Franklin Morales to pitch against Tampa Bay. Go get 'em! Just for fun--by which I mean bittersweet nostalgia--here's the Sox starting line-up for (the real)  Opening Day in 1977. Wow!:

7	Rick Burleson	SS
5	Denny Doyle	2B
14	Jim Rice	LF
8	Carl Yastrzemski	RF
16	Rick Miller	CF
15	George Scott	1B
1	Bernie Carbo	DH
27	Carlton Fisk	C
4	Butch Hobson	3B
31	Ferguson Jenkins	P

This post goes out to Tina B. who still believes.

Friday Night Brakelights

White walls and all

A latecomer to Friday Night Lights, ABC's Texas high school football as religion drama (Peyton Manning Place?), I am now gobbling up the episodes two or three at a time on Netflix. In an episode in Season 2, QB1 and all-around good guy Matt Saracen buys a used car. His new girlfriend Lauren, who claims to know a lot about cars, helps him get a good deal on a blue-and-rust Dodge Dart Custom. So far so good. "It's not a Slant 6, is it?" she asks. The seller assures her it is not. Like that's a bad thing! Of course it's a Slant 6! (He also tells her it's got 275 h.p., instead of the 225 the Custom packed.)

The photo above comes from the great IMCDb website (Internet Movie Cars Database) where the actual car's story gets told in this quote from the series producers:

"We just nabbed a blue 1974 Dodge Dart sedan for the Matt Saracen character as his 1st car for the Friday Night Lights TV show on NBC. It was in a farm field for 12 years. It started right up after it was pulled out. We've had to replace the master cylinder, gas tank, exhaust/muffler, tune up, oil/filter, idler arm, and charge the AC unit. The automatic transmission shifts fine. Otherwise it's a great car for $1,000.00. The interior is near perfect. The paint has lots of desirable patina wear giving it the '1st car I ever bought' look. It will see plenty of action. Watch for it starting episode # 7, second season. It's a hoot and a great picture car."

Of course it started right up. It's a Slant 6. "Can't kill 'em" was the word. If you are a fan of early 70's Dodges and Plymouths, you will want to stream Season 2 Episode 8 when Matt goes to pick up Smash, the star running back, after a college recruiting trip goes off the rails. Great shots of the car's interior.

BQE del Sur

Light traffic

That's the view through the taxi rear window on the Costanera Norte expressway to the airport in Santiago de Chile. Those are the snowcapped Andes in the background. Too early for rush hour since Santiagans work until 8 or 9 and then dine absurdly late.

Moments later the sky erupted in a mind-blowing winter sunset. Santiago has a big smog problem, sitting in a valley as it does, and that no doubt contributes to the end-of-the-world palette. Then again, maybe it is the end of the world.

Apocalypse 18:15 horas

Run Don't Walk!

Eye catching

Always a big fan of pictograms, your correspondent captured this one by the stairway leading from the beach at Zappallar, a beautiful coastal beach resort northwest of Santiago. This one takes no chances, including not only the graphic but a bilingual message. Evacuation is no joke here in Chile where tsunamis added to the damage and loss of life following the massive 8.8 earthquake of 2010. A wave of 8 feet 6 inches was recorded at Valparaíso, just to the south of here. The Chilean Navy eventually took responsibility for not issuing immediate alerts about the tsunami, which would have saved lives. The moral of the story: Always know where your exits are!

Zappallar (Pumpkin Patch, en ingles)

Moving Stories

(Photo courtesy David Dust)

The most unsung, occasionally unslung, form of mass transportation. The escalator. New York has some very fine ones and some very crappy ones. The subway escalator at 53rd and Lexington (left) was reputed to be the longest in the world when it opened in 1933. Moscow also has some impressive ones. Check out post on Weburbanist  blog.

The English word "escalator" is very economical, while other languages--Spanish, Italian, Polish, Romanian--maintain the kinetic imagery of the "moving stairways," archaic in English.

Note: he is standing on the right

My favorite escalator performance art piece by the  Czech artist Jirí Kovanda. It's part of a series of very minor happenings he created in Prague in 1977, including one in which he suddenly begins to run very fast. More about Kovanda's work here.

Your correspondent now resumes his study of South American infrastructure and vinoculture. Happy 4th!

Diamonds on My Windshield

 (Courtesy Daily News)

Sunday morning on the 7 train. A young boy scrambles to get a window seat--meaning he kneels on the seat so he can see out the window. "Tomorrow will be the diamond train?" he asks his parents. The Diamond Train? Of course, he means the 7 express signaled by the "7" in a red parallelogram rather than the green circle of the local: Christmas colors all year round.

Black Diamond Express

We should call it the Red Diamond Train to differentiate it from the famous Black Diamond Express that ran from New York City to Buffalo on the Lehigh Valley Railroad from 1896 until service was suspended in 1959. The name "black diamond" derived from the anthracite coal that was the company's freight mainstay. Its passenger stock, sadly, rapidly diminished over time.

Revenue passenger traffic, in millions of passenger-miles*

Year	Traffic
1925	273
1933	111
1944	453
1960	31
1970	0

Source:ICC annual reports (see wiki ). 

Sorry I never got to ride the Black Diamond. I did make a couple of overnight trips on the Amtrak Lakeshore Limited from New York to Chicago (I got on in Springfield, MA, and off in Elyria, OH). It did stop in Buffalo but got there via Albany rather than the more southerly Lehigh Valley route.

(*A unit of measurement of the passenger transportation performed by a railroad during a given period, usually a year, the total of which consists of the sum of the miles traversed by all the passengers on the road in the period in question.)