Ink Lake

RIP Ed Koch

What We Lost

Officer Moira Smith — NYPD

NY Daily News

Posthumously awarded the NYPD Medal of Honor. This year, a playground located in her precinct, was named in her honor.

NY Daily News

This Is What A Lesbian Looks Like

 

Sally Ride

Physicist; first American woman in space; author of seven science books for children; member of the space shuttle Challenger crew; member of the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology; director of the California Science Institute; inductee into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, the California Hall of Fame, the Aviation Hall of Fame, and the Astronaut Hall of Fame; recipient of the Jefferson Award for Public Service, the von Braun Award, the Lindbergh Eagle, the NCAA’s Theodore Roosevelt Award, and the NASA Space Flight Medal (twice).

You hear me talking, hillbilly-girl Florida Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll? 

H/T: Michael Signorile

Gustin Reichbach, R.I.P.

I just wanted to note with sadness the passing of Judge Gustin Reichbach. The lifelong Brooklyn resident, passed away last weekend of pancreatic cancer, at the age of 65.

The Times has an obituary. It notes,

Across six decades of myriad public incarnations, Justice Reichbach occupied buildings at Columbia as a student, won a court case that helped legalize residential loft life in SoHo and TriBeCa, blasted a state agency from the bench for ignoring Medicaid fraud and served as a judge on a war-crimes tribunal in Kosovo.

Elected to the New York State Supreme Court in 1999, he decorated his courtroom with pictures of Paul Robeson, Clarence Darrow and striking coal miners, as well as a neon sign showing the scales of justice.

Last year, the Reichbachs’ daughter, Hope, died at the age of 22.

Gertrude Stein said,

“There ain’t no answer. There ain’t gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That’s the answer.”

I'm A City Slicker, I Ain't No Townie

RIP Adam Yauch. His obituary made the front page of the Times. In a way I’m surprised, but it certainly is (sadly) merited.

If the Beatles was the ego of four smart, working-class Liverpool teens, the Beastie Boys were the id of smart, Jewish, upper-middle-class, New York City kids.

Their masterwork, Paul’s Boutique is not only one of the greatest albums ever, but was twenty years ahead of its time when it came out in 1989, and remains twenty years ahead of its time in perpetuity.

Its ambition, achievement, and influence is on a par with Sgt. Pepper’s. It also happens to be thematically tighter. Miles Davis said it was the only album he could listen to over and over again, without getting tired of it.

From all accounts, Yauch was a funny, and gentle soul. The “gruff” Beastie Boy, and their conscience as well. Condolences to his family and friends. His fans, and the city will miss him. I already do.

 

Levon Helm's Other Gig

Beside being one of rock & roll’s finest drummers in one of its most important and greatest bands, Levon Helm was a capable actor, too. Anyone who’s seen The Last Waltz, can’t help notice his charisma. Coupled with his mellifluous Arkansas drawl, it won him important parts in Coalminer’s Daughter, and The Right Stuff, among other films. 

In the latter, he played real-life Col. Jack Ridley, a test pilot, gum-chewer, and whom later became chief of the Air Force’s Flight Test Engineering Laboratory.

Chuck Yeager, who became the first person to break the sound-barrier in the X-1 rocket-plane, called Ridley “The brains behind the whole X-1 test program”. He was renowned for his superb engineering and problem-solving skills. Here, in this scene from the movie, Ridley fashions up a way for Yeager to pilot the craft with a broken arm.

What I love about the scene is Helm giving a hint at 1:10 as to his day job.

Lazy Sunday

Never Trust A Computer You Can’t Lift

 

The first time I saw a Mac was shortly after it came out. A slightly-older, slightly geeky friend, from a well-to-do family that lived down the street, had bought one.

At some point, I was alone in his room with it. It was turned off, but a floppy disk was sitting partially-ejected. I remember panicking when I pushed it in, and couldn't figure out how to get it out. I think I turned it on, and then back off, to get it out. In retrspect, I think that was my 2001 moment.

At the time, I was a recent college drop-out, and working as a messenger at my uncle’s law firm. Eventually, I became a paralegal there — a miserable gig. A friend of mine, was temping as a word-processor and making double what I was making. So I decided to buy a computer to get my typing speed up, and learn WordPerfect.

The law firm, used Wang WP, but we had a PC in our little group, that ran a Clipper db, as I recall. I was literally not allowed to touch it, but stayed late a few nights, and played around with it a little.

From everything I could see about PCs, I know I didn’t want one. I still remembered the Mac. So I did a little reading, and bought a Mac Plus, with 1 MB RAM, and a 21 MB external hard-drive. I think it ran System 6.0.3. I also bought a typing program, and the first version of WordPerfect for the Mac.

There were very few Mac jobs, and zero Mac/WordPerfect gigs, so I had to take PC temp jobs, but Mac gigs started to turn up – usually at advertising agencies. I bought Microsoft Word 3.x .

Eventually, I could turn down the PC jobs, and one thing led to another. Steve Jobs did not make the Macintosh alone; Andy Hertzfeld, Bill Atkinson, Steve Capps, and many other amazingly smart people did. But it’s also safe to say, that without Jobs, the Macintosh — that perfect little machine, wouldn’t have happened.

And I would have wound up doing, I don’t know what..but it would be a lot less cool. Thanks, Steve.

The Damage Done

It seemed inevitable, and you hope you’re wrong, then you remember what the word “inevitable” means. Another very talented person gone way too soon. As Neil Young said, in the liner notes to Decade,

“I am not a preacher, but drugs killed a lot of great men.”

R.I.P. Amy Winehouse