How to use the dial telephone (1927) | Crazy PSA

Important instructions and pro-tips for when your own state-of-the-art rotary-dial telephone is finally available for installation in your town, kindly produced by all our friends at the American Telephone and Telegraph company!



(Thx PDR for the tip!)

headspace | 75 Years of LSD

Today marks the 75th anniversary that LSD was synthesized by Sandoz Industries. On November 16, 1938, Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann created LSD as part of a research program searching for medically useful ergot alkalod derivatives. [LSD] [History of LSD]

Interlude | San Francisco in 1906

A film taken from a streetcar moving down San Francisco's Market Street in 1906, only four days before the Great Earthquake. According to flixxy the film was originally thought to be from 1905 until David Kiehn with the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum figured out when it was shot... get this... from proof including: (1) New York trade papers announcing the film-showing, (2) the wet streets from recent heavy rainfall plus shadows (indicating the time of year) compared to actual weather and conditions on the historical record, and (3) when the cars that being driven were registered (he even knows who owns them and when the plates were issued).

The soundtrack to this is La Femme D'Argent, from the Moon Safari album by Air. You may remember them from an earlier post of mine.

Hell in a Handbasket | Cold War Era Scare Film

Geez, they sure don't make movies like they used to. It used to be sooo glamorous.

Save the PANTAGES THEATRE

First, some information on the Pantages Theatre to acquaint yourself with this historic Vancouver... nay, Western Canadian... nay, North American... landmark.

Future of Vancouver's Pantages Theatre in Doubt (CBC)
The Pantages in Vancouver (Chuck Davis' HMV)
Pantages Theatre (official)

And now, what you can do to support the effort to save the Pantages Theatre.

• IF YOU'RE ON FACEBOOK, join Steve Lee's group "Save the Pantages Theatre in Vancouver, BC, Canada" and invite all your friends. (FB GROUP)

• REGISTER YOUR SUPPORT FOR THE PANTAGES by writing to mayorandcouncil@vancouver.ca, and COPY YOUR E-MAIL to the Pantages Theatre Arts Society at cb0bc@yahoo.com .

• SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION...

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://www.petitiononline.com%2Fpantages%2F

Thanks!

Vancouver Round-up!

If you haven't done this already, go to the City Reflections website and order a copy of the DVD produced by the Vancouver Historical Society! If you don't know what this is, a great description of the DVD contents is on the re:Place Magazine site, who also did a great article describing the project in depth.

In case you missed the Georgia Straight's annual Best of Vancouver awards, take a wander over to the kitsilano.ca blog for a great post about Kitsilano being voted the Best Neighbourhood... again. Plus lots of great links to businesses in Kits.

And in case you hadn't noticed (and we know you did!), the political mastermind John Turner
failed to jump the electoral hoops to run again as Vancouver Quadra's neorhino candidate. So NOW who do I vote for...? And I have to add, it's really too bad, because I think it was his year... after all, apparently more Canadians believe in the existence of Bigfoot than in promises made by politicians. If that doesn't spell "N-E-O-R-H-I-N-O-V-I-C-T-O-R-Y" then I don't know what will.

Ran across this and thought it might be a great time outdoors, if I ever went outdoors: the UBC Botanical Garden's Greenheart Canopy Walkway. A nice photo and write-up on the Tourism BC flickr stream.

Google digitizes old newspapers

For fans of history, Google has digitized old newspapers as part of their archives on Google News. Here's the story on the official blog. And another on Google Blogoscoped.

And here's a quick search I did for "Vancouver" limited to "1890" which returned 448 articles. Granted, they are not all about Vancouver B.C., but still pretty cool.