William Burt patents the "Typographer" the first typewriter! (July 23, 1829) Then the Solar Compass and Equatorial Sextant!

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On this day in 1829 William A Burt patented the “Typographer”, which was a predecessor to today’s typewriter. According to Burt, the typographer was the first constructed and operating typewriter in the world. Through the years Burt has been referred to as the “father of the typewriter”
Burt’s great-grandson Austin Burt, built a working model of the machine for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Burt used a parchment copy of the original patent (No. 5581X) as a guide. It took him a month to construct the model because many of the parts had to be made by hand! Here’s a picture of the  model taken at the University of Minnesota, where the young Burt was an engineering student, and where the model was on display prior to being taken to the World’s Fair in April of 1893.
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From Wikipedia: Read More

July 21, 1947 – Emmett Kelly portrait on the cover of Life Magazine? Music by Murray Mclauchlan!

Originally Posted at Me,Myself, Music and Mysteries….

One of the events that was listed yesterday, on This Day in History was that on July 21, 1947,  Loren MacIver’s portrait of Emmett Kelly as Willie the Clown appeared on the cover of Life magazine.  This sent my mind off in several directions. My first thought was that I didn’t know which portrait of Emmett Kelly this was, as I have seen a few over the years. So I headed to Google and searched for the portrait….I found this 1947 Emmett Kelly painting by Loren MacIver at Kenyon College’s Digital Kenyon. But what I didn’t find was  a cover from LIFE magazine…. Read More

Exploring the Bebop Classic – “Donna Lee” – Charlie Parker & Miles Davis and others!

Hard BopLast week when I went to the library, one of the books that I checked out on jazz was Hard Bop: Jazz & black music 1955-1965.  by David H. Rosenthal. Rosenthal is a free-lance jazz critic whose articles on music have appeared in Down Beat, Jazz-Times, Keyboard,the Village Voice and other publications. Hard Bop is his first book about jazz. Read More

Past Reads: May 1987 – A First Encounter with Loren Estleman’s – Amos Walker!

So let’s all  go ….down to Dumas Walker!

No, no oh, yea of afflicted with ADD – Amos Walker not Dumas! you duma-ass…..

Motor City BlueOk so when I looked back at the actual dates in my Book Journal, I see that the first book listed IS actually Motor City Blue by Loren Estleman. The book was first released in 1980, and by that time Estleman was already up to book 6, but I went back and started at the beginning. It appears, I was underwhelmed! Read More

Past Reads: Blood Music – Sci Fi from one of the Best – Greg Bear

Since 1987 I have kept track of the books that I read. From 1987 through 2004 I kept hand written notes about the books, name, title, date read and a little blurb about the book. Between 2004 and 2010, I kept track of the books at Goodreads.com. From 2010, I ‘ve  kept my bookshelf at Goodreads and also posted at this site. Since this site is about the books I read and have read, I thought that I’d go back and start posting about the older books I’ve read. This will allow me to make more complete profiles of the various authors that I read. This post is the start of  posts about older books. Read More

Into the Morning with Ruf Record’s – Thorbjorn Risager “Precious Time”

Thorbjorn RisagerOne of the albums that has been on the iPhone for the last day or so is the new album from Thorbjorn Risager Too Many Roads. I have only given it a couple of listens, but so far I like what I hear. I hope to listen in a little more detail tomorrow and maybe even get to write a little more about Thorbjorn and the album, but for this early morning let’s just get a little taste of his music! Here’s a performance of the song “Precious Time”, Gotta love the band, sax, trumpet, organ ….and more…. Read More