\u201cSo you played guitar?\u201d I asked him once. \u201cI played lead<\/em> guitar,\u201d he said. And the way he said that made me think he was probably pretty good at it.<\/p>\n The name of the band was Desert Sky. They were a regional touring band that played in and around Kansas City and St. Louis for more than a decade. Somewhere, probably, there are cassette tape recordings of some of their shows. Maybe film, but this was long before VCRs made it possible for there to be \u201cvideo.\u201d And somewhere, surely, there\u2019s a band photo.<\/p>\n Alas, that photo and those cassette recordings are probably buried in a box somewhere. They\u2019re not online. I\u2019ve looked \u2014 searching and Googling to no avail.<\/p>\n So this is an extreme long-shot, but I\u2019m putting it out there to anybody with better Google-fu than me or maybe even to anybody who thinks they might have a trove of old local Midwestern rock band memorabilia in a trunk somewhere. I would very much like to find a photo of Desert Sky and its lead guitarist. And if anybody knows of any existing recordings, that\u2019d be even better.<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cCool Legal-Themed Football Jersey! Which One Is Number 32 \u2026<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cEnhanced Authoritarian Techniques<\/a>.\u201d Adam Kotsko looks at the refusal to name fascism as such and finds this casuistry, denialism, and desperate need for euphemism reminds him of two things: the pretense that the Bush administration\u2019s torture of detainees was somehow not \u201ctorture,\u201d and the remarkably creative propensity that white evangelical teenagers have for limning the bounds of \u201ctechnical virginity.\u201d<\/p>\n Doug Muder calls it what it is<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2022 Atlas Obscura on the Public Universal Friend Exhibit in Penn Yan, New York:<\/a><\/p>\n In 1776, after recovering from <\/span>a serious fever, Jemima Wilkinson claimed to have died and been revived in a new form, neither male nor female. They left behind their old name and life and began preaching as the \u201cPublic Universal Friend,\u201d or simply the Friend.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And, yes, the Friend went by they\/them. In 1776.<\/p>\n The town of Jerusalem, founded as a religious community by the Friend, still exists as part of the village of Penn Yan. They were burning over the Burned Over District a full generation before that was trendy.<\/p>\n \u2022 Speaking of the Burned Over District, Erik Loomis visits the American graves of Margaret and Catherine Fox<\/a>.<\/p>\n He emphasizes the same thing I found most compelling about the Fox sisters: the brazenness of their fraud. From the minute their whole seance scam started, skeptics debunked the scam by saying they were probably just making \u201crapping\u201d noises themselves, under the table, rather than communicating with spirits from the Great Beyond. And that\u2019s what they were<\/em> doing. It was even what they eventually, and very publicly, confessed<\/em> to doing. And yet, as Loomis says, \u201cthe parapsychology world today \u2026 still hold the Fox sisters dear and just ignore all the confessions of the truth.\u201d Yep.<\/p>\n I wrote about the Fox Sisters here back in June: \u201cTwice on the pipe if the answer is no<\/a>.\u201d And here\u2019s a good Smithsonian<\/em> piece from several years ago by Karen Abbot, who goes into greater detail about the ways in which the sisters confessed and debunked their own malarkey, \u201cThe Fox Sisters and the Rap on Spiritualism<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cNone of You Know What Haiku Are<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I think that inaccurate definition is a big part of why most people (myself included until relatively recently!) think that haiku are kind of\u2026 dumb? unimpressive? simple and boring?\u201d<\/p>\n A fun little Tumblr rant that succeeds in its goal of making haiku more interesting than you might\u2019ve been led to believe.<\/p>\n \u2022 RIP Marty Kroft<\/a>: \u201cAs the fire engulfed a large portion of Goldwyn Studios, this A.P. ran up to near where Marty was and yelled, \u2018We may be able to save some of the sets!\u2019 Marty, he told me, instantly yelled, \u2018F\u2013k the sets! Make sure nobody gets hurt!\u2019 And nobody got hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 I\u2019ve previously expressed my mixed indignation at how global disaster movies almost always snub Philadelphia<\/a>. This was even true for Independence Day,<\/em> in which the evil aliens couldn\u2019t even be bothered to blow up Independence Hall. Philly doesn\u2019t even show up on the NORAD map of alien attack sites in that movie.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s another map illustrating the Philly snub: \u201cWhere Humans Think Aliens Are Most Likely to Land<\/a>.\u201d The only Philadelphia-area dot on that map is here in Chester County, marking where The Blob<\/em> invaded Phoenixville back in 1958. Such fictional invasions are so rare in these parts that we celebrate them \u2014 the annual BlobFest<\/a> is always a good time, giving residents the chance to re-enact the running-out-of-the-Colonial-theater scene.<\/p>\n That map of Hollywood alien landings neglects to include the Lancaster location of M. Night Shyamalan\u2019s Signs<\/em> \u2014 an exception that proves the rule, showing that the only way movie aliens will ever invade the Philly area is if local movie makers make it happen.<\/p>\n \u2022 Speaking of B movies \u2026 \u201cHow Rocky Horror Became a Cult Phenomenon<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n My favorite part of this was the prescient excerpt from Roger Ebert\u2019s 1976 review<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cThe Rocky Horror Picture Show\u201d would be more fun, I suspect, if it weren\u2019t a picture show. It belongs on a stage, with the performers and audience joining in a collective send-up. \u2026 The choreography, the compositions and even the attitudes of the cast imply a stage ambiance. And it invites the kind of laughter and audience participation that makes sense only if the performers are there on the stage, creating mutual karma.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u2022 The title for this post comes from U2\u2019s \u201cIn God\u2019s Country<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2023\/11\/Juice.jpg\")
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