Digitizing the Hanging Court by Guy Gugliotta   The Proceedings of the Old Bailey is an epic chronicle of crime and vice in early London.  Now anyone with a computer can search all 52 million words.  Jonathan Wild was a combination bounty hunter and prosecutor who tracked down thieves and recovered stolen property, a useful figure in 18th-century London, which had no formal police force of its own.  Such men were called "thief-takers," and Wild was good at his work.  But along the way, he became more problem than solution.  He called himself the "Thief-Taker General of England and Ireland," but he became London's leading crime boss, specializing in robbery and extortion.  He frequently encouraged or even set up thefts and burglaries, fenced the booty for a relative pittance, then returned it to its owner for the reward.  If his cronies tried to double-cross him, he had them arrested, to be tried and hanged—then collected the bounty.  It was said that he inspired the term "double-cross," for the two X's he put in his ledger beside the names of those who cheated him.  Daniel Defoe, a journalist as well as the author of Robinson Crusoe, wrote a quickie biography of Wild a month after he was hanged, in 1725.  Henry Fielding, the author of Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews, satirized him in The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great.  John Gay took him as his inspiration for the villainous Peachum in The Beggar's Opera.  But by the time that work had morphed into the Bertolt Brecht-Kurt Weill hit The Threepenny Opera two centuries later, Wild had all but faded from memory.  And when Bobby Darin made a hit out of "Mack the Knife" 30 years after the play opened, Wild was largely a forgotten man.  But thanks to a pair of expatriate Americans fascinated by the way England's other half lived during the Age of Enlightenment, anyone with a computer can now resurrect Jonathan Wild and his dark world.  Working with grants totaling some $1.26 million, historians Robert Shoemaker of the University of Sheffield and Tim Hitchcock of the University of Hertfordshire have digitized the 52 million words of the Proceedings—and put them in a searchable database for anyone to read on the Internet.  Built in 1539 next to Newgate Prison, the justice hall was nicknamed after its address on Old Bailey Street, where London's "bailey," or wall, once marked the city's Roman boundaries.  The court tried felony cases—which included any case that carried the death penalty—and in a city where criminals' biographies and elaborate ballads routinely chronicled the exploits of famous malefactors, the Proceedings were a tabloid-style sensation.  Read extensive article at:  http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/old_bailey.html

Born in 1941 in Tacoma, Washington, Dale Chihuly was introduced to glass while studying interior design at the University of Washington.  After graduating in 1965, Chihuly enrolled in the first glass program in the country, at the University of Wisconsin.  He continued his studies at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he later established the glass program and taught for more than a decade.  In 1968, after receiving a Fulbright Fellowship, he went to work at the Venini glass factory in Venice.  There he observed the team approach to blowing glass, which is critical to the way he works today.  In 1971, Chihuly cofounded Pilchuck Glass School in Washington State.  With this international glass center, Chihuly has led the avant-garde in the development of glass as a fine art.  http://www.chihuly.com/biography.aspx  Chihuly's work can be found in the permanent collections of over 200 museums around the world.  The work may not always be on display, so please contact the museums directly for visitation information.  See list of museums around the world holding his works at:  http://www.chihuly.com/museum-collections.aspx 

The Mystique of the Mother Road by David Lamb (extract of 2012 article) 

Since I discovered U.S. Route 66 as a teenage hitchhiker, I’ve traveled it by Greyhound bus and tractor-trailer, by RV and Corvette and, once, by bicycle.  Recently, when I wanted to return for another look, I headed straight for my favorite section, in Arizona, stretching from Winslow west to Topock on the California border.  The last 160 miles of that route constitute one of the longest surviving stretches of the original 2,400-mile highway.   I’m happy to report that Route 66’s obituary—written repeatedly since 1984, when the opening of I-40 enabled motorists to make the trip from Chicago to Los Angeles on five connecting interstates—was premature.  What John Steinbeck called the Mother Road had been reborn, not quite with the character it once had, but with enough vitality to ensure its survival.  The road west from Seligman cuts through the Hualapai Indian Reservation and desert plateaus covered with juniper and mesquite. Red-rock cliffs thrust skyward on the horizon.  In the 1850s, U.S. Navy Lt. Edward Beale traveled this route, along centuries-old Indian trails, with 44 men and 25 camels imported from Tunisia.  Beale and his men created the first federally funded wagon road across Arizona, from Fort Defiance to the mouth of the Mojave River in California.  The first telegraph lines to penetrate the Southwest territories soon followed, as did settlers in covered wagons and then railroads.  Finally, in 1926, black Model Ts came chugging along an intermittently paved road designated as Route 66.  It wasn’t the first road across the West; the Lincoln Highway, known as the Father Road, was dedicated in 1913, running 3,389 miles from New York City’s Times Square to San Francisco’s Lincoln Park.  But 66 became synonymous with wanderlust and discovery. 

Read much more at:  http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/The-Mystique-of-Route-66.html

Brooklyn Book Festival by David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times Book Critic 

September 23, 2013  I never got to one of the most anticipated panels at Sunday’s eighth Brooklyn Book Festival:  A conversation between legendary comics artists Art Spiegelman and Jules Feiffer.  It wasn’t for lack of interest; there was just too much to do.  At the same time as Spiegelman and Feiffer were doing their thing, after all, I was moderating a conversation between novelists Meg Wolitzer (“The Interestings”), Audrey Niffenegger (“The Time Traveler’s Wife”) and James McBride (“The Good Lord Bird”), who was named last week to the National Book Award’s 2013 fiction longlist. We discussed risk, voice -- “I don’t like that word,” Wolitzer suggested, “I prefer sensibility” -- and the use of humor as a way of getting a bigger point across.  I’ve written before of my affection for this festival, but let me just say that it gets better every year.  More than 200 stalls sprawled across three blocks, representing a cross-section of local independent bookstores, independent presses and magazines.  At times, the crush of the crowd was so intense it was nearly impossible to move.  Among the writers in attendance? Brooklyn’s own Pete Hamill, as well as Claire Messud, Eduardo Halfon, Rachel Kushner, Nicholson Baker, Francesca Lia Block and Susan Choi.  Partway through the afternoon, I found myself at a booth sponsored by the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library in Indianapolis, which houses, among other things, his typewriter, first editions of his novels and even rejection letters he received.  It’s a quixotic endeavor but entirely in keeping with the spirit of the festival, which is, first and foremost, a reader’s event.  I hung around for a while, talking to some of the volunteers and paging through the Library’s literary journal, called (what else?)  So It Goes. Issue one is currently available; a second will be published in November, around what would have been Vonnegut’s 91st birthday.  Link to David Ulin's top picks for fall, the 2013 fiction longlist of the National Book Awards,  and a story on adaption of Slaughterhouse Five at:  http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-brooklyn-book-festival-2013-20130922,0,4579268.story 

"The Brooklyn Book Festival is the largest free literary event in New York City, presenting an array of national and international literary stars and emerging authors."  http://www.brooklynbookfestival.org/BBF/Home 

Sept. 24, 2013  At the very top, at least, there is some profit in the nonprofit world.  The Chronicle of Philanthropy's annual executive compensation study said 34 of the top execs of some of the nation's biggest charities and foundations made $1 million or more in 2012.  The median salaries rose 3.1% in 2012, down from a rise of 3.8% a year earlier, the study said.  Among those with the highest combined salaries, bonuses and deferred compensation packages were:  John Rushkay, executive vice president of United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York, who received $494,000 in salary, $2.64 million in deferred payments and $17,000 in other payments; Bob Mazzuca, chief scout executive of Boy Scouts of America, who received $391,986 in salary, a $43,707 bonus, $1.3 million in deferred payments and $66,891 in other payments; Brian Gallagher, president of United Way Worldwide, who received $520,043 in salary, a $180,657 bonus, $470,801 in deferred payments and $48,804 in other payments; Edwin Feulner Jr., president of the Heritage Foundation, who received $531,561 in salary, a $613,250 bonus and $17,885 in other payments; and James Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust, who received $657,263 in salary, a $250,000 bonus and $156,757 in other payments.  The Chronicle’s survey was based on 2012 data provided by 118 organizations.  Ronald D. White  http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-non-profit-salaries-20130924,0,2016783.story