Blog Posts

Doris E. Travis, Last of the Ziegfeld Girls

The New York Times reports that the last of the chorus girls from the one-time American entertainment institution, the Ziegfeld Follies, has died:

“For a quarter century, Florenz Ziegfeld auditioned hundreds of thousands of young women vying to become chorus girls, the Ziegfeld Girls, those lace and chiffon visions of glamour who were as much a part of the Jazz Age as Stutz Bearcats, the Charleston and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

In all, from 1907 to 1931, he picked about 3,000, and on Tuesday the last Ziegfeld Girl died. She was Doris Eaton Travis, and she was 106.”

She had quite a story:

Mrs. Travis may have been the youngest Ziegfeld Girl ever, having lied about her age to begin dancing at 14. She was part of a celebrated family of American stage performers known as “the seven little Eatons.” George Gershwin played on her family’s piano, and Charles Lindbergh dropped by for “tea,” Prohibition cocktails.

And she kept on dancing until she was 104, and even appeared at a charity event just two weeks ago.

• Here’s a book that was written about Mrs. Travis in 2006, Century Girl:

Similar in approach to a graphic novel, this biography-in-collage tackles the life of Ziegfeld Follies star Doris Eaton. Each page offers a wild mix of illustrations, doodles, photos and memorabilia from Eaton’s archives, accompanied by handwritten text outlining her fascinating life, which comes across like something out of the musical Gypsy.

• Here’s video of Doris dancing—when she was 104:

Jupiter Has Lost a Stripe

It was there a few months ago—but now it’s gone. Astronomers have no idea why:

Jupiter has lost one of its prominent stripes, leaving its southern half looking unusually blank. […]

The band was present at the end of 2009, right before Jupiter moved too close to the sun in the sky to be observed from Earth. When the planet emerged from the sun’s glare again in early April, its south equatorial belt was nowhere to be seen.

Check it out:

Gulf Oil Spill: How You Can Help [updated]

Over at our Facebook page a commenter left an email address where people could send ideas to help with the Gulf oil spill – and what a great idea! (Thanks, Krazy Wild Mann.) That led us to do some snooping, and we found several places where people can find out how they can help, whether by reporting finding oiled birds if you’re in the Gulf region, or contributing to cleanup funding efforts. So here goes.

• Here’s the official Deepwater Horizon Response Web site:

Gulf Oil Spill: On to a “Top Hat”

They tried the cofferdam, now they’re on to the “top hat,” then they may try the weirdest one—the “junk shot:

It sounds to us like BP is now grasping at straws trying to outsmart the growing gulf coast oil spill. As their next plan of action engineers will shoot a pile of trash at high speed into the blowout preventer at the site of the leak on the ocean floor. Experts in the oil field call this maneuver the “junk shot”.

Let’s hope they don’t need to go that far.

• Some random info from the NOAA:

By the Numbers to Date:

  • Personnel were quickly deployed and approximately 10,000 are currently responding to protect the shoreline and wildlife.
  • More than 290 vessels are responding on site, including skimmers, tugs, barges, and recovery vessels to assist in containment and cleanup efforts—in addition to dozens of aircraft, remotely operated vehicles, and multiple mobile offshore drilling units.
  • More than 1 million feet of boom (regular and sorbent) have been deployed to contain the spill—and more than 1.3 million feet are available.
  • Nearly 3.5 million gallons of an oil-water mix have been recovered.
  • Approximately 325,000 gallons of dispersant have been deployed. More than 500,000 gallons are available.

And here’s a great graphic illustrating what they’re trying to do with relief wells. (They’ll take months to work at least.) Click for a really large picture:

Toilet Paper Bandit Collared!

Some stories are tailor-made for the Bathroom Reader:

The “toilet paper bandit” who allegedly robbed a Lincoln convenience store last month has made headlines in newspapers as far away as London and on the Drudge Report.

His fame may have been short-lived, however.

Joshua Nelson, 29, of 121 E St. was arrested Saturday evening for robbery and use of a weapon to commit a felony.

On April 24, Nelson allegedly entered Kabredlo’s at 1445 S. 17th St. armed with a knife and demanded money.

The robber had toilet paper wrapped around his head to conceal his identity.

The Mail Online Channels Uncle John

The British Mail Online news service has a story this morning on a peculiar piece of clothing created by a Japanese designer. We just happened to have written a bit about that odd bit of attire in our just-released Uncle John’s World’s Gone Crazy Bathroom Reader:

THE VENDING MACHINE SKIRT

Let’s say you’re walking down the sidewalk dressed in an ordinary skirt and—Here come the bad guys! And they’re chasing you! Run! Hide! Too bad you weren’t wearing this special piece of clothing: The Vending Machine Skirt, by Tokyo designer Aya Tsukiokais. It looks like a normal skirt, but, when you need to become invisible, it quickly unfolds to become a large, rectangular piece of cloth that looks just like a soda vending machine. Just hold it in front of you and hide behind it, so the idea goes, and you’ll blend into the scenery. “Vending machines are on every corner of Japanese streets, and we take it for granted,” says Aya. “That’s how I came up with the idea for this dress.”

And now, because you deserve it, a video demonstration of the Vending Machine Skirt by Ms. Tsukiokais, with a bonus demonstration of her Manhole Cover Purse:

Asteroid Sample Coming to Earth in June

Here’s a fascinating story we haven’t heard a word about from one of our favorite science blogs, Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy:

The Japanese mission Hayabusa (“Falcon”) has been nothing if not ambitious. Launched in 2004, it reached the bizarre asteroid Itokawa a little over a year later. It took phenomenal images and other measurements, and even landed on the asteroid itself to take samples, destined to be returned to Earth.

But it has suffered a series of crippling mishaps that have threatened the mission time and again with failure. However, despite all that, the end game is in sight: Hayabusa is almost back home, and on June 13, sometime around 14:00 UT, the sample recovery capsule will parachute down to the Earth.

RIP: Lynn Redgrave

Actress Lynn Redgrave has passed away at age 67:

Our beloved mother Lynn Rachel passed away peacefully after a seven-year journey with breast cancer. She lived, loved and worked harder than ever before. The endless memories she created as a mother, grandmother, writer, actor and friend will sustain us for the rest of our lives. Our entire family asks for privacy through this difficult time.

May 3 in NASCAR History: The Allison Crash

Today is the anniversary of the crash that changed NASCAR. It was 1987, and Bobby Allison was just twenty-two laps into a race at the great Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama, when he blew a tire, went airborne at roughly 200 mph, and nearly went through the fence protecting the fans from the track. Several spectators were hurt, and the crash resulted in NASCAR beginning the era of the restrictor plate, slowing the racecars down on the big tracks like Talladega.

The video is guaranteed to give you chills:

Kangaroos in the Noos

News, we meant news. Anyhoo:

• “What is a kangaroo doing in the middle of the road in Bemidji, Minnesota in November?” Luke Havumaki said. (Uncle John said, “In November?”)

• Solving the mysteries of the elusive tree kangaroo. (With video.)

• A motorcycle rider was injured when he ran into a kanagroo. In Texas. (Texas, Asutralia.)

• Hankering for a new flavor potato chip? How about BBQ Kangaroo?

• The hunt for a phantom kangaroo…in Japan.

• Kangaroo v. dingo.

• Horny kangaroos!

• Shark attacks kangaroo. (Whu-huh?)

• And, finally, more ocean-going kangaroos, with less shark.

Ancient Weapons Found in Melting Arctic Ice

We now bring you another exciting edition of As the World Melts:

A treasure trove of ancient weapons has emerged from melting ice patches in the Canadian Arctic, revealing hunting strategies thousands of years old.

The weapons, which include a 2,400-year-old spear throwing tools, a 1000-year-old ground squirrel snare, and bows and arrows dating back 850 years, have been found high in the remote Mackenzie Mountains, a region where Mountain Boreal caribou abound in the summer months.

Politalks: Gordon Brown and the “Bigoted Woman”

Woo hoo. This one’s a doozy. Like we said in the last post, we love politics. Especially this kind.

Setup: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, eight days out from an election in which Brown’s Labour Party is predicted to lose their majority for the first time since 1997, is out on the stump. He comes across one Mrs. Gillian Duffy, aged 65, on a Rochdale, England, street, who had just popped out for a loaf of bread.

He has a nice and seemingly substantive little chat with Mrs. Duffy, surrounded by reporters and cameras.

He says goodbye, and gets in his car…but his microphone was still on. And this conversation is soon played to the world:
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