Wednesday, September 21, 2011

FLP Freebies (*)

Dante's Inferno (Bloom's Notes) -- Edited & With An Introduction by Harold Bloom
1996, Chelsea House Publishers

New Ideas From Dead Economists by Todd G. Buchholz
2007, Plume Books Printing (Second Revised Edition)

Last Night In Twisted River by John Irving
2005, Vintage Books

Break, Blow, Burn by Camille Paglia
2005, Vintage Books

The Art of Serving Food Attractively by Mary Albert Wenker
Illustrated by Helen Disbrow
1951, Double Day & Company


Last & Least



1963, Double Day & Company

Wikipedia Notes - Excerpt: In 1952, Dr. Menzel was appointed acting director of the Harvard Observatory. One of Menzel's early acts as the Director was to cause lasting bitterness and feelings of betrayal and shock among a large section of astronomers when he evicted on short notice the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) from their headquarters and appropriated almost all of their endowment.

The roughly $100,000 taken from the AAVSO's Pickering Endowment was used to fund Menzel's own solar research. Menzel's stated excuse for ejecting the AAVSO from their longtime (42 years) headquarters was that Building A was to be torn down, so the notice dated December 8, 1953 gave the AAVSO until January 1, 1954 to vacate their 384 square feet (35.7 m2) of office space. (Building A still stands.) When the AAVSO was on the verge of getting a new headquarters at Boston University (BU), on January 6, 1954, the offer was withdrawn after the BU official was called by Menzel.

Other Interesting Miscellany: In one of his last papers, "Superstars and The Black Hole Myth" (1976), Menzel concluded, based on his analysis of the Schwarzschild equations, that black holes do not exist, and he declared them to be a myth.


(*) Free Library of Philadelphia, Discard Pile @ Port Richmond Branch