Kim Peek, the savant who was the inspiration for Barry Levinson’s original screenplay and film, Rain Man, died last week at age fifty-eight.The New York Times obit limns the many extraordinary abilities and skills this man possessed.Of those, none is more head-snapping than the astonishing skill that allowed him to simultaneously read facing pages of a book— one with each eye. He ultimately read as many as 12,000 volumes. Even more remarkable, he could remember what he had read.This, despite the fact that, as the Times noted, Mr. Peek “was born with severe brain abnormalities that impaired his physical coordination...
Christie’s Poison Pen Inspires Garden
A Plaque Honoring Agatha Christie At Torre Abbey.It is a quiet killer. Portable, difficult to detect, easy to use, and you can grow it right in your own backyard. We're talking poison. A favorite weapon of the fair sex, enabling even the daintiest femme fatale to dispatch a hulking muscleman twice her size. Perhaps this is why the queen of mystery writers, Agatha Christie, was so partial to it: poison is the method of choice for murderers in nearly half of her 66 detective novels, and in many of her 100 short stories.Torre Abbey, Torquay, Devon.Christie herself said in They...
The Inside Story of Jim Vaus and the Unholy Alliance of Politics, Crime, and the LAPD
In 1953, a paperback book, The Inside Story of Narcotics, was issued by religious publishing house, Zondervan. Released at the height of hysteria about a national epidemic of teen-aged junkies that did not exist, it was written by one Jim Vaus."Every trade has a technical language. Even Christians have a language of their own. They speak of being 'saved,' of a 'Christian worker,' or of 'putting out fleece.' The person not used to their jargon doesn't understand what the Christians are talking about. Addicts, too, have a language of their own, language which must be understood if this book is...
Lost Souls Are Contained In "The Library of Dust"
Canister #55-559(All Photos By David Maisel.)"Avoid the world, it's just a lot of dust and drag and means nothing in the end."-Jack Kerouac.The crematorium, autopsy room, and hallways of an outbuilding at the Oregon State Hospital, formerly known as "The Insane Asylum," need to be cleaned. Not exactly a plum assignment. So a prisoner from a nearby penitentiary has been brought in for the job. He's perfect for it. He has no choice. But even the man in prison blues balks at entering one room. When its long-locked door is opened by a visiting photographer--fittingly one of those crazy artist...
Travel Writers Conjure Up "Magical Libraries"
Boston Copley Public Library. Boston, MA.Travel writers and adventurers Michelle Enemark and Dylan Thuras have assembled a gorgeous gallery of photographs depicting the world's most magnificent libraries on their website, Curious Expeditions. The pictures are from a wide variety of sources, including reader contributions, and selections show that glorious groves of books are in full bloom worldwide. The gallery, Librophiliac Love Letter, proclaims: "Row after row, shelf after shelf, there is nothing more magical than a beautiful old library."Book Patrol has added a few quotations to enhance your viewing pleasure. Some lyrics to accompany what Goethe called the "frozen music"...