Wasteland Wrap-up #17

Halloween, research notes on the Korean War, the Scientific Revolution, and the H-bomb...

I voted early this week — it was a snap — and have since then been burrowed into my writing, trying to use the (very real) anxiety about deadlines to snuff out any election anxieties. One can only have so much anxiety, right? If only!

Spooky signs on a local elementary school in Jersey City.

ICYMI: This week on Doomsday Machines, I put up a quick post on one of Bob Dylan’s deeper cuts, “Let Me Die in My Footsteps,” in which Dylan protests against the very idea of fallout shelters: “When I go to my grave, my head will be high.” I learned about the song from my friend and colleague Ed Friedman when we co-taught a course together some years back.

On Halloween day, Lyndon was very unsure about the “mummified” statue (“The Torch Bearers” by Anna Hyatt Huntington, cast in aluminum, 1964) that stands at the center of campus at the Stevens Institute of Technology.

Last week I accidentally sent a “preview” of the Wasteland Wrap-up to the entire subscriber list, but afterwards I figured, well, of all of the ones I could send out, it was a good one. This week is a little skimpier, just because I’ve been under the gun…!