From New York World, January 3, 1882:

“Mr. Wilde is fully six feet three inches in height, straight as an arrow, and with broad shoulders and long arms, indicating considerable strength. His outer garment was a long ulster trimmed with two kinds of fur, which reached almost to his feet. He wore patent-leather shoes, a smoking-cap or turban, and his shirt might be termed ultra-Byronic, or perhaps—décolleté. A sky-blue cravat of the sailor style hung well down upon the chest. His hair flowed over his shoulders in dark-brown waves, curling slightly upwards at the ends. His eyes were of a deep blue, but without that faraway expression that is popularly attributed to poets. In fact they seemed rather everyday and commonplace eyes. His teeth were large and regular, disproving a pleasing story which has gone the rounds of the English press that he has three tusks or protuberants far from agreeable to look at. He is beardless, and his complexion is almost colorless.”

King recording artist and “piano-pounding wild man” Moon Mullican co-wrote a song with Grand Ole Opry buddy Hank Williams titled “Jambalaya (on the Bayou),” which was a top ten hit for Williams in 1952.

“The song was published with Williams listed as the sole writer because Mullican reportedly didn’t trust King to pay royalties fairly and preferred to receive his share of the money under the table from Williams in a gentlemen’s agreement.*  That worked until Williams’s death on January 1, 1953; after that, it probably cost Mullican at least a million dollars in lost income.”

*Escott, Hank Williams, 196

“Part memoir, part journalism, and part aesthetic manifesto, Creative Life is a dazzling set of writings from a musical artist who has worked on the cutting edge of new music for thirty years.”

My favorite chapter so far is “The Balkans: Tour Journal.” I was in a college band back-in-the-day, mainly playing within a ninety mile radius of Champaign-Urbana. Our biggest fears were a flat tire, a broken guitar string, and an opening band that wanted us to move our equipment so that they could fit theirs on stage (the nerve!). Someone did break into our van once, and the drum machine stopped inexplicably a few times mid-song, but even these pale in comparison to Bob’s experiences in the remains of Yugoslavia.

Denied visas. Irreplaceable broken gear. Suspicious border guards.  Now that’s a tour!

The book’s “Conclusion” explains why Bob has posted all of his music online for free download. Creative Life won’t be published until September 2009, but you can get a head start discovering the art of Bob Ostertag here.

Jerry Lewis received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. Albert Maysles created the video introduction to the documentary film category presented by Bill Maher (who also mentioned Maysles in his remarks).

Both books, by Chris Fujiwara and Joe McElhaney respectively, will be available this fall.

Today’s post is from Breanne:

The Urban Simulation Team in the School of Arts and Architecture at UCLA employs real-time visual simulation technology to recreate scenes from The World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893.

“Just as in 1893, the completed model will allow users to stroll along the virtual Court of Honor, tour the Wooded Island, and marvel at the fair’s classical structures from a gondola.”
 
Browsers can view brief video segments of the exposition’s buildings, go on a virtual boat ride from the Court of Honor to the Fine Arts Building at dusk, or see static images of the exposition still under development.

For more on the 1893 exposition, check out UIP’s The World’s Columbian Exposition by Norman Bolotin and Christine Laing.

[Editor's note: And if you're a superfan of world's fairs, The 1933 Chicago World's Fair: A Century of Progress by Cheryl R. Ganz will debut in October.]

Twice a year I visit major media outlets in New York to present books from our newest catalog.  A Spring 2008 catalog title receiving great interest is a memoir written by circus performer Tiny Kline, which is being published forty-four years after her 1964 death.  Tiny played Tinker Bell at Disneyland and was known for sliding hands-free along an elevated cable by a “trapeze” rigged to her teeth.  There is some terrifying YouTube footage from 1932 of her traversing the sky over Times Square here. Circus Queen and Tinker Bell: The Memoir of Tiny Kline, edited by Janet M. Davis, will be published in June 2008 by the University of Illinois Press.