I thoroughly approve of Reactor‘s carriage propulsion concept: But will I be able to find such people to draw me across Europe? On balance, bicycle may still be best.
Following the post on Mexican organ grinders, someone kindly sent in the following anecdote, posted by Mark Williamson over at the Mechanical Music Digest: The Italian composer Pietro Mascagni was sitting in his study one day when a street musician stopped outside and began to play one of Mascagni’s pieces on his hand-cranked barrel organ.…
On the same day the Enola Gay dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, a small Mexico City pharmaceutical manufacturer offered the distinguished Hungarian Jewish contract bridge player, George Rosenkranz, work synthesising progesterone from inedible yams. He fell in love with the city immediately: I saw the blue sky, the volcano, and heard this music outside my…