Michael Newton’s Monsters, Mysteries and Man was a bit of a mystery for me for many years. I remembered it from my local library (it was at the Main, which I didn’t go to as much as the closer, smaller Branch). I had gotten it out before a trip to my grandparents' house and I distinctly remember reading it in bed there in almost one sitting. I remembered that it had a garish monster head on the cover and that the title reminded me of Richard Cavendish’s Man, Myth and Magic series, but that was all I could remember. Searching, for years, on the internet, turned up zilch.

And then, sometimes, I find that magic combination of words on the right site and boom, there it is, the thing I was looking for all those years. The site in question was Archive.org, so hey, you can read it too. The dust jacket is magnificent, isn’t it?

The text was a bit less noteworthy all these years later. It’s a general survey of crytpids — Yeti, Sasquatch, surviving dinosaurs, sea and lake monsters, Kraken, Nessie, UFOs — and the efforts to find and study them. Two more chapters cover vampires and werewolves, but they are half-hearted because there’s no meaningful chance that they are real. And that’s what Newton wants. He’s the opposite of skeptical Daniel Cohen; the whole book is arranged around finding the small holes of doubt in the skeptic’s argument and filling them to brimming with the hope of the believer. Considering not much has changed on any of these fronts in my lifetime, I don’t expect they ever will. Sorry Mike.

M.C. Escher | METAMORPHOSIS II (1940)

Seinfeld Screensaver & Planner / R. Crumb Screensaver & Companion / Cartoon Studio

What’s New? Well, Linda Ronstadt Turns 80 Today

What’s new? Linda Ronstadt, who was blessed with arguably the greatest female singing voice of her generation, turns 80 today.

Born July 15, 1946, Ronstadt’s been retired from performing since 2009, when that singing voice was silenced by the effects of progressive supranuclear palsy.

“Literally my entire career flashed in front of my eyes,” she later recalled of her final concert. “I remembered every show I’d ever done. I was glad it was Mexican music.”

Though she’s best known for her country, pop and rock music, Ronstadt did do a lot of Mexican music, a move record executives said would be career suicide.

She cut standards, too. And was also warned of career suicide.

What the suits forgot was Ronstadt’s voice - a voice that can make people listen to music they might not otherwise listen to.

Not all of Ronstadt’s music for everyone but some of Ronstadt’s music is sure to appeal to everyone - not only because of how diverse her songbook is, but because of that voice.

It’s so good, it’s so good, it’s so good, baby, it’s so good.