Stratocatter

Lewis Hines:  Birrmingham Messenger   (1914)

Review by Ned Raggett www.allmusic.com It’s one of the best titles in modern musical history, for song and for album, and as a call to arms mentally and physically the promise of funk was never so perfectly stated. If it were just a title then there’d be little more to say, but happily, Free Your Mind lives up to it throughout as another example of Funkadelic getting busy and taking everyone with it. The title track itself kicks things off with rumbling industrial noises and space alien sound effects, before a call-and-response chant between deep and chirpy voices brings the concept to full life. As the response voices say, “The kingdom of heaven is within!” The low and dirty groove rumbles along for ten minutes of dark fun, with Bernie Worrell turning in a great keyboard solo toward the end — listening to it, one gets the feeling that if Can were this naturally funky, they’d end up sounding like this. From there the band makes its way through a total of six songs, ranging from the good to astoundingly great. “Funky Dollar Bill” is the other standout track from the proceedings, with a great, throw-it-down chorus and rhythm and a sharp, cutting lyric that’s as good to think about as it is to sing out loud. The closing “Eulogy and Light,” meanwhile, predates Prince with its backward masking and somewhat altered version of the Lord’s Prayer and Psalm 23. At other points, even if the song is a little more straightforward, there’s something worthwhile about it, like the random stereo panning and Eddie Hazel’s insane guitar soloing on “I Wanna Know If It’s Good for You,” with more zoned and stoned keyboard work from Worrell to top things off. The amount of drugs going down for these sessions in particular must have been notable, but the end results make it worthy.

Kingston, Ontario

T.H. White, from The Once and Future King (via inshoeboxes)

Anthony Trollope, ‘Framely Parsonage.’ Got to love a bit a lot of 19th century humour. Mixed with very astute observations. (via thecolourofmagic)

These were once a set of quite nice houses but they've long been converted into student housing.

And so then I looked like Boris Karloff, as seen above. Sheesh, people!

ca. 1890 tintype with applied color Image/Overall: 9.7 x 5.8 cm

Looking West Down 4th Avenue South From 9th Street, Lethbridge, AB, 1920-22.

David Bowie on the girl in his song ‘Life On Mars?’ (via timemcflys)

Original Image Source: George Metcalf Archival Collection It is easy to understand why Canadian nurses were nicknamed “bluebirds” when catching a glimpse of their white veils and blue uniforms. Nurses were provided with a light blue service uniform, seen on the left, as well as a navy blue ceremonial uniform worn by the nurse on the right. Both are displaying the nursing cape with crimson lining. More details about the uniform and other items included in a nurse’s kit can be found on the Collections Canada website. In total 3,141 sisters volunteered for the Canadian Army Nursing Service between 1914-1918. But nursing behind the front lines was not without danger; 47 Canadian nurses gave their lives during the First World War, which includes more than a dozen who were killed when a Canadian hospital ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1918. You can find out more about the role of Canadian nurses in the Great War and the names of those that gave their lives from the Veterans Affairs website.

The satirical cartoons of Flannery O’Connor.

Hey, I don't know, I've gotta use up my free time somehow, and besides maybe one day I will have lots of friends and they'll all be impressed with how smart I am or something.