Day For Night For Real
from International Business Times
Massive Mirrors Will Bring Light To Norway Town Shrouded In Darkness
The Norwegian town of Rjukan is shrouded in darkness for five months every year, but a project completed this month promises to bring a bright spot to the town’s central square via a series of massive mirrors that will reflect sunlight onto the meeting spot.
Rjukan, which is located about halfway between Bergen and Oslo and is encircled by sun-obstructing mountains, is a dreary place to be between September and March, when the sun’s rays cannot reach its quaint streets.
But the effort, dubbed the “Mirror Project,” will ensure that Rjukan residents have a place to bask even on the darkest days of the frigid Scandinavian winters.
“The aim of this project is to illuminate the town square of Rjukan with reflected sunlight. Rjukan is a town surrounded by mountains that prevent the sun from reaching the floor of the valley for five months of the year,” an online description of the plan states. “The project will result in a permanent installation which, with the help of 100 [square-meter] mirror[s], will redirect the sun down into the valley. The square will become a sunny meeting place in a town otherwise in shadow.”
It’s The Mud Not The Flood That Gets You
Stand Your Grammar
THE FALL OF FIVE – Sneak Peak from EW @ First Three Chapters
Read the first three chapters of the next ‘I Am Number Four’ novel ‘Fall of Five’ — EXCLUSIVE
In the first three chapters of The Fall of Five, Sam doesn’t know what happened to the Garde, which turns out to be useful when all-powerful Mogardorian leader Sektrakus Ra interrogates him personally. Thrown into isolation, Sam starts to go a bit crazy, until he’s rescued by hid dad. Now father and son have a lot of catching up to do if they’re going to help save an endangered planet…
Frey Check
James Frey Interview
I’m sure many people are aware of the backlash that came from James Frey’s television appearances. My thinking was this, here is a guy that is recounting his years of drug use, there is bound to be some moments that are blurry. No one ever took Hunter S. Thompson to task over the alleged bat sightings in Barstow.
1. First off, I want to thank you for agreeing to do this interview. I have always felt that the first chapter of A Million Little Pieces was, probably, one of the best first chapters written in the last ten to twenty years. How long before it was published did you write it?
Thank you. Happy to do it. I wrote AMLP in 2001. It took about a year to write. I was living in LA, in Venice. I had been writing movies and sort of hated it, decided I would rather fail at what I wanted to do than be sort of successful at something that I didn’t really want to do. When we sent it to publishers, 17 turned it down before somehow was willing to publish it.
2. In My Friend Leonard you write about you and your friends going to a Vandals concert. Were/are you a fan of punk rock or was this a one off event?
Definitely not a one off. Have listened to punk since I was about fourteen. In the 80’s, when I grew up, I loved the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys, the Circle Jerks. The Vandals put on an amazing show. Have seen them a few times. The best shows I saw were in LA, where they got an amazing crowd, and Live Fast, Diarrhea is one of the great albums of the 90’s. Still listen to most of the same music I listened to when I was a teenager. Always listen to music while I write.
Corpse Flower Blooms
from the United States Botanic Garden
Return of the Titan
The titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum), also known as the corpse flower or stinky plant, is blooming at the United States Botanic Garden Conservatory! Once fully open, it may remain in bloom for 24 to 48 hours, and then it will collapse quickly.
The magic of the titan arum comes from its great size – it is reputed to have the largest known unbranched inflorescence in the plant kingdom. Referred to as the corpse flower or stinky plant, its putrid smell is most potent during peak bloom at night into the early morning. The odor is often compared to the stench of rotting flesh. The inflorescence also generates heat, which allows the stench to travel further. This combination of heat and smell efficiently attracts pollinators, such as dung and carrion beetles, from across long distances.
The titan arum does not have an annual blooming cycle. The time between flowering is unpredictable, which can span from a few years to a few decades.
Beekman Boys Soap-Up Natalie from Facts Of Life
Mindy Cohn: Avid Beekman 1802 Soap User Since 2010
by Adam Asea
Just received this picture from Beekman Boy Josh Kilmer-Purcell:
“We were at an event presenting Sonja Morgan from Real Housewives of New York with an Inspiration Award from the NY State Senate. We spotted Mindy from across the room and couldn’t wait till we were done so that we could go meet her. She was one of our favorite childhood actresses. She mentioned that she came to the event because she saw our names on the invite, and had long admired what we were building. We thought she was just being polite, but then she made us sniff her forearm to prove that she’d just showered with our soap before coming to the party. Which we gladly did. And she had!”
Smoke And Mirrors Feted
DESERT BUS: THE VERY WORST VIDEO GAME EVER CREATED
Morgan van Humbeck completed his shift in front of the television and passed out. Ten minutes later, his cell phone woke him. “Morgan, this is Teller,” said a small voice on the other end of the line. “Fuck off,” replied Morgan in disbelief. He hung up the phone and went back to sleep.
The drive from Tucson, Arizona, to Las Vegas, Nevada, takes approximately eight hours when travelling in a vehicle whose top speed is forty-five miles per hour. In Desert Bus, an unreleased video game from 1995 conceived by the American illusionists and entertainers Penn Jillette and Teller, players must complete that journey in real time. Finishing a single leg of the trip requires considerable stamina and concentration in the face of arch boredom: the vehicle constantly lists to the right, so players cannot take their hands off the virtual wheel; swerving from the road will cause the bus’s engine to stall, forcing the player to be towed back to the beginning. The game cannot be paused. The bus carries no virtual passengers to add human interest, and there is no traffic to negotiate. The only scenery is the odd sand-pocked rock or road sign. Players earn a single point for each eight-hour trip completed between the two cities, making a Desert Bus high score perhaps the most costly in gaming.
Van Humbeck, unconscious on the couch, had just contributed to what was then a Desert Bus world record of five points.
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Bob Dylan Spotted Painting Topless Women in Central Park
Bob Dylan ditched his microphone for an easel last Thursday (June 13) when he was spotted in Central Park, seemingly painting portraits of topless models lounging in the grass.
The musician tagged along with artist pal Richard Prince for the outing, which has caused a bit of a stir.
While onlookers and art bloggers initially assumed Dylan was basing his work off the live models in front of him, it has been revealed that the inspiration behind his painting is actually a photo of Italian actress Sonia Aquino by fashion photographer Bruno Bisang. Read more, and see the NSFW image here.
Woman with Eyes Closed
OFFICIALS SEEKING STOLEN ART FIND PAINT IN ASHES
BY ALISON MUTLER AND JILL LAWLESS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Romanian museum official said Wednesday that ash from the oven of a woman whose son is charged with stealing seven multimillion-dollar paintings – including a Matisse, a Picasso and a Monet – contains paint, canvas and nails.
Ernest Oberlander-Tarnoveanu, director of Romania’s National History Museum, told The Associated Press that museum forensic specialists had found “small fragments of painting primer, the remains of canvas, the remains of paint” and copper and steel nails, some of which pre-dated the 20th century.
“We discovered a series of substances which are specific to paintings and pictures,” he said, including lead, zinc and azurite.
Romanian prosecutors say Olga Dogaru – whose son is the alleged heist ringleader – claims she buried the art in an abandoned house and then in a cemetery in the village of Caracliu. She said she later dug the paintings up and burned them in February after police began searching the village for the stolen works.
“Olga Dogaru describes how she made the fire, put wood on it and burned the paintings, like she was burning a pair of slippers,” he said. “She’s either a repressed writer or she is describing exactly what she did.”
Birth of The Mitt
The Invention of the Baseball Mitt
To round out our series on the the design of baseball equipment, let’s take a brief look at the baseball glove. Unlike the baseball bat or the baseball itself, the glove was not initially a part of the game. Players just used the mitts they were born with. Lest you think that all men were walking around with swollen and broken fingers, it’s important to remember that this was a very different game than the today. There were a lot of differences in the game, not least of which is the fact that much of the throwing was underhand. In the beginning, there wasn’t much need for hand protection, but even as the game evolved and balls were thrown harder and faster, there was some reluctance to use any protection or padding. These were the days when the measure of a man was the number of calluses on his fingers and of broken bones in his hand. Wearing a glove just wasn’t manly.
The earliest gloves were simple leather work gloves, often with its finger removed to ensure that ball handling isn’t inhabited in any way. It’s hard to say exactly who wore the first glove, but some reports claim that catchers were wearing work gloves as early as 1860. A pitcher for the by the name of A.G. Spalding claims that it was New Haven first baseman Charles C. Waite who, in an 1875 game against Boston, first had the audacity (i.e. common sense) to take the field with a glove.
Superhero
Md. Man Swims 5 Hours To Save His Family After Their Boat Capsized
DEAL ISLAND, Md. (AP) — John Franklin Riggs swam for hours to reach help for his family, including two children, after their boat capsized in a storm.
Riggs climbed rocks along the shoreline in the dark and knocked on the door of the first house he saw early Wednesday.
“He came to the right house,” said Angela Byrd, whose dog’s barking awakened her. She found 46-year-old Riggs outside, soaking wet and barefoot.
“He said, `I’ve been swimming since sundown; I need help,’ ” she told the Daily Times.
Last of The Indian Telegrams Gone
163-year-old telegram service to close forever at 9pm today
NEW DELHI: The 163-year old telegram service in the country – the harbinger of good and bad news for generations of Indians – is dead.
Once the fastest means of communication for millions of people, the humble telegram was today buried without any requiem but for the promise of preserving the last telegram as a museum piece.
Nudged out by technology – SMS, emails, mobile phones – the iconic service gradually faded into oblivion with less and less people taking recourse to it.
Started in 1850 on an experimental basis between Koklata and Diamond Harbour, it was opened for use by the British East India Company the following year. In 1854, the service was made available to the public.
It was such an important mode of communication in those days that revolutionaries fighting for the country’s independence used to cut the telegram lines to stop the British from communicating.
Old timers recall that receiving a telegram would be an event itself and the messages were normally opened with a sense of trepidation as people feared for the welfare of their near and dear ones.
Pablo Swift
Who Said It: Pablo Neruda Or Taylor Swift?
It’s Pablo Neruda’s 109th birthday today! Let’s see how the love poet of yore stacks up against our beloved songstress of modern romance.
by Matt Ortile
Inventor of TWISTER Gone
Inventor of iconic party game Twister dies
By PATRICK CONDON
Associated Press
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – Twister called itself “the game that ties you up in knots.” Its detractors called it “sex in a box.”
Charles “Chuck” Foley, the father of nine who invented the game that became a naughty sensation in living rooms across America in the 1960s and 1970s because of the way it put men and women in compromising positions, has died. He was 82.
“Dad wanted to make a game that could light up a party,” Mark Foley said. “They originally called it ‘Pretzel.’ But they sold it to Milton Bradley, which came up with the ‘Twister’ name.”
The game became a sensation after Johnny Carson and Eva Gabor played it on “The Tonight Show” in 1966.
To be sure, the game got plenty of innocent play, too, becoming popular in grade schools and at children’s parties. But its popularity among teens and young adults was owed to an undeniable sex appeal.
Players would become tangled up, and various body parts – male and female – would inevitably come into close and embarrassing proximity. Players would often lose their balance and fall on top of each other in a heap.
Concrete Griddle No Mas
Stop Frying Eggs on Roadside, Death Valley Officials Say
Attention aspiring Mythbusters: The ‘leave no trace’ park policy still applies, even for eggs
STEVE MARCUS / REUTER
While Death Valley National Park celebrates the 100th anniversary of the hottest day ever recorded in the world–134 degrees–park officials are hoping their visitors aren’t carrying out a cliché statement about the temperature.
Death Valley park officials wrote on their Facebook page recently that maintenance crews have been “busy cleaning up eggs cracked directly on the sidewalk, including egg cartons and shells strewn across the parking lot. This is your national park, please put trash in the garbage or recycle bins provided and don’t crack eggs on the sidewalks, or the Salt Playa at Badwater.”
Ironically, Park officials are actually the ones who sparked the trending activity: A video, which has already generated over 161,000 views since being uploaded on June 29th, shows a Death Valley employee proving that an egg, served sunnyside up, is able to cook in the 127.6-degree heat. At one point, the egg-cracker “highly recommends” using a skillet, because a frying attempt with just the ground “makes a mess and it doesn’t work.”
Hotel Lambert On Fire
Fire damages landmark Paris mansion
By Marion Thibaut, AFP
The Hotel Lambert mansion in central Paris, a 17th-century architectural jewel with a rich history, was damaged in a major fire on Wednesday amid controversial renovations following its purchase by the Qatari royal family.
Dozens of firefighters fought the blaze for about six hours after it broke out around 2330 GMT on Tuesday (0930 AEST Wednesday) at the Lambert, a private townhouse, on Ile Saint-Louis overlooking the Seine.
Firefighters said the blaze started on the roof of the building, which was bought by Qatar’s royal family from the Rothschild banking dynasty for some 60 million euros ($A93.16 million) in 2007.
The fire “spread pretty fast because the building is empty and in the midst of renovation”, fire service Lieutenant-Colonel Pascal Le Testu told AFP. “The operation was complicated because the structure is fragile.”
Heritage experts had arrived at the mansion on Wednesday morning to check its contents but were unable to go inside due to safety concerns.
But Le Testu said the damage appeared to be extensive.
“The roof was completely devastated and the structure is weakened because a staircase and pediment over the central portion have partially collapsed,” he said.
He said the building’s famed frescoes by Charles Le Brun in the `Gallery of Hercules’ were also “severely damaged by smoke and water”.
Twin Peaks Poisoned Meatballs
San Francisco Police Still Looking For Person Who Poisoned Meatballs
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS / AP) — San Francisco police are asking for the public’s help in tracking down whomever left hundreds of meatballs laced with rat poison in areas where dogs could find them.
The meatballs were found scattered in the city’s Twin Peaks and Diamond Heights neighborhoods last week and at least one dog was sickened.
Most of the meatballs were collected and disposed of by residents.
‘He respectfully requests six Cleveland Browns pall bearers so the Browns can let him down one last time.’
Man wants Browns pallbearers so team ‘can let him down one last time’
By Will Brinson | NFL Writer
Browns fans are a pretty crazy bunch. (USATSI)
People always throw out weird stuff surrounding their death (“When I die I want blah blah blah”) but you rarely see people follow through on it. Not Scott E. Entsminger, a Browns fan who died at the age of 55 on July 4.
Entsminger “was an accomplished musician, loved playing the guitar and was a member of the Old Fogies Band.” He was also, per his obituary in the Columbus Dispatch, a “lifelong Cleveland Browns fan and season ticket holder.”
The deceased wasn’t just your average Browns fan: He apparently wrote a song each year about the Browns, which he sent to the team along with advice about how to run the organization.
And he was such a big Browns fan that the family encouraged everyone attending his funeral wear clothes supporting the team. But here’s the real kicker — he wanted his pallbearers to be Browns as well.
Why? Well …
“He respectfully requests six Cleveland Browns pall bearers so the Browns can let him down one last time.”
Rule, Britannia!
Murray’s Wimbledon Win ‘Makes Britain Proud’
David Cameron was in the Royal Box to watch Murray’s straight sets 6-4, 7-5, 6-4 victory over world number one Novak Djokovic.
The Scot became the first Briton in 77 years to win the men’s singles final.
After the victory, Mr Cameron tweeted: “It was a privilege to watch @andy_murray making history at #Wimbledon, and making Britain proud.”
Murray was congratulated privately by the Queen following his historic win.
A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said: “I can confirm that the Queen has sent a private message to Andy Murray following his Wimbledon victory.”
Balls of Fried Corn Starch
Report: Long John Silver’s ‘Big Catch’ Is The Worst Meal in America
Long John Silver’s “Big Catch” is nothing but heart-wrenching trouble, according to a watchdog group
If you think eating fish–with its purported brain-boosting benefits–is healthy regardless of how it’s made, think again! Long John Silver’s “Big Catch” has been deemed the most unhealthy meal in America, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a consumer advocacy organization. The meal, which consists of fried “wild-caught whitefish” and a choice of two side-dishes, costs only $4.99–but the cost to your health could make it not worth the savings.
Researchers at CSPI found that the assortment of fried fish paired with fried onion rings and hushpuppies (balls of fried corn starch) adds up to 19 grams of saturated fat, almost 37 grams of sodium, and a whopping 33 grams of trans fat – which is an ingredient considered so harmful to heart health that New York City banned it in 2006. In comparison, approximately the same amount of raw whitefish has less than a gram of saturated fat, less than a gram of sodium, and no trans fat.
Free The Fire Station
Station Had Listeners, Just Not a License
By VIVIAN YEE
“People are driving and all of a sudden they run into a Caribbean station,” said Jason Finkelberg, the station’s general manager, describing the listener complaint that constantly bedevils K104.7.
It is not some quirk of the dial, or a blip in the airwaves. The Caribbean music that bleeds into the Top 40 sounds came from the Bronx and Brooklyn version of 104.7, the FM frequency on which a pirate radio station, 104.7 the Fire Station, has squatted for at least the past decade. It has colorful DJs, live special guests, commercials and devoted listeners. What it does not have is a Federal Communications Commission license for its frequency.
But dislodging pirate radio operators from the airwaves may be no more useful an exercise than playing Whac-A-Mole: dozens, if not hundreds, of underground radio operators crowd the FM dial in New York, mainly in neighborhoods like Flatbush, Brooklyn, where immigrant communities clamor to hear dance hall and soca Caribbean music and news from home.
Some flicker on and off, beholden to no set schedule and no one frequency; others are more established operations, with Web sites, revenue from commercials and fan bases. The Fire Station had regular shows and ran around the clock on weekends, playing in the afternoons and evenings during weekdays.
If this is not quite the stuff of outlaw fantasy, as depicted in the movie “Pirate Radio,” the operators often claim that they are giving underserved communities a voice that they cannot find elsewhere. It is the kind of programming that cannot be heard on mainstream radio stations in the city.
“The message that we’re trying to bring across is we are people who have great ideas, who are independent, and there’s a lot more to offer than the big-time radio stations have to offer,” said Timo Flex, a manager at VYBZ Radio, a reggae and soul station. He said the station broadcasts only online, but it and its frequency, 107.1, have been mentioned as being run by pirates on local Web sites and radio message boards.
“There are things going on in the community we wish to share in the world,” he said. “It’s not just local vibe. It’s local vibe community radio.”
Happy Independence Day
Genius
‘All My Children’ and ‘One Life to Live’ to Premiere on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network With Three-Episode Marathons
Written By Amanda Kondolojy
Los Angeles – OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network is kicking off the network’s previously announced summer fling for soap fans with a marathon of back-to-back original half-hour episodes of The OnLine Network’s reprisal of “All My Children” and “One Life To Live” on Monday, July 15.
The first three episodes of “All My Children” will air from 12:00-1:30 p.m. on July 15, with the third episode repeating at 1:30 p.m. Original episodes will then air daily at 1:00 p.m. beginning Tuesday, July 16.
Skee-Ball Super Bowl
At the Skee-ball Super Bowl
I found earnest rollers playing a uniquely American game, not haughty hipsterdom
This originally appeared on The Classical.
When Joey the Cat rolled a last-frame full circle to nip DaVinskee in the semifinals of The BEEB, he appeared to have his third straight cream jacket fully sewn up. Snakes on a Lane stood in his way however. That’s just how things go down in Cherrytown.
The clash between Joey and Snakes made for a thrilling finals at the fourth annual Brewskee-Ball National Championship—world’s preeminent skee-ball tournament—in Austin, over Memorial Day Weekend. The best roller won thousands of dollars. As both incentive and consolation, all contestants got a bunch of free beers. It’s a winning formula.
A confluence of my wife’s love of live music and some cheap flights brought us to Texas’ capital city, and a dear friend’s ascent in the Brewskee-Ball rankings ensured that we’d spend some time at the BBNC. “It’s The BEEB,” the poster proclaimed, and so let’s call it that. The event had been held in New York City for its first three years and I’d never attended, and never even really considered attending. But a certain wanderlust prompted me to join the 64 rollers at Austin’s Historic Scoot Inn—a bar established in the 19th century and located in what is now the city’s booming scrap metal district, just across the train tracks from chic East 6th Street—for the fourth national tournament organized around a century-old arcade game. It made logistical sense at the time, and makes a different sort of sense in retrospect.
The Divine Weiwei
Ai Weiwei
BY KYLE MULLIN
The grinding heavy metal riffs of Ai Weiwei’s debut single echo an even more unsettling sound—that of brick being crushed to dust.
The infamous Chinese dissident may indeed be delving into a new medium, (his first album, The Divine Comedy, was released on June 22, led by the hard-hitting single “Dumbass”). But it’s far from the first twist in this artistic activist’s narrative. One of the most noticeable turns in that ever-thickening plot occurred in 2011, when authorities demolished his Shanghai studio art gallery. Many supporters saw the razzing as a rebuttal to Ai’s numerous government critiques and human rights pleas in the international press. But his greatest ally and dear friend, Zuoxiao Zuzhou, could relate on a more visceral level, having sung protest songs against those PRC bulldozers for years as they lumbered closer to his family’s village in Jiangsu province—a region deemed ripe for urban development.
Hashassins
Attention word nerds: 13 mysteries of the vernacular, solved
Posted by: Kate Torgovnick
Before a ‘clue’ became a thing that excited a detective, the word referred to a ball of yarn. So how did this shift in meaning occur? Because in Greek mythology, Ariadne threw a ball of yarn to Theseus before he entered the minotaur’s labyrinth. Theseus unrolled the yarn behind him as he traveled into the deadly maze — then used it to find his way out.
And you’ll find lots more of it in the TED-Ed series Mysteries of the Vernacular, from Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel.
- What the word gorgeous has to do with turtlenecks
- How the word window came from a clever metaphor
- The strange derivation of the tuxedo
- How Alfred Nobel invented dynamite
- Why venom once meant ‘something to be desired’
- The riddle of the word earwig
- Why the word inaugurate is for the birds
- How noise, nausea and naval are all related
- The story of the word pants
- Why the origin of the word miniature isn’t so small
- What a hearse was before a vehicle for the dead
- The word assassin’s roots in hash
- And, as previously mentioned, why you could once knit with a clue
New Drone City
Game of Drones: Does NYC Have an ‘Unmanned Aerial Vehicle’ Problem?
Rise of the machines.
In late 2011, a slender Williamsburg resident named Tim Pool roamed downtown Manhattan, seemingly recording every minute of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Mr. Pool, an independent journalist, would use his smartphone to live-stream the demonstrations, sometimes for as long as 19 continuous hours, earning himself the nickname “The Media Messenger of Zuccotti Park” in Time magazine.
As the protests escalated, it became increasingly difficult for Mr. Pool to capture the civil disobedience from eye level. He yearned for an unhindered view—a higher vantage point, like from the sky.
“The fact that police would obstruct cameras just sort of put in our minds that we might be in a situation where you can’t get a good shot because there’s a wall or a fence or something,” Mr. Pool, now 27, told The Observer.
Enter the “occucopter”—a modified drone of Mr. Pool’s creation, built from a Parrot AR, one of the first consumer-oriented drones, which hit the marketplace in 2010 and was available for purchase on Amazon for $299.
Drones, also commonly called unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), differ from the remote-controlled toy helicopters of childhood in that they operate via onboard computers under the direction of a pilot, who is on the ground. The Parrot AR Drone has onboard technology to follow preprogrammed instructions and automatically stabilize itself against wind.
A lightweight quad-rotor, Mr. Pool’s drone resembled nothing so much as a bike seat and, with its palette of neon colors, it looked like it had been plucked straight from the pages of SkyMall. Unlike the junk found in an in-flight magazine, however, it actually worked—and with the addition of a camera, the occucopter was given further functionality.
Shooting 50 feet into the air and zipping around at speeds of up to 10 miles per hour, the occucopter buzzed above the heads of the protesters. For many, both within and beyond Zuccotti Park, this marked their first-ever encounter with a drone. Even the mainstream media was fascinated, focusing on the device’s nonmilitary capabilities, as Mr. Pool earned press mentions across the globe in outlets like The Guardian and Wired magazine.
Weed Man vs. Beer Man
In Times Square, a Bizarre Clash of Weed Man Versus Beer Man
By VIVIAN YEE
Michael Appleton for The New York Times
This is not an only in New York story.
This is an only in Times Square story, in a place where the Beer Man and the Weed Man in a Box can star as the principals; a different Weed Man can serve as the falsely accused; and Alien and the Predator can stand in as the witnesses to a low-rent attack in a high-rent district.
More than six months ago, the Weed Man in a Box, or Weed Head to some, began wandering around the pedestrian plaza at 46th Street and Seventh Avenue, a cardboard box on his head and a sign over his chest, cajoling cash from tourists with a simple pitch: “I am the weed man. I’m too sexy for you to see me.”
As charming as this tactic may have been to some, his appearance rankled the other creative panhandlers of Times Square, who make their living not by donning Elmo suits or coating themselves with metallic paint, but by simply advertising their need for marijuana, beer or both on handwritten signs.
Busking being serious business in Midtown, long-simmering tensions between the box man and one of his rivals erupted into violence on Friday night, when the box man was said to have stabbed a competing panhandler, Wayne Semancik, five times in the head and chest with a pen.
WCpad
