I made it through my Vega$ trip without having to set foot inside a Pawn America storefront, so I consider the trip a success. Voyaging back to Microkhan world headquarters today, so please enjoy the vintage Atari ad above as I hurtle through the air at upwards of 500 miles-per-hour. Catch you tomorrow.
Tags:advertising·Atari·games·Hong Kong·TV
One of my current projects is a think piece about robots, specifically those that may soon be charged with carrying out morally weighty duties. That line of inquiry has led me to delve into the history of robot prison guards—or, perhaps more accurately, robots that were briefly purported to be the prison guards of the […]
Given my longstanding fascination with North-East India, one of the primary settings for my 386-page labor o’ love, I’ve been following Mary Kom’s boxing career for a good while now. The 27-year-old mother of twins just won her fifth world championship, a feat that earned her a true hero’s welcome in her native state of […]
I’m Vegas bound this morning, to work on a dynamite Wired piece that’s currently occupying my creative front burner. As is always the case when I journey out to Bugsy Siegel’s desert dream, my thoughts have recently turned to the ways in which folks work the angles in pursuit of wealth. Most of these schemes […]
While drinking my birthday bottle of Lucky 13 the other night, the Chubb Rock classic above suddenly came over loud-and-clear on the latest WeFunk show. It reminded me how this heavyset artist rarely disappoints, especially when cuts from his golden age waft across the sonic transom. But perhaps what’s most impressive about Rock is his […]
Tags:Chubb Rock·creativity·hip-hop·music
Think about the place where you regularly buy your groceries. After you pass through the sliding-glass door, how do you make your way around the premises? Perhaps you believe you take this path due to habit or preference, but odds are you’re nudged in one direction or another by the store’s physical layout. Some supermarket’s […]
My dad once had this chocolate-brown cardigan he’d wear on the rare occasions that the Los Angeles mercury dipped below 65 degrees. It had big knobby buttons and a thick rolled collar, and it generally made him look like the friendly postmaster of some microscopic English village. As a result, I have long associated button-up […]
In a pensive mood today, as I mark another revolution ’round the Sun while simultaneously grappling with some tough decisions. At times like these, I often ask myself, “What would Genghis do?” But then I watch the clip above, which quotes the Great Khan pretty much verbatim, and I’m reminded that I can find little […]
According to the criteria laid out by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his celebrated Four Freedoms speech, life is a mixed bag for millions of Indian cows. On the plus side, they are not confined to grim facilities that exist solely to turn their bovine inmates into hangar steaks. But though free-roaming Indian cows are spared […]
Nights on the road can get a little dull when you’re traveling solo for work—you end up spending a lot of time alone in your hotel room, eating bad food and watching bad TV. But occasionally the Fates show you a little mercy, by offering up some unexpected entertainment. Such was the case during my […]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·Charles Bronson·Death Wish 3·mathematics·movies
Should you ever wish to rile up a gathering of firefighters, to the point that punches may get thrown, bring up the notion that red is a dreadful color for fire engines. You can maximize your irritation factor by citing the work of one Dr. Stephen Solomon, an optometrist best known for proposing that fluorescent […]
Apologies, really thought I’d have time to write today. But it’s nearly 8 a.m. here in northern Arizona and I’m several notches less than prepared for a mammoth day of reporting. Thanks, as always, for your forebearance—all will be back to normal by Friday, if not earlier.
Heading to the rural Southwest this morning for work, so please absorb this dreamy slice of soul as I zoom through American airspace. Back tomorrow, motel WiFi willing.
Tags:Arizona·Black Ivory·music·R&B
There’s a classic scene at the beginning of The Godfather II in which young Vito Andolini passes through Ellis Island’s immigration line. It is there that, due to an immigration officer’s carelessness, he is given the mistaken surname of Corleone, which is actually the village of his birth. Moments later, frightened young Vito is informed […]
Tags:immigration·labor·movies·pseudoscience·racism·The Godfather II
I’m writing this post while recovering from a bout of Hulk-like rage, brought about by the sudden death of my Acer Aspire 3810T’s screen. I should’ve known this would happen when I first removed the laptop from the box—the cover instantly struck me as having the strength of tin foil. Thankfully, I had a D-sub […]
Tags:Acer·computers·gadgets·technology
I’ve recently been reading up on the history of the Blackstone Rangers, the gang whose criminal entanglements contributed greatly to the post-1965 increase in Chicago’s homicide rate. In the course of my research, I started wondering about how the Rangers’ impact on the Second City compared to that of Al Capone’s organization. I had long […]
Tags:Chicago·crime·dueling·Florida·Jacksonville·murder·Prohibition
According to the nifty WordPress counter, this is my one thousandth post on Microkhan. Unlike the last time I hit such a significant milestone, there shall be no navel-gazing—in part because I’m too busy working on an afternoon post about Prohibition-era crime in northern Florida. But let me just say thanks to all who’ve stuck […]
Focusing on various paying gigs today, so just a quick music clip to tide y’all over. The above is Segun Bucknor’s brief appearance in the excellent Ginger Baker in Africa; he’s the man in the lime-green vest behind the dancers. With Comb & Razor provides some much-needed background on the largely forgotten Afrobeat pioneer here: […]
The last time that Microkhan checked in with Jimmy “Rasta” Lusibaea, he had just found the Lord after a lifetime of sin. The former head of the Malaita Eagles Force (MEF), the Solomon Islands’ most feared militia, Lusibaea had spent years defending his peoples’ turf against ethnic rivals. The MEF was once so powerful that […]
Tags:corruption·fishing·Jimmy Lusibaea·politics·Solomon Islands
Though I find myself laboring on Labor Day, I sincerely hope that you have avoided a similarly wretched fate. And if you live in New York City, I hope you’ll carve out some time tomorrow evening to swing by Brooklyn’s Union Hall to check out a rare live appearance by your humble narrator. I’ll be […]
Tags:Adult Education·Brooklyn·Burma·New York City·Now the Hell Will Start·tigers
Of the many death-defying sports that I’ve grown to admire over the years, few astound quite like elite ski jumping. Perhaps it’s not until you witness the sport in person that you really get a sense of just how bananas it is: TV can’t do justice to the true height of those hills, nor the […]
Tags:crime·Finland·Matti Nykänen·music·psychology·ski jumping·sports
Sorry, but today’s all about tackling a major project, rather than scooping out a small portion of my brain to share with you good people. Please content yourself with the high-brow electronic music above, as well as the following snippet of anti-jazz hysteria from the April 11, 1921 edition of the Chicago Tribune: Home was […]
One of my Slate editors recently made waves with this sharp piece about the cultural demise of quicksand. The gunky stuff, so infamous for ensnaring characters in movies (including The Beastmaster’s beloved ferrets), no longer scares the youth of today. Perhaps this is because kids now realize that quicksand’s lethal potential was always overstated, and […]
Tags:agriculture·competitive eating·corn·ethanol·grain entrapment·quicksand·safety·Slate
