In my current read, Legends of the American Desert by Alex Shoumatoff, I came across this introduction to cloud seeding:

The way cloud seeding works ... is that "supercooled droplets form supercooled clouds as moist air flows over mountain barriers. If the droplets freeze, they fall as snow. If their concentration is too low for precipitation, you seed the clouds with dry ice and/or silver iodide crystals; you fly into a storm center with a turboprop jet and inject silver iodide into the clouds to increase their efficiency." The pilot cloud-seeding project took place on the Mogollan Rim in 1987. Nine years before that, ten propane-fueled generators sprayed silver-iodide crystals along fifty miles of the San Gabriel Mountains and were so effective at increasing cloud efficiency that they were blamed for severe storms, floods landslides, twenty deaths, and forty-three million dollars of damage.

I found A Laymans guide to Weather Modification to be helpful in understanding it all a little better, and Colorado State's Weather Modification by Cloud Seeding-A Status Report 1989-1997 dense but fascinating. The latter describes three methods of cloud seeding: Static, Dynamic, and Hygroscopic.

The Grateful Dead go corporate? (Scroll down to mid-page.) I hope it's as unlikely as Phil Lesh thinks it is. On the other hand, if it happened -- distributing the contents of the Dead's vault via MP3 -- it would be yet another instance of GDM leading the pack.

If you aren't familiar with this treasure of a book, Michael Lesy introduces his magnificent project with these words:

The pictures you're about to see are of people who were once actually alive. The excerpts you're about to read recount events these people, or people like them, once experienced. None of the accounts are fictitious. Neither the pictures nor the events were, when they were made or experienced, considered to be unique, extraordinary, or sensational. The pictures were taken by a careful, competent town photographer named Charles Van Schaick; they are artful only in so far as he obeyed the most prosaic conventions of portraiture. The events were recorded by a father named Frank Cooper, and a son named George, who were equally competent, equally careful, equally experienced town newspaper editors; their articles are imaginative only in so far as they conformed to the inevitable demands of space and time dictated by a weekly paper. The people who looked at the pictures once they were taken weren't surprised, and the people who read about the events weren't shocked. They preserved the pictures and the newspapers for the same reason that some people remember their birthdays, and others fail to notice each breath.

All the inhalations and all the exhalations were crystallized in silver emulsion on 30,000 glass plate negatives, and all the birthdays with all their best wishes were transferred to the fibers and inks of good rag paper. The glass plates were left to sit by themselves for thirty years after Van Schaick died. Occasionally, a lower lip or the whole side of a face would crack off and break away like the side of a glacier. Often the edge of a cornice or the crest of a hill would disintegrate into flakes the size of silica sand. The stacks of glass broke because of their own weight; their emulsions decayed because of too much or too little moisture. Twenty years of the common but multivariate life of a county seat, now transformed into images composed of elementary chemical ciphers, sat enclosed by the space of one dry and dusty four-walled and ceilinged room, and fell prey not to irony, not to remorse, and not to forgetfulness, but to vectors of force and the molecular composition of the air.

The newspapers were treated differently. Since they came from a county seat whose press had begun to operate nearly as soon as its plats were surveyed, each issue was reduced to the size of a stamp by technicians who had no time to notice anything but the title and date of each brittle paper rectangle they placed underneath the copy lights of their cameras. Two years, 104 issues, 300 accusations, 200 denials, 600 messages, 40 rumors, 3 declarations, and 2,000 factual recitations were wound around a spool, and the spool was sent to a reading room. The library assistants rarely even looked at each spool; rather they verified it by its weight, and then catalogued it by the place of origin, the date of its publication, and the positive and negative nature of its photographic exposure. They stacked twenty years of the prose style of a father and his son on top of twenty years of ghost stories, epidemics, political careers, suicides, sales, insanities, bankruptcies, burnings, medical testimonials, and early deaths, and then they stacked them all somewhere in a gray metal drawer that slid vertically from its file bank like a radiator on casters. Twenty years of symbiotic exchanges between a system of social economics and the permutations and fruitions of 3,000 randomly assembled genetic patterns were catalogued and filed by library assistants employed on eight-month contracts to preside over the towering silence of facts and lies that preceding assistants and technicians had been instructed and trusted to accumulate.

He ends the introduction to the book with,

This book is an exercise in historical actuality, but it has only as much to do with history as the heat and spectrum of the light that makes it visible, or the retina and optical nerve of your eye. It is as much an exercise of history as it is an experiment of alchemy. Its primary intention is to make you experience the pages now before you as a flexible mirror that if turned one way can reflect the odor of the air that surrounded me as I wrote this; if turned another, can project your anticipations of next Monday; if turned again, can transmit the sound of breathing in the deep winter air of a room eighty years ago, and if turned once again, this time backward on itself, can fuse all three images, and so can focus who I once was, what you might yet be, and what may have happened, all upon a single point of your imagination, and transform them like light focused by a lens on paper, from a lower form of energy to a higher.

Searching for Greenwich Village dislodged "Betty" from the archive:

"She was the kind of girl men fight for ... and like it; but on a Harlem police blotter, they had "prostitute" scribbled opposite her name. Not that she looked like one. Her eyes were a pale, lovely blue; her hair, soft and brown; and she had the sauciest two lips in the world. Another odd thing about her was the fact that she never carried a watch. I suppose it was because time meant nothing to her. She was in love. The boy's name was Bill."

Mojave Desert brought up How Salton Sea Was Caught:

"Gawd, that night after supper I jest set there in that grove of Joshua Trees where we was camped an' figgered 'how in hell, now, can anybody git a damned 'floatin' lake' to hold still long enough for a man to go swimmin' in it? I-Gawd, how can it be done?' I figgered to myself, jest settin' there in that grove of Joshua Trees while th' moon was shinin' out there on th' desert and ever' once in a while a coyote would howl out there somehwere and once in a while that poor cussed mule that had been bit by th' damned gila monster would kind of groan--although th' bite on his leg was gittin' better by then..."

Finally, from an autograph album belonging to a Mrs. Jedney and dated October 5^th, 1898:

"Remember me is all I ask
And if remembrance is a task -
Forget me."

(OK, one more and then I'll stop. Stop posting, that is. You know I'm gonna read every single one of these 2,900 documents!)

From Coonjine in Manhattan:

"Coonjine songs were not spirituals--neither the genuine nor the "Broadway" variety. There was nothing spiritual about them that I have been able to discover.

Into these songs the rousters put the problems and the incidents of the day's labor, the characteristics of the people they met. The peculiarities of a mate or captain or fellow rouster; the speed and qualities of a particular boat; the charms or meanness of a woman-friend; domestic matters--all these were subjects which the steamboat roustabouts move into the texture of the Coonjine songs with which they lightened the labor of steamboat work. Composed sometimes on the spur of the moment, or garbled versions of songs previously heard, often the words were ridiculous, sometimes senseless, but nearly always ludicrous with occasionally a touch of pathos:

     Old roustabout aint got no home,
     Make his living on his shoulder bone!

There came a lull in the unloading of the ship. The Negro exhaled gustily, mopped his brow and chancing to glance in my direction, grinned and shook his head."

A search for information on New York Governor Alfred E. Smith led me to the complete results of American presidential elections from 1789 to 1992 (Smith lost to Herbert Hoover in 1928), as well as Elevator World Magazine's story of the 1945 plane crash at the Empire State Building (Smith was the president of Empire State, Inc).

Elevator World, hmm? There's something for everyone, I guess: I once read to my sister an article from Lighting Dimensions, which bored her to tears -- as revenge, she threatened to send me a subscription to Ceramics Monthly.

A whoopin' big Happy Holidays to anyone who's been holding onto their Red Hat stock. Lordy. I wish I'd bought.

I get more and more excited about Man on the Moon with each preview I see. The doubtfuls, the skeptics and the naysayers are already coming out of the woodwork -- check out Andrew O'Hehir's piece on Jim Carrey in today's Salon -- so I hope to see it as early as possible. I can be susceptible to backlash.

When to their husbands they themselves do bind,
Do they not wholly give themselves away?
Or give they but their body, not their mind,
Reserving that, though best, for others' prey?
No sure, their thoughts no more can be their own,
And therefore should to none but one be known.

From Wednesday's All Things Considered on NPR: Web Site Story, in which the government's anti-trust case against Micro$oft inspires a Broadway musical. [requires a RealAudio player]

Via Bovine Inversus, this wonderful little dissection of some found letters.

From the December, 1966 Atlantic Monthly, Leland Hazard's Strikes and People: A Proposal, in which he suggests the formation of an Industrial Peace Commission to "put the spotlight on collective bargaining and on the strike. Just as arms may not legally be borne in secret -- only in public -- so collective bargaining could not fail -- and the strike ensue -- in secret."

Today begins the Halcyon Days, a fourteen-day period of calm and goodwill over the seven days before and after the winter solstice. According to ancient Greek mythology, the gods calmed the seas so that kingfishers (who were thought to nest on the sea) could lay and hatch their eggs. Whatever. It sounds nice.

On December 15^th, 1890, Sitting Bull was murdered by Lakota police as he stepped from his home, submitting to arrest as the "power" behind the Ghost Dance movement. James McLaughlin, an Indian Agent at the Standing Rock Reservation, wrote a chilling account.

Even worse is L. Frank "If I Only had a Heart" Baum's editorial in the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer

"During the holiday, restrictions were relaxed and the social order inverted. Gambling was allowed in public. Slaves were permitted to use dice and did not have to work. Instead of the toga, less formal dinner clothes (synthesis) were permitted, as was the "pilleus," a felt cap normally worn by the manumitted slave that symbolized the freedom of the season. Within the family, a Lord of Misrule (Saturnalicius princeps) was chosen. Slaves were treated as equals, allowed to wear their masters' clothing, and be waited on at meal time in remembrance of an earlier golden age thought to have been ushered in by the god."

The Anti-Saloon League site at Ohio State hosts some great old Prohibition posters from the United Committee on War Temperance. With slogans like, "Not in the Peace Treaty -- Still Your Enemy" and "Let's all go Clean Over The Top CLEAN, and keep fit to fight in France for Freedom", it's just a wonder the movement didn't stick.

"...the pointer you followed is hogwash": one of the most useful and user-friendly 404 pages I've seen. It's for the dense, seemingly-endless, sometimes ranting but completely fascinating World Government Conspiracy site. The amount of writing here, the sheer volume of essays, is making it difficult for me to stop poking around long enough to link even one of them. It's definitely a place to spend a little time.

See the Phil Ochs page, maintained by a fellow Ochs (pronounced "oaks") fan, and Letters at 3am, by Michael Ventura and printed in the Austin Chronicle in 1997. Phil testified in the trial of the Chicago Eight (only minus Bobby Seale is it the Chicago Seven), where the evil Judge Julius Hoffman denied defense attorney William Kunstler's request for Phil to perform "I Ain't Marching Anymore".

Rhino Records has a page with the FBI's "review" of the Ochs recording, "Rehearsals for Retirement".

PBS is re-airing the great, 10-hour New York documentary that premiered last month, and I've been enjoying it just as much the second time around. Yesterday I caught the part about the construction of the Empire State Building, the story of the competing skyscrapers, how the workers on each building could, on a clear day, watch the progress of the "competition" downtown. The images of the ESB under construction are stunning, and it launched my quest to find photos of the World Trade Center -- designed by Minoru Yamasaki and built between 1970 and 1977 -- under construction. No luck whatsoever. Two images came up on photostogo.com, but they aren't that great. If anyone's able to dredge up any others, please let me know!

Rod Lakes' fascinating page on Structural Hierarchy came up in the meantime, though...

Also on a quest for: a map of the United States showing all of the land that is government-owned. I've been looking for something like this for a while -- at least since this fall, when I heard that 85% of the state of Colorado is owned by the US government. Any leads?

I've found one, essential.org's map of Federally Owned Lands, and while this includes Indian reservations, Military reservations, National forests and grasslands, etc., it does not seem to include BLM-held land. I see a layering project in my future...

Less helpful than that is the Atlantic Monthly's 1997 Salsa Buying Map.

I dreamed I saw Phil Ochs last night...

It's Billy Bragg's birthday today (b. 1957)!    As Dylan and Ochs descend from their folk father, Woody Guthrie, Bragg is surely one of their younger cousins from across the pond. In fact, it was via my love for Phil Ochs that I discovered Billy Bragg in the first place: Phil recorded Alfred Hayes and Earl Robinson's "I Dreamed I saw Joe Hill Last Night", and Billy later re-recorded it as "I Dreamed I Saw Phil Ochs Last Night". Billy also wrote the liner notes to the 1990 Rhino release of Phil's, There are Now, Live in Vancouver 1968. Clearly, I needed to know who this Bragg guy was! In the last decade, I've had a few opportunities to meet the "Barking Bard of Essex", and as he signed my There and Now disc for me, he laughed at the "backwards" route I'd taken to his music. He said that as happy as he is to be responsible for introducing Phil's music to a new generation of fans, I was probably the first case of Phil returning the favor...

Joe Hill, by Phil Ochs, is included on the awesome 1990 Smithsonian Folkways release, Don't Mourn -- Organize: Songs of Labor songwriter Joe Hill. It's the opening track, and Billy sings it.

In 1915, Joe Hill was as much a cause célèbre as Mumia Abu-Jamal is today. Hill was convicted of murder on less than convincing evidence, and sentenced to execution. Even Helen Keller sent a telegram dated November 16^th, 1915, to the White House, protesting Hill's execution: "Your excellency! I believe that Joseph Hillstrom has not had a fair trial and the sentence passed upon him is unjust. I appeal to you as official father of all the people to use your great power and influence to save one of the helpless ones, the stay of execution will give time to investigate new trial will give the man justice to which the laws of the land entitle him."

Joe Hill was executed by firing squad on November 19^th, 1915, in Salt Lake City, Utah. In his final telegram before his death, he wrote to IWW leader Bill Haywood, asking that his body be immediately shipped to the Wyoming state line for burial since, "I don't want to be caught dead in Utah."

His body was, in fact, sent to Chicago, where 30,000 people attended his funeral, organized by the IWW. Afterward, he was cremated and his ashes sent in envelopes to IWW locals in every state (except Utah) and to every continent. Each envelope was printed with a line from Hill's will on one side: "My body? Oh! If I could choose, I would to ashes it reduce..."

Joe Hill's Ashes, by Mark Levy (from the Smithsonian Folkways liner notes):

Let's sing of Joseph Hillstrom, better known as old Joe Hill.
Murdered by a firing squad, shot but never killed.
His will said that his ashes be strewn across the land
So flowers that refuse to die will rise up strong and stand.

We sing his song to fan the flames
And talk about him much.
The ashes of this rebel voice
Are still too hot to touch.

Joe's corpse lay in Chicago where thirty thousand marched.
They flew the Wobbly banner -- high above the throng it arched.
The workers sang and cheered his name, they did not eulogize.
They honored Joe Hill's last request: Don't mourn, organize!

And the union took Joe's body, which then they did cremate,
His ashes stuffed in envelopes and mailed to every state.
Except, of course, to Utah, for Joe had clearly said,
"Don't leave me here in Utah; there I wouldn't be caught dead."

Then someone in the mailroom discovered what was up.
The postmaster was summoned, the mailing to disrupt.
An envelope tore open in the canceling machine.
"Twas just Joe's way of saying automation is obscene."

With patriotic fervor the postmaster was seized.
He treated that poor envelope as if it was diseased.
He said, "I won't deliver such subversive mail."
So for a while Joe had to wait in some dead letter file.

At long last the Post Office sent Joe's ashes to D.C.,
To the Archives like an artifact of ancient history.
The Wobblies in Chicago asked that he be sent home.
They wouldn't see him catalogued down in that catacomb.

So Joe's back with the Wobblies, and thus concludes my tale.
But if there is a moral, I might say, "Don't trust the mail."
We'll built that One Big Union before Joe's ash gets cold
And we'll bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old.