petrea_mitchell: (Default)
AllEars.net is a great resource for information on Walt Disney World, fronted by a page full of clickbaity blog posts. One of today's listicles is about the gigantic mosaic in the breezeway at Cinderella's Castle in the Magic Kingdom. #4 on the list is:

It was made by Hans Scharff, a German mosaic artist. He took Dorothea's dreamy design and made it reality! Prior to being an artist, he was a master-interrogator during World War II. Both Redmond and Scharff are credited on the mosaic.


WHOA HEY BACK UP THERE "master-interrogator"???

No, it's not a case of someone doing a quick Wikipedia search and coming up with a different guy with the same name. Here's an LA Times article about him. Scharff was an art student before the war, was drafted into the Luftwaffe and then assigned to be an interrogator, where he became renowned for extracting information through building a rapport with POWs rather than bullying and torturing them.

After the war, he wound up giving lectures to the Air Force about nonviolent interrogation techniques, then eventually immigrated to the US, became a mosaic artist, and at some point got a commission from Disney for an installation at Disney World.
petrea_mitchell: (Default)
I have just heard of the meme where you post the first sentence of the your post of each month to look back on the year, and I would like to participate:

January: Regional headline of the day: "Several cars trapped overnight inside monster tumbleweed pile in eastern Washington"

February: "What’s in that bag marked ‘Bag Full of Drugs,’ sir?"

March: After all that drama about quarantining people on cruise ships and travel bans and so forth, it turns out the new virus has been circulating for weeks in the Pacific Northwest.

April: Like everything else these days, the Endeavour Award is attempting to become as virtual as possible, which means switching to electronic reading copies.

May: Oregon has an election coming up on the 19th, which is expected to have no particular extra drama despite the times because Oregon has been 100% vote-by-mail since 1998.

June: Technically an Irish casserole, since the recipe I used called for simply piling the ingredients into a covered dish and baking them.

July: The Open Gaming Convention is a yearly summer get-together in New Hampshire.

August: I had nothing much to do Friday morning, so I caught up on anime and blogging.

September: "FBI investigates after alarmed pilot tells LAX tower: ‘We just passed a guy in a jet pack’"

October: 3 of 4 summer shows wrapped up here.

November: There were quite a few trick-or-treaters out walking the neighborhood last night, by the sound of it.

December: Back in 2013, one of the losing bids for the 2015 Worldcon had wanted to hold it at a hotel in Walt Disney World.

You can sort of tell that there were a pandemic and an election going on, but I think the main conclusion is I love odd headlines.
petrea_mitchell: (Default)
"L.A. Councilman Jose Huizar criticized for dragging Mexican baby Jesus into FBI scandal"

Actually an interesting cultural article about the development and current significance of a regional Mexican saint.
petrea_mitchell: (Default)
A purported stockpile of 39 million N95 masks bound for California was discovered to be fake when the feds tried to steal it away and found there was nothing to steal.
petrea_mitchell: (Default)
Saddened to hear of the passing of Terry Jones. The LA Times obituary covers the usual bases, but also mentions he's credited with the script for Labyrinth.

I had no idea! Then again, some poking around the intertubes led me to this interview where Jones explains that the final movie had significant differences from what he wrote, and so he didn't feel much of a connection with it. Ah well.

The interview also mentions in passing that Jim Henson's other top choice for Jareth was Michael Jackson.
petrea_mitchell: (Default)
Time was when Los Angeles had the reputation as the festering land of crime, but its latest crime wave is being exported from the Bay Area. Car burglaries have been huge up north for a while-- I know people who've been hit multiple times-- and now apparently the gangs are big enough to start travelling further.

I'm guessing the next wave of crime startups to expand beyond the SF/SJ area will be the laptop snatchers.

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