Amazon Daily

The Big News: In case you missed it, this week Amazon announced two new Kindles--a 3G + Wi-Fi Kindle for $189, and Kindle Wi-Fi for just $139. Many of the most voracious readers around our offices are pre-ordering and eagerly awaiting August 27, and chances are they won't be alone. And, in case you missed it, Jeff Bezos shared some interesting Kindle insights with Charlie Rose on Wednesday, shortly after the big announcement.

More Vampires? No?: Anne Rice, who surprised her fans several years ago by giving up her bestselling vampire fiction after reconnecting with her Catholic faith, "quit Christianity" via Facebook: "Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being 'Christian' or to being part of Christianity." Does this mean more of the Vampire Lestat? No, but she'd like to see him back on the big screen. [via The Huffington Post]

Maybe Vikings, Then?: Thanks to a few recent mentions of Frans Bengtssson's The Long Ships (which is climbing our Movers & Shakers list this morning), The Boston Globe wonders if vikings might be the new vampires.

A Week of (Literary) Meals: Jennifer Egan, author of one of our Best Books of the Year... So Far in Fiction, shares her week-long food diary: lots of butter-and-honey sandwiches, Greek yogurt, leftovers from the kids, and, because "I really thrive on a sense of contrast," bone marrow.

This is probably one of the most challenging posts I have ever attempted to compose. How does one go about dissing perhaps the most revered sport sedan of the last 30 years, arguably one of the finest automobiles in the world at present? And I have labeled it an Objet d'isgust?

Well, it's complicated. Often when one attempts to dissect one's own feelings about a particular object, especially negative feelings, it's more a matter of self-discovery than anything else. And part of that self-discovery is determining the origin of those negative feelings, which often arise from sources that have nothing whatever to do with the object of hate. In addition, I've often found that my perceptions of certain people, places, or things say more about how they've been presented to me rather than as a product of my own thought process. And once all the navel-gazing is said and done, I sometimes end up realizing my hate has more to do with my own preconceptions than with any inherent qualities of said object.

And so we come to the BMW, particularly the 3 series. My feelings towards BMWs have always been kind of schizophrenic. On the one hand, I've always tended to see them as the quintessential self-satisfied Yuppie-mobile; on the other, as a largely objectively high quality automobile. How to reconcile the two? Well, if you can stand a little amateur psychologizing and '80s pop culture references with your Car Lust history, join me below the fold as I delve into the swirl of emotions surrounding this car and others like it, all without (hopefully) ticking a lot of people off.

The germ of this post came out of the old SUV Throwdown of a couple of years ago. Feelings are very strong regarding those vehicles and, for all you young'uns, a lot of the same sorts of feelings were here in the '80s regarding certain cars. Early on, I was a full-bore SUV-hater; later on, I mellowed out on them and generally came down on the live-and-let-live side of that argument, figuring a 400-horsepower sports car made about as much sense on city streets as a fully-equipped off-roader did. By then, I had come to believe that my ire at SUVs was more about my own perceptions of the sort of people that drove them as the vehicles themselves.

Err, but then we have the BMW, which I still have some fixation on. After the awfulness often gaudy but still wonderful era of 1970s car design, the 1980s brought with it a new cleanliness of line that had its start earlier in the States and earlier still elsewhere. BMW had gained some attention in the US with its 2002, still a favorite among collectors and racing enthusiasts. The 3 series started out as a replacement for the 2002, a more upscale sedan known internally as the E21. It originally came in the three familiar model numbers: the 316, 318, and 320 all with slightly different standard features, although only the 320i was available in the US. The engines, starting out at 1.6 liters and going up to 2.0 liters, were designed for economy, coming as they did on the heels of the oil crises of the early '70s. By 1983 the 320i's engine had shrunk to 1.8 liters and only developed 100 horsepower; certainly not laughable but not exactly stellar.

The next generation E30, which started production in 1982 (available in 1984 here), is where the BMW really started to gain wide attention in the US and began its ascent as the "Ultimate Driving Machine". Where the E21 offered only 2-door models the E30 came in both 2- and 4-door versions with larger, more powerful engines as BMW shifted away from economy and more toward performance. That most quintessential of this generation, the 325i, was introduced in 1985 and put out a respectable 168 horsepower. This was only a few shades less than the muscle cars of the time: the Camaro topped out at 215 horsepower in the IROC-Z and the Mustang GT with around 210.

Stylewise, the E30s were much more aerodynamic and "sportier" than the E21 and had a distinctly muscular look to them, although one more designed to evoke long-distance road-carving rather than straight-line acceleration. With better handling than their muscle car counterparts, the image was quite apt. Meanwhile, in 1988 BMW set forth the first M3 in the US which Car and Driver described as "not a car for yuppies."

Ah yes, the Yuppies. It was about this time--the mid-1980s--that the Yuppie phenomenon started to take off. The Yuppie, short for YUP or Young Urban Professional, could be described as preppies that graduated from college. The last vestiges of Stagflation having been shrugged off, the US economy started taking off and young professionals with disposable income started looking around for stuff to spend it on. Legend has it that the term originated with Bob Greene in 1983 who compared them to Yippies who had grown up (actually just one, Jerry Rubin, but that's good enough for us). Probably the archetype was Michael J. Fox's character Alex P. Keaton of TV's Family Ties, who welded the connection between the hippie generation of his parents and the new breed.

According to Time magazine “Yuppies are dedicated to the twin goals of making piles of money and  achieving perfection through physical fitness and therapy.” You know the type: guys in silk suits, Wayfarers, Motorola "brick" in hand loudly telling their broker which stock to buy or arranging which wine bar to meet "Tiffany" at later (or, let's face it, ordering a few lines of Bolivian Marching Powder from "Chas" their erstwhile friend and current supplier).

BMW wasn't the only car that got "Yuppified" but was arguably the most famous (Saab also figures prominently, but never got its own moniker, like the "Beemer/Bimmer"). Was it fair? Eh, probably to a certain extent; a lot of upwardly mobile professionals gravitated to them much like the gray-flannel suit crowd of earlier days went for the Cadillacs and Lincolns once they hit a certain salary range.

The negative connotation is another story. Frankly, I think much of the negativity directed at Yuppies was more a product of the entertainment industry's political leanings than anything else. It was the Reagan era, "Morning in America", a more or less direct repudiation of the '60s counter-culture which much of Hollywood came of age in, and thus was something to be derided and vilified. To be honest, I bought into the Yuppie-hate thing, although in my case it was far more of a class thing. As a poor starving college student through much of the '80s, I had a certain aversion to those who would pursue something as gauche as money while I was pursuing the intellectual (i.e., unmarketable skills) life.

I certainly wasn't the only one who harbored these thoughts. I recall a couple of years ago when my Mustang II was starting to need a lot of work to remain viable and I mentioned to my Spousal Unit that I might consider a BMW--I had by this time started studying cars in more detail and decided that, as cars, they weren't too bad--and without a fraction of a second's hesitation she said "But you're not an [expletive deleted]."

The bad rap is worldwide, of course. In the UK we are informed by the boys from Top Gear that BMW drivers are "[expletive deleted]s" (though I think they have since decided those people drive Audi's instead). In Australia they are known as "[expletive deleted]s". And even in Tajikistan the dialect, while somewhat difficult to translate directly into English, refers to them as "[expletive deleted] with [expletive deleted] on a yak's [expletive deleted] to your mother's [expletive deleted]".

I jest, obviously (though both the Top Gear and my Spousal Unit's comments are direct quotes, more or less). As I say, there is probably some truth to the association; that's what marketing does and BMW has certainly marketed their cars to the more affluent among us. But I think most of my ire has been a dose of misplaced class warfare, aided and abetted by a media-entertainment complex with an axe to grind. Thus, I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to all those BMW drivers out there for all the bad thoughts I have directed at you over the years based solely on the car you choose to drive.

Except the ones who cut me off on the highway; you remain [expletives deleted].

Credits: The top photo comes from BMWBlog, the E21 and E30 are from Wikipedia, and the Yuppie photo is found all over the web.

--Anthony Cagle

Bad news first: RIP Food Arts's Michael Batterberry and Mr. Trader Joe himself.

When Shopping for Olive Oil: Beware of the virgin.

Infiltrating the American coffee market: These folks know a thing or two.

Tropicana Field For a Bite?: Ummm, no thanks.

Five Things *Not* to Buy at the Supermarket: A handy guide.

Recipe of the Week: A peachy roasting idea.

Kitchen Tool of the Week: They're poptastic.

Have a great weekend. And eat well, my friends.

Photo credit (Trader Joe's Theo Albrecht): ROLAND SCHEIDEMANN / AFP - Getty Images

--StellaCadente*

Follow me on Twitter @pomodorista

“It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.”

This is the motto or mantra of Planetary, the story of three spacetime archaeologists in search of all things weird. It stars Elijah Snow, a man born in 1900, who, despite his years, still looks fabulous in all white; Jakita Wagner, the strong, silent supermodel who likes to punch things; and The Drummer, the cool nerd who can hear and interpret signals emitted from just about anything that emits signals. Deep secrets haunt the team--when the series begins, Elijah has gaping holes in his memories--and the Planetary organization is funded by a shadowy figure known only as The Fourth Man.

Together, the teammates initially chase bizarre mysteries and conspiracies in done-in-one chapters. It feels a little like a super-heroic X-Files, except Planetary has an overarching plot that eventually coalesces into a coherent and satisfying conclusion. As Elijah stares deeper into the undercurrents of his employer, villains grow sharper and pronounced, namely The Four--evil-doers who seek global control through the suppression of knowledge and human advancement. The Four rose to the heights of global villainy thanks to a mind-bending space mission that warped their physiology and sense of morality. If this sounds like the Bizarro version of The Fantastic Four, then it’s time to give Planetary a chance, as writer Warren Ellis makes a point of winking at familiar comic tropes and archetypes. Planetary is full of clever nods to Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Godzilla, and in one chapter, John Constantine and many of the characters who inhabit DC’s Vertigo imprint.

Ellis is firing on all of his best cylinders: characters who aren’t quite anti-heroes but wouldn’t be caught dead in capes; dialogue that jumps between banter and high concept Sci-Fi proclamations (“So we create a closed loop of light, make it incredibly powerful, and it’ll do the same thing, only locally--supermassive frame-dragging.”). But none of this would be anywhere near as successful without artist John Cassaday, whose details and care for expressions only become more refined as the series progresses. In later chapters, Jakita eventually relaxes her steely demeanor, and Cassaday is able to play more with her reactions, especially when she sarcastically digs at The Drummer (“Why do we keep you around, again?”). It looks and feels as if she's more comfortable in the book.

This month, the final half of Planetary arrives in the series’ second Absolute Edition, which includes introductions by Alan Moore and Joss Whedon. Colorist Laura Martin offers commentary on her interpretation of the famously complex snowflake image, and a few pages are devoted to toys and other Planetary esoterica. The first Absolute Edition, collecting the initial half of the series, went out of print several years ago. But in a show of good faith to longtime fans, DC’s Wildstorm imprint has reprinted the first Absolute Edition to give symmetry to collectors’ bookshelves everywhere.

Ellis and Cassaday’s Planetary ran for 27 issues, beginning in 1999 and ending in 2009. While that’s not a very expedient production schedule, it’s difficult to find fault elsewhere with the book, especially when read as a whole and on the Absolute scale. It’s that rare type of series: one that closes at the top of its creators’ abilities and narrative. Like Elijah Snow, it never grows old--no matter how many years pass in its storytelling. “Let’s keep it that way.”

--Alex

P.S.  Also recommended: Planetary: Crossing Worlds, a collection of somewhat outside-continuity Planetary tales. 

P.P.S. Graphic Novel Friday is on vacation next week, August 6th, as I brave the Canadian wilderness. 

There are two phases that most kids go through at some point in their young lives. The first phase begins when they decide reading is boring. The second begins when they decide that "bathroom humor" (as my mother always diplomatically called it) is an endless source of hilarity.

So what do you do when these two phases happen simultaneously? 

As we mentioned last week, The AP recently released an article discussing the relatively modern trend of bathroom humor in children's books, designed to get kids--boys in particular--reading more.  It's likely that some parents and teachers still find these books a little distasteful (Captain Underpants doesn't seem quite as pristine as Caddie Woodlawn, after all), but there's no denying that books filled with fart jokes and gross-out humor often have a better chance of grabbing the attention of reluctant readers.

The AP interviewed author and fourth grade teacher Ray Sabini (who writes under the pen name Raymond Bean) about his two books, Sweet Farts and the sequel, Sweet Farts: Rippin' It Old School, which are geared toward the most unwilling young readers:

"Reaching those reluctant boys, it's a challenge I take very, very seriously and this is what they think is funny," Sabini said. There's also history in there. There's science in there, the problem of bullying, but it's the humor that gets their attention." 

Ray talks about the issue a bit more in this video interview. What it boils down to, he says, is that convincing kids that reading can be fun will ultimately get them reading more and more. And he believes gross-out humor can act as a springboard for reluctant readers to discover more favorite books--one of his students fell in love with The Day My Butt Went Psycho, and was reading The Lightning Thief by the end of the year.

I'm sure gross-out humor books still have their opponents (my mom probably would have been appalled if I'd traded in Ramona Quimby for fart jokes), but if bathroom humor gets a hesitant young reader to pick up a book for the first time in years, I think most parents and teachers would consider it a win. Omni readers, what do you think?

I learned a thing or three about making the juiciest burgers from chef Craig Hetherington at TASTE restaurant at the Seattle Art Museum. Believe it or not, this elegant venue serves one of the best burgers in Seattle. Chef Craig sources his ground beef locally, from Skagit River Ranch. The kitchen crew then seasons that meat and douses it in some olive oil before mixing it thoroughly. It's the olive oil that makes the meat extra moist.

Going the local route, I used a blend of ground beef from Olsen Farms and Painted Hills. I seasoned the meat with Secret Stash Salt's chorizo salt and, for extra flavor, tossed in a handful of crispy bacon bits. Scored those thick patties with a tic-tac-toe pattern, a trick I learned at Palace Kitchen, so the burger doesn't plump up in the middle while cooking.

Seared those burgers over charcoal (glowing hot in a hurry because I used my super cool chimney starter) and served 'em up with the classic condiments plus a chimichurri aioli I whipped up. Yup, there's nothing like a cookout for some hot (juicy) fun in the summertime.

-- Leslie Kelly

The life of a library: There's something very Marksonian about this process of literary composting: some folks have noticed that the library of the late David Markson has been appearing for sale among the 18 miles of used books at the Strand, the store that Markson himself famously habituated. Alex Abramovich has snapped up a few bags of them, and has a writeup on some of Markson's marginal notes (and passes on some of his disdainful comments in his copy of White Noise: "Except, dammit, satire should be amusing!"). And in a lovely 21st century development that the technological non-adopter Markson might have appreciated, he has set up a Facebook group to help track where the copies are ending up, so Markson's library could once again be brought together, either physically or virtually. (Via Literary Saloon)

"Jaundiced, hostile": In further literary exhumations, Jessamyn West (the librarian, not the late novelist) has tracked down the student evaluation the young David Foster Wallace wrote of her for English 18f at Amherst in the fall of 1987 and has posted it to Flickr. She also posted her memories of the class after his death in 2008 (side note: she must have been at the same Elliott Bay reading I went to). (Via HTMLGiant)

"Speechlessly marooned in emotion": At the Millions, Sonya Chung writes about literary endings, with excellent and extensive examples of a taxonomy of varieties, including the perspective given by the DVD outtakes on Wong Kar-Wai's cryptic and appropriate ending to (*sigh*) In the Mood for Love.

Moving and shaking: Must You Go?, Antonia Fraser's memoir of her life with Harold Pinter, doesn't come out in the States until November, but Tina Brown's early recommendation on Morning Edition today has sent it up Movers & Shakers.

--A.J. Rathbun

Paletas de Mango Con Chile

Ingredients:

Directions:

1. Heat mango juice, sugar, lemon juice, and 1/2 cup water in a 1-qt. saucepan over medium-high heat and stir until sugar dissolves. Transfer mixture to a bowl and refrigerate until chilled. Stir chili powder and cubed mango into the chilled mixture and pour into eight 3-ounce ice-pop molds. Insert a Popsicle stick into each mold and freeze until pops are solid, about 3 hours. To release pops from molds, run the bottom of the molds briefly under cold water.

Additional recipes:

Related Items:

*Popsicle molds
*Saveur magazine

Recipe credit: Saveur Magazine, No. 131, August/September 2010

--StellaCadente*

Follow me on Twitter @pomodorista

Technology innovator Panasonic enters the Shoot-and-Share Video segment with their newest camcorder, the TA-1. Shoot-and-Share camcorders are compact, easy-to-use devices that allow for quick video capture and upload to online sharing sites like YouTube and Facebook. Panasonic enters this space with a slick new camcorder that offers new features and capabilities unseen in competitors.

The Panasonic TA-1 is the first shoot and share camcorder to utilize Apple's iFrame video format to allow for compact recording of high quality video. The TA-1 features an LED illuminator to help out in low light situations because often image quality suffers because your subjects are only partially visible.  Another image capture benefit is resolution, the TA-1 records in full 1080P HD video and can also snap 8 MP still images.

Along with great capture technology, the TA-1 also allows for enhanced capabilities for users. The TA-1 has the essential of other shoot-and-share camcorders, like easy connectivity and video upload, but it also has the additional functionality to work as a webcam and microphone. You can use the TA-1 directly with Skype for face to face communication with friends and family anywhere with a data connection.

Panasonic's TA-1 combines a legacy of imaging expertise in a compact device you can take with you easily.

I’m wondering about the popularity of boiled peanuts. I will tell you right off the bat that I am totally and utterly unfamiliar with this food. But, I’ve been seeing them quite a bit down here in Florida, so I thought it might be time to do a little research. My first exposure came while I was driving around. I  noticed a very basic handwritten sign advertising Fresh Boiled Peanuts. I didn’t have time to pull off the highway,  but my sister said that they are pretty popular down here. 

Then a few days later, I casually met Barbi who was selling boiled peanuts at the Fort Pierce Farmers Market.  She had three Rival Crockpots at hand and each pot held boiled peanuts—hot, Cajun and plain. She explained that the peanuts had the texture of a cooked kidney bean. She fished a plain boiled peanut out of the slow cooker, opened it, and handed it off to us to sample. Indeed, it had the texture of a cooked bean.   And, surprise, it tasted like a peanut. I just wasn’t sure that I liked the texture and the taste combined. I guess it’s an acquired taste. Barbi must have noticed my indifference, because she quickly offered a taste of her Peanut Hummus.  She created the recipe herself, and the hummus  was excellent.

Then at Publix today, I noticed a can of Margaret Holmes’s Peanut Patch Green Boiled Peanuts. I purchased a can, but I’ve yet to crack it open and cook the contents. So, is anyone familiar with boiled peanuts? Do you boil them yourselves?  What type of peanuts do you use? And, what’s the best way to serve this snack food?  

My can of boiled peanuts boldly states that boiled peanuts are "the South’s favorite snack." Any thoughts on that?

Photo by Carolyn B. Trainer

--Melissa A. Trainer

I've no idea why some people show up for Comic-Con (the casts of Glee and Community, for instance), but Pacey Witter--er, I mean Joshua Jackson--has a legit excuse: He was there to promote his terrific sci-fi series Fringe, but in this bit for Funnyordie.com, he explains the real reason he holds his day job is to "fund my first love--Pacey fan fiction!"

Watch Jackson confuse the hell out of Comic-Con attendees by passing out flyers to his Dawson's Creek Q&A, promising "all the questions will finally be revealed," getting thrown out of Comic-Con next door, and holding up a boombox playing Paula Cole's indelible theme song.

As he says, "I do [Pacey-Con] because Pacey Witter is the greatest character in television history. Ever. Period." All I can say is, I sure did miss those circa late '90s bowling shirts. --Ellen

Not surprisingly, he provided a staggering list of accomplishments.

Dear friends at Amazon,

So if you’re ever in Hanover and see me walking around with my stack of books and looking stressed and sleepy, say hello. But I assure you, I won’t be there long. After I graduate college, I’ll be going back to Africa. As I’ve always said, my heart belongs to Malawi, and so does my work.

--William (and Bryan Mealer)

To keep up with the always-moving William, visit his blog at www.williamkamkwamba.com.

Sharks are formidable creatures, simultaneously beautiful and terrifying, one of nature's little subtle reminders that you are not necessarily at the top of the food chain. It's no wonder we find them compelling. I'm old enough to remember the excitement that ensued when Jaws first hit the theaters, and the shark has been a pop-culture icon ever since. One of the cable channels likes to celebrate an annual "Shark Week," serving up seven straight days of documentaries about sharks, with spectacular and sometimes lurid footage of sharks swimming, sharks jumping out of the water, sharks attempting to eat the camera operator, and so on.

You can think of today's presentation as Car Lust's attempt to serve up a few shark bytes of our own. Our subject "shark" lives on dry land, it probably won't bite you, and Steven Speilberg will never make a summer blockbuster about it . . . although, if you use your imagination, . . . okay, cue the menacing theme music . . .

Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the highway comes . . . Sharknose!

Now, at this point, many of you are probably thinking that not only have you never before heard of a 1938 Graham-Paige Sharknose Spirit of Motion, much less seen one, you didn't even know until five seconds ago that there ever was a Graham-Paige Motors Corporation. A brief history lesson is perhaps in order.

The three Graham brothers, Joseph, Robert, and Ray, were energetic entrepreneurs who started out in the glass bottle business in 1901. They sold that business in 1916 and used the proceeds to go into truck manufacturing. Their truck-building firm was acquired by Dodge in 1925. The Graham brothers became Dodge's largest shareholders, and got positions in management and seats on the board of directors out of the deal.

This lasted about six months. Unable to get along with Dodge's bankers, the Grahams quit Dodge and sold their stock. As part of their disengagement, they signed non-compete agreements which prohibited them from going back into the truck business.

The non-competes didn't say anything about automobiles, however. The Grahams bought the Paige-Detroit Motor Car Company, a small independent carmaker with declining sales whose owners wanted out of the business--but which had just built a new factory building. Beginning in 1928, cars were sold under the Graham-Paige brand name. The company officially dropped the "-Paige" from the nameplate after 1930, though most people still referred to the cars as "Graham-Paiges" right up to the end.

Like many of the smaller prewar manufacturers, Graham got its powertrain components from outside sources. Its cars were powered by a Continental engine--a flathead straight-six or straight-eight--and used a Warner Gear (later Borg-Warner) transmission. The engines came from Continental as a short block, which Graham finished with cylinder heads of its own design.

Graham's cars were notable for a few unique engineering touches. Graham began offering a supercharger option in 1934. While the blowers were a bit finicky and had teething problems, they did give a six-cylinder Graham performance comparable to a Pontiac straight eight. Graham also used a four-speed transmission at a time when nearly all other passenger cars (even high-end luxury models) used a three-speed, and it was an early adopter of sway bars. Finally, Graham had what may have been the first "digital" speedometer, using a rotating drum with numbers marked on it in place of the usual dial.

Up through the 1937 model year, Graham's styling was mainstream conventional, like the '36 Cavalier sedan above--a neat and attractive car, appealing in a sensible-shoes way, but not a whole lot different than its contemporaries. Sales had been declining through the 1930s, mostly as a consequence of the ongoing Great Depression, and the operation was losing money. The powers that be decided that maybe a dramatic restyling would turn things around. Give the car looks to match its supercharged performance, the reasoning went, and it would sell better.

The design was started by Amos Northup of Murray Corporation, and finished by others when Mr. Northup died unexpectedly. It was given the name "Spirit of Motion," and it expressed that spirit with a grille and fenders and even wheel openings that leaned forward, as if the car couldn't wait to get moving. The "motion" theme was further reinforced with horizontal accents running down the hood and across the doors. Everything was rounded off in streamlined Art Deco fashion, and the rear fender was given skirting to make it look even more streamlined.

The Spirit of Motion required completely new tooling, which cash-strapped Graham-Paige financed by selling the designs and body dies for its 1936-37 models to Nissan in Japan.

The new design was unveiled to enthusiastic praise from design professionals and the automotive press. It won design awards from the Concours D'Elegance in Paris, the Prix d'Avant-Garde at Lyon, the Prix d'Elegance at Bordeaux, and the Grand Prix d'Honneur at Deauville.

Sales, however, were disastrous.

The Spirit of Motion had the bad timing to be introduced in the fall of 1937. We who were born too late to have lived through the Depression tend to think of it as one continuous span of uniform misery running from the 1929 stock market crash straight through to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The actual economic history is a little more complicated: after hitting bottom in 1932 and '33, the U.S. economy had clawed its way out of the hole in fits and starts, to the point where in 1936 every economic indicator except the unemployment rate was almost back to where it had been in 1929. In the middle of 1937, however, the economy took a sharp drop that lasted into 1938, an event the historians call the "Roosevelt recession." A recession is exactly the wrong environment in which to be introducing new automobiles with edgy styling--as Ford would also find out twenty years later on "E-Day."

And that was the Spirit of Motion's other big problem. The car isn't ugly by any means. It has a design theme, and it follows through on that theme from front bumper to tailpipe with a consistency that few others can match. It's easy to see why artists and design professionals liked it.

On the other hand, it's definitely not mainstream styling for 1938. It's interesting, but it's not lovable. The forward-raked front end gives it a bit more drama and malevolence than most people would want in their daily driver--on a vehicle intended as a family car! Remember, too, most families that owned cars back then could only afford one car. People might be willing to have something that's a little out-of-the-box in the looks department as a second car, but they're not so willing when it's their only car.

Though the Spirit of Motion sold poorly, Graham-Paige was stuck with the design--it couldn't afford another retooling, and the dies for the previous model were off in Japan under new ownership. The car held over into 1940, selling only about 8,800 units total in three model years. This was unsustainably bad. In fact, one might be tempted to say that, on account of the shark-nosed Spirit of Motion's poor showing, Graham-Paige jumped the shark. The last Graham automobile rolled out of the factory in April of 1940. 

(The ill-fated Spirit of Motion wasn't the last car to wear the Graham name, however. In 1940, Graham-Paige briefly built the Hollywood, an attractive little ride which used the body dies from the 1936-37 Cord 810/812. The Hollywood is an interesting story in its own right, but it'll have to wait for another day.)

So where does "Sharknose" come from? 

The "Sharknose" nickname was originally applied to three different series of locomotives built for the Pennsylvania Railroad by Baldwin Locomotive Works, all of which were styled by Raymond Loewy & Associates: the T-1 duplex-drive steam locomotives built from 1942 to 1946, and two different models of diesels built after the war. Loewy's designers gave these locomotives a dramatic forward-raked nose which is similar in basic concept to the grille of the '38 Spirit of Motion. After the rail buffs pinned the "Sharknose" name on the Baldwins, the car buffs retroactively applied it to the Graham-Paige. I don't know if Loewy's designers deliberately set out to copy the Graham-Paige design, but given the resemblance, it's easy to see why they ended up sharing a nickname.

And with that, our shark tail--er, tale--is fin-ished.

--Cookie the Dog's Owner

The black '38 Sharknose at the top of the page is owned by a member of the Graham Owners Club International; the image comes from the Club website's photo gallery. The red and silver two-tone comes from Wikipedia, as does the dashboard photo and the Pennsy T-1. The menacing gray Sharknose closeup comes from this for-sale listing at the Antique Automobile Club of America website. The restored 1936 Cavalier photo comes from Restomod Plus, which did the restoration.

UPDATE: located by regular commenter "tigerstrypes":

Oh lordy, is it award season yet? In other words, is summer over already? Here in Seattle the mercury just rose about 70 degrees last week, so you can understand if I'm a little grumbly, but I do like the prizes, and today's ceremonial first salvo got my blood going. It's the Man Booker longlist, a baker's dozen that will be narrowed down to the shortlist of six for the big UK/Commonwealth prize on September 7:

• Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey
• Room by Emma Donoghue
• The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore (Amazon.co.uk only so far)
• In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut (UK, or Kindle)
• The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson (UK)
• The Long Song by Andrea Levy
• C by Tom McCarthy
• The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
• February by Lisa Moore
• Skippy Dies by Paul Murray
• Trespass by Rose Tremain
• The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
• The Stars in the Bright Sky by Alan Warner (UK)

Peter Carey is a two-time Booker winner, but the 800-pound gorilla is The Thousand Autumns, a big book by a big author who was a popular runner-up for Cloud Atlas and number9dream (and yes, it's one of my current Best of July picks). Room, C, Skippy Dies, and Trespass are all highly anticipated fall releases here in the US, while Dunmore, Galgut, Jacobson, and Warner are all still waiting for US editions to go on the schedule (I expect some will get them now). I was especially happy to see Lisa Moore on the list--I've been a fan ever since we picked her story collection, Open, as our Book of the Year on Amazon.ca way back when. She's the only Canadian on the list, and one of only a few from outside the UK (Galgut is South African and Carey and Tsiolkas Australian). [Update: Sorry, forgot: Donoghue is Irish and lives now in Canada too.]

Over at William Hill they've put The Long Song as the early favorite, at 4-1, with Mitchell close behind at 9-2 and Dunmore at 5-1 (the customer reviews in the UK for the latter, a story of the Soviet Union in the late Stalin era, are terrific, by the way).

Who didn't make this first cut? The big names Amis and McEwan are absent, which is not a complete surprise. Sarah Crown at the Guardian points out there are no debut novelists this time around, although there's a fair amount of fresh-ish blood nevertheless. What am I looking forward to checking out? I really liked Tom McCarthy's Remainder (saying I "loved" it seems wrong for such a chilly book), and I've just started C, which seems like a very different animal. But Skippy Dies looks like a tasty romp, and not just because of the adorable 3-book paperback set that Faber is offering alongside the standard hardcover. It's like a cute little sidekick to the more monumental 2666 set from a couple of years ago. --Tom

Tomato Confit

Ingredients:

Directions:

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 200 degrees-F. Line a baking sheet with foil and pour about 2 tablespoons olive oil evenly over the pan. Sprinkle the oil with salt and pepper. Strew a little of the garlic, basil, thyme, and bay leaves over the oil.

2. Cut each tomato lengthwise in half and carefully, with your fingers or a tiny spoon, remove the seeds. Lay the tomato halves cut side down in the pan, wiggling the tomatoes around if necessary so that each tomato has a floss of oil on its cut side. Using a pastry brush, give the tops of the tomatoes a light coat of olive oil. Season the tops of the tomatoes with salt and pepper and a little sugar, and scatter over the rest of the garlic, basil, thyme, and bay leaves.

3. Slide the pan into the oven and bake the tomatoes for 2 1/2 hours, or until they are very tender but still able to hold their shape; turn the tomatoes over at half-time and open the oven for just a second every 30 minutes or so to get rid of the moisture that will build up in the oven.

4. Cool the tomatoes to room temperature on their pan. When the tomatoes are cool, transfer them to a jar, stacking them neatly. Pour whatever oil remains in the pan over the tomatoes and then, if you plan to keep the tomatoes longer than 1 or 2 days, pour in enough olive oil to cover and refrigerate.

Recipe credit: Daniel Boulud, Cafe Boulud Cookbook, Scribner 1999

Photo credit: StellaCadente*

--StellaCadente*

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