Novel Based on Nikola Tesla

UVM graduate, Samantha Hunt, has become an expert on Nikola Tesla.
She has written The Invention of Everything Else, a novel based on the life of the 'mad genius.'

Seven Days had a piece on her visit to the Flying Pig Bookstore in Shelburne.

Hunt was mentioned in a recent New Yorker magazine article about the Hotel New Yorker, where Tesla spent the last years of his long life.

I didn't get to Hunt's talk, but I did get to pick up a copy of her book later.

Public Radio's Studio 360 did a show on Tesla. There is a segment with Samantha Hunt reading from her book.

There is much interesting stuff at the Studio 360 page. For instance, Tesla invented radio well before Marconi built one that worked.

MetaFilter also has links to Tesla information.

Here is a transcription of a booklet and autobiography.

David Bonner's Revolutionizing Children's Music

I noted earlier that somewhat over a year ago I got an email from David Bonner, who was writing a history of children's records based around Horace Grenell. The book has been published by Scarecrow Press. I got a copy and it is well-written. It fills in a bunch of the details about the record business that I was not really aware of.

"About the same time (1951-1952), Grenell entered into the pressing plant business. In partnership with David Foxman (affiliated with the New York-based Raleigh pressing plant) and Norman Jacobowitz (engineer at Carnegie Hall Recording), he co-owned and managed the Abbey Record Manufacturing Company. Under the Abbey umbrella, Desto Music, Inc., existed as a music production company, with another Abbey-related company, Arco Music, Inc., operating as the official producer of Desto Records. Located in East Newark, New Jersey (and later moving to nearby Kearney), the plant pressed records for an eclectic assortment of independent labels, including Audio Fidelity, Elektra, Riverside, Roulette, and Westminster. Abbey, along with the RCA Victor Custom Record Division, pressed records also for CRG."
Bonner, 2007, Page 129


My memory of Abbey was that it existed in Jersey City well before Grenell got involved. Norm had two partners, Jascha Zayde, a staff pianist with WQXR (who died in 1999), and Joe Brodie, a dentist who did my dental work. I would take the bus into Manhattan to his office on Broadway above 180th. Norm chose the name Abbey because it came early in the alphabet. Someone looking for pressing services would call him first.

Norm always had playful business names. Sound Plastics was a triple pun -- a sound business on Long Island Sound that made plastic for the sound recording industry.

Martha Jacobowitz

I was looking for my cousin Martha Jacobowitz.
So I Googled the name. I got a list of people murdered on Kristallnacht:
http://www.kristalnacht.org/list/j.html
Lots of Jacobowitzes