On the federal level, public art programs are part of the General Services Administration (GSA). The GSA’s Art-in-Architecture Program mandates that all new-construction, newly purchased, or renovated federal buildings set aside 0.5 percent of the cost toward acquiring and installing art in or around the building. Artwork made for federal projects is generally durable and permanent, designed to last for decades. The work generally must represent values held by the majority of U.S. citizens. Artists participating in the GSA’s projects usually have national reputations, excellent ties with fabricators, and an ability to work on a grand scale.

Excerpted from The Practical Handbook for the Emerging Artist by Margaret R. Lazzari. Published by Wadsworth, Cenage Learning, Boston, 2010.

If details given by Russians about man’s first artificial moon are correct, the Soviet has taken a giant step into space, a step beyond what is contemplated by scientists in this country.

Soviet reports placed the weight of the successfully launched satellite at about 184 pounds. The diameter of the sphere was said to be about twenty-two inches. The Soviet “moon” was said to be up in an orbit 560 miles above the surface of the earth, where it is speeding around the world at about 18,000 miles an hour.

In contrast to this large satellite American scientists told Congress last spring that they hoped for a twenty-inch sphere weight 21.5 pounds up 300 miles. These plans have since been dropped – an American September launching was at one time envisioned – in favor of plans to launch the twenty-pound satellite some time in 1958. Perhaps a tiny test satellite scarcely six inches in diameter could be achieved this fall, American scientists said recently.

Excerpted from ‘Satellite Flight is Step into Space’ by Robert K. Plumb. Published by the New York Times on October 5, 1957.

Township 35 N., R. 16 W.—This township has a large amount of fine agricultural lands to be irrigated. The grass is most luxuriant. The creeks flow only a short time each year. There is a range of sandstone cliffs about 1,000 feet above the creek, extending from section 32 to sections 24 and 25; this portion being included in the Mesa Verde national park. Aztec ruins are numerous. Valley lands, valued from $20 to $30; side hill lands from $5 to $6 per acre. Distance from railroad, ten miles. Annual rainfall, 10 to 15 inches. Elevation, 6,000 feet.

Township 38 N., R. 17 W.—The northwestern and southern portions of this township are mountainous, cut up by deep, rough sandstone canyons, the bluffs of which are covered with a dense growth of cedar and pinon. The rest is good grazing land with heavy sagebrush and good grass. In Section 35 there is a fine spring, near which there are extensive Aztec ruins. Value, $5 per acre. Annual rainfall, 10 to 15 inches. Elevation, 6,500 feet. Distance from railroad, ten miles.

Riding a bike is, of course, not always bound up with the tensions of police cruisers and undercover surveillance choppers. Millions of people in the United States love to ride bicycles and they do so for exercise and leisure, to visit friends and run the occasional errand, to attend college classes and compete in sporting events, to go camping in the country, and to explore city alleyways in the middle of the night. Bicycling is one of the most popular recreational activities in the United States and becoming a more attractive mode of urban transportation due in part to longer traffic delays, wildly fluctuating oil and gas prices, and the increasing costs of owning and operating a car. Indeed the number of utilitarian, or utility, cyclists who use bicycles for some form of daily transportation or commuting is increasing sharply. New York City and Chicago saw 77 percent and 80 percent increases in bicycle use between 2000 and 2006, while Portland, Oregon, a city boasting one of the highest rates of cyclists in the country as well as a vast cycling infrastructure and a vivid culture of bike devotees, witnessed a 144 percent increase in bicycle use between 2000 and 2008. Amid surging gas prices and warm weather, cyclists came out in droves during the spring and summer of 2008, hitting the streets from Philadelphia to Los Angeles and in most cities in between. New York City bike shops at one point had difficulty keeping new bikes in stock, while San Francisco bicyclists occasionally outnumbered automobile drivers on a few busy corridors.

Despite these positive trends, the stark reality is that only 1 percent of the total U.S. Population rides a bicycle for transportation and barely half as many use bikes to commute to work. If these figures seem extraordinarily low, its is because they are.

Excerpted from One Less Car: Bicycling and the Politics of Automobility by Zack Furness. Published by Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 2010.

Cain and Abel came upon each other after Abel’s death. They were walking through the desert, and they recognized each other from afar, since both men were very tall. The two brothers sat on the ground, made a fire, and ate. They sat silently, as weary people do when dusk begins to fall. In the sky, a star glimmered, though it had not yet been given a name. In the light of the fire, Cain saw that Abel’s forehead bore the mark of the stone, and he dropped the bread he was about to carry to his mouth and asked his brother to forgive him.

“Was it you that killed me, or did I kill you?” Abel answered. “I don’t remember anymore; here we are, together, like before.”

“Now I know that you have truly forgiven me,” Cain said, “because forgetting is forgiving. I too, will try to forget.

“Yes,” said Abel slowly. “So long as remorse lasts, guilt lasts.”

From ‘Legend’ by Jorge Luis Borges, appearing in Brodie’s Report, as translated by Andrew Hurley. Published by Penguin Putnam Inc., New York, 1998.

The pioneer salt manufacturers of West Virginia were the Ruffner brothers, who were enjoined by their German father, Joseph Ruffner, to carry out his plans for building extensive saltworks. The latter had bought nine hundred acres from a point on the Elk River to the Kanawha, embracing the present site of Charleston. After a long struggle, David and Tobias Ruffner bored the first salt-well, in 1808, and erected a large furnace for the manufacture of salt in the Kanawha region. David Ruffner was also the pioneer in the use of coal for fuel, as he has been in boring the well.

When considering Germany activity in the production of food products in the United States, the small producer should not be forgotten. The Germans have furnished the butchers and bakers in almost every large city of the United States, and that not alone within the German Belt. We need not single out large cities, for the same phenomenon can be observed in innumerable smaller towns. Germans have been uniformly successful as small tradres, whether butchers, bakers, grocers, or truck-farmers. in some places where the German element is large, such as Milwaukee or New York, the art of sausage-making has advanced to a degree comparable to that of Germany, both as to variety and quality. The demand for the product aries not only from the German, but also from the native population. The sausage-stalls at the open markets of large cities are as crowded as bargain-counters. But not alone those much-abused dishes, frankfurters and sauerkraut, have made their way into the menus of American homes and hotels, since also the rarer, spicy articles of the “Delikatessenhandlugen” have found ready entrance.

Excerpted from The German Element in the United States, with Special Reference to its Political, Moral, Social and Educational Influence, volume II, by Albert Bernhardt Faust. Published by Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1909.

“What do my eyeballs see? Ah—the blue sky. Long-fellow!” He swayed and blinked. He rubbed his eyes. “Together with windows—have you ever dug windows? Now let’s talk about windows. I have seen some really crazy windows that made faces at me, and some of them had shades drawn and so they winked.” Out of his seabag he fished a copy of Eugene Sue’s Mysteries of Paris and, adjusting the front of his T-shirt, began reading on the street corner with a pedantic air. “Now really, Sal, let’s dig everything as we go along …” He forgot about that in an instant and looked around blankly. I was glad I had come, he needed me now.

“Why did Camille throw you out? What are you going to do?”

“Eh?” he said. “Eh? Eh?” We racked our brains for where to go and what to do. I realized it was up to me. Poor, poor Dean—the devil himself had never fallen further; in idiocy, with infected thumb, surrounded by battered suitcases of his motherless feverish life across America and back numberless times, an undone bird. “Let’s walk to New York,” he said, “and as we do so let’s take stock of everything along the way—yass.” I took out my money and counted it; I showed it to him.

“I have here,” I said, “the sum of eighty-three dollars and change, and if you come with me let’s go to New York—and after that let’s go to Italy.”

Excerpted from On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Published by Penguin Books, New York, 2003.

Another surprise to Chicago was a flood. That the Chicago River, or either of its branches, should get up a current sufficient to cause any alarm to the citizens was a surprise to the people then as it would be to-day. It was never expected, but it came one morning in March, 1849. There had been two or three days’ heavy rain following the heavy snowstorms, and one morning the citizens were aroused from their slumbers by reports that the ice in the Desplaines River had broken up and dammed up the waters so as to turn them into Mud Lake, and from this thence into the South Branch. This pressure of water broke up the ice in the South Branch, and floating down it became gorged in the main channel. Shipping in the river was in great peril. Then came the flood. The breaking up of the ice was like the booming of artillery, the waters came sweeping down with the power of a mountain torrent, vessels broke from their moorings and went with the flood, and a number were precipitated against Randolph street bridge with such force as to carry it away and send it down the river. On went the great mass of ice and vessels against the iron bridge at Clark street, and that too was carried down stream. All Chicago attended this wild scene, and such excitement had not been since the city began its eventful career.

Excerpted from Chicago’s First Half Century, 1833-1883. Published by The Inter-Ocean Publishing Company, Chicago, 1883.

New York is threaded with waterways. Most are dirty, but they are still full of crab, lobster and sturgeon, goldfish and striped bass, bluefish and white perch and even pompano. Ignoring the unprepossessing look (and smell) of the city’s rivers and ponds, New Yorkers are fishing all over the place: They cast from the bulkheads into the East River; they dot the jetties at the Rockaways; they trap blue crabs in the Hackensack Meadowlands (just ten minutes from Times Square). Correctly dressed flycasters quietly pursue huge brown trout in Kensico Reservoir. Warm-water anglers fish the New York and Croton reservoirs. Water and fish everywhere. And the season is starting afresh.

This month, as the waters warm, fish begin to stir, either out of the harbor muds to feed, or inshore to spawn. Winter flounder fishing traditionally begins on St. Patrick’s Day. Jamaica Bay is a good spot, from the Carnasie Pier or from the bridges that cross the bay, or from rented rowboats. Winter flounder are crowd pleasers—easy to catch and not terribly choosy about how they are approached.

Excerpted from ‘The Fish Around Us’ by D.W. Bennett. Appearing in New York magazine, April 10, 1978.

After nearly 20 years and millions of quarters, someone has attained the unthinkable: a perfect score on Pac-Man.

The world record was set by 33-year-old Billy Mitchell of Hollywood, Florida, during a US-Canada clash over the Fourth of July weekend. Mitchell took more than six hours to complete the game at the Funspot Family Fun Center in Weirs Beach, New Hampshire.

To achieve the game’s maximum score of 3,333,360 points, Mitchell navigated 256 boards (or screens), eating every single dot, blinking energizer blob, flashing blue ghost, and point-loaded fruit, without losing a single life.

“It was tremendously monotonous,” said Mitchell, a father of three and president of Rickey’s World Famous Sauces, a manufacturer of Louisiana hot sauces.

Excerpted from ‘Gobbling Up a Pac-Man Record‘ by Leander Kahney. Published in Wired on July 8, 1999.

In the eighteenth century weddings were accompanied by much revelry and extravagance. Gloves, rings, and scarves, as at funerals, were given away in such profusion as to call for legislation to check the abuse. Unstinted feasting and drinking were the order of the day. “Sack-posset” appears to have been the favorite wedding beverage. “All the friends were entertained at the bride’s home with a collation or supper, and afterward a dance; while in the country they were the most important social events. The banns were proclaimed in church, and all the neighbors were invited from the pulpit to attend the ceremony. On the day of the wedding muskets were fired, a procession was formed, and marched to the bride’s house, where the marriage took place; and then came a dinner, a dances, and great merrymaking. Usually these wedding feasts lasted through the day and evening, but they were sometimes kept up for two or three days. On one occasion at New London there was a great wedding dance on the day after the marriage, when ninety-two ladies and gentlemen assembled and proceeded to dance ninety-two jigs, fifty-two contra dances, forty-five minuets, and seventeen hornpipes. This was probably an extreme case; but all over New England weddings were great occasions, and were celebrated with much pomp and rejoicing.”

Excerpted from A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Chiefly in England and the United States with an Introductory Analysis of the Legislature and the Theories of Primitive Marriage and the Family, volume two, by George Elliott Howard. Published by the University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1904.

We learned again that this America, which Abraham Lincoln called the last best hope of man on Earth, was built on heroism and noble sacrifice. It was built by … voyagers, who answered a call beyond duty, who gave more than was expected or required, and who gave it with little thought to worldly reward.

We think back to the pioneers of an earlier century, and the sturdy souls who took their families and the belongings and set out into the frontier of the American West. Often, they met with terrible hardship. Along the Oregon Trail you can still see the grave markers of those who fell on the way. But grief only steeled them to the journey ahead.

Today, the frontier is space and the boundaries of human knowledge. Sometimes, when we reach for the stars, we fall short. But we must pick ourselves up again and press on despite the pain. Our nation is indeed fortunate that we can still draw on immense reservoirs of courage, character and fortitude.

Excerpted from President Ronald Reagan’s eulogy of the seven Challenger astronauts, delivered in Houston on January 31, 1986.

It was a calm, still evening. The broad bosom of the Thames was scarcely ruffled by the little breeze that stirred the drooping sails of some of the river craft. Over the city and over the forest of masts, the round full moon was rising. Touching on the dome of St. Paul’s, it glances down over roofs and under bridges till it lay a broad path of light on the sleeping river. The gas lamps flickered and looked pale before its light, and many a weary pedestrian, hurrying across the crowded bridges which span the river, paused a moment to gaze at the full-orbed globe which even to weary eyes was a wondrous revelation of beauty.

It was dark under the bridges, and the water lapping against the piers had something mournful in its sound. One of the slow river-barges was just passing into shadow.

Excerpted from ‘Poppets’ by Amalie La Forge. Published in St. Nicholas: Scribner’s Illustrated Magazine for Girls and Boys, volume IV, conducted by Mary Mapes Dodge. Scribner & Co., New York, 1877.

Ammon (or Hammon; Egyptian Amun, the hidden or veiled one). A god native to Libya and Upper Egypt. He was represented sometimes in the shape of a ram with enormous curving horns, sometimes in that of a ram-headed man, sometimes as a perfect man standing up or sitting on a throne. On his head was the royal emblems, with two high feathers standing up, the symbols of sovereignty over the upper and under worlds; in his hands were the sceptre and the sign of life. In works of art his figure is colored blue … His chief temple, with a far-famed oracle, stood in an oasis of the Libyan desert, twelve days’ journey from Memphis. Between this oracle and that of Zeus at Dodona a connexion is said to have existed from very ancient times, so that the Greeks early identified the Egyptian god with their own Zeus, as the Romans did afterward with their Jupiter; and his worship found an entrance as several places in Greece, at Sparta, Thebes, and also Athens … When the oracle was consulted by visitors, the god’s symbol, made of emerald and other stones, was carried round by women and girls, to the sound of hymns, on a golden ship hung round with votive cups of silver. His replies were given in tremulous shocks communicated to the bearers, which were interpreted by a priest.

Excerpted from A Dictionary of Classical Antiquities: Mythology, Religion, Literature & Art. Translated from German by Oskar Seyffert, revised and edited by Henry Nettleship and J.E. Sandys. Published by Macmillan and Company, New York, 1895.