Charles Wilkins, then a university student, took a job as a gravedigger in a vast corporate cemetery in the east end of Toronto during the hazy summer of 1969. The bizarre-but-true events of that time-a midsummer gravediggers' strike, the unearthing of a victim of an unsolved murder, and a little illegal bone-shifting-play out among a Barnum-esque parade of mavericks and misfits in this macabre and hilarious memoir. Amid relentless gallows humor and the inevitable reminders of what it is, finally, to be human, Wilkins provides an unforgettable insider's view of a morbidly fascinating industry. In the Land of Long Fingernails is a story of mortality, materialism, friendship and sexuality... and the gradual coming-of-age of an impressionable young man.
The dramatic and hilarious story of sores and survival on a human-powered journey across the ocean. It was to be an expedition like no other—a run across the Atlantic from Morocco to Barbados aboard an experimental rowboat. There would be no support vessel, no stored water, no sails, no motor. The boat's crew of sixteen included several veterans of U.S. college rowing, a number of triathletes, a woman who had rowed both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and a scrawny, bespectacled sexagenarian -- our chronicler, Charles Wilkins. When he joined the expedition, Wilkins had never swung an oar in earnest. In a tale both harrowing and hilarious, Wilkins takes the reader along for seven weeks of rationed food, festering sores, breathtaking sunrises, sleep deprivation, and mile-high waves alongside a devoted crew of misadventurers.Little Ship of Fools is a fascinating and funny story of courage, adventure and human spirit
As with most empires of the Early Modern period (1500-1800), the Ottomans mobilized human and material resources for warmaking on a scale that was vast and unprecedented. The present volume examines the direct and indirect effects of warmaking on Aleppo, an important Ottoman administrative center and Levantine trading city, as the empire engaged in multiple conflicts, including wars with Venice (1644-69), Poland (1672-76) and the Hapsburg Empire (1663-64, 1683-99). Focusing on urban institutions such as residential quarters, military garrisons, and guilds, and using intensively the records of local law courts, the study explores how the routinization of direct imperial taxes and the assimilation of soldiers to civilian life challenged and reshaped the city s social and political order.
In the summer of 1969, Charlie Wilkins was a young man in search of a job. Turned down by a dozen potential employers—including Shubang Used Tire and Dick’s Nifty Car Wash—Wilkins landed an unlikely job at a vast corporate cemetery as a “bone waxer,” handling “bird-houses” (urns), and earning an invaluable education about life as a caregiver in death. From reckless disinterments, to a mid-summer gravediggers’ strike, to the illegal shifting of bones from untended graves, In the Land of Long Fingernails is a coming-of-age story among extraordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. It offers up a Barnum-esque cavalcade of “slay carpenters,” “dirt nappers,” mavericks and misfits, shifty plot salesmen, and drug-addled gravediggers, yet it also shows us their uncertainty and superstitions, and their relentless gallows humor amid the inevitable reminders of what it is, finally, to be human. In the funny and dark spirit of Thomas Lynch’s best-selling The Undertaking, Mary Roach’s hit Stiff, and Six Feet Under, In the Land of Long Fingernails is a testament not just to unexpected friendship but also to late sixties culture, and to the art and power of storytelling.
Science undergraduates have come to accept the use of computers as commonplace. The daily use of portable sophisticated electronic calculators (some of them rivaling general-purpose minicomputers in their capa bi li ti es) has hastened this development. Over the past several years, computer assisted experimentation has assumed an important role in the experimental laboratory. Mini- and microcomputer systems have become an important part of the physical scientist's array of analytical instruments. Prompted by our beliefthat this was an inevitable development, we began several years aga to develop the curricular materials presented in this manual. At the outset, several objectives seemed important to uso First, insofar as possible, the experiments included should be thoroughly tested and error free. Second, they should be compatible with a variety of laboratory computer, data-acquisition, and control systems. Third, little or no previous background in either electronics or programming should be necessary. (Of course, such background would be advantageous. ) To satisfy these objectives, we decided to adopt a widespread high-level computer language, BASIC, suitably modified for the purpose. Furthermore, we have purposely avoided specifying any particular system or equipment. Rather, the functional characteristics of both hardware and software required are stipulated. The experiments have been developed using Varian 620 and Hewlett-Packard 2100 series computers, but we believe they are readily transferable to other commonly available computer systems with a minimum of difficulty.
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