Sean's Blog

Thoughts on history and culture.

Sweltering in the Old World: The European heat wave of 2003.

On August 10, 2003, a thermometer in Faversham, Kent, in England, registered 101.3° F (38.5° C), the highest temperature ever recorded in the UK until it was finally exceeded on July 25,...

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Disappeared: Mitchel Weiser and Bonita Bickwit, missing since 1973.

On July 27, 1973, forty-seven years ago today, Mitchel Weiser, age 16, and his girlfriend Bonita "Bonnie" Bickwit, age 15, both from Brooklyn, disappeared somewhere between Narrowsburg and Watkins...

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Guns and Provolone: Food, booze and wine in Scorsese's "GoodFellas." [Part III]

This is Part III of my essay on food, alcohol and wine depicted in Martin Scorsese's masterpiece, GoodFellas, which I argue are a crucial part of understanding this great film. Part...

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Guns and Provolone: Food, booze and wine in Scorsese's "GoodFellas." [Part II]

This is Part II of my exploration into the culinary (and alcoholic) dimensions of Martin Scorsese's masterpiece, GoodFellas. Part I, which deals with the first third of the film, is here. It...

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Guns and Provolone: Food, booze and wine in Scorsese's "GoodFellas." [Part I]

GoodFellas is undoubtedly one of my favorite films. It's a great movie, one of the greatest ever made, and a lot of critics agree; it's on the Library of Congress's National Film Registry as well...

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The year climate change came to Norway: The great drought of 1947.

This article was inspired and informed by a paper given by Magnus Vollset at the International History of Meteorology Conference in Bergen, Norway in November 2014. The words are mine, but most of...

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Disappeared: The Women of Tensegrity, missing since 1998.

Watch the video version of this article, here:

 

In the spring of 1998, shortly after the death of New Age writer and philosopher Carlos Castaneda, five women closely connected with Castaneda...

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Civilizers or conquerors? The first missionaries to Hawaii.

The rather dour-looking faces you see at the top of this article are regarded in many ways as the "pioneers" of Hawaii. They were among the very first Europeans (or people of European stock) to...

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Pan-American World Airways: the rise and fall of a 20th century cultural icon.

Seventy-three years ago, on January 6, 1947, Pan-American World Airways offered its very first around-the-world airline ticket. In that heady time just after World War II you could fly on a...

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Face/Off? The squirrely legend of Mark Hamill's car crash.

This article was originally published on SeanMunger.com in July 2013.

See the video version of this blog, here:

 

The header image for this article, of course, is of Mark Hamill, Luke...

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