Rob Hardy: “A Brief History of Nakedness”
If you are like me, you take off all your clothes in order to change into other clothes, to bathe, to sleep, or to make love. You do not get naked to advance your religion, nor promote a good harvest, nor to support a political or social cause, nor gain money, nor participate in artistic display.
Rob Hardy: “Flight of the Century”
There are a number of aeronautical or aerospace accomplishments that might be called “the flight of the century.”
Rob Hardy: “Hunting Evil”
With the end of the Second World War, there was much that had to be repaired, and among the human repairs that were needed was hunting the former Nazis that joined the teeming displaced masses.
Rob Hardy: “Golden Gate”
The Golden Gate Bridge is on anyone’s list of the most beautiful bridges, and is one of the most spectacular of engineering and artistic achievements.
Rob Hardy: “Digging up the Dead”
There is something different about a person after the person dies. The once-living flesh rots away, and turns into dust which is made up of elements that are no different from elements everywhere else.
Rob Hardy: The World That Never Was
If we had had a better-trained bomber a few months ago, we would have had a terrorist disaster in New York City when his car bomb exploded. That one didn’t go off, but plenty do in many parts of the world. The international terrorist bombers now tend to be religious.
Rob Hardy: Mystery Cults of the Ancient World
You weren’t supposed to understand the secrets of the ancient Greek and Roman mystery cults in the times that they flourished, unless you were yourself an initiate.
Rob Hardy: “Operation Mincemeat”
You may well be aware that in World War II the British played a fine trick on the Germans by letting them find a floating a body bearing bogus secret invasion plans.
Rob Hardy: The Arsenic Century
Because we are complex bags of chemicals with countless processes that must run exactly right if we are to continue our heartbeats and breathing, there is a huge number of poisons that will do us in. Among the most famous is arsenic; without its fame, for instance, the title of the stage and movie classic Arsenic and Old Lace would not have its sting.
Rob Hardy: “An Entirely Synthetic Fish”
I know little about fish or fishing, but I know fisherman like to go for rainbow trout, a good fish to have at the end of your line or to have in your frying pan.
Rob Hardy: ‘The Poker Bride’
In “The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the West” (Atlantic Monthly Press), Christopher Corbett has told the story, as much as it can be known, of one Chinese girl who came to California and was indeed won in a poker game.
Rob Hardy: The big heist
The heist movie is a Hollywood standard, so when a real heist is made, it is necessary for those telling about the real heist to compare it to the movie versions. Scott Andrew Selby and Greg Campbell have repeatedly done this in “Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History “(Union Square Press). They repeatedly refer to the 2001 remake “Ocean’s Eleven” when telling the story of the 2003 burglary of an office called the Diamond Center in the heart of the Diamond District in Antwerp.
Rob Hardy: Mimicry and camouflage
Some animals like to sport bright colors, as if they want to be seen. Others favor drab colors, as if they want to blend in and avoid recognition. There must be advantages to both strategies. Soldiers used to sport bright red clothing in the field, and now tend to go with grey and olive blotches, if they are in forest, and beige spotty patterns if they are on sand.