Tennessee Williams, Age 5

This photograph was (likely) taken on September 26, 1916, inscribed ‘Tom at 5 1/2 living in Clarksdale.’ The media file was uploaded to Wikipedia by Harvard’s Houghton Library for rare books and manuscripts. Thank you, Houghton!

Norman Mailer’s Mystery Motel

Norman Mailer didn’t name the motel outside Houston where he stayed to cover the Apollo 11 moon landings for LIFE magazine (later printed in a book called Of A Fire on the Moon):

“He stayed in a motel surprising in its luxury on this Texas plain. He had two rooms, and one room had a private indoor pool four feet deep, seven feet long, and five feet wide, with a green light overhead. The other room had a full king-sized circular bed with a red velvet cover. He discovered on inquiry that the motel had been decorated by a new owner who hoped to attract honeymoon couples to memories of the deluxe in the middle of the flatland. But the clientele continued to consist of engineers visiting MSC from corporations which did business with NASA. Aquarius had a picture of some of the engineers he had met, the ones with the lunar pallor, sleeping in the round red velvet-covered king-sized bed.”

Of a Fire on the Moon, Norman Mailer, Little Brown, 1970.

Primark’s Water Balloons

Primark is owned by Associated British Foods. Wittington Investments–the main holding company of the British branch of Canada’s Weston family–owns a majority stake in Associated British. The remains of these balloons are found in every outdoor space in the United Kingdom all spring and summer. They are sold at eye level in the checkout lines of Primark, where they have proved to be very popular.

Perhaps one day the Weston Family Ecosystem Innovation Award can be awarded to someone who mitigates the damage caused by millions of broken water balloons washing into the ocean!  

(Above and left, screenshots from the Primark website, Friday, July 8, 2022).