A while back, I talked about Foundphotos at 10Eastern.com which contains some interesting photos accidentally shared with the world through some file sharing sites.  There are also plenty of sites that contain interesting photos shared purposely.

Flickr is a great site for photographers to post their images for the world to see.  Each photo is linked by tags, a searchable description, date of posting, and author.  Most photos can be downloaded in a variety of sizes and may contain notes that can be activated by hovering over the photo.  Users are encouraged to register and leave comments.  If you’re looking to become a better photographer, this can be a great way to pick up professional-quality advice.

Zingfu, the digital world’s answer to the carnival cutout of “The Strong Man”, contains a library of funny and interesting photo backgrounds.  You can put your friends on the cover of a magazine, in a popular movie, on a motivational poster, next to a celebrity, or in dozens of other funny situations.  The site is laid out like a Chinese food menu and features a fortune cookie in the lower corner that changes its saying on each visit.  It’s worth a visit even if you don’t own a digital camera.

Tesla Motors recently unveiled their Tesla Roadster to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.  The Roadster is an electric car that can reach one hundred thirty (130 mph) and goes from zero to sixty (0 mph to 60 mph) in four (4) seconds!  Tesla is primarily a California dealership that’s expanding into other areas and reports the car will be shipping in the Fall of 2007.  Whether they meet their chosen deadline for delivery in 2007 isn’t as important as the fact that a company is proving that a battery cell vehicle is capable of running better than most traditional gasoline engines.  With hydrogen-powered fuel cell automobiles being pushed back another decade, the market is ripe for companies to solve the gasoline conundrum with alternative methods of powering an engine.

Hybrid (combination electric and gasoline power) and alternative fuel (vegetable oil) are definitely steps in the right direction, but some people I speak to seem think that these cars are wimpy, i.e. the engines lack power, or hippy, i.e. their owners lack power.  I’m as guilty as anyone.  I drive a big SUV.  It’s not that I like looking down on other drivers, it’s just that I don’t like looking up at the backs of trucks, vans, buses, and other SUV’s like I do when I drive my wife’s car.  I also like it because I never have to worry if something I just purchased is going to fit in it.  It’s as comfortable as sitting on a leather couch with your feet up on a hassock.  It handles New England’s snowy roads and I’ve even driven through a river a couple times while camping up in the mountains.

When we replace my wife’s car, we may get a hybrid, or at minimum one with good gas mileage.  Most major automotive companies have already or are starting to release hybrid models.  The American companies delayed continuing development and delivery of hybrids until after Toyota showed that it could be a successful and profitable segment of business, so they’re getting to the party a little late.  As a result, Ford, GM, and Chrysler may suffer in sales for a while and thus be unable to recoup their development costs until much later.  I believe in buying American and each company has a nice hybrid offering.  I’ll probably buy American; I always have.

You may note that I said “when we replace my wife’s car” not my truck.  I continue to emphasize her car and my truck because we’ve had these vehicles since before we met and married.  It’s silly, really, because she usually drives my truck so she can use the car seat and transport the stroller.  I drive hers to work each day to save on gas money.  Hers is Japanese.  Mine would crush it in a fight.  Because we need the room and safety the truck affords and since we already own it, we’ll probably hold onto it for a few more years.  The next vehicle to be replaced will probably be hers.

Americans should show their support for alternative power engines.  As more consumers buy these vehicles, American companies and government will need to show their support of these decisions and provide more choices and a better infrastructure.  Better advertising is needed.  The U.S. government will give you a tax credit (that’s direct money back, not tax deduction which only reduces the amount on which you’re taxed and thus is only worth a percentage of its listed value) for purchasing an alternative fuel vehicle.  Many state governments have similar incentives; more if you just so happen to manage a fleet of municipal vehicles.  The rules for hybrids and electric differ, so please note the distinction.  There are a lot of good reasons to own one of these cars, even besides the steep price at the pump.  And it’s good to see a company like Tesla Motors is adding more fuel to the fire.  So to speak.

"To keep a lamp burning we have to keep putting oil in it.”
Mother Teresa

Matthew Pearl’s The Poe Shadow may well be the best new novel I’ve read in a very long time.  It’s led me to purchase his prior novel, The Dante Club, which I’m enjoying presently.  I’m not entirely sure what caused me to pick up The Poe Shadow when I saw it on the new releases table at Barnes and Noble.  The cover was unassuming, and I hadn’t read any reviews or received any recommendations.  However, I am glad I did.  From the first page to the last, I loved this book.

Often times I breeze through a good fiction quickly, but I found my approach to this novel different from others.  Although I was certainly enraptured by its story, I found myself savoring each word and often rereading sentences and paragraphs.  Instead of stealing time to read a page here and there, I set aside time and waited to enjoy it much in the way I might a fine cigar or nice bottle of pinot noir.

The Poe Shadow takes place in Baltimore in 1849 and being written in the first person, contains the quaint dialogue of the time.  In this manner, it reminded me a lot of a Dickens novel or one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries, except with an American bent.  It’d be more accurate to say that it’s written in the manner of one of the titular Edgar Allen Poe mysteries which were written some forty years before the Holmes novels, but being ignorant of Poe’s work outside of The Raven and some short stories, I could only think of Sherlock Holmes.  However, Matthew Pearl has convinced me to pursue some Poe novels which I expect to be reading soon.

Since I’ve already claimed ignorance, I may as well continue with my Sherlock Holmes comparison.  Like the Holmes novels, excepting one, this story isn’t told through the voice of the astute detective.  While the Holmes novels are told by the venerable doctor, Dr. John H. Watson, The Poe Shadow is told by an esteemed attorney named Quentin Hobson Clark who decides he must defend the honor of Edgar Poe after his unfortunate death and subsequent vilification in the press.

Clark is dismayed to learn that the author he so admired and with whom had begun a correspondence isn’t receiving his due respect in the public.  He is even more dismayed to learn the police haven’t begun any kind of investigation into the matter of Poe’s death despite the unusual and unexplained circumstances.  Thus, Clark sets out to solve the mystery of Poe’s demise and entrench the author firmly in the minds and hearts of an American audience.

To add depth to the story, Pearl nicely weaves in an alternate and possibly more significant motive for Clark’s sense of urgency when he reveals that the young attorney’s parents recently perished in a carriage accident.  The closeness of this tragic turn and Clark’s expected nuptials to a childhood sweetheart that would set to define his future both send the narrator scrambling for anything different and exciting.  When he witnesses, albeit unknowingly at first, Poe’s sparse funeral service and reads the newspapers’ accounts of the author’s last days, he discovers an outlet for all these pent up emotions and leaps into the matter without ever looking back.  He abandons his law practice, risks his neck, and ultimately everything he owns in pursuit of a mystery that many doubt even exists.

Clark convinces himself that the media’s account, the police department’s lack of interest, and Poe’s relatives’ reluctance to discuss the matter are all signs of a sinister plot.  When he struggles to untangle the mess for himself, he decides to enlist the one man he feels can solve the enigma: the real-life model for Poe’s fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin.  Unfortunately, with Poe deceased and little information available, Clark has a difficult time identifying the nonpareil detective.  He eventually narrows his selection between two prominent citizens of Paris: a fellow attorney named Baron Claude Dupin who has never lost in court, and a freelance agent to the police named Auguste Duponte who helped solve several difficult, publicized cases.

Clark decides that Duponte is the more likely candidate for Poe’s inspiration and sets off for Paris in anticipation of luring the detective back to America with promises of fame, fortune, and an interesting puzzle.  From the moment he arrives in Paris, things don’t go quite as he had expected.  First, he discovers that his presence in Paris isn’t exactly appreciated by the police commissioner who has held a simmering jealousy from Duponte’s previous feats.  Then even after he finally tracks down Duponte, the detective is completely unwilling to even consider the matter, spending days in a pensive state, barely uttering but a few words to the American gentleman.  To make matters worse, one day during a tour of the palace of Versailles, Clark is abducted by the Baron Dupin who boasts that he is the role-model for the fictional detective.  Despite Clark’s protests that the real Dupin would never have employed a gang of ruffians or acted in such a manner, the Baron declares that he will set off for America to claim his fame and fortune, without need of Clark’s assistance.  This chain of events sets the clock ticking for Clark who must now persuade the detective to join the adventure, solve the mystery, and restore Poe’s good name before the faux Dupin muddies the waters and claims victory for himself.

Throughout the story, Matthew Pearl introduces many interesting characters and sub-plots that include a French female assassin, the American family of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, the heated political climate of nineteen century Baltimore, the declining Atlantic slave trade, and of course the continued pressures in Clark’s life that had originally set him off on his pursuit.  It is to Pearl’s credit that he accomplishes all this without ever confusing the reader or clouding the mystery that is at the heart of The Poe Shadow.  Further, it is interesting to note how many of the details of the case are true to their original and the interesting, previously unknown factoids Pearl discovered during his research into the novel; he outlines these in his afterword to the book.  I also found it interesting that although completely different in context, I was reminded of Dan Brown’s work in that both authors exhaustively research a subject and then build a mystery around the actual or perceived facts of the setting; Dan Brown gave a recommendation on the jacket for both The Poe Shadow and The Dante Club.  So far, I’m really enjoying The Dante Club and will write about it when I finish.

"To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness.”
Edgar Allen Poe