Some "From the Readers" and some links to great reading

It's been a fairly light summer in terms of reader comments here on Papergreat. Some of that, of course, is certainly the result of my reduced posting frequency in 2015.

So here's the latest small batch of reader comments, plus some links to great things to read around the web on this sweltering August day here in Pennsylvania.

A label for Frostie Root Beer (a jailhouse-born beverage): Rosemary Paul writes: "I grew up in Monessen, Pennsylvania, where my dad worked in the steel mill. Every payday, we would get to go to this small drive-in type place. It was called Frosties and the sign was exactly like Frostie himself. When you ordered a root beer float (my favorite) it would come in a boot mug and you got to keep the boot mug. Between my brother and I, we must have had 12 of those mugs! I still love Frostie and buy it whenever I see it. But here in the South, I cannot find it anywhere. That drive-in is long gone now, as are the mills and my parents, but Frosties root beer is still with us."

Thank you so much for sharing your memories, Rosemary! Does anyone else have memories of Frostie Root Beer, Monessen, or the root beer floats served in a boot mug?

Guy Brown Wiser, artist and World War I aviator: BroHogan writes: "Old thread, I know, but I had to write this. Guy Brown Wiser illustrated a 1940 science book How and Why Discoveries. I read and reread that book many times as a kid. Today 50 years later I still remember the illustrations. They made such an impression that I recently bought a used copy of that book. It was wonderful to look through it again and there wasn't an illustration that I didn't remember. They were the most illustrative illustrations that I have ever seen."

Indeed, the books we fall in love with during our childhood are the best books of all!

Ye Olde Papergreat Post No. 1,600, con pollo: Joan writes: "This makes me THE MOST HAPPY."

Psychogeography snapshot from the City of York: Joan writes: "I love this a ton. Randomly, yesterday, we happened on a 'poetry garden' in an alley in downtown York and I decided to take a photo. ... And I didn't even know that was called something!"

Great links for your reading pleasure

• Brain Pickings: "Legendary Lands: Umberto Eco on the Greatest Maps of Imaginary Places and Why They Appeal to Us" by Maria Popova
• Smithsonian.com: "In Bolivia's High-Altitude Capital, Indigenous Traditions Thrive Once Again" by Annie Murphy
• Priceonomics: "When the Great Alpaca Bubble Burst" by Rosie Cima
• Londonist: "The Hidden Graffiti Of Tate Britain"
• The Paris Review: "Unhousing: Foreclosed homes as haunted houses" by Colin Dickey
• My Inside Voices: "Assholes, ducklings and the end of the universe" by Susan Jennings
• Smithsonian.com: "Whatever Happened to the Wild Camels of the American West?" by Chris Heller
• Atlas Obscura: "Resurrecting the original road trip on America's ghost highway" by Sarah Laskow
• Literary Hub: "The deep, dark genius of Shirley Jackson" by Dale Peck
• Smithsonian.com: "The Entertaining Saga of the Worst Crook in Colonial America" by Ernest B. Furgurson
• Little White Lies: "Mission: Impossible III Is The Pinnacle Of The Tom Cruise Spy Franchise (and it's all down to an incredible antagonist as played by Philip Seymour Hoffman)" by David Ehrlich
• Gizmodo: "Russia Wants People to Road Trip from New York to London (via Moscow)" by Kiona Smith-Strickland
• Eric Kim Street Photography Blog: "12 Lessons Joel Meyerowitz Has Taught Me About Street Photography" by Eric Kim
• The New Yorker: "The First Light of Trinity" by Alex Wellerstein
• The New York Times: "As Bar Codes Replace Tickets, Something Is Lost Before the First Pitch" by Seth Berkman
• Atlas Obscura: "The Obsessively Detailed Map of American Literature's Most Epic Road Trips" by Richard Kreitner and Steven Melendez
• The Onion: "Vilsack Reprimanded For Spending Work Hours Writing Corn Blog"