Sunday paper tidbits

- Historians say many of the legends of Geronimo are more myth than reality. It is most likely NOT his skull being used by Yale's Skull and Bones group. While he was a prisoner at Ft. Sill for the last 15 years of his life, he lived in one of the tribal villages on the post and did not wear a path in the stone floor of his cell by pacing as school children touring the fort were told for decades (he only spent about three weekends in his cell house). A common story was that he had a blanket made from 99 Mexican scalps (yuk), but the problem is that no one ever saw it that can remember it. Geronimo was apparently a master of PR. And the use of yelling "Geronimo!" before jumping was first used by a World War II-era paratrooper who had seen a Western movie about Geronimo the night before a scheduled jump. Do kids still use it when jumping off the swing set?

- A new independent bookstore just opened up in NYC. First off, kudos to bookstores still opening up. The store is called Idlewild, and out of it's more than 7000 books in stock, about half are travel books. And the books are not organized alphabetically; they are sorted geographically by state, country and continent, mixing novels and memoirs with travel guides. They strive to personalize their book choices for people. A cool feature they have are "Destination Kits," a selection of books tailored to individuals. A customer calls with information about the traveler's interests and destinations (and amount they want to spend) and the store will pick out appropriate books. For a trip to Berlin for an architect they offered up TimeOut Berlin, the Knopf Map Guide, "Berlin: The Architecture Guide," Christopher Isherwood's "The Berlin Stories" and Peter Gay's "Weimar Culture." Go to www.idlewildbooks.com to check them out; and if you aren't near the NYC area I'm sure they can ship to you!

- The last tidbit comes not from the Newark Star-Ledger, but from our local weekly paper The Westfield Leader. This week they published their annual "This is Westfield" section, which gives all sort of information about the area. But since the paper has been published since 1890 they also included reprints of past stories. One fun one to read was titled "Martian Invasion Broadcast Provokes Polite Yawns Here," referencing the War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938. While about 30 phone calls were received at Westfield police headquarters from frightened residents about the "Martian attack" (some were hysterical), Maplewood and Newark, NJ, both reported 1,500 calls. Trenton received 800 inquiries and an Elizabeth church was filled with worshippers praying for deliverence. An Orange movie theater emptied in two minutes when a man rushed in announcing the state was being invaded. Many residents of Montclair and Orange packed belongings and headed into the mountains for safety. Women fainted when they heard the news second-hand (maybe these were the ones too delicate to listen to the broadcast themselves?). I had never realized the story centered on aliens invading New Jersey, which I guess explains people freaking out so much here. But apparently the Westfielders were able to keep level heads and reassure each other that it wasn't real.