Marco Bittelli ’98 MS, ’01 PhD
Pacific Coast Jazz, 2009
Some things you expect to find on the Palouse: tractors, football fans, a smattering of laboratories probing the molecular basis of life and the reaches of space. The rural alchemy of agriculture and academia would seem less likely to nurture the great urban art form of jazz, but somehow it does. Several nights a week, you can wander into a club like Rico’s and find … » More …
Orrin H. Pilkey ’57 and Rob Young
Island Press, 2009
The island nations of Tuvalu and the Maldives, the Inupiat Eskimo village of Shishmaref, and Soldado Island off the Colombian coast might be tough to find on a geography quiz. But all of these locations foretell a future of oceans overwhelming coastlines. In each of these remote places, residents are either moving or preparing to move to higher ground before their homes get swallowed by the … » More …
Carcrashlander (Cory Gray, Brian Wright ’02, Alexis Gideon, Cliff Hayes, and Jessica Wright ’02)
Jealous Butcher Records, 2008
Nestled in the generally indescribable genre of indie music, Carcrashlander challenges the listener by continuing to venture into experimental music. In their most recent album, Mountains On Our Backs, the group combines basal vocals and keyboards with wildly discordant guitar riffs and deep percussion.
The band began as a project by vocalist Cory Gray. With the addition of drummer Brian … » More …
Kirk Werner ’85
Johnson Books, 2007, 2009
Flyfishing— a sport and an art practiced for centuries—fascinates me with its smooth casts and rhythm, but I had never connected flyfishing with kids. At least not until Olive the Woolly Bugger, a cartoon “streamer” fly starring in a series of three books that introduce flyfishing to children.
Playing off goofy fly names—like zonker, yellow sally, and gold-ribbed hare’s ear—author and angler Kirk Werner (’85 Comm.) creates a … » More …
Jeffrey A. Johnson
University of Oklahoma Press, 2008
Few if any aspects of the Northwest’s political and labor history have been so thoroughly documented as the region’s most radical era, from the 1890s to the First World War. Books and articles have highlighted such topics as the rise of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg’s … » More …
Max S. Power
WSU Press, 2008
When engineers, physicists, and other scientists began making materials for nuclear bombs, the Manhattan Project sites around the country including Hanford, Los Alamos, and Oak Ridge were wrapped in World War II and Cold War secrecy. The processes, products, and, most importantly, the waste they produced were hidden from the American public.
Even people who lived near the test facilities were unaware … » More …
Joan Hockaday
WSU Press, 2009
John Charles Olmsted, nephew and stepson of world-famous park designer Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. and half brother of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., spent much of his life in the shadows of his more famous relatives. Even so, on the West Coast he has had the greatest and most lasting influence of any single landscape architect.
Because of an invitation made to the Olmsted … » More …
Richard Old ’77, ’81
XID Services, Inc., 2008
When you don’t know what you’re dealing with, weedy plants may be hard to handle. Richard Old, a longtime Pullman resident and weed identification expert, has put together this comprehensive database of weeds for both public and private use.
The DVD, a sequel to Old’s CD 1,000 Weeds, contains more than 6,000 images of weeds found throughout North America. With details like the color of the plant juice, height, flower traits, … » More …
John Abelson ’60, and Philip H. Abelson ’33, ’35
Roberts & Company, 2007
I was lucky enough to meet Philip Abelson in 2002 on the occasion of his visit to Pullman for the dedication of Abelson Hall (formerly Science Hall) in honor of the scientist and his wife Dr. Neva Abelson ’34.
During our brief interview, Abelson downplayed his own story, instead emphasizing his family’s ties to Washington State University. In 1905, his parents … » More …
Andrew P. Duffin PhD ’02
University of Washington Press, 2007
This is an important and disturbing book, both for the environmental degradation it documents and the message of what little progress our agricultural practices on the Palouse have made.
In a sense, the precursor of Plowed Under was a series of lectures by William Spillman in 1924. Spillman, a versatile and prescient scientist, was one of Washington State Agricultural College’s first faculty members, hired by … » More …