Brendan I. Koerner

Author

1974-09-21

Quotes by Brendan I. Koerner

• Spike optioned my first book, 'Now the Hell Will Start,' and he trusted me to write the screenplay, too. That was an awesome learning experience - I grew up watching Spike's movies, and here he was giving me handwritten notes about structure and dialogue. His feedback taught me so much about how to craft a cinematic narrative.

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• Sea-Monkeys are hybrid brine shrimp and the brainchild of the mail-order entrepreneur Harold von Braunhut in 1957. When their crystallized eggs are submerged in water, minuscule crustaceans emerge; they can grow up to 2 inches long.

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• Monorails have their own fan club, which claims more than 2,500 members who swap monorail toys and trinkets. Modern light rail can claim no such devoted fan base.

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• The dearth of business activity on the traditional day of rest makes Sunday an ideal time to declare insolvency. Bankruptcy petitions are time-stamped to the minute, instantly dividing a failed company's dealings into pre-bankruptcy transactions and post-bankruptcy transactions.

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• The goal of mass transit is to convince people to abandon their cars, which feature such enticing accessories as CD players and elbow room.

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• Light rails are too bus-like to impress most commuters, too squished and close to the ground. Monorails, by contrast, strike a chord with travelers. There's something about the sleek designs, the pillowy rides, and the panoramic views that just enchants.

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• Like many of his fellow skyjackers, 49-year-old Arthur Gates Barkley was motivated by a complicated grievance against the federal government. In 1963, the World War II veteran had been fired as a truck driver for a bakery, after one of his supervisors accused him of harassment.

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• According to Ted Watt's 'The First Labor Day Parade,' the September date was chosen because it coincided with a Knights of Labor conference in New York, thus guaranteeing a sizable turnout for the festivities.

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• Particularly during the late 1960s, a large number of American skyjackers earnestly believed that Fidel Castro's Cuba was an egalitarian, post-racial utopia.

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• The hazards posed by Near-Earth Asteroids are assessed by Sentry, a computer system developed by the Near-Earth Objects Group at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The software factors together a cosmic rock's coordinates, distance, velocity, and gravitational influences to calculate its trajectory.

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• Inventing sources is not a crime in and of itself, although it certainly violates every code of journalistic ethics known to man. A criminal fraud case would require that the reporter's deceit had been malicious and resulted in financial gain.

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• You don't have to be Wilt Chamberlain to get into the Basketball Hall of Fame. If you don't have a sweet turnaround jumper from 18 feet, the best route to the Hall is fatherhood. Daniel Biasone, aka the 'father of the 24-second clock,' made the cut.

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