Arthur Bell Overture
I never actually listened to Coast to Coast or any other program hosted by Art Bell,
yet I’ve heard of “Mel’s Hole”.
This may sound like something far afield of what it is to those of you who haven’t. Arthur William Bell III “was a pioneering radio broadcaster … renowned for creating the most influential paranormal talk show in broadcasting history,” to quote a short bio on the Art Bell Archives site. Which of the sites about his life and work are more official and/or accepted by his devotees, I can’t really tell you, but it’s 2026 and I doubt you need my help searching the Interwebs beyond an exhortation to use DuckDuckGo rather than Google for privacy’s sake.
Bell didn’t only cover the paranormal and conspiracy theories but was certainly open
to discussing stories on those subjects with callers. One topic from nearly two decades past that has apparently continued to fascinate on Reddit and elsewhere is the aforementioned hole of unknown origin and mysterious properties located in Washington State described to Bell in 1997 by a man identifying himself as Mel Waters. A friend of mine who long worked for NASA shared an IFLScience post earlier today recapping the phenomenon. He did so for reasons other than promoting or debunking the details, but the context prompted me to adapt certain of those details to the chorus of the 1974 Doobie Brothers classic and personal favorite “Black Water”; here they are, with the usual apologies to singer/composer Patrick Simmons.
S Is for...
... Stephen Colbert, and the swan song of The Late Show, including the return of Strike Force Five.
I’m not taking stock of the wider state of late-night TV, at least directly, right now.
My aim is to gather some of the most interesting coverage of and content related to Colbert’s exit from the 11 o’clock hour after nearly 30 years, dating back to his days as
a Daily Show correspondent, over 20 of them as a host and 10+ broadcasting from the Ed Sullivan Theater.
Hey! Stephen recently led a tour of the Sullivan’s auditorium for Architectural Digest [14:29]. Known as CBS Studio 50 when it housed Ed’s “rilly big shew” and built a century ago as Hammerstein’s Temple of Music by Arthur Hammerstein in honor of his father, it’s possessed — as Late Show viewers have seen — of such remarkable features as a majestic dome refurbished and retrofitted with deft, modern graphic elements by Colbert’s staff.
The above, like all further video links in this post, goes to YouTube.
I had perhaps the coolest external look at the theater possible when visiting the
offices of DC Comics at 1700 Broadway across the street the week of New Year’s 1997. David Letterman was the latest tenant and, having already been designated a New York City Landmark, the Sullivan would soon be added to the National Register of Historic Places. Current owner Paramount Skydance Corporation’s plans for it are unclear.
