Good day. Thanks for visiting.
My name's Bill Lengeman and I'm a freelance writer with 19 years experience. I've had hundreds of articles published on a wide variety of topics and I'm always available to discuss your next project.
This site is a portfolio that presents a number of my published articles, broken down by category. For my contact information and a more extensive summary of my qualifications, look here.
I look forward to hearing from you.
In addition to maintaining my own tea Web site - Tea Guy Speaks - I am currently the primary contributor to the Twinings Tea Blog, which is hosted by the Canadian arm of the Twinings company. Each week I typically contribute one article discussing the health benefits of tea, three other tea-related articles and a brief roundup of interesting tea stuff posted by other tea bloggers.
Weird Arizona: Your Travel Guide to Arizona's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets
by Wesley Treat
Tucson Weekly
Reviewed by William I. Lengeman III
The road that led to Weird Arizona began in 1992, when Jerseyites Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman began producing "a homespun newsletter" called Weird N.J. It became popular, and in 2003, the duo published Weird N.J.: Your Travel Guide to New Jersey's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets.
Read more at the Tucson Weekly Web site.
A New Race to the Moon: Competitors Gear Up Google Lunar X-Prize
By William I. Lengeman III
Space Lifestyle, Winter/Spring 2008
In the annals of space exploration and human history as a whole, July 21, 1969 holds a particular place of honor. It is, of course, the day that human beings - American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin - first walked on another world.
Read more at the Space Lifestyle Web site.
Standing on the Corner Studying Rules of Verse: A Visit With Sweet Jane on the Occasion of Her 37th Birthday
by William I. Lengeman III
Crawdaddy!
So I thought I would explain to you how to make a career out of three chords. -Lou Reed
Like many people who came of age in the ‘70s, my first exposure to Lou Reed's music was by way of the perversions and doo-da-dooing colored girls that populated the sleazy world of “Walk on the Wild Side.” I was 10-years-old when the song first hit the airwaves and was more concerned with the likes of the Partridge Family than with the harder stuff. At the time, Lou Reed didn't make much of an impression.
Read more at Crawdaddy!
If I Had A Hammer
By William I. Lengeman III
I’ve always felt uneasy in the company of ball peen hammers. Perhaps I'm alone in this, my distrust of certain hand tools. At the other extreme is a guy like Dave Pahl, hammer collector extraordinaire and curator of an Alaskan hammer museum that houses more than twelve hundred of the little buggers.
Pahl has gone on record as saying, "I like hammers." Obviously, and who can fault a guy for that? Hammers are a good and useful thing and where would we be without them? We’d be running around trying to bang in nails with screwdriver handles, is
where we’d be.
Space Tourism’s First Small Steps
by William I. Lengeman III
Air & Space
On Christmas Eve in 1968, when the Apollo 8 astronauts read passages of the Bible’s Genesis to an Earthbound TV audience, Juan Trippe, the PR-savvy head of Pan American World Airways, thought to phone ABC-TV. He let it be known that the airline was keeping a list of people interested in one day taking a commercial flight to the moon. By the next morning, Pan Am had received “a flurry of requests” from wannabe space tourists, adding to a list that already numbered about 100 names.
Read more at the Air & Space Web site.
Lunar Prospector: Against All Odds
By Alan B. Binder, Ph.D.
Reviewed by William I. Lengeman III
First published in Air & Space
There are no shortage of books about space missions, but Lunar Prospector: Against All Odds is rare – perhaps even unique – in that it presents a blow by blow account of a moon mission from conception to fruition, as recounted by the man who spearheaded the project and served as its principal investigator.
Continue reading "Book Review - Lunar Prospector: Against All Odds" »
Ten Essential Works of Horror
by William I. Lengeman III
Dark Scribe Magazine
1. Horace Walpole (1717-1797)
The Castle of Otranto (1764)
In his wide-ranging essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature, H.P. Lovecraft called The Castle of Otranto “thoroughly unconvincing and mediocre” and “tedious, artificial and melodramatic.” Modern-day readers not accustomed to Walpole’s archaic style might tend to agree.
Read more at Dark Scribe Magazine.
By some accounts nearly 85% of all Americans over the age of 10 have a screenplay they're trying to get produced (those are ballpark stats, by the way - I wouldn't suggest using them in your thesis). I am one of them.
Here's the lowdown, very briefly stated.
Title - A Bowl of Cherries
Logline - Build a better toilet brush and the world will beat a path to your door - or will they?
Genre - Comedy/Mockumentary
If you're a serious filmmaker with an interest in finding out more, you can reach me at wileng |at| weirdeats.com
The History of Saliva
by William I. Lengeman III
Here are some fascinating facts about spit, which I’ve gone out and gathered so you don't have to. But first there’s a minor issue of semantics that we need to get cleared up - the difference between saliva and spittle. The dictionary isn't completely clear on this point, but as far as I can tell it appears that saliva does not technically become spittle until it is ejected (or spit) from the mouth.
Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein's Brain
by Michael Paterniti
The Dial Press, 2000
Reviewed by William I. Lengeman III
It could be the ultimate road trip/buddy movie - a man and the aging and slightly dotty pathologist who removed Albert Einstein's brain take it (floating in formaldehyde in a Tupperware container) on a cross-country jaunt. In reality, it's hard to know what's more unbelievable, that it really happened or that Hollywood hasn't latched onto the story yet.
The Air Conditioned Nightmare
by Henry Miller
New Directions, 1970
Reviewed by William I. Lengeman III
One almost has to admire the sheer vitriol with which reviewer Orville Prescott savaged Henry Miller in the New York Times, in late 1945. Though he admitted that his subject was "not without talent," Prescott ultimately concluded that The Air-Conditioned Nightmare was "as shallow, snobbish, uninformed, pretentious and monstrously egocentric a book as ever I read in my life."
Continue reading "Book Review - The Air Conditioned Nightmare" »
The Great Transcontinental Motoring Adventure of 1903
By William I. Lengeman III
Historic Traveler
Rising from humble beginnings near the end of the nineteenth century, the automobile quickly became an integral part of American life. By 1943, automobiles were so ubiquitous that essayist E.B. White quipped, “Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.”
Read more (PDF format)
An Indefinable Something: The Apache Trail
By William I. Lengeman III
Subaru Drive Magazine
Statistically speaking, a jaunt along the Apache Trail surely must be safer than driving the same distance on an interstate highway or during rush hour in a metro area. But when you reach the steep, narrow section known as Fish Creek Hill, you might remember the carrion birds you’ve seen off and on all day, circling high above it all and waiting patiently.
Read more at Subaru Drive.
American Odyssey: A Book Selling Travelogue
by Len Fulton, with Ellen Ferber
Dustbooks, 1975
Reviewed by William I. Lengeman III
Most road trip books have at their heart some type of quest, though many of these can be rather nebulous. For Len Fulton and Ellen Ferber, the goal of the road trip that spawned American Odyssey was very straightforward - to sell Fulton's novel, The Grassman, and to raise awareness of small press publishing, in general.
Orient Express
by William I. Lengeman III
Relish Magazine
For eating on the cheap, it’s hard to beat ramen, a noodle-based delight that’s spawned several cookbooks, Japan’s Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum and The Official Ramen Homepage (mattfischer.com/ramen), a website that boasts more than 300 recipes.
Read more at Relish magazine's Web site.
A Bowl of Cereal for Dinner?
by William I. Lengeman III
Relish Magazine
Doesn’t neccesarily mean a night in your jammies on the couch. Not if you live in a city with one of the growing cereal bars and restaurants that serves, you got it, cold cereal.
Read more at Relish magazine's Web site.
Watching Big Brother
by William I. Lengeman III
(previously unpublished)
George Orwell may still be vindicated, but let's hope that he's not. Those of us who remember 1984 may recall that the year came and went and things didn't much resemble the fictional world of Orwell's seminal novel of a nightmarish totalitarian future.
Dark Side of the Moon: The Magnificent Madness of the American Lunar Quest
by Gerard J. DeGroot
New York University Press, 2006
Reviewed by William I. Lengeman III
(previously unpublished)
Very Short Review
The moon race sucked. Manned space exploration sucks.
Slightly Longer Review
Most people who have any opinion at all probably come down pretty hard on the issue of whether manned exploration of space is a worthwhile endeavor.
Channeling Food To The Needy
by William I. Lengeman III
(Originally published in Harrisburg Magazine, November 1995)
Five days a week, 52 weeks a year, the two distinctive white and red vans of the New Cumberland-based organization, Channels, traverse Central Pennsylvania's roadways. The vans pick up excess food, food that would otherwise have wound up in the dump, from area restaurants, businesses, schools, hospitals, churches and more.
This bounty is then delivered to numerous area agencies, which distribute the food to the needy. It's a labor of love and a mission for which there clearly is a need. Currently Channels redistributes over 35,000 pounds of excess food per month.
Confessions Of A Gumshoe
By William I. Lengeman III
(Originally published in Harrisburg Magazine, April 1996)
Private investigator John Wozniak wants you to know a few things. He's never shot anyone. He's never worked anyone over. He's never cracked a murder case. He's never whipped through the streets of Harrisburg in a high speed car chase. He has no crumpled raincoats or battered snap brim fedoras in his wardrobe. And judging from his soft spoken manner it's unlikely that he's ever slapped a dame around or, for that matter, even used the words dame, babe, chick, broad or tomato to refer to a woman.
Now, Who Wants Burgers?
by William I. Lengeman III
(Originally published in the Lebanon Daily News)
The backyard barbecue. It's the Great American Pastime. Nothing defines suburban American culture more than a good old fashioned cookout. Just the word alone evokes images of Ward Cleaverish fathers, outfitted in tacky aprons and chef's hats and armed with sharp knives and long forks, standing over a dangerously unstable charcoal grill while they tend to burgers and wieners, or for the more upscale crowd, steaks, chicken or fish.
The Genesis Race: Our Extraterrestrial DNA and the True Origins of the Species
by Will Hart
Inner Traditions International, 2004
Reviewed by William I. Lengeman III
(First published in Fortean Times)
One of the most telling statements Will Hart makes in The Genesis Race is that “it is possible to make a case for almost anything and evidence can be found to support what we wish to prove.” This stands as one of the most well-reasoned arguments in a book filled with mostly well-reasoned arguments and an admission that ultimately, unless some staggering bit of “proof” is uncovered to support Hart’s theory of intelligent extraterrestrial intervention, or any other theory of evolution of humankind, we will each have to pick and choose among the theories that seem most viable and more or less take the rest on faith.
Hitchcock On Hitchcock: Selected Writings And Interviews
Edited by Sidney Gottlieb
University of California Press, 1997
Reviewed by William I. Lengeman III
(First published at Creature Corner)
The late Alfred Hitchcock may be one of the world’s best-known movie directors. The only other director who really comes close is Woody Allen. Among the contributing factors that made “Hitch” a household name were his prodigious output as a director – more than fifty feature films in roughly as many years – his trademark cameo appearances in each film, a television series that ran for ten years and to which he lent not only his name, but his hosting talents, and a keen awareness of the value of public relations.
A User's Guide To Spicy Peanut Butter
Fiery Foods
Okay, so peanut butter isn't the first thing that springs to mind when you think of spicy food. But several companies have released products in recent years that may go a long way toward changing that perception. Among them are a California company that offers a Spicy Southwestern blend; an Ohio firm, one of the nation's oldest peanut butter makers, that has broken with tradition in peanut buttery twist; and a Greenwich Village restaurant that specializes in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
