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Astaria Films presents: Something Lost ... the Love of Your Life ...
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 10:52 PM PST - 39 comments

The source of a recently-broken curse, the tallest statue to adorn the top of any building surmounts the tallest masonry building in the world. A bit of perspective. Too much perspective? [more inside]
posted by Robin Kestrel at 8:20 PM PST - 33 comments

The Western press is heralding the discovery of the "world's oldest marijuana stash" (789 grams) in the tomb of a 2,700-year-old blond-haired, blue-eyed mummy in the Xinjiang region of China (photo). The mummy is believed to be a Nordic-featured Gushi shaman from the Tarim Basin. Scientists conjecture that the cannabis was being saved for use in the afterlife. In actuality, according to the Journal of Experimental Botany, the stash is the oldest pot to be tested for its properties. In 2006, the Chinese press reported that Chinese scientists had unearthed an older marijuana "baggy" in a 2,800-year-old Caucasian shaman's Xinjiang tomb.
posted by terranova at 7:25 PM PST - 63 comments

Death To Film Critics! Hail The CelebCult! "A newspaper film critic is like a canary in a coal mine. When one croaks, get the hell out. The lengthening toll of former film critics acts as a poster child for the self-destruction of American newspapers, which once hoped to be more like the New York Times and now yearn to become more like the National Enquirer. We used to be the town crier. Now we are the neighborhood gossip."
posted by An Infinity Of Monkeys at 6:24 PM PST - 37 comments

70s Rock Stars in their parents' homes (via BuzzFeed)
posted by mattholomew at 6:05 PM PST - 48 comments

Jørn Utzon, the architect who designed Sydney Opera House despite the project being plagued by controversy and scandal, died today. While the rest of us are posting photographs of our drunken friends or the poetry of a plastic bag caught in the wind, one Flickr user is busy with pithy, insightful, considered and often witty architectural commentary supplementing exquisite architectural photography. This obituary for Utzon captures the cost of that project to the man himself and to the world. [more inside]
posted by carbide at 4:15 PM PST - 24 comments

On this date in 1949, a Canadian music legend was born. Stanley Allison "Stan" Rogers chronicled Canadian life. He wrote his own sea shanty after a song session with the Friends of Fiddler's Green , and the song he came up with, Barrett's Privateers, is still sung today by members of the Canadian navy as they march. Many of his songs were of tragedy or hard times or the loss of a way of life. On June 2nd, 1983, an in-flight fire aboard an Air Canada flight forced the plane to make an emergency landing at the Greater Cincinnati Airport. Survivors spoke of a large man with a booming voice who helped others to safety, only to perish himself of smoke inhalation. It was believed, though not confirmed, that Stan Rogers was the hero. His music has also saved at least one life. The song "The Mary Ellen Carter" speaks of perseverance and rising to any challenge, and is a fitting legacy to a Canadian legend who died at the age of 33. His son Nathan carries on his musical tradition, as does Stan's brother Garnet Rogers, who also performed on Stan's albums.
posted by newfers at 3:59 PM PST - 44 comments

Set up by Hasidic Jews as Community Centres, there are 3000+ Chabad Houses around the globe. The recent terror attack at the Centre in Mumbai took the lives of 9 people, including a Rabbi and his wife. The rescue (YT) was not without contention. You may also remember this Bangkok Rabbi from his interview in 1 Giant Leap.
posted by gman at 3:57 PM PST - 22 comments

Dancing Scientists Invade YouTube. The winners of the 2009 AAAS/Science Dance Contest (previously) have been announced. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 3:48 PM PST - 8 comments

Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss turned 100 on Friday. NPR's Frank Browning offers an appreciation of his work (audio). Anthropologist Dan Sperber (at OpenDemocracy) offers a succinct appraisal of his influence. Patrick Wilcken (TLS) writes about "the century of Claude Lévi-Strauss." [more inside]
posted by fourcheesemac at 3:38 PM PST - 22 comments

A rare glimpse into a forgotten Hindu world.
Garden and Cosmos - The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur. Virtually none of the 60 works on view in "Garden and Cosmos" have ever been published or seen by scholars since their creation centuries ago.
All paintings are from the Mehrangarh museum. ( whose links are also full of interest ). [more inside]
posted by adamvasco at 12:55 PM PST - 5 comments

The Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies is your one-stop shop for pre-Columbian Central America awesomeness. There are so, so many wondrous things on that site, I don't quite know where to begin. I suppose John Pohl's scholarly introduction is a natural place to start. But maybe you just don't have time to read anything and just want to dive into pretty, pretty pictures. Perhaps the most user-friendly databases are Justin Kerr's photographs Maya Vases (e.g. 1, 2, 3) and Pre-Columbian Portfolio (e.g. 1, 2a, 2b, 3). From there you can delve into the collection of Linda Schele's photographs (e.g. 1, 2) and drawings (e.g. 1, 2, 3). There are more image databases but let me direct you to the collection of old Maya, Aztec and Mixtec books which are simply stunning (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4 [last link pdf]). You can read more about Mayan and Mixtec codices and download high resolution versions of the entire books. There are also Maya dictionaries, glyph guides, linguistic maps and a who's who. There is also classic Mayan and Aztec poetry in translation. I'm telling you, that's not even half of what this amazing site has to offer.
posted by Kattullus at 12:49 PM PST - 19 comments

With that meeting, Mr. Allo took his first step into an intricate trap. The deeply strange tale of one very determined woman's quest to overturn her son's conviction for murder.
posted by digaman at 11:38 AM PST - 57 comments

WFMU-TV; That's Irritainment (Heino, Shatner): Baby Octopus: Love Onion: Hisao Shinagawa: Organisation- Ruckzuck (Kraftwerk): You Must Choose!: FAUST.
posted by vronsky at 10:47 AM PST - 31 comments

How you will (and won't) likely die in the next 20 years (from WHO's Global Burden of Disease). Bonus: map of the last thirty years of disasters, showing the relatively safe and unsafe parts of the world.
posted by Kickstart70 at 10:39 AM PST - 5 comments

JS (Aged 5) She can't wake up.
Operator No? Is she breathing? Can you see her chest go up and down?
JS I can see her shoulders going ... I can see her doing [Makes breathing noises]
Operator She's breathing, is she? But you think she's having a fit.
JS Yeah, I think she is and ... I don't know what to do.

6 transcripts of 999 operators helping people cope with emergencies: a mother giving birth alone, a 5 year old whose mother is fitting, a mother and son trapped in a house fire, a brother and sister resuscitating their father, a husband saving his choking wife, and a neighbour saving his friend with an amputated arm
posted by roofus at 10:01 AM PST - 43 comments

Pattern Tap: an organized collection of web design ideas. [more inside]
posted by signal at 5:42 AM PST - 8 comments