February 29, 2016
And the award for wtf-ery in award show production goes too.....
The Oscar for Costume Design 1987! Starring...... Lauren Bacall, a fashion montage, wild inexplicable dancing, and Jenny Beavan winning an Oscar (and not giving a rip * about award show fashion conventions.)
*this is the article that lead me to look up Beavan's speech for her prior Best Costume Design win for A Room with A View. I prefer these theories over what is likely the reality.
*this is the article that lead me to look up Beavan's speech for her prior Best Costume Design win for A Room with A View. I prefer these theories over what is likely the reality.
“please tell him that I am the American Sholem Aleichem.”
peep
The Art of Manhole Covers
You're walking on art in France , Seattle [1, 2, 3], Minneapolis, Moscow, Brisbane, Japan [previously], and elsewhere all over the world [1, 2]. [more inside]
Yo my heart's like my planet/ A black hole of red granite
Star Trek + Hamilton = MY SPOCK -- a parody of "My Shot" retelling the story of a bastard, orphan, son of a Vulcan and a human, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Alpha Quadrant. (apologies to Lin-Manuel Miranda) (SLYT, via Birth. Movies. Death.)
NY Penn Station - could its best days be ahead of it?
Inside America's worst train station: What makes New York's Penn Station suck so bad? Today, Penn Station is more like a polished turd, except it’s not really polished... I called up James Ramsey, founder of Raad Studio, former NASA engineer, co-creator of the Lowline project, and all-around keen architectural eye, and asked him to give us an expert's look at why exactly this place sucks so much — to play Virgil to our Dante as we descend into the hellish circles of New York's Pennsylvania Station. [more inside]
George Kennedy 1925 -2016
Passed away at age 91. Sandy-haired, tall and burly George Harris Kennedy, Jr. was born in New York City, to Helen A. (Kieselbach), a ballet dancer, and George Harris Kennedy, an orchestra leader and musician. He has German, Irish, and English ancestry. A World War II veteran, Kennedy at one stage in his career cornered the market at playing tough, no-nonsense characters who were either quite crooked or possessed hearts of gold. Kennedy has notched up an impressive 200+ appearances in both TV and film, and is well respected within the Hollywood community [more inside]
Just something in my eye
Taking shy bladder syndrome to the next level
This is the scariest toilet in the world [more photos]. Or maybe this is. This one lets you adjust your level of scary. More contenders.
The Bidding War
Play dead or be dead
The scene that helped The Revenant earn an oscar nomination for VFX is hard to watch. It's also disturbingly realistic, even though a stunt man substituted for an actual bear. How'd they do that? By consulting bear experts and studying videos of actual attacks. [Warning: last link is brutal]
Those who do not learn from the Reddits of the past...
Reddit 3016 is the result of 4 years of work by Blair Erickson, who built a very detailed parody of what Reddit 1,000 years from now might look like; including alternate sites like HoloTube and Huffington Planet to make the experience complete. Although most of the posts are satire of au courant Reddit trends, it is at least worth admiring the amount of detail, including fake comments on fake Imgur (sorry, Hologur) posts.
50s Glove Lunch
Kate McKinnon and Kumail Nanjiani (joined by Wanda Sykes and Jane Lynch) parody Carol for the Independent Spirit Awards. They also took on Room.
“Whatever happened to predictability?”
At Sea with America's Largest Floating Gathering of Conspiracy Theorists
It’s an experience that may not appeal to everyone—a seven-day cruise at sea, with the aim of “taking back power from corrupt and greedy institutions, attain true self-authority, and realize our genuine Self behind the masks … discovering the truth, taking command of our lives, and attaining genuine inner realization” —with every odd belief you can think of listed as entertainment: GMOs, Monsanto, bee colony collapse, ecology, global warming, climate change, fracking, HIV, autism, Big Pharma, medical suppression, vaccinations, fluoridation,… electoral fraud, identity chips, 2nd amendment, and so much more. Anna Merlan writes charitably yet unflinchingly for Jezebel about her experience joining them [more inside]
“They just added an extra five days of festivals, of partying...”
The Surprising History Behind Leap Year by Brian Handwerk [National Geographic]
The ancient Egyptians did it, and so do we. Here's how a leap day—which occurs Februrary 29—helps keep our calendars and societies in sync. It's that time again: This Monday, February 29, is a leap day, the calendar oddity that occurs (almost) every four years. For centuries, trying to sync calendars with the length of the natural year caused confusion—until the concept of leap year provided a way to make up for lost time.[more inside]
Grace's Guide to British Industrial History
Grace's Guide to British Industrial History ‘is a free-content not-for-profit project dedicated to publishing the history of industry in the UK and elsewhere. Its aim is to provide a brief history of the companies, products and people who were instrumental in industry, commencing with the birth of the Industrial Revolution and continuing up to recent times.’ It ‘contains 115,164 pages of information and 163,140 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.’ Browse by Archived Publications, Biographies (‘over 35,000 pages of biographical notes on individuals’), Industries, Locations or Timelines. There is also a blog.
Judge a Book by Its Title
It's time again for one of our favorite* literary awards, the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year (previously here) and this year we've found it in time for YOU to vote on it. So, what's your published poison? Behind the Binoculars: Interviews with Acclaimed Birdwatchers or Paper Folding with Children** or Reading from Behind: A Cultural History of the Anus or Reading the Liver: Papyrological Texts on Ancient Greek Extispicy*** or Soviet Bus Stops or Too Naked for the Nazis or Transvestite Vampire Biker Nuns from Outer Space: A Consideration of Cult Film ? [more inside]
“It’s your fault, so you fix it.”
the Kurds are on the move
The Kurdish key - "Kurds are key to a Middle East solution as they hold the balance of power in Iraq and Syria, as well as being in the midst of an insurrection in Turkey. The US needs the Kurds as much as it needs the Turks in its efforts to defeat Isis." (also btw /r/Kurdistan: Who Exactly Are 'the Kurds'?; End Times for the Caliphate?)
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