The Fine Art of Japanese Pen Spinning Crazy Japanese experts show their amazing spinning skills. Here's a handy instructional video so you can get your start. A little digging reveals that web resources on this ancient discipline (known in Japan as "rōnin mawashi") indeed are plentiful
posted by psmealey on Oct 31, 2007 - 29 comments

Director John Frankenheimer is dead. I don't want to make this out to be one of those "random celebrity dies and is suddenly hailed as a genius" things, but Frankenheimer's made quite a few damn good movies (and, yes, some bad ones). While his later works weren't nearly as great as some of his earlier films, his gift for filming action never went away: his 1998 film Ronin wound up on several lists of the "best car chases on film". He was supposed to helm the upcoming Exorcist prequel, but failing health forced him to step aside. Despite the dodgy source material, I would have really liked to see Frankenheimer's take on it. He'll be missed.
posted by toddshot on Jul 6, 2002 - 34 comments