December 5, 2014

The crash team entering the delivery room was the first sign

The specialists began to use terms such as "quality of life" to describe all the things she was likely to be without. My husband, Michael, realized it was going to be nearly impossible to pry me away from her bedside. He asked what he could bring me from home: a change of clothes, sweater, food, or something to read? I asked him to bring me anything by Anne McCaffrey.
"Changes Without Notice" is one reader's personal essay about discovering a book at just the right moment. An afterword in Dragonwriter says a little more about how things turned out. [Via and previously.]
posted by Monsieur Caution at 10:47 PM PST - 12 comments

Gritty, not glossy: 70s films

"Why were American movies so much better in the 1970s than in the decades since — and most of the decades before? Simple. Our movies then were not as inhibited by censorship (self-imposed) as they were prior to the '60s.

"And they were not as obsessed with huge box office grosses and commercial values as they became afterward — following the stunning financial success of those two '70s superhits, 'Jaws' (1975) and 'Star Wars' (1977). Instead, during most of the '60s and '70s — liberated both by the collapse of the old studio system strictures and by the greater acceptance of film as art from critics and audiences — American filmmakers of all generations, from Martin Scorsese ('Mean Streets') and Hal Ashby ('Harold and Maude') to Sidney Lumet ('Dog Day Afternoon') and Mike Nichols ('Carnal Knowledge') to Alfred Hitchcock ('Frenzy') and Billy Wilder ('Avanti'), tried things they wouldn't have dared in the decades past. More often than not, they succeeded." (Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune) [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 6:29 PM PST - 285 comments

Cat elevators

The most common form of cat elevator is a bucket or basket. A compilation of YT videos, with a twist. [more inside]
posted by automatic cabinet at 5:13 PM PST - 41 comments

Tales from Failed Anatomies

The Thing In The Pit
Drowning in Sand
Intelligences
Philosophy

The Unspeakable Oath presents audio versions of several Dennis Detwiller stories following the successfull Kickstarting of the Delta Green fiction anthology Tales from Failed Anatomies.
posted by Artw at 4:15 PM PST - 38 comments

I don't believe in evolution I believe in Jibbers Crabst

I don't believe in evolution I believe in Jibbers Crabst. Matt Inman gives the keynote address for BAHFest (previously) West, and explains why Darwin is wrong and why we are all the creation of a fire breathing lobster.
posted by ilama at 3:26 PM PST - 35 comments

Indigo Girls - Backstage At The Greek

In July 2014, Indigo Girls did a show at the Greek Theater in LA with Joan Baez. They filmed a series of videos backstage discussing their songs and their songwriting process. In Part 1, they discuss and perform Amy Ray's song Devotion. (album version, lyrics) [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 3:21 PM PST - 8 comments

I used to pedal my bike up Snake Road and trap muskrats in the salt pond

Following Hook Creek past ghost towns and discarded highways to the lost waterways of New York City. - By Nathan Kensinger
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:58 PM PST - 2 comments

Being proud of weird kids

Having parents who go the extra mile to show their support can make a big difference. German Ad Doesn't Need Words To Speak Volumes About Supporting Your Kids (Huffington Post) and original ad on Youtube, Sag es mit deinem Projekt (Hornbach). [more inside]
posted by Margalo Epps at 2:40 PM PST - 57 comments

Friday Night Music

Mr. Krugman’s musical reawakening came sometime in early 2011 when Arcade Fire won the Grammy for Album of the Year. Up until that point, as is true with many baby-boomers, he believed that “the great age of modern music ended sometime in the 70s.” Arcade Fire convinced him “that the wonder goes on.” Indeed. [more inside]
posted by jbickers at 1:32 PM PST - 46 comments

I might as well do this one too

The 2014 Grammy nominations -- save for album of the year, which will be announced tonight on a CBS "Very Grammy Christmas" special -- were announced today. Familiar names are in all the top spots, including Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Iggy Azalea and Pharrell Williams. Best new artist nominees are Azalea, Sam Smith, Haim, Bastille and Brandy Clark. [more inside]
posted by Clustercuss at 1:04 PM PST - 24 comments

Into the indestructible realm of mystery and dream

Steven Millhauser is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction author known for his erudite, witty and surreal writing style that blends the magical and the real. Enjoy the full text of Eisenheim The Illusionist (pdf, 20 pages), the story that inspired the 2006 film The Illusionist. [more inside]
posted by quiet earth at 1:00 PM PST - 5 comments

How Al-qaeda is like boy scouts

"His breakthrough insight was that the best terror cells work a lot like a big nonprofit group. Like the Boy Scouts of America." From studying the scouts, he determined the best way to stop terrorists is to target their bureaucrats – not top leaders. “The reason I like the Boy Scouts,” Atkins said in an interview, “is they face a lot of the same management challenges that al-Qaeda does.” [more inside]
posted by TheLittlePrince at 12:30 PM PST - 44 comments

The Mesmerizing Architecture of Mosques

The Mesmerizing Architecture of Mosques "Iranian photographer Mohammad Reza Domiri gives us an opportunity to see the entirety of these incredible spaces all at once. His fully panoramic, expansive photographs of centuries-old mosques reveal the genius of their geometries and complexity. The effect is dizzying in a different way, like some kind of fractalized religious hallucination."
posted by dhruva at 11:59 AM PST - 15 comments

zugzwang

The Mysterious Disappearance of Peter Winston: How does one of the world’s top chess prodigies just vanish from a New York street? - by Sarah Weinman [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:45 AM PST - 15 comments

The Secret History of the Toll House Cookie

The entire creation story of the Toll House Cookie™ is full of half-truths and outright misinformation. It’s time we knew the truth about the history of chocolate chip cookies. (sl, the Toast.) [more inside]
posted by pie ninja at 11:32 AM PST - 44 comments

Veteran Art Project

The Veteran Art Project is a visual experiment by 27-year-old photographer Devin Mitchell "who is exploring a part of the veteran’s experience that is sometimes difficult to articulate." [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:29 AM PST - 2 comments

I Really Love My University, Which Is Why I'm Going on Strike

For the first time in its 39-year history, the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation of the University of Oregon is on strike, and here's why . [more inside]
posted by bassooner at 9:34 AM PST - 32 comments

Against detoxing

"it’s the marketing equivalent of drawing go-faster stripes on your car." The Guardian slams the detoxing craze. (SLG)
posted by doctornemo at 9:27 AM PST - 274 comments

That Letter Will Go On Your Permanent Record

If you ever wrote a letter to Neil Armstrong it's probably now archived at Purdue University. The first man on the moon saved over 70,000 pieces of personal correspondence, and that probably includes that letter you wrote in late July 1969 when you were in the 2nd grade.
posted by COD at 9:17 AM PST - 12 comments

The Worst Idea of All Time

Guy Montgomery and Tim Batt have a podcast. A podcast with the very appropriate title The Worst Idea of All Time. It's a bad movie review podcast, but with a horrible, hideous twist: the hosts review the same bad movie, Grown Ups 2, every week. For a year.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:47 AM PST - 41 comments

Digital Einstein

The Princeton University Press has made publicly available 5,000 documents from the Einstein Paper Project, with more volumes to come.
posted by MoonOrb at 8:42 AM PST - 2 comments

I'm going to punch Cardassia out of orbit. Hold my calls.

Shamus Young reviews Star Trek. (Almost) all of it. [more inside]
posted by lharmon at 8:19 AM PST - 32 comments

"It allows you, at any time you want, to shoot fireballs at will."

Pyro fireshooter lets you shoot fireballs from your hand. It is hard to imagine a social or work situation this would not improve, from job interviews to meetings to dates. Make sure to watch the insane (in many ways) video.
posted by blahblahblah at 6:53 AM PST - 99 comments

Everything is Problematic

2012 was the year I hit peak radicalism... [more inside]
posted by modernnomad at 6:27 AM PST - 113 comments

Gender equality in Architecture

If women built cities, what would our urban landscape look like?
In february the architectural review asked Why do women really leave Architecture?
posted by adamvasco at 6:16 AM PST - 21 comments

100 Years of Beauty in 1 Minute

A timelapse video showing ten decades of hair and makeup styles [slyt].
posted by ellieBOA at 4:26 AM PST - 25 comments

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