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What Does Wonder Woman Actually Represent? - a The Nib comic strip essay by Lucy Bellwood and Sarah Mirk.
posted by Artw at 11:12 PM PST - 59 comments

Tien Chiu is a textile artist, a writer, a person of colour, someone with bipolar disorder, a semi-pro chocolatier, and the creator of her own museum-quality wedding dress. [more inside]
posted by jacquilynne at 10:54 PM PST - 16 comments

Lion Whisperer Kevin Richardson hopes his hands-on stunts with lions will highlight the plight of the African predator, whose numbers have dwindled. The number of lions in the wild in Africa has dropped by more than 40 percent to about 20,000 in the past two decades, according to some estimates. Made for viral viewing on social media, the spectacle of Richardson lounging and cavorting with lions as though they were house pets might resemble a circus act in the African bush. But he uses the attention to condemn the South African industry in which customers kill captive-bred lions in relatively confined areas.
posted by grobertson at 10:23 PM PST - 1 comments

Here are 10 of the most exciting groups in modern shoegaze.
posted by philip-random at 9:57 PM PST - 18 comments

Mr Biggles (aka Lord Bigglesworth) is an utter bastard of a cat. Nevertheless, Cat People Of Melbourne (FB) would like you to adopt him, and offers this interview to pique your interest. [h/t Miss Cellania]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:33 PM PST - 23 comments

How I Rewrote a Greek Tragedy by Colm Tóibín [The Guardian] “In my book, I thought I needed to find a tone of pure certainty for Clytemnestra, a tone of voice that took no prisoners and spared no one, a tone filled with relentlessness and ferocity. I sought to find a voice for someone who had suffered loss and humiliation, and who was ready, in retaliation, to do her worst and take pleasure in the consequences. When I began to study closely a late play by Euripides called Iphigenia in Aulis, however, I began to see Clytemnestra as more complex, her wounded voice as more needy and uncertain.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 7:53 PM PST - 10 comments

With 10 days until the UK election, things are hotting up. This evening's TV debate (post title) featured Jeremy Corbyn (Labour, no nukes, weed) and Theresa May (Conservative, fox hunting, fraking) taking questions from Paxo and Brits like an employer "struggling" with private school fees, on Brexit and NHS funding. Elsewhere, Boris is Boris, more bollocks (Fallon edition), Abbott remains quote worthy, Leanne's favorite single is a punk anti-royalist song, people are figuring out who they agree with, and who that Tim bloke is. Meanwhile, fresh from losing a by-election and repeatedly mistaking Leanne for a Hollywood actress, this season's UKIP leader wants internment and executions. The Tories stay favorites, though odds and polls have narrowed lately.
posted by Wordshore at 2:54 PM PST - 252 comments

In 1858, the painter Augustus Egg (1816-63) exhibited what turned out to be a much-debated triptych on the aftermath of a wife's affair. Now titled Past and Present 1, 2, and 3, the triptych originally appeared with this lengthy caption: "'August the 4th - Have just heard that B - has been dead more than a fortnight, so his poor children have now lost both parents. I hear she was seen on Friday last near the Strand, evidently without a place to lay her head. What a fall hers has been!'" [more inside]
posted by thomas j wise at 2:53 PM PST - 11 comments

Birds are awesome.
posted by ellieBOA at 11:34 AM PST - 22 comments

A super cut of movies counting down.
posted by blue_beetle at 7:39 AM PST - 26 comments

It has been multiply reported that open world building and exploration game Minecraft (Product Page | Wikipedia) is disproportionately popular among autistics (CDC | Wikipedia). Said to be the best-selling game of all time behind only Tetris, Minecraft’s appeal is obviously broad, but is there something special about it that scratches a highly specific itch for people on the spectrum? [more inside]
posted by Construction Concern at 5:07 AM PST - 52 comments

RIP John Noakes, British children's television presenter - mainly on the long-running BBC show Blue Peter with his dog Shep - back in the days when health and safety concerns were a little more lax. He was also famous for being upstaged by a baby elephant. [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 5:06 AM PST - 34 comments

May 30, 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of One Hundred Years of Solitude, a work its author, Gabriel García Márquez, described as a “very long and very complex novel in which I have placed my best illusions.” García Márquez finished the novel in August 1966; his publisher, Editorial Sudamericana, printed its first run on May 30, 1967. The book went on to sell 50 million copies worldwide, becoming the most translated literary work in Spanish outside of Don Quixote....This digital collection, drawn from the Gabriel García Márquez papers at the Harry Ransom Center, documents the genesis of the novel from draft to literary classic [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 2:25 AM PST - 25 comments