June 17, 2013
The Great (Gay) Novelist You’ve Never Heard Of
"Great war novels inevitably follow great wars, and in literary circles following World War II, everyone was wondering what would be the successors to A Farewell to Arms and All Quiet on the Western Front — and who would write them. But when John Horne Burns, age 29, in his small dormitory suite at the Loomis School in Windsor, Conn., on the night of April 23, 1946 (Shakespeare’s birthday, at that), finished The Gallery — 'I fell across my Underwood and wept my heart out,' he later recalled — he was convinced he had done just that, and more. ‘The Gallery, I fear, is one of the masterpieces of the 20th century,' he wrote a friend." (SLNYT) (via) [more inside]
I KNOW!!
Amazingly detailed replica of the Friends Apartment made of paper. By artist Bruna Salvador Conforto.
She also did a replica of Lorelai and Rory Gilmore's house in Stars Hollow.
Made of paper.
What's big, yellow, can open a door, and doesn't like being in a closet?
"Bored of being in a dark room, she flips on the light, opens the door and bails. This particular episode takes place at 1am. This is why we keep doors locked with her around. We don't need her harassing the neighbors..." Julius Escaping.
Another world beneath the surface
"I hated Joni Mitchell - and then I loved her."
Some Notes on Attunement: A voyage around Joni Mitchell (or pdf). Author Zadie Smith discovers Joni Mitchell.
"may be the only seafood shack in the world with its own guard tower."
Cooking For Freedom
A few days before I met Ahmed Jama in Mogadishu, three Islamist gunmen from Al Shabaab — al-Qa’eda’s Somali branch — burst into his new restaurant wearing suicide bomb jackets. They sprayed the place with bullets and then detonated themselves.NPR: At His Own Risk, Somali Chef Creates Gourmet Haven In War-Weary Mogadishu [more inside]
Brown Bird
Dave Lamb and MorganEve Swain are Brown Bird, a band from Rhode Island with a dark, rootsy, foot-stomping sound. Although Brown Bird has been around since 2003, they have enjoyed a recent increase of popularity, culminating in the April 2013 release of a new album, Fits of Reason, and a national tour to promote it. Just weeks into the tour, though, Lamb was diagnosed with leukemia, and the tour (and the band) were put on hiatus while Lamb undergoes chemotherapy. [more inside]
Minimalist Toys
Battletechs and Battlemechs and Things That Go
Creative New Zealand Tanks of World War II
The most well known of New Zealand's World War II home-built tanks was the Bob Semple tank, designed by New Zealand Minister of Works Bob Semple. There was only one made, but it served its purpose of "showing the people that something was being done to meet the enemy. It rumbled around, took part in parades, and inspired confidence." One problem: the tank, built on a Caterpiller tractor and armored with corrugated steel, would momentarily pause while changing gears, unless it was already headed down hill. During parades and public shows, its driver was instructed to change gear as little as possible, to prevent people from thinking their tank was stalling. The other New Zealand-built tank was the Schofield tank, built on the chassis of a Chevrolet heavy-duty truck, with the ability to drive quickly on wheels, then operate on treads, the transition only taking 7 to 10 minutes. Two prototypes were made, but neither the Bob Semple nor the Schofield tank were mass produced, as New Zealand started receiving tanks from abroad by 1943.
Privacy in an age of publicity
The Secret History of Privacy. "Something creepy happened when mystery became secular, secrecy became a technology, and privacy became a right..." [Via]
Hellfire, Damnation and Benjamin Franklin
Dead men tell some tales - a visit to the Hellfire Caves, home of one of the most infamous Hellfire Clubs.
The Origins of Cambridge Pragmatism
In this video, Cheryl Misak delivers a lecture mostly having to do with the relationship between the accounts of truth given by C.S. Peirce and F.P. Ramsey. [more inside]
...works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and never takes a break!
...no background checks needed. Coming to (or already in) an airport near you: Holograms serve as "virtual assistants" giving instructions in multiple languages. via
Digging up forgotten games that should've stayed buried
"Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities." -- PC Gamer's Crap Shoot looks at (semi-)obscure pc games, featuring big budget failures, extinct for a reason subgenres and godawful erotic games (movies) but also lost classics and beloved eighties masterpieces.
From Seed
In commemoration of the 19th edition of its Colors series, Field Notes brand notebooks offers this video of the Night Sky. [more inside]
Don't despair, repair
The Restart Project encourages community engagement in repairing broken electronic equipment. This one year old charity enables "restart parties" which bring together consumers with broken electronic equipment and volunteer repairers, in an attempt to address our modern culture of "passive, flabby consumers of technology". When recycling is the second best option.
"Michelle Obama took the time to personally slap this out of my mouth."
To kick off each week the staff of NPR's "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" posts Sandwich Mondays on The Salt blog, to look at some of the more... unusual sandwich offerings from America's commercial kitchens. This week, they recreate Wendy's nine patty T-Rex burger, which recently went extinct.
Just Looking for the Honey Pot
There is a joke here somewhere about Bears, Rights, Arms, the Right to Bear Arms, Bears Arms and holy crap camera work. SLYT Cats and dogs are cute, but how about a black bear? Cute bear climbs tree to see what the heck the hunter is doing on the blind in the tree. [more inside]
Marriage proposal via handcrafted language lesson
Picture this. You're one of the 3 million-ish users of Duolingo, doing online Italian lessons so you can talk to your Italian boyfriend in his own language. Halfway through one of your daily lessons, you're given the sentence "Lui ti ama" to translate. "He loves you" -- cute coincidence. But then it starts getting stranger.
The Challenge to European Data Rights
The Council of the European Union recently released a proposal to amend the General Data Protection Regulation. Scaling back from becoming the most strict privacy regulation in the world, the amendment greatly favors corporate interests while reducing the rights of data subjects. [more inside]
STOP
It's like the entire world left Caps Lock on for 180 million years.
Feathers, photographed and scanned.
You don’t mess with the Cabbage Patch Elvis
When it comes to unappealing couples that have been featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, Arch Hall Jr. and Marilyn Manning are near the top of the heap. Their appearance in Eegah provided rich fodder for Joel and the bots. And yet, only one year after the release of Eegah, Hall and Manning would find themselves together again in radically different roles. [more inside]
...and with no more brains than you have....
Disclaimer (Autoplay MP3): "Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and a psychologist, Dave Pizarro, having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and knowing my dad, some very inappropriate jokes." Favorite themes include responsibility and revenge, agency and utilitarianism, dishonesty and character, empathy and offensiveness. [more inside]
The chickenhawk phenomenon explained
The lasting effects of the Vietnam draft lottery. Men who were more likely to be drafted in the Vietnam war were more antiwar, more liberal, and more Democratic than those who were protected from the draft. Moreover, these attitudes persist into adulthood. [more inside]
The World as Free-Fire Zone
Foster was a longtime model-airplane enthusiast, and one day he realized that his hobby could make for a new kind of weapon. His idea: take an unmanned, remote-controlled airplane, strap a camera to its belly, and fly it over enemy targets to snap pictures or shoot film; if possible, load it with a bomb and destroy the targets, too.An accessible but detailed overview of the history and current implementations of military drones. [more inside]
Now With More Pixar
Character designer veteran Phil Postma has a blog, Minion Factory, where he often likes to explore the possibilities of Pixar-like reinterpretations of such things as Superman, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Pulp Serials (and much, much more).
Ghost Dinosaurs in the Park
The whimsical and awe-inspiring light art of Darren Pearson. Just how does he capture those skeletons on camera? Previously.
American Rhetoric
Perhaps slightly obscurred by its charmingly primitive web design, my new favorite website is a fantastic reference resource for delving into American speeches that have changed history as well as discovering new amazing ones. [more inside]
You May Remember Me From...
The Troy McClure Credits Supercut (SLYTPHT*)
*Single Link You Tube Phil Hartman Tribute [more inside]
*Single Link You Tube Phil Hartman Tribute [more inside]
1920s Britain in colour
In the mid-1920s, Claude Friese-Greene filmed The Open Road, a record of his journey through Britain, using the 'Biocolour' technique first developed by his father William. Eighty years later, the BFI produced a digital version of the preserved and restored film.
We've seen London in 1926 previously on MeFi, but there's plenty more of The Open Road to see, including weavers in Kilbarchan (1:16), farmers harvesting with oxen in Cirencester (0:52), Glamorgan coal-miners (0:46), and more. [more inside]
A Solemn Symphony
Minneapolis foursome City of Sound make music that's part Mars Volta, part Death From Above 1979, and all experimental madness, listing influences like Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, and The Beatles. Both their albums, L'Implosion and Creatures, can be heard in full on their Bandcamp page.
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