The male mystique of Henry Miller ... The Male Mystique of Henry Miller by Jeanette Winterson.
Fun with accordion covers! ... Polka face, Moneky Island, Bohemian rhapsody, When I'm 64, Tetris Theme, Nyan theme, We're not gonna take it, Take on me, Smells like teen spirit.
Slumber parties and sisterhood ... Jezebel. The Hairpin. xoJane. Rookie. The ladyblog isn't quite the same as a feminist blog, but what is it? n+1 says, The notion that women might share some fundamental experience and interests, a notion on which women's websites would seem to depend—'sisterhood,' let's call it—has curdled into BFF-ship." Salon counters, "On the ladyblogs, adult womanhood is a given, and within our shared womanhood we carve out a comfortable space we can all inhabit."
Helene Nolthenius ... Two years before The Name of the Rose, Dutch academic Helene Nolthenius published the first of three detective novels featuring the medieval Tuscan cleric Lapo Mosca. She died in 2000. Her own story is sadly affecting. (Via the Dartmouth History blog.
The novels have been translated into Spanish, Italian, and German only and are not so easy to track down. Her scholarly work in English, is easier. Her biography was published in 2009, Dutch language only, alas for most of us.
I don't feel any guilt.................. because in this case... ... Another honor killing that isn't about honor, and even less about Nietzsche. By MeFi's own resident psychiatrist.
Abandoned Ireland ... Tarquin Blake photographs the abandoned castles, houses, forts and mines of Ireland. I'm fairly sure I've come across Rhincrew Abbey and the Lost Mines once or twice in my travels in Skyrim ...
If a woman has difficulty in giving birth, thae the plant we call pasticanna sivatica, simmer it in water, and give it so that she can bathe herself with it. She will be healed. ... Illustrations of Carrots in Ancient Manuscripts
Note the Carrot Museum does not endorse or agree with the assumptions and assignment of carrot to any of the images or text, but provides the information given below as a matter of interest only.
New masters ... SF versions of famous artworks
Need a word for it? ... The Lonely Planet has come up with a list of thirty travel terms that aren't in the dictionary.
Why Thousands of Iranian Women Are Training to Be Ninjas ... Thousands of Iranian women are training to be ninjas.
Festivids! ... Festivids is a holiday fanvid exchange that, much in the spirit of Yuletide, focuses on less popular vidding fandoms. Subjects include Mythbuster's Buster, Mad Men's Peggy Olson, and Maru. The full masterlist is here.
AMVs and Fanvids Previously on Metafilter: here, here, and (most recently) here.
It is a peanut in our total ... India tells Britain: We don't want your aid According to a leaked memo, the foreign minister, Nirupama Rao, proposed "not to avail [of] any further DFID [British] assistance with effect from 1st April 2011," because of the "negative publicity of Indian poverty promoted by DFID". But officials at DFID, Britain's Department for International Development, told the Indians that cancelling the programme would cause "grave political embarrassment" to Britain, according to sources in Delhi. Further embarressment ensues. Emma Boon, campaign director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "It is incredible that ministers have defended the aid we send to India, insisting it is vital, when now we learn that even the Indian government doesn't want it."
Feet In Smoke: A Story About Electrified Near-Death ... Like a lot of people, I'd always assumed, in a sort of cut-rate Hobbesian way, that the center of the brain, if you could ever find it, would inevitably be a pretty dark place, that whatever is good or beautiful about being human is a result of our struggles against everything innate, against physical nature. My brother changed my mind about all that.
Bunch of jackeens, really ... So, you want to know the secret history of Dublin? Well, Come Here To Me, boy, and I'll tell it ya. League of Ireland fanatics and music fans they may be but above all else, former UCD students Jay, D Fallon and hXci are history buffs, and on their blog they uncover much that is obscure and fascinating in this history of their native city, starting with The Dublin cinema manager who became the only Irish prisoner of Dachau and including....
'Stompin' George' Verschoyle, the Irish rockabilly
The longest pub strike in Dublin history
A list of a few celebrated April Fool's pranks that gripped the city
The carcass of the Celtic Tiger in Sandyford
The Oldest Graffiti in Dublin
The UVF Man buried at Glasnevin
George Bernard Shaw honored by his dustman
The mechanical zoo at Cleary's
And much, much more. Whether or not you share their soft spot for radical history, the boys will be happy to take you off onto the beaten path and into the hidden byways of this city (quite literally: their series on the Lanes of Dublin highlights all the shortcuts and allyways known to the native but left of the tourist's maps, such as Dame Court).
But perhaps the most important public service they perform is their pub crawls, which have so far sampled and reviewed the pints at 93 of the capital's fairest houses and should give even the greenest tourist a pointer toward a few hidden gems worth uncovering on their visit.
Wargame reviews on YouTube ... Marco Arnaudo reviews wargames on YouTube
About:
Marco Arnaudo was born in Italy in 1976. He graduated (BA) from the University of Pisa in 2000, and earned his PhD from both the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (2004) and Harvard University (2006). He is currently Associate Professor of Italian and Director of Graduate Studies in Italian at the Dept. of French and Italian of Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.Marco usually spends about 15 minutes first showing the maps and pieces, summarizing the rules and play and ending with an opinion. Take a look at some of the amazing games being released, many of then quite expensive, others more complex than most would try.
He reviews many games but favorite Wargames of 2011 are #10-6, #5-1
#10: Dragon Rage
#09: Road to Carentan (Sergeants Miniatures)
#08: Engage
#07: Lost Battles
#06: U-Boat Leader
#05: Band of Brothers
#04: Sekigahara
#03: Strike of the Eagle
#02: Field Commander Napoleon
#01: No Retreat!
Bookstore cats ... Bookstore Cats from Different Parts of the World
These five Mental Floss posts contain 58 bookstore cats - the collective term for which is "catalog".
Not enough? Here are 8 more compared by attitude towards customers, favorite place to sleep, and estimated hours per day not spent sleeping.
Here Dee Xtrovert provided her customary depth of wisdom on the origin of the bookstore cat.
The Stutz Bearcat ... It's 1912 and you are kerpuffling down Main in your new Stutz Bearcat, the envy of all who witness your ride. The "dog house" hood, open bucket seats, a tiny "monocle" windscreen in front of the driver, and a cylindrical fuel tank on a short rear deck are attracting stares from passersby.
Plenty of people will come to love this vehicle, including Mr. Burns, Jay Leno, Hank and Johnny of 1971's "Bearcats!" TV show, to name a few.
The 1911 Bearcat raced in the very first Indy 500 -- see footage of the actual race! It's in there somewhere in all that dust (how could they see?!). With a respectable finish of 11th place, it was deemed "The Car that made good in a day."
Hear the kerpuffle. Watch it go!
Wish driving my Subaru was that cool.
PhyloPic: an open database of life form silhouettes ... PhyloPic is an open database of life form silhouettes. All images are available for reuse under a Public Domain or Creative Commons license.
PhyloPic's database stores reusable silhouette images of organisms. Each image is associated with one or more taxonomic names and indicates roughly what the ancestral member(s) of each taxon looked like.Via Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week (previously).
PhyloPic also stores a phylogenetic taxonomy of all organisms. This means that you can perform phylogenetic searches. For example, if you need an image for a certain taxon, but there is no exact match in the database, you can easily search that taxon's supertaxa, subtaxa, and related taxa for an image that may work as well.
Internalise This Deep Wisdom ... You will never kill piracy and piracy will never kill you.
I Can't Decide ... A rather good anime video for the song I can't Decide by The Scissor Sisters. SLYT. Mildly NSFW for Yaoi theme.
Firepower! ... Pixelhate: Destroy the pixels in this retro top down shooter
Carla Bley Live! ... Carla Bley Big Band, Jazzfest Berlin, 1995: On Stage In Cages [13m52s], Setting Calvin's Waltz: Parts (a, b, & c) [27m45s], Who Will Rescue You? [8m]
Since Carla Bley [previously] has announced yet another European tour (with no hint of touring elsewhere), those of us living elsewhere will have to content ourselves with videos of live performances:
Carla Bley Band, Jazz Jamboree Warsaw, 1981: Blunt Object [6m22s], Blind And Crippled [8m9s]. Egyptian [8m31s], Still In The Room [13m19s], Reactionary Tango [15m], King Korn [5m13s], The International [8m58s]
The Very Big Carla Bley Band -- Who Will Rescue You? [7m32s]
Carla Bley Trio - Ups And Downs [6m31s]
Lawns (with Steve Swallow) [7m52s], Major (with Steve Swallow) [3m38s], Sing Me Softly Of The Blues (with Steve Swallow) [6m26s],