Happy Christmas

Via Plan 59

Quote

"He who opens a school, closes a prison." - Victor Hugo

Fear Of Heights

A job I couldn't do.

Video

Photo (For Winter)

Bicycle: Unchanged

What I like about bicycles is that they never change. They are the same beautifully simple machines they have always been. 1912 photo below via Shorpy.

What Obama Has Done In Two Years

Actually, a lot.

Motor City

Via a post at David Byrne's blog about Detroit.

Maps Of Europe

America's view:


And other perspectives via Strange Maps.

Short Film, Coachella

It's Election Time!

Clown News

Tiririca!

Photo

Poll

A poll you can trust.

Chart

Video (High Seas)

Rough seas.

Harlem Night Clubs 1932

Details at Big Think.

Photo c.1910

From an incredible series at The Big Picture of color photos taken in Russia a hundred years ago.

Good Tree Gone

Story here.

Poem

This poem, it seems to me, honors anyone ever lost at sea.

New Religion
by Bill Holm

This morning no sound but the loud
breathing of the sea. Suppose that under
all that salt water lived the god
that humans have spent ten thousand years
trawling the heavens for.
We caught the wrong metaphor.
Real space is wet and underneath,
the church of shark and whale and cod.
The noise of those vast lungs
exhaling: the plain chanting of monkfish choirs.
Heaven's not up but down, and hell
is to evaporate in air. Salvation,
to drown and breathe
forever with the sea.

"New Religion" by Bill Holm, from The Chain Letter of the Soul: New & Selected Poems. © Milkweed Editions, 2009.

Short Film

Photo

More photos by Johanna Heldebro.

Poem

As a fan of a good rack of ribs in summertime, I am compelled to post this poem by William Notter called "Half-Rack at the Rendezvouz".

She had a truck, red hair,
and freckled knees and took me all the way
to Memphis after work for barbecue.
We moaned and grunted over plates of ribs
and sweet iced tea, even in a room of strangers,
gnawing the hickory char, the slow
smoked meat peeling off the bones,
and finally the bones. We slurped
grease and dry-rub spice from our fingers,
then finished with blackberry cobbler
that stained her lips and tongue.

All the trees were throwing fireworks
of blossom, the air was thick
with pollen and the brand-new smell of leaves.
We drove back roads in the watermelon dusk,
then tangled around each other, delirious
as honeybees working wisteria.
I could blame it all on cinnamon hair,
or the sap rising, the overflow of spring,
but it was those ribs that started everything.

"Half-Rack at the Rendezvouz" by William Notter, from Holding Everything Down. © Crab Orchard Review & Southern Illinois University Press, 2009.

Quote

"He does most in God's great world who does his best in his own little world." - Thomas Jefferson

Photo

Quote

"We Americans are the best informed people on earth as to the events of the last twenty-four hours; we are not the best informed as to the events of the last sixty centuries."- Will Durant

Sheer Joy

These videos make me happy.

Graphic (For Father's Day)

Via Plan59.

Graphic (For Flag Day)

Here's a cool video take on this series of photos posted here previously.

Running on Empty from Ross Ching on Vimeo.

Photo (For Memorial Day)

Photo (Random)

The assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald in wax. Via Bad Postcards.

Quote

"If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things." - Albert Einstein

Street Art Boston

For Mother's Day

Q&A from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

Photo

Photo

Photos by Jean-Pierre Attal

Quote. For Earth Day

"The best remedy for those who are frightened, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere they can be alone, alone with the sky, nature and God. For then and only then can you feel that everything is as it should be and that God wants people to be happy amid nature’s beauty and simplicity." - 14 year old Anne Frank who spent more than two years hiding indoors and unable to step outside.

Iceland Volcano Video

Dramatic images here.

Tornado Derails Train

Locker Room Honesty

New York Yankee, Chan Ho Park explains why he had a bad game.

Fox News. There's Spinning. And Then There's Lying.

I get that some people are buying into the narrative they sell, and there is a lot of money made from it - but you can make a lot of money selling crack too. At some point they need to ask, "How low can we go?"

Wing Suit Flyovers

A Tale Of Two Open Microphones

I can't help but point to these two recorded open microphone clips and the differences they reveal.
The first from Bush/Cheney:



And this from Obama/Biden:



In the first, the word "asshole" is used in malice against NYT writer Clymer, and almost immediately, Cheney jumps in to validate Bush's comment (like a schoolyard boy mimicking a friend who has just made a bad choice).

In the second, even though Biden uses the F bomb in a moment of excitement (not anger), Obama, as usual, has none of it and continues as if nothing was even said. He doesn't get pulled into sloppy Joe's gaffe. This is Obama's huge advantage. He always comes off as the guy with the most dignity.

Letter From A 12 Year Old Girl 1702

"Beloved Father" via Letters of Note.

I'm Just A Bill

Ekranoplane!

From a series of photos taken of an old Soviet project of a plane that flew just above the water. The "Caspian Monster" was designed originally as a fast troop transport. Some versions of the plane still exist. Video here.

Martian Avalanche!

Via Fogonazos.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Photo

Friendly librarians North Korea style! And other snaps of "Dear Leader" looking around. Via The Big Picture.

Health Care Facts

No matter what side you fall on in the health care debate, here is a place to get simple facts.

The State Of American TV News

The Onion nails it again:

Quote

"Tis easy enough to be pleasant, when life flows along like a song; but the person worth while is the one who will smile when everything goes dead wrong." - Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Short Film

Haiti Earthquake Aftermath Montage from Khalid Mohtaseb on Vimeo.

David Byrne: Music And Space

Here's an excerpt from a talk that David Byrne gave about how space often defines the music performed in it. Via David Byrne's Journal.

Quote

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein

Best Of Craigs List

Don't worry about getting your computer fixed.

Short Film

Lumitectura from barno on Vimeo.

Sophia, Fork, Spoon

by Vahid Sharifian.

Tyson Down

20 years ago today.

Harper's Index

Minimum number of shopping carts that went missing from Los Angeles area stores in 2005: 6,220,000 - Harper's.

List

By Tony Carnevale via McSweeney's.

World Press Photos 2010

Some of the winners here via Creative Review.

Fatal Hilarity

Some folks have died of laughter.

Photo

The Angle, Gettysburg. From a series of photos by Shaun O'Boyle taken at the Gettysburg Battlefield. The full series here.

Seat Belts

A very effective seat belt ad:

Lets Go Fishin'!

Here's how it's done!

The Best Book Written By A Chicken You Will Ever Read!

It is published!
And you can BUY IT HERE.

Conan Versus Leno

The Chinese animations always bring clarity:

Paul Cezanne

For his birthday today, his painting The Cardplayers.

Short Film

24 hours, Pavey Ark from Michael Moloney Studio on Vimeo.

File Under "Odd Headline"

Scientists turn stem cells into pork.

Almost There....

"Jimmy The Chicken Writes A Book" is nearly complete! Websites are being designed, proof copies are approved, and the chickens are at the spa getting their botox treatments.

Interview

An interview with photographer Richard Mosse (whose work has been featured here before) via BLDGBLOG.

Quote For 2010

"If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things."- Albert Einstein