10 stories and links I think are educative, informative, entertaining, or weird

Film Fun Covers, 1925 via Retronaut by Chris



All images curated and restored by Mark Forer
Thank you to Magazine Art and Mark Forer
View the rest of the images here

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
About the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel says, "Any survivor has more to say than all the historians combined." Nonsense, perhaps, but also irrefutable... more

‘What a cake of soap will do’, 1890s via Retronaut by Chris
Stunning engravings from which I have chosen this as a sample:

“For years I've lived around the house,”
Said Mrs Rat to Mrs Mouse;
“I still remember well the day
We entered here, the first of May;
While coming up the water-spout
We met a party moving out.
Said they: ‘Whate’er you chance to steal,
In searching round to find a meal,
Of this you may be always sure –
The IVORY SOAP is good and pure.’
 … …


Thank you to the Harvard University Library

“Same Bed, Different Dreams” via Big Think by Pamela Haag
A man and woman have been married for over a decade. The wife seems happy, and she feels happy, or happy enough, in her marriage. The husband seems happy. He seems that way to outsiders and to his wife, and there hasn’t been conversation or behaviour to make her suspect otherwise.
Read More

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Freud, James, Kahneman: great explorers of the human psyche. Freud and James plumbed our emotions, Kahneman our cognitive processes... more

I Love Street Art via Stephen's Lighthouse
Best of street art 2011

My favourite, simply because I adore yarn bombing, although all of the images are stupendous.

Is Necrophilia Wrong? via Big Think by Tauriq Moosa
Cemeteries are not for the dead, but for the living. The dead will not thank us for the coffins made to their specifications, nor compliment us on the choice of flowers or gravestones. They cannot do so, since they are, by definition, dead: they feel nothing, they cannot communicate, they are no longer living.
Before you automatically answer the above question with “Yes” I suggest you Read More and then answer with “Yes”!!!

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
When his time came, Mozart had no doubt: "I have the taste of death on my tongue." As for Beethoven, he quipped: "The comedy is over"... more

Strange metal sphere that fell from the sky via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz



This 13-pound, 3.6 foot metal ball fell from the sky in the Republic of Namibia in southern Africa last month [November 2011]. Nobody has claimed ownership. From CNN:

Paul Ludik, director of the country’s National Forensic Science Institute, told The Namibian the sphere… is made of a “sophisticated” metal alloy that is known to man, but he said it has no markings that would identify it…

Ludik told The Namibian that the object poses no cause for alarm, and that such reports of metallic spheres falling from space are common in the Southern Hemisphere.

Mysterious metal ball from space falls in Namibia

Oxymorons via Stephen’s Lighthouse
I like to see lists of oxymorons. I don’t know why. I guess it’s just a ove of words which makes sense for a librarian married to an English teacher. There are some fun ones here The Biggest Little List of Oxymorons Online
There are hundreds here!
Stephen

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