via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave
1914
“Kittens in costume as bride and groom, being married by third kitten in ecclesiastical garb”
Holy catrimony!
Photo by Harry W. Frees
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I am trying very hard not to inundate you all with cute cat photos but it is hard!
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10 Famous Literary Characters That Are Significantly Younger Than You Think
via Flavorwire by Emily Temple
When an author creates a character, he or she bestows upon this fictional person specific attributes — age, looks, certain proclivities — that may or may not be made explicit on the page. But whether the character is explained fully or not, there’s no telling what will happen when the culture at large gets a hold of him. Especially if the notoriously age-garbling film industry gets involved. Prepare to be shocked at famous literary characters that are significantly younger than you (probably) think they are.
Scarlett O'Hara is ??
Are you right? Check it out here
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Stink bombs and sneezing powder, that’s how Nazi thugs shut down German cinema in the 1930s. And yet Hollywood remained silent… more
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A dragon is no idle fancy
via 3quarksdaily by Morgan Meis
Tolkien was a noted scholar and linguist before he was a published novelist, labouring on the Oxford English Dictionary and then embarking upon a long career at Oxford University, where he was professor of Anglo Saxon studies and later Merton Professor of English, a chair he held until his death.
His iconoclastic 1936 lecture, “Beowulf: The Monster and the Critics”, challenged assumptions that the eighth century text should be treated purely as a historical document and not a work of art. It’s now regarded as a watershed moment in Beowulf studies. In the essay, Tolkien didn’t mince words in his disdain of fellow academics: “For it is of their nature that the jabberwocks of historical and antiquarian research burble in the tulgy wood of conjecture, flitting from one tum-tum tree to another”. He was particularly dismissive of those who ignored the importance of the poem’s monsters — Grendel, Grendel’s mother and especially the dragon that Beowulf kills, but not before he himself is mortally wounded.
more from Elizabeth Hand at the LA Times here.
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Beautiful Devotion: Illuminated Manuscripts
via AbeBooks’ Reading Copy by Beth Carswell
First created over 2,000 years ago, illuminated manuscripts had drawings or paintings of ornate initials, borders, flowers, vines and other decoration to accompany text.
A true illuminated manuscript was made without machines.
Frequently in devotional prayer books, the most exceptional art served as a status symbol. Nowadays, original illuminated manuscripts are highly scarce. But due to the surpassing beauty of the pieces, artists have painstakingly recreated the illuminations in facsimiles and reproductions, many of which are both affordable, and unforgettable.
Be Illuminated!
There are some lovely manuscripts in the British Library.
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
What is charm? Some mysterious cocktail of wit, wisdom, worldliness, civility. But this much we know: Charm is a virtue in decline… more
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What Dr. Seuss Can Teach Us About Our Polarized Times
via Big Think by John Maeda
We definitely live in an increasingly polarized world today whether it’s red or blue or it’s chocolate or vanilla, or just look at our computers. They’re binary, ones and zeros. It can be one. It can be zero. It can’t be anything in between. If you look at the history of computing there was something called ternary logic, which could be one, zero or don't care. It never really set into culture or technology, but it was always there. Why is this important?
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Surreal Photos of Women Dressed in Books, Butterflies, and Paper Planes
via Flavorwire by Chloe Pantazi
These stunning photographs by the LA-based fine art photographer Brooke Shaden (spotted via Faith is Torment) depict moody landscapes, harking back to the Gothic romanticism of surreal paintings. In her words, Shaden is “creating new worlds through [her] photographs”, and indeed her photos suggest something otherworldly; they conjure a warped kind of down-the-rabbit-hole experience of the world. Perhaps most compelling in these photographs are the costumes Shaden’s subjects wear, made of unconventional materials — from paper planes and flowers to actual books (and, in one, flesh) — which are reminiscent of the fashion exhibited in the Met’s 2011 Alexander McQueen retrospective, Savage Beauty.
View the other images here
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
From Chaucer to South Park, obscenity has evolved. Consider that in the 19th century, saying the word “trousers” could get you into trouble… more
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Do science: The life you save may be your own
via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
One of the people who developed the pacemaker is now 86
And he has a pacemaker
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