July 9, 2016

"In Search of Liberty", or at least irony

Tea Party activist Norm Novitsky crowd-funded for the production of his movie "In Search of Liberty" (preview here), a movie on the US Constitution . Last week, after the crew was dissatisfied with their wages and working conditions, they voted to have the IATSE represent them and went on strike. [more inside]
posted by ShooBoo at 10:38 PM PST - 34 comments

Lost Animations

Lost Animations is a Youtube channel compiling various hard-to-find animated shorts, advertisements, and the occasional full-length. [more inside]
posted by solarion at 8:48 PM PST - 7 comments

Illustrated Travel Books of the Edwardian Era

In "An Edwardian Package Holiday," Kirsty Hooper mentions the role that "lively representations" in illustrated travel books such as Spain Revisited: A Summer Holiday in Galicia and A Corner of Spain played in promoting northwest Spain to British tourists (more here). Many other richly illustrated travel books from the same period are available online, perhaps most notably the "Beautiful England" and "Beautiful Ireland" series published by Blackie & Son and the wide variety of titles published by A & C Black. [more inside]
posted by Wobbuffet at 6:00 PM PST - 8 comments

First ever Pride Parade in Steinbach draws thousands

Police estimate that 2,500-5,000 people marched in the parade, in a small town in the heart of Canada's Bible Belt. "We kind of thought that if we got all of our friends together and family members maybe we would get 200 people," McHale said. The town's MP, MLA and mayor did not attend, but Prime Minister Trudeau tweeted his support, and participants were expected from as far away as Florida and France. [more inside]
posted by clawsoon at 5:16 PM PST - 13 comments

Drop it like it's nuts

Don't sleep on a squirrel. (SLYT, >2m)
posted by Diablevert at 5:01 PM PST - 15 comments

No English no Arabic Only Happy

Syrian Refugees in small town Canada A feel good story about Syrian refugees settling in small town Canada [more inside]
posted by troll on a pony at 2:53 PM PST - 19 comments

Endymion

#1 Making a Cherry Wood Fountain Pen [YouTube, 12:25, Martin Saban-Smith]
Turning A Cigar Pen [YT, 25:31, Steve Lindsley]
Turning a Banksia Pen With Dyed Epoxy #10 [YT, 17:39, I Turn Two]
Circuit Board Ink Pen [YT, 24:28, RJBWoodTurner]
Beginning Pen Making, Make a Cigar Pen. Stars and Stripes America Style. [YT, 10:16, Chad Schimmel]
20 Steps to Turning Better Pens, by Kurt Hertzog for Woodturning
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 12:37 PM PST - 28 comments

book covers tell women what they want by surmising who they want to be

The Subtle Genius of Elena Ferrante’s Bad Book Covers by Emily Harnett [The Atlantic] With their sandy beaches and windswept women, the U.S. editions of Elena Ferrante’s novels look familiar even if you’ve never seen them. That’s because they look like virtually every other book authored by a woman these days—not to mention like bridal magazines, beach-resort brochures, and even “Viagra ads.” On Twitter and beyond, readers have described Ferrante’s covers as “horrible,” “atrocious,” “utterly hideous,” and as a “disservice” to her novels. At Slate, one commenter approvingly mentions a local bookstore’s decision to display one of Ferrante’s books in plain brown paper, reviving a practice used for Playboy and the infamous issue of Vanity Fair with a pregnant Demi Moore on the cover. The implication, of course, isn’t that Ferrante’s covers are obscene in the traditional sense—just obscenely bad. Previously.
posted by Fizz at 10:08 AM PST - 46 comments

Why Do Animals Like Capybaras So Much?

Something to take one's mind off this hard month in a hard summer in a hard year. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:54 AM PST - 43 comments

Facebook is Removing Posts by Singaporean Activists

When can Facebook take down your post?
Five days ago (July 4), Ms Teo Soh Lung – an activist and former ISA detainee – had her post “Police Terror” removed “for violating community standards”, according to freelance journalist Kirsten Han. Shortly after (July 7), Ms Han herself received a notice that her post – in support of Ms Teo and a reproduction of “Police Terror” – had been taken down for the same reason. This sparked a ban on her posting for 24 hours. In late June (June 23), blogger Andrew Loh had his post about violations of Cooling-Off Day rules taken down by Facebook – but in his case, Facebook restored the post and issued him an apology just three days later (June 26). [more inside]
posted by destrius at 6:00 AM PST - 63 comments

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