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17 year old prodigy Helene Hegemann admits that her bestseller "Axolotl Roadkill" is not as original as previously assumed. "The publication last month of her novel about a 16-year-old exploring Berlin’s drug and club scene after the death of her mother, called “Axolotl Roadkill,” was heralded far and wide in German newspapers and magazines as a tremendous debut, particularly for such a young author. The book shot to No. 5 this week on the magazine Spiegel’s hardcover best-seller list", writes the New York Times. Unfortunately, parts of it were lifted. "It's not plagiarism", says the author.
comment posted at 3:27 PM on Feb-12-10

Studies in Crap
comment posted at 3:57 PM on Feb-12-10

Vintage dinosaur books. Those of a certain age likely discovered dinosaurs in the pages of one of these books in their grade-school library. I'm almost sure that this one was my first (but I remember the cover being black instead of red), and that this was my second. Does anybody remember this one? Or this?
comment posted at 4:48 AM on Feb-10-10

Ever wonder what a music video would be like without the music? "I thought Andreas Nilsson's latest video was so compelling I wanted to see if it would stand on its own, so I took the music out and put sound effects back in, as if it was a short film."
comment posted at 4:58 AM on Feb-10-10

The Disenchanted Naturalist's Guide to Reality (see also)
comment posted at 1:48 PM on Feb-9-10

Comedian and activist, Mark Thomas, has been touring the UK over the past year, compiling a set of policies that his audiences want to see implemented in Britain. As part of the publicity for the resulting book, The People's Manifesto, his publishers are offering to pay one lucky applicant's £500 deposit and campaign expenses to stand for public office at the upcoming general election, on the condition that they will base their campaign on the policies gathered in the book.
comment posted at 5:06 AM on Feb-9-10

You dig this Canto para Shango? Well then, you might want to peruse more of the Cuban folkloric and popular music and dance on offer at Boogalu Productions. Check out the top video on their YouTube channel for a dizzying display of the varieties of musical expression emanating from today's Cuba.
comment posted at 4:45 AM on Feb-8-10

Prophetic Pictures from Menominie, Wisconsin. In 1905, high school senior Albert Hansen took photogaphs of his graduating classmates at Menominie HS. Not as they were -- but as they believed, or hoped, or feared they would be in the decades to come. Dorothy M. Jesse was going to be a mathematician, and Fred Quilling a pharmacist. Alice M. Tilleson would be a prominent socialite, whose "eccentric ideas with reference to danger, force her to cling to that old fashioned vehicle, the automobile, instead of the new wheel-less aerial motor car." William C. Klatt, a future physician, would operate on disembodied heads. And Hansen himself was destined for the hobo's life. The Wisconsin Historical Society has the whole collection available online, together with the text from the yearbook and the truth, as best the Society could learn, of how the graduates' actual future compared with prophecy. (Spoiler: Fred Quilling really did become a pharmacist.) Just one of the many remarkable collections at Wisconsin Historical Images.
comment posted at 3:43 AM on Feb-8-10

How the Letterman-Oprah-Leno Super Bowl Ad Came Together (video and article)
comment posted at 3:57 AM on Feb-8-10

The Knickerbocker Theater was an old-fashioned movie palace in Washington, DC designed by Reginald W. Geare for local theatre mogul, Harry Crandall. On January 28, 1922, while patrons were watching Jimmy Durante's film debut in the comedy Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford, 28 inches of snow caused the Knickerboof's roof to collapse, killing 98 people, in an event still known as the Knickerbocker snowstorm of 1922.
comment posted at 12:42 PM on Feb-6-10
comment posted at 12:43 PM on Feb-6-10

The New York Times called it "a great work of art" (NYT login required). Martin Amis called it "a waterlogged corpse at the stage of maximal bloat". You can judge for yourself by reading an annotated, hyperlinked edition. This timeline and this geography might help. (For extra credit, here are texts mentioned in the story.)
comment posted at 6:25 PM on Feb-5-10
comment posted at 5:56 AM on Feb-6-10

"The symbiotic relationship between the press and the power elite worked for nearly a century. It worked as long as our power elite, no matter how ruthless or insensitive, was competent. But once our power elite became incompetent and morally bankrupt, the press, along with the power elite, lost its final vestige of credibility." "The Creed of Objectivity Killed the News" by Chris Hedges.
comment posted at 1:11 PM on Feb-2-10

After a ballot measure to raise property taxes in Colorado Springs was overwhelmingly defeated, tax opponents called for the city to shrink the government. The City of Colorado Springs now plans to make deep cuts to basic services, including parks, police, and even the street lights.
comment posted at 4:17 AM on Feb-2-10

Those who knew the artist—some of them his friends—described him variously as “devil,” “whore,” “one of the world’s leading alcoholics,” “bilious ogre,” “sacred monster,” and “a drunken, faded sodomite swaying nocturnally through the lowest dives and gambling dens of Soho.” Was Francis Bacon really the greatest painter of the twentieth century, or just a fascinating mess?
comment posted at 1:43 PM on Feb-1-10
comment posted at 5:01 PM on Feb-1-10

On the 15th of every month, from noon to 6pm, ceramics artist Michael Swaine sets up a sewing machine in San Francisco's Tenderloin and repairs clothing for strangers. No charge. He's also been known to darn other peoples' socks in London. He has much of interest to say.
comment posted at 5:23 PM on Jan-31-10

A child's garden of race car crashes.
comment posted at 1:47 PM on Jan-30-10

Redesigned notebooks, repurposed toys, grow-your-own breakfast, paper radios, parental pants, and more - all from the mind of design fiction enthusiast Matt Brown
comment posted at 4:20 AM on Jan-30-10

President Obama spoke at length to House Republicans at their retreat in Baltimore, responding to questions after his remarks. Video (also here). Transcript.
comment posted at 1:29 PM on Jan-29-10

Simo Häyhä is often revered as the deadliest sniper in history. Using nothing more than a Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle with stock iron sights, Häyhä is credited with felling 542 Soviet soldiers during the Finnish Winter War (with as many as 150 more kills by SMG). Nicknamed "The White Death", Häyhä spent weeks in snow-covered forests, enduring sub-zero temperatures while sniping Russian officers, weapons crews and snipers. The Soviets placed a bounty on Häyhä's head, utilizing counter-snipers and artillery fire in an attempt to kill him. Over the course of only three months, the 5'3" Häyhä (a farmer by trade) killed upwards of 800 of the Red Army soldiers deployed to Finland. Despite eventually being shot in the face by a Russian sharpshooter, Häyhä recovered and passed away in 2002 at the age of 96.
comment posted at 2:15 PM on Jan-28-10

Oil City Confidential is a new film from director Julien Temple, previously responsible for The Filth and the Fury, about the Sex Pistols, and Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten, focusing on Strummer and The Clash. This time round, in a kind of prequel to both those films, he tackles the life and turbulent times of Dr. Feelgood. Finding fame on the same Pub rock circuit (as remembered by writer and Kursaal Flyers drummer Will Birch) that also supported Ian Dury's Kilburn and the High Roads (not to mention Eddie and the Hot Rods and Joe Strummer's pre-Clash band The 101ers), Dr. Feelgood played stripped-down, taut and aggressive R&B. Hailing from the wildlands of Essex's Canvey Island – the "Oil City" of the film's title – Dr Feelgood were punk before punk really hit, a whirlwind of raucous energy, with a fierce work ethic. In Wilko Johnson, they had a guitarist with a scorching, slash and burn technique, while their singer, Lee Brilleaux (1989 interview), who died of cancer in 1994, aged just 41, oozed cheap-suited menace, and, into the bargain, helped found Stiff Records.
comment posted at 3:37 PM on Jan-27-10

It started with, 'How do we give the visitor a big hug in each room?' Ladies and Gentlemen, AbbaWorld is now open for business.
comment posted at 4:06 PM on Jan-26-10

Karin from Fever Ray's bizarre acceptance speech to an award ceremony in Gothenburg
comment posted at 4:07 AM on Jan-26-10

;)
comment posted at 1:36 PM on Jan-25-10

How to make vaginas love a penis (SLYT). Apparently.
comment posted at 5:38 AM on Jan-23-10
comment posted at 8:39 AM on Jan-23-10

The show is loaded with intramural cracks, tedium, desperate looking guests reaching for laughs, mechanical dolls that wave their arms and drop their pants, additional tedium, and the apparent illusion that several million people want to watch 120 minutes of the scriptless life of a semi-educated, egocentric boor. The rise and fall of a late night TV talk show host.
comment posted at 6:08 AM on Jan-23-10

As of last week, Barnes and Noble closed the B.Dalton outlet in Laredo's Mall del Norte. This leaves the city of 250,000 the largest city in the USA without a bookstore.
comment posted at 3:48 PM on Jan-22-10

Doug Stanhope talks about fear. [YT]
comment posted at 1:07 PM on Jan-22-10

This isn't one of those stories about how empowering it was to pose naked for a magazine.
comment posted at 4:54 AM on Jan-21-10

Making The Shining "Stanley Kubrick allowed his then-17-year-old daughter, Vivian, to make a documentary about the production of THE SHINING. Created originally for the British television show BBC Arena, the documentary offers rare insight into the shooting process of a Kubrick film." (BBC Arena, 35mins.)
comment posted at 12:45 PM on Jan-20-10

Folk singer Kate McGarrigle succumbs to cancer. Perhaps best known for her work with sister Anna, Kate was also the mother of performers Martha Wainwright and Rufus Wainwright. Kate and Anna's music was covered by more popular (in the US) performers, such as Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, and others. My favorite thing they did is "The Log Drivers Waltz", available as a video from the National Film Board of Canada. It always takes me back to my mother's house in the Canada. The McGarrigle website has lots of news, information, and links on the performers.
comment posted at 10:14 AM on Jan-19-10

Exploration of Beatles music through infographics.
comment posted at 5:02 AM on Jan-19-10
comment posted at 10:25 AM on Jan-19-10

Thousands of Haitian orphans may be resettled in the United States, and Miami, Florida is ready to receive them. The county is prepared to house them in temporary shelters (with the goal of moving them eventually to foster homes), the local Haitian community has expressed its support, and the local public schools are uniquely prepared to teach Haitian Creole. Fingers crossed that the money for this program comes through.
comment posted at 4:50 AM on Jan-18-10

How do you explain the struggle for civil rights to a kindergartner? Pictures? Songs? Crafts? Puzzles? Construction paper in rainbow colors?
comment posted at 7:43 AM on Jan-17-10
comment posted at 8:57 AM on Jan-17-10

The Dirtiest Player. Was it only last season that Marvin Harrison was still catching TD passes for Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts? Now, in the wake of a brazen but mysterious Philadelphia gunfight - many details of which are reported here for the first time - the man who holds the NFL record for most receptions in a season may yet find himself with a permanent record of a different sort. (SLGQ)
comment posted at 7:33 AM on Jan-16-10

California's calm before the storm. It's just rain, right? Well, the meteorologists are publicly talking about a potentially epic storm that could trigger major flooding and mudslides, especially in areas effected by the state's widespread fires of the past few years. More ominously, though, is this internal email from CAL FIRE Division Chief Bob Wallen, which talks of the potential for "multiple large and powerful storm systems" with "a tremendous amount of precipitation . . . Much of NorCal is likely to see 5-10 inches in the lowlands, with 10-20 inches in orographically-favored areas. Most of SoCal will see 3-6 inches at lower elevations, with perhaps triple that amount in favored areas", with the potential for a massive snowfall, gusts in the 100-200 mph range in the high Sierras, possibly followed by plentiful warm rains that could melt the snow and cause massive flooding statewide. "The next 2-3 weeks (at least) are likely to be more active across California than any other 2-3 week period in recent memory."
comment posted at 4:59 AM on Jan-16-10
comment posted at 7:53 AM on Jan-16-10

Indeed, at 6 million years of separation, the difference in [Y-chromosome] gene content in chimpanzee and human is more comparable to the difference in autosomal gene content in chicken and human, at 310 million years of separation.

It is commonly said that the Human and Chimpanzee genomes share 99% or more identical DNA. In a surprising development about to be published in Nature, the Y-chromosomes of these two species were found to share only 70% of their DNA, raising important questions about the mode and tempo by which speciation from a common ancestor occurred. This finding may point the finger at the evolution of different patterns of sperm-competition and mating practices within these two species.
comment posted at 4:56 AM on Jan-16-10

Voice Throwin' Blues: On June 14, 1929 in Richmond, Indiana, Walter "Buddy Boy" Hawkins recorded the first, best and possibly only ventriloquist blues song.
comment posted at 6:18 PM on Jan-12-10

How the AOL-Time Warner Merger Went So Wrong Interviews with the key players involved with the AOL-Time Warner merger about its euphoric rise and pitiful fall.
comment posted at 3:52 PM on Jan-11-10

In a very unusual move, 20th Century Fox has decided to release James Cameron’s entire screenplay for AVATAR online. Read the script as a PDF.
comment posted at 5:10 AM on Jan-11-10

Nobuyuki Tsujii is a 21 year old blind Japanese pianist. Van Cliburn has this to say about Nobuyuki "Miracle is the only word to describe him. This is truly an act of God."
comment posted at 4:14 PM on Jan-9-10

Our real enemies are not those living in a distant land whose names or policies we don't understand; The real enemy is a system that wages war when it's profitable, the CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it's profitable, the Insurance Companies who deny us Health care when it's profitable, the Banks who take away our homes when it's profitable. Our enemies are not several hundred thousands away. They are right here in front of us. — Mike Prysner (YT)
comment posted at 5:20 AM on Jan-9-10
comment posted at 7:42 AM on Jan-9-10
comment posted at 11:35 AM on Jan-9-10