Today’s Lucky Dip is mostly art-themed. Check out all this cool stuff…
In the 70s, Salvador Dali illustrated a version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Copies of the prints are actually for sale. [Via Twisted Sifter]
Category: in the news
Gorgeous Treasures From the Earth
Lucky Dip – Thursday, August 15th
I’m not much for Star Trek and all that stuff, but when space gets its galaxies together to make roses, that’s something pretty awesome. [Twisted Sifter]
Y’all know that the thing about carrots improving your eyesight was a lie to trick the Nazis, right? [Gizmodo]
Turns out it’s maybe not such a great idea to bury 6000 bodies under the huge stone floor of an abbey because those bodies eventually decompose and shift and such. So workers are disinterring piles of bones to rebuild the floor before the whole thing collapses. Of course, instead of reburying those bones, it would be even cooler to just decorate the place with them. [BBC News]
The discovery of a new mammal is a rare and wondrous thing, and it really doesn’t hurt if the little bugger is adorable. Meet the Olinguito. [Huffington Post]
Speaking of cool animals, when visiting a zoo, expect to get what you pay for. If the admission is cheap and the “lion” looks remarkably like a dog, then it probably is. Never mind that you can probably buy a real lion for much cheaper than the average Tibetan Mastiff. [Gawker]
Lucky Dip – August 14, 2013
Messy Nessy interviews Parisian artist Kanako. [Messy Nessy Chic]
I love, love, love this essay aimed at young oddballs, and wish someone had written it 30 years ago, when I was one. [NPR]
Speaking of awesome things I wish were around when I was a kid – Makies, the world’s first 3D printed dolls, are now for sale. And they’re named after famous scientists/computer programmers (including Hopper, for Grace Hopper who was the “creator” of the term computer bug after finding a moth in a mainframe.) [BoingBoing]
Free Rebekah! The raccoon made famous for dancing with a “hillbilly” has been seized by authorities! [Gawker]
40 totally cool world maps, Plus one even cooler map made with a spirograph. [Twisted Sifter] [BoingBoing]
Abercrombie & Fitch, Marketing to Fatties and the Death of “Cool”
“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids.”
Do you see anything wrong with that statement? I mean besides the obvious douchbaggery behind it? Mike Jeffries of Abercrombie & Fitch only wants young, attractive (thin), “cool” people to wear the clothes his company sells.
But are all popular, pretty people “cool”?
When I was a young teenager, which is presumably the target market for stores like Abercrombie, the “cool” kids were the ones who hung out off campus so they could smoke. The girls looked like Joan Jett, and jean shorts were only considered appropriate if you were washing the car.
The popular kids, the sporty ones, hell, the RICH ones, with a tennis court and a pool in the front yard and a 30 ft yacht moored in the back, they looked like the models in the Abercrombie ads. Very, very few of them were “cool”. They were pretty, had nice clothes, nice cars and were assured nice university educations, but their lives were too easy and too pretty for them to be cool. They were popular – they ran the student council, they were on all the sports teams, other kids aspired to be like them. But did they have that edge, that spark, that thing about them that drew people to them (as opposed to perfect teeth and shiny hair)? Nah.
Continue reading “Abercrombie & Fitch, Marketing to Fatties and the Death of “Cool””
Let Them Eat Cake – On Women and Their Relationships with Food and Body Image
Dear women of the Western world, please have some cake. That’s right, get up right now, and go get yourself something frosted and gooey and decorated to within an inch of its life. I implore you to treat yourself, just because it’s a crappy, cold, grey Monday.
However, if you go have cake, there are rules. First, no hiding the cake. No sneaking it back to your desk, or hiding in a closet while you devour it. Eat that baby out in the open, and to hell with what anyone else thinks! Second, you must eat the cake and then forget about it. No making yourself feel guilty, no calculating how many extra crunches you need to do to work it off. Third, no remorse, after the fact, when a skinny girl walks past you on the street, and you start thinking about how much closer you’d be to that “ideal” figure if only you’d not eaten that stupid delicious bit of pastry and frosting.
Continue reading “Let Them Eat Cake – On Women and Their Relationships with Food and Body Image”
Crazy Acorn Lady – Making Life Difficult for the Rest of Us
It read like an April Fool’s Day joke. Yesterday, the Toronto Star ran a story about a Woodbridge woman who wanted oak trees near her sons’ school cut down because her two boys are allergic to tree nuts.
The obvious rebuttals come to mind:
– acorns are not food, there’s no plausible reason for teenaged boys to be eating them
– they’re teenagers, not toddlers, and if allergic, should know enough to avoid oak trees during acorn season
– um… don’t roll around under oak trees?
On one hand, you’ve gotta feel really sorry for her kids who have enough stress dealing with real allergens (the article says they’re allergic to peanuts and their school – indoors – is nut-free), and now have to deal with being the spawn of crazy acorn lady.
But there’s also the risk now that the very real concerns regarding allergies – both of her kids and the rest of us – won’t be taken seriously because of the over-reaction and helicopter parenting of one woman who made the news.
Continue reading “Crazy Acorn Lady – Making Life Difficult for the Rest of Us”
I’m so Sexy in this Pub
As a collector of pin-up art, and the wife of a beer writer, I am probably more exposed to, and less bothered by, cheeky and puerile beer labels and tap handles than other women. I don’t know if beer labels with cute (hot) cartoon babes actually sell more beer – that would be kind of a sad thing, actually – but they certainly are out there. Here in Ontario, we’re all familiar with Niagara Brewery’s Niagara’s Best Blonde, with the 40s era bombshell on the label. She is not scantily clad, mind you, in fact she’s downright wholesome, but I can see where some women would take issue with an image of a woman being used to sell and promote beer.
Of course, busty women have been a marketing default for beer companies for years, and it’s only lately, with the rising popularity of craft beer, that mainstream brewers have changed gears to be more inclusive of women, portraying them more as beer consumers and less as a set of tits in a bikini top, emerging from a lake to bring the man in the ad a crisp, cold one.
Oddly enough, the “sexy-making” in the beer industry has seemed to revert back to the little guy, with craft brewers, especially in the UK, using sexual imagery and innuendo to gain attention for their products in a market that is becoming ever more saturated with competition.
I Need a Truffle Dog
What’s better than a cool dog? One that digs up truffles in your backyard. Full story at the Daily Mail.
Your Fat Makes Me Crazy
If you live in the western world, no doubt you’ve seen or heard about this video, created by a Wisconsin news anchor after receiving a letter from a viewer who was ostensibly “concerned” about her health and her ability to be a role model to viewers.
As a fat woman, I am fully supportive of Jennifer Livingston and her decision to turn the tables on her critic by taking to the air to rebut his passive-aggressive comments (according to the Toronto Star, the two exchanged emails back and forth but when contacted by Associated Press, the man claims to have deleted the email conversation.)
What is disturbing about all of this is that there are people out there who think they have every right to tell a complete stranger what they think of their looks.