Motley Monday Links

(Ten links this time to make up for the extended absence!)

The biggest fantasy of every record digger, or the biggest heartbreak? (hat tip to Ann)

Life-changing religious experiencs may better your life, but they could also shrink your hippocampus.

No matter how bad you have it, you probably don't have it worse than this guy.

I just don't understand why Joe Pesci's rap career didn't take off.

"He is four. We think he might be a boy." A lovely story of a family growing up with a possibly transgender son.

A sad reminder of hatred and homophobia, "...but Hill and Weimer were busy setting up two new pride flags, on either side of the gap left in the crime's wake. 'We're doubling down,' Hill said."

"I am a radical, card-carrying feminist, and still I put out smiles indiscriminately, hoping to please not only friends and family but also my son’s orthodontist, the barista who rolls his eyes while I fumble apologetically through my wallet, and the ex-boyfriend who cheated on me. If I had all that energy back — all the hours and neurochemicals and facial musculature I have expended in my wanton pursuit of likedness — I could propel myself to Mars and back. Or, at the very least, write the book “Mars and Back: Gendered Constraints and Wasted Smiling.”

Would you eat a lab-grown burger? I'm...not sure.

It's Curiosity's one-year anniversary on Mars!

Hilda, the plump pin-up!

Motley Monday Links

A capybara hugging a cheerful cat. My heart sings. (also, I may have started following the capybara on Facebook. :x) (also, here are more pictures of Gari the capybara! Yes, I'm obsessed.)

The merriest cemetery in the world!

Did the Catholic Church once sanction same-sex partnerships among monks in a type of marriage ceremony? The evidence for this theory is fairly strong, but not definitive.

Marlene Dietrich, Madonna, and "Double Drag." 

“Music journalists like Elvis Costello because music journalists look like Elvis Costello.”--catty!

Motley Monday Links

Instead of focusing on the disgusting jokes some shitsmears in Atlanta made about Steve Gleason, check out Gleason's story in Sports Illustrated about living with ALS, not dying from ALS. Quote: "We cannot measure, verify or confirm meaning. We, as humans, create and apply meaning. When something happens to us, we become the author of meaning. The best philosophy I have adopted is to apply a useful and productive meaning."

Grandma's Kitchen, all over the world.

Apparently, Dame Judi Dench is a fan of subversive cross-stich, you fucking shit.

Yvette claims that the store had accommodated employees with minor disabilities in the past. "One woman, she hurt her shoulder," she says, angry tears filling her eyes. "They gave her a job re-shelving lighter items." Yvette says she also offered to work at the cash register or in the office of a different branch, to no avail. Eventually she was given meager disability payments for a portion of her pregnancy, and she spent the remainder on unpaid leave. Last month, Yvette left her job at the grocery chain.--why working class women are better off being disabled than pregnant.

Will the Krewe of Freret stop throwing Mardi Gras beads, in favor of locally-made throws?

Motley Monday Links

From creepy crusty to celebrated photographer: the Miroslav Tichý story.

I love illicit Old Hollywood gossip. Today: Rock Hudson's gay confession, Marilyn's death, Judy Garland's secret pill stashes, and more!

"Defendants’ motion is not supported by any affidavit or other evidence providing even one example of improper interference with an execution caused by or related to the dissemination of the current or any previous Louisiana execution protocol, or which shows that the defendants’ security concerns and the asserted risk of manipulation are more than mere speculation or conjecture"--Louisiana must reveal its lethal injection practices.

More evidence that childhood poverty should be treated as a disease, with all the political outcry and social movements to stop it that such a designation justifies.

A thoughtful meditation on the meaning of work from generation to generation and the search for fulfillment.

Motley Monday Links

John Bunker is an apple detective, identifying obscure American apples and attempting to save varieties from extinction via industrialization.

Pretty sure the dolphins are going to eat these misguided hippies' baby.

A 10-15k year old mammoth was found in Siberia, with blood and muscle tissue intact.

Another reason to love living in Louisiana: Getting to put "I'm a Cajun" on your driver's license. 

Iraq's pavilion at the Biennale is sure to be fascinating. I can't even imagine how ten years of war and terrorism has manifested itself into Iraq's art.

Motley Memorial Monday Links

Oh hai, guys! I'm about to make a bunch of updates, but I figured I'd kick things off by getting back to Motley Monday Links. Happy Memorial Day!

Do you sometimes just need your finger to be a bird? Make it happen with free finger puppet printables!

Horrible Monsanto finally found guilty of some awful stuff in at least one country. Get on it already, U.S.

I can't describe this any better than the headline already: Physicists create quantum link between photons that don't exist at the same time. What.

Really excited to see this year's Palme d'Or winner, "Blue is the Warmest Color." 

"I admit to being, at times
Suddenly, and without the slightest warning,
Exceedingly happy."

Motley Monday Links

Some big stuff has been happening (updates tomorrow!), and I keep neglecting my Motley Monday Links. As reparation, I offer you not five, but ten links. 

This collection of The Shining "conspiracy theories" is totally blowing my mind (and sending me down hours-long Wikipedia rabbit holes). Especially number two.

Ever considered what fashion mags might say about the outfits of Disney princesses? Wonder no more.

This site is, at turns, mesmerizing, therapeutic, and (after watching it for awhile) kind of disturbing.

A Vietnam POW returns to North Vietnam as an ambassador and works to improve the lives of the very people who captured and held him for four years.

Portraits of Syria's only all-female fighting unit. I find these photos somewhat haunting, ordinary portraits juxtaposed with weapons and war. They need no words.

Did the Pinochet regime have Pablo Neruda murdered? His body will be exhumed to further investigate.

I know this commits the double blog sin of two links from the same site and reposting something that's been all over the internet, but this is so. damn. adorable. that I cannot resist.

Thomas Keller's perfect poached egg.

"Can we talk about the “u” in your name? Are you British? It’s affected, and you should be ashamed." Food is Gross is the anti-foodie blog.

"The Kissinger Cables comprise more than 1.7 million US diplomatic records for the period 1973 to 1976, including 205,901 records relating to former US Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger. Dating from January 1, 1973 to December 31, 1976 they cover a variety of diplomatic traffic including cables, intelligence reports and congressional correspondence. They include more than 1.3 million full diplomatic cables and 320,000 originally classified records. These include more than 227,000 cables classified as 'CONFIDENTIAL' and 61,000 cables classified as 'SECRET'. Perhaps more importantly, there are more than 12,000 documents with the sensitive handling restriction 'NODIS' or 'no distribution', and more than 9,000 labelled 'Eyes Only'."

Motley Monday Links

I was in Chicago last week and my life is in a bit of upheaval at the moment (more to come on that soon!), so I missed last week's links and these are...diverse. So I present to you, the motliest of the Motley Monday Links yet!

A truly incredible piece on feminism, otherness, courage, fear, and basic humanity. There's hardly a line here that I don't want to quote.

Do you know who gave the longest Oscar acceptance speech? A time limit was imposed after her win!

That snoutfair will totally gorgonize you.

A well-reasoned argument for why New Orleans should be allowed to annex parts of Jefferson Parish.

Throwback article: "I was trying to make fun of myself. I don't know if that came across.": An interview with Kim Gordon in 1991 about "Kool Thing" and the rise of Sonic Youth.

Motley Monday Links

Frank Baum's original Oz stories were all about female protagonists and heroes, so why does Hollywood insist on reducing them to the same tired male/female stereotypes?
"She told herself to memorize the names and faces of the tormentors so that one day she might bring them to justice." Nusreta Sivac spent years working to finally get rape prosecuted as a war crime.
The Ogden Museum here in New Orleans is holding an exhibit of photos from the Blackgala campaign.
Why does the U.S. spend so much on healthcare and get so little? Because we manage disease, not provide healthcare.
My friend works at the real life equivalent of Initech.

(Belated) Motley Monday Links

Yesterday was a bit insane, so please enjoy Motley Tuesday Links. Back to our regularly scheduled programming next week.

A brief history of The Highwaymen, a group of Florida roadside painters in segregationist times.
Thomas Keller on What Goes With What. I have to agree on "Potatoes + Anything."
A list of the "new" names for old places in Louisiana.
Apparently Russia has a resort town for ousted dictators and their ilk.
Throwback article: Mysterious sounds under the sea (they probably aren't mermaids).

Motley Monday Links

I finally watched Capote and, in reading more about the killers, I found out the bodies of Richard Hickock and Perry Smith were exhumed in December in order to obtain DNA for a cold case murder from 1960.

I've never considered putting olive oil on dark chocolate, but now I will not rest until I try it.

"I sometimes equate slips to nurses’ scrubs. It sounds really incongruous, but they did lots of shifts."--who knew an interview on slip collecting could be so loaded?

"What is the river like in your hometown?" What would the pictures in the U.S. look like?

The universe is going to end, but not before the Sun swallows us up.

Motley Monday Links

I have a bad habit of collecting tabs in my browser. I'll never close my browser, because I have a bunch of articles open that I want to read or want to send to someone, links that interest me but not enough to bookmark.

I could save them to some sort of bookmarking website, but since I often have them open for sharing purposes anyway, I figured I might as well link them here and make it a regular feature on the blog (perhaps encouraging me to update more often as well!). Plus, we all need a little distraction from Mondays, right?

So, without further ado, here is installment 1 of Motley Monday Links.

A fascinating look at the gender politics and sociopolitical implications of Frida Kahlo's newly-revealed wardrobe.

An exploration of Virginia Woolf's work and legacy as a lexicographer (PDF file).


NPR looks at the impact of the New Orleans' Baby Dolls in time for a new museum exhibit, They Call Me Baby Doll: A Mardi Gras Tradition.

The gubment is keeping their spy cameras calibrated with creepy, but strangely awesome giant resolution charts. 

Throwback article: Revisiting Randall Munroe's take on the threats posed by the 2011 floods. You should also check out the linked John McPhee article.