One of my history crushes is Adrian. Born Adrian Adolph Greenberg, but credited simply as Adrian, he was chiefly responsible for the high fashion glamour of MGM’s golden age from 1928 until he left the studio to set up his own independent design house in 1941. He designed looks for the biggest stars and films at MGM. Among his iconic looks, he designed the fabled ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz, Jean Harlow’s bias cut satin gown in Dinner at Eight and Joan Crawford’s big shouldered looks. After he left MGM, he had a successful couture and ready to wear business, returning to Hollywood to design for the occasional movie.
While he never won an Oscar, he did win a posthumous Tony Award in 1960, for his costume work on “Camelot.”
There's few things more heartbreaking to gamers than an Atari 2600 whose original components have given up the ghost. UK craftsman Peter Morris must not want all that faux wood to go to waste, as he recently converted two broken 2600 systems into speaker docks for the iPad and iPhone. Both include digital amps to improve the tunes, a line-in jack and both on-device as well as remote controls. We'd love to have either of them providing the soundtrack to our Pong sessions, although pure logistics may work against us: the iPad and iPhone docks are unique examples that ship from Morris' UK homeland at respective prices of £180 ($269) and £150 ($224). As such, there will likely be just a few Brits who'll get to mix modern sound with their childhood Combat memories.
Exhibition view of Paris Haute Couture at the city’s Hôtel de Ville, curated by Olivier Saillard/Musée Galliera. Photo via Dazed Digital.
The Musée Galliera’s maverick director, Olivier Saillard, has spun yet another historical thread of fashion magic into a show-stopping exhibition with his latest and greatest: Paris Haute Couture, both a study in high craft and an exaltation of the masters of this singularly French (or Parisian anyway, adopted or otherwise), tradition. 100 dresses comprise a visual survey spanning 150 years of singularly-minded design by the likes of Worth (the founder and father of Haute Couture), Chanel, Vionnet, Schiaparelli, Balenciaga, Courrèges, and even young, contemporary designers such as Alexis Mabille. On view through 6 July 2013, this is sure to be a benchmark exhibition, much like Saillard’s previous Galliera exhibits on Madame Grès and Balenciaga (the latter on a quieter scale).
For those on foreign shores, this short video features a short teaser of the exhibition with Saillard himself. Scroll down for a selection of dresses on view.
We brought you the new series image earlier this morning but more news has come of the revelation of the first (or is it sixth?) episode title and some brand new details! The Official introduction to Clara Oswald will be in the episode called The Bells of St John. There are also some new story and cast details in the press release below...
"Doctor Who is to return to BBC One on 30 March in a modern day urban thriller announced today as 'The Bells of St John', as the first official image is revealed giving fans a sneak peak at what to expect from the epic new series.Written by Steven Moffat, 'The Bells of St John' will mark the official introduction of the Doctor's newest companion, Clara Oswald, played by Jenna-Louise Coleman. Having already made two appearances last year, the opening episode will be the first time fans get to see the Clara that will accompany the Doctor across the series' eight adventures.Set in London against the backdrop of new and old iconic landmarks, The Shard and Westminster Bridge, 'The Bells of St John' will also establish a new nemesis, the Spoonheads, who will battle the Doctor as he discovers something sinister is lurking in the Wi-Fi.Steven Moffat, executive producer and lead writer, said:"It's the 50th year of Doctor Who and look what's going on! We're up in the sky and under the sea! We're running round the rings of an alien world and then a haunted house. There's new Cybermen, new Ice Warriors and a never before attempted journey to the centre of the TARDIS. And in the finale, the Doctor's greatest secret will at last be revealed! If this wasn't already our most exciting year it would be anyway!"Featuring a movie a week from a ghost story to an underwater siege to a period drama, the new series will also introduce new monsters, as well as bringing back fan favourites the Ice Warriors and Cybermen.Meanwhile the series' stellar list of guest stars include: Celia Imrie; Richard E Grant; Warwick Davis, Jessica Raine; Dougray Scott and Tamzin Outhwaite, as well as for the first time on screen together, mother and daughter Dame Diana Rigg and Rachael Stirling." Get ready for a busy few weeks ahead, Doctor Who is nearly here!
"The smartest thing would be for the president to disperse the ’92-’93 Chicago Bulls in a couple of our major cities," Cenac told Daily Intelligencer last night at the Comedy Bar finale party for Adult Swim's Delocated. "Put Jordan in D.C., Pippen in New York, B.J. Armstrong in Los Angeles, Horace Grant in Austin, Luc Longley, Craig Hodges — I can keep going. I can name more of these guys." [Editor's note: Longley and Hodges didn't play for the '92–'93 Bulls, but same idea.]
"You let it be known," Cenac continued. "If your intention is to blow up Manhattan, are you okay having Scottie Pippen’s blood on your hands, Kim Jong Un?"
“I am appalled by Bridezillas. I should make it clear that I have never seen an episode of the reality show. I hate Bridezillas for one simple reason: Bride does not rhyme with god. Ergo, Bridezillas is not a functioning pun.
The point is significant because bridezilla appears to be symptomatic of a wider malaise: the death of the American pun, replaced by something grosser, dumber, uglier. Examples abound: Take one of the most read websites in the world, Wikipedia, a “pun” on encyclopedia that shares nothing but its suffix. Or techpreneur, the loathsome fusion oftechnology and entrepreneur. Likewise mansplain, a coinage popular with Internet feminists that adroitly glosses a man addressing a woman in a condescending fashion (e.g., “Akam mansplains that mansplain is not a functioning pun.”) but is still not a functioning pun. Manscaping, the removal of all or part of male body hair, is better—there is at least assonance between the vowel sounds in man and land—but as a pun it remains perilously borderline.
So if recessionista and fembot are not really puns, what are they? They’re neolexic portmanteaus, in which root words are brutally slammed together with cavalier lack of wit. “Neolexic portmanteau” is a mouthful, so instead we shall choose a simpler handle. Sherry-manteau, catastrounity, misceg-formation, piss-poortmanteau, and poor-man’s-toes all proffer themselves as alternatives, but they are still laborsome. Therefore, I christen these neolexic portmanteaus adjoinages—a functioning portmanteau pun, in case you failed to see, on adjoin and coinage.
Gentle reader, are they not hideous things?
If you are not yet convinced, brace yourself now for a tsunami of adjoinages. Stagflation, bootylicious, aeromotional,chillax, f—-tard, bardolatry, bicurious, feminazi. All failed puns. There are others too that sit, manscaping-like, in the liminal territory of borderline pundom. Freakonomics works if the more conventional academic discipline is eek-onomics. It fails grimly if you say ek-onomics; vowel length is all. […]
John Pollack, the author of The Pun Also Rises, a book-length exposition on the subject, suggests the 19th century was a gilded age for American wordplay. As evidence he points to Abraham Lincoln’s coinage of “Michigander” for a native of Michigan, Congressman Horace Mann and Sen. Lewis Cass’ punning duel in an 1850 debate on slavery ( “This Ass is very big. Then call him CAss; C’s Roman for 100—a hundred times an Ass”), and frontiersman Davy Crockett’s status as both a celebrated punster and subject of puns (How many ears does Davy Crockett have? Three: A right ear, a left ear, and a wild frontier).
In Pollack’s view the American pun persisted through vaudeville and comedians like the Marx Brothers and George Burns, before falling out of favor after World War II, as falling taboos made previously forbidden topics (e.g., divorce, sex, general dysfunction) legitimate material for a new American humor less reliant on wordplay.”
sciencehabit writes "The National Science Foundation (NSF) is investigating nearly 100 cases of suspected plagiarism drawn from a single year's worth of proposals funded by the agency. The cases grow out of an internal examination by NSF's Office of Inspector General (IG) of every proposal that NSF funded in fiscal year 2011. James Kroll, head of administrative investigations within the IG's office, tells ScienceInsider that applying plagiarism software to NSF's entire portfolio of some 8000 awards made that year resulted in a 'hit rate' of 1% to 1.5%. 'My group is now swamped,' he says about his staff of six investigators."
Paris Lyon (or Gare de Lyon) is one of the six large mainline railway station termini in Paris, France. It handles about 90,000,000 passengers every year, making it the third busiest station of France and one of the busiest of Europe. It is the northern terminus of the Paris–Marseille railway. It is named after the city of Lyon, a stop for many long-distance trains departing here, most en route to the south of France. In general the station’s SNCF services run to the south and east of France. The station also hosts regional trains and the RER. It is served by the Gare de Lyon metro station. The station is located in the XIIe arrondissement, on the north bank of the river Seine, in the east of Paris.
South Korean artist Wang Zi Won creates enlightened robots, including the Buddha and an idealized mechanical doll based upon himself, as a guidepost for a future in which technology lead to self-actualization:
Humans will evolve and adapt themselves to enhanced science and technology just as men and animals in the past evolved to adapt themselves to their natural circumstances. The artist sees this as our destiny, not as a negative, gloomy dystopia.
The artist considers it important to escape from human bondage in order to achieve harmony between men and machines. He thinks this harmony can be achieved through the process of religious practices and spiritual enlightenment.
The machine man was based on the artist, but this “I” is not a past “I” any more. His own existence vanishes, and a new being-as-machine man emerges. Z is thus a process of becoming the perfect “I”.
I haven't read this whole thing yet, but I would like to note that:
it tastes horrible if you expect it to taste like whiskey
it tastes horrible if you are a person who tends to use the word "smooth"when describing your favorite spirits
it may be more interesting to you if you like eaux de vie
because it's the first or second thing a new distillery makes, of course a lot of them don't know what they're doing
koval's unaged rye is lovely so fuck off
Most serious whiskey fans seem content to let the white whiskey fad of recent years slip into oblivion alongside Crystal Pepsi and New York Seltzer. The term white whiskey is basically a marketing name for what distillers call white dog, referring to grain-based spirits that haven’t been aged in wood to improve their flavor. When sold illegally, it’s just called moonshine, but legal sales of white dog in recent years have helped upstart microdistilleries earn immediate revenue while their whiskies age. That’s because white dog can be bottled and sold immediately after being distilled without accruing any additional storage and aging expenses. The moonshine connection has been a useful marketing gimmick for hip urban bars, but there’s one considerable downside to white dog: It tastes horrible.
If you've ever made your own Mexican-style chorizo, you probably threw in a handful of spices like chile peppers, cumin, oregano, and garlic. This hot, smoky spice blend shouldn't be limited to sausages, though. Mix up a batch of chorizo seasoning and you can use it in scrambled eggs, beans, soups, and more. More
“We don’t know how the results were obtained. The post-doc who did all the work has since left to start a bakery” reads a tweet with the #overlyhonestmethods hashtag. The hashtag is being used for scientists to discuss the elements of their methodology that do not get discussed in “proper” scientific papers.
In response to this series of tweets, others have been reassuring readers that #overlyhonestmethods is a “‘joke” hashtag, and should not be construed to reflect the actual state of scientific work. Why? What’s the big deal?
Part of it is about the ways in which we like to consider science. The societal discourse is that science (particularly lab science) represents a “pure” form of knowledge, unbiased by human perceptions, relationships, and pragmatism.
In some ways, that may be true (if I mix Flourine and Francium, for example, the result is likely to be explosive whether I believe it to be or not), but that does not mean science isn’t shaped by social, cultural, and institutional forces.
For example, the choice of what to research is highly political. During wartime, scientific research is devoted to things that may aid the war effort, from weaponry, to vehicles, to food preservation. Political priorities in certain regions, likewise, direct research dollars into forestry management instead of ecological preservation. The scientists who do this research direct their efforts in this way because that is the research they can get funded.
#Overlyhonestmethods is, among other things, exposing the very real social nature of scientific research, pointing out that scientists may time their experiments so as to avoid being the lab on evenings and weekends. Or that it is sometimes difficult to know how certain results were obtained because people leave the profession and can’t tell you.
These concerns – about recording knowledge, and people’s quality of life at work — exist in every other profession, but in most cases we don’t need to discuss those statements as a “joke.” This is because most other professions do not make the claim of presenting absolute truth. In telling the “unpublished” stories of scientific research, #overlyhonestmethods makes it obvious that scientists are people who face constraints — personal, relational, practical, and institutional — potentially shaking the trust people put in science to offer “the” Truth.
Anastasia Kulpa teaches Sociology at Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Her research interests include the sociology of post-secondary classrooms and cultural vehicles for transmitting ideology (class, music, television, etc).
New 3-D Reconstructions Show Buried Flood Channels on Mars
New maps of the subsurface of Mars show for the first time buried channels below the surface of the red planet. Mars is considered to have been cold and dry over the past 2.5 billion years, but these channels suggest evidence of flooding. Understanding the source and scale of the young channels present in Elysium Planitia—an expanse of plains along the equator, and the youngest volcanic region on the planet—is essential to comprehend recent Martian hydrologic activity and determine if such floods could have induced climate change.
Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, says there will be an announcement shortly after 1 p.m. today Eastern time of the date of the conclave. He said that he thought the date was likely to be next Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday — which means there will almost certainly be a new pope by next Friday. (Over the past century, three- or four-day conclaves have been unusual. It’s usually wrapped up by the end of the second full day of voting.)
One of the fun things about the Housewares show is discovering kitchenware companies from around the world. This is a blessing and a curse, because while it's cool to see what's coming out of Europe, for example, it's also a bummer not to be able to buy it anywhere in the US. That's exactly how we felt about these thermal cook-and-store pieces from Italian brand Ater. More
North Korea is scrapping all non-aggression pacts with South Korea, closing its hotline and a border crossing, hours after the UN passed new sanctions.
Kailashnath Temple, also Kailash Temple or Kailasanath Temple is a famous temple dug…in the wall of a high basalt cliff in the complex located at Ellora, Maharashtra, India. It is a megalith carved out of one single rock. It was built in the 8th century by the Rashtrakuta king Krishna I.
The Kailash Temple is notable for its vertical excavation—carvers started at the top of the original rock, and excavated downward.
It is estimated that about 400,000 tons of rocks was scooped out over hundreds of years to construct this monolithic structure.
INDIAN HISTORY LITERALLY NEVER MANAGES TO BE BORING OR EVEN TBQH SHORT OF BREATH-TAKING
Where is best to be a working woman in the rich world
IF YOU are a working woman, you would do well to move to New Zealand—or if that is a little out of the way, you could try one of the Nordic countries. To mark International Women’s Day, The Economist has compiled its own “glass-ceiling index” to show where women have the best chance of equal treatment at work. Based on data mainly from the OECD, it compares five indicators across 26 countries: the number of men and women respectively with tertiary education; female labour-force participation; the male-female wage gap; the proportion of women in senior jobs; and net child-care costs relative to the average wage. The first four are given equal weighting, the fifth a lower one, since not all working women have children. New Zealand scores high on all the indicators. Finland does best on education; Sweden has the highest female labour-force participation rate, at 78%; and Spain has the smallest wage gap, at 6%. The places not to be are South Korea and Japan, partly because so few women hold down senior jobs (though the new president of South Korea is a woman).
Macklemore (left) and Ryan Lewis in video for “Thrift Shop.”
Much of the nation was introduced to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis this past weekend, thanks to their appearance on Saturday Night Live, a major accomplishment and promotional tool for any musical artist. Considering the indie-rap duo’s already growing popularity with their chart-topper and multi-platinum seller, “Thrift Shop,” it is important to examine the impact of their success.
Macklemore has already been touted by several media outlets as the progressive voice on gay rights in hip-hop since the release of “Same Love,” his second single to chart on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The song, which peaked at No. 89 last week, tries to tackle the topic of gay marriage and homophobia in media and US culture, focusing specifically on hip-hop with lyrics such as, “if I was gay, I would think hip-hop hates me.”
Though Macklemore is not gay, “Same Love” has gotten many accolades from fellow straight supporters, as well as members of the gay community. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis performed it on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where DeGeneres introduced them by saying, “Here’s why you need to care about our next guest. No other artists in hip-hop history have ever taken a stand defending marriage equality the way they have.”
But, how can this be the case when there is already an entire genre, Homo Hop, comprised solely of queer hip-hop artists? Whether it is intentional or not, Macklemore has become the voice of a community to which he doesn’t belong in a genre that already has a queer presence waiting to be heard by mainstream audiences.
Mary Lambert performs “Same Love” on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”
We should also examine the song’s hook, performed by lesbian singer-songwriter Mary Lambert. Lambert first gained notoriety as a spoken-word artist, and it is important to remember that spoken word, like hip-hop, is rooted in Black culture. They are both a response to white supremacy.
However, Lambert, like Macklemore and Lewis, is a white artist. This begs the question: what does it mean to have three white people–two of whom are straight–be the beacon of gay rights in hip-hop?
In “Same Love,” Macklemore does not address these concerns. Instead, he raps about hip-hop as if it were his. The song lyrics even take it a step further by conflating Black civil rights and gay rights, which are both about identities he does not possess and oppressions he does not experience:
A culture founded from oppression
Yet we don’t have acceptance for ‘em
Call each other f*ggots behind the keys of a message board
A word rooted in hate, yet our genre still ignores it
Gay is synonymous with the lesser
It’s the same hate that’s caused wars from religion
Gender to skin color, the complexion of your pigment
The same fight that led people to walk outs and sit ins
It’s human rights for everybody, there is no difference
Nov. 2, 2008 protest against Prop. 8 in California. Image by John Hyun via Flickr Creative Commons.
Macklemore speaks of hip-hop as if his whiteness is irrelevant when criticizing the genre as a whole for being homophobic. These lyrics are very reminiscent of much of the shaming of people of color that occurred in 2008 after the passing of Prop 8 in California, where Black people and Latin@s were accused of being responsible for the anti-gay legislation passing while seemingly ignoring the millions of dollars raised by white Christians to ban marriage equality. Though Macklemore may not be blaming Black people for homophobia, by focusing on homophobia in Black community spaces as opposed to the pervasiveness of homophobia everywhere, white people get to remove themselves from the problem.
On top of this, the same argument that suggests that Black people should be more understanding of homophobia because of their own oppression is used both in the lyrics of “Same Love” and in many racist pro-marriage equality campaigns. This line of argument suggests that homophobia perpetrated by people of color is somehow worse because they should have known better as people who are also oppressed. Furthermore, when white people are homophobic, it is less condemnable because they don’t know what it is like.
Along with not acknowledging his white privilege in “Same Love,” Macklemore uses the homophobic slur “f*ggot” in the second verse seemingly without any consideration of his straight privilege. Though he is condemning the use of the slur, there are ways he could have held this conversation without inciting the word itself, since many folks within the queer community feel hurt by straight people using that word in any context. And in the third verse he raps, “and a certificate on paper isn’t gonna solve it all, but it’s a damn good place to start.” For many queer people of color who have not seen themselves represented in the marriage equality campaign, it can be very hurtful to have a straight person–let alone a white one in a musical genre that was created to address white supremacy–tell them where the best place to start is.
In a November 2012 interview with Chris Talbott of The Associated Press, Macklemore expresses his fear over touring in states like Idaho, Montana, and Texas as a pro-gay artist. Macklemore was afraid that there would be backlash from the heartland, however, was pleasantly surprised when the rap duo was met with open arms. “Those were three places where people probably sang the loudest,” Macklemore said.
Macklemore’s fear of traveling these states demeans the reality that there are queer people there to begin with, who are already living in communities that are theirs. He also fails to acknowledge that he is straight and, therefore, experiences the privilege of not being gay-bashed.
This line of thinking appears to have informed the song “Same Love” from the start. The single supports the idea or, at least, implies that people of color–particularly Black folks who created hip hop–are more homophobic than white people and that there are no queer people who feel supported in these communities. This is very dismissive of queer people of color who consider communities of color their primary communities, who have experienced racism by queer communities, and for queer hip-hop artists of color who have found a home in the undervalued sub-genre of homo hop.
However, Macklemore distances himself from his privileges. Continuing to focus on hip-hop, he talked about misogyny and homophobia in hip-hop culture with Kurt Andersen of Studio 360:
Those are the two acceptable means of oppression in hip hop culture, Its 2012. There needs to be some accountability. I think that as a society we’re evolving and I think that hip hop has always been a representation of what’s going on in the world right now.
By making statements such as these, Macklemore not only gets to remove himself from straight and male privilege–both of which he benefits–but he also gets to be the white savior of hip-hop. Macklemore pleads for hip-hop to be more accepting of non-queer women and queer people, but he does not promote the work of non-queer women and queer hip-hop artists of color. In fact, he does not even include a queer person of color in the song “Same Love,” but instead chose Lambert, a white person whose success was also found in a Black art form.
Macklemore acknowledged the complications of being a white artist in hip-hop earlier in his career, in the song “White Privilege”:
[W]hite rappers albums really get the most spins
The face of hip hop has changed a lot since Eminem
And if he’s taking away black artists’ profits I look just like him
Claimed a culture that wasn’t mine, the way of the American
Hip Hop is gentrified and where will all the people live
Despite knowing that white artists get more recognition due to racism, Macklemore has not taken any steps to minimize this reality. He has not been accountable to homo-hop artists of color, who not only are impacted by homophobia in society as a whole, but also go unsupported because of homophobia and racism that favors white straight men like Macklemore. Macklemore has not corrected the misinformation that he is the most pro-gay voice in hip hop, when what could be more pro-gay than a gay artist within the genre? And none of the artists featured on “Same Love” have been openly accountable to the fact that they are profiting in a genre that does not belong to them at the expense of queer artists of color.
Lambert’s website calls the song “revolutionary.” But, is it really revolutionary to take up space in a genre that exists in response to a system of oppression you benefit from? Is it revolutionary for Macklemore, as a white straight man, to assume that gay people–including gay people of color who may find strength in hip hop in the face of racism–must feel that the genre hates them as is stated in the first line of the second verse in “Same Love”?
And, is it revolutionary for white people to get mainstream recognition for talking about homophobia in hip-hop, when queer hip-hop artists of color are routinely ignored? The fact of the matter is the success of “Same Love” is largely due at least in part to white audiences being more receptive to white straight men talking about oppression than oppressed people, as well as the comfort of being able to remove themselves from misogyny and homophobia because the oppression at hand is the fault of Black people in hip-hop. What could be more revolutionary than that? How about listening to queer people of color?
South Korean artist Wang Zi Won
