Russian Sledges

The nasty weather this morning may have Boston resembling the rainy planet of Kamino from Attack of the Clones, but a better forecast is in store for the weekend, when Artbeat 2014 takes over Davis Square in Somerville. We’re looking at temperatures in the low-80s, with clear skies on Friday and some clouds come Saturday. […]

The post Davis Square’s Theater: Check out the full schedule for this weekend’s ArtBeat 2014 appeared first on Vanyaland.

On Monday, the woman who accused Conor Obert of raping her more than a decade ago in North Carolina issued a public apology, saying she made up the entire story. Now, the Bright Eyes singer has responded with a statement of his own, accepting the apology of Joanie Faircloth, whose real name is Joan Elizabeth […]

The post Bright Lies: Conor Oberst issues statement, accepts rape accuser’s apology appeared first on Vanyaland.

adokal:

jeannepompadour:

Illustrations of 16th century Ottoman costume by Jost Amman and Abraham de Bruyn, 1577

                          -Ottoman Sultan on horseback.

-Ottoman Sultan Selim II.                    -Persian official in Istanbul.

-Ottoman Sultan.                                -Persian governor.

-Persian nobleman in Istanbul.           -The captain of the Janissaries.

[Photo: Facebook]

The renowned Tales of the Cocktail festival kicks off tomorrow in New Orleans, and backbar will be representing Boston at this year's Bar Fight Club event, taking place as part of the festival on Friday. The backbar team will be up against Trick Dog (San Francisco), Harvard & Stone (Los Angeles), Herbs and Rye (Las Vegas), Williams & Graham (Denver), and The NoMad (New York). The only rule is that the competitors make use of spirits from The 86 Company as well as Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal.

Boston's no stranger to the competition: Drink made a splash in 2010, Eastern Standard won in 2011, and Citizen Public House got the popular vote in 2013.
· Bar Fight Club [Official Site]
· All coverage of backbar on Eater [~EBOS~]

"A group of about 10 people launched a scrum shortly before 2 a.m." at Peach Farm in Chinatown this weekend, reports UniversalHub. The fight "left food all over the floor and part of a wall tumbled onto the ground." [UHub]

"No line, no amazing," Yume Wo Katare owner Tsuyoshi Nishioka tells WBUR in a profile of the tiny ramen shop in Porter Square. The "novel but highly regimented ramen experience" often starts with a long line, and once you get inside, it's all about fulfilling your dreams — using a giant bowl of ramen as a metaphor. Those who finish get shouts of encouragement. [WBUR]
[Photo: Japanese-American in Boston]

[Photo: Jay Larson and Sean Patton on "Best Bars in America"/Provided]

Tonight on Esquire Network, Best Bars in America takes a trip to Boston with stops at Highland Kitchen, Trina's Starlite Lounge, Brick & Mortar, and more. Get a sneak peek of the episode with this clip of hosts Jay Larson and Sean Patton at Drink, trying cocktails before ending up in the kitchen playing dice with then-general manager John Gertsen, Brother Cleve, and others. (A press release sent out today by the Barbara Lynch Gruppo indicates that Gertsen has been promoted to Spirits & Hospitality Ambassador of the whole Gruppo, and Drink bar manager Ezra Star is moving up to Drink general manager.)

Catch the episode tonight at 10 p.m., and check out co-host (and Stoneham native) Jay Larson discussing his Boston food memories and more in this installment of Eater Boston's Comedian Confidential column.

· Best Bars in America [Official Site]
· All Food TV coverage on Eater [~EBOS~]

What’s most exciting about watching Kantor and Connelly work is that they both find songs that are appropriate for what’s going on in the game or what’s going on in the city. Recent examples include Connelly playing Chicago’s “25 or 6 to 4” when the Sox bring in a run to make the score 6-4; Kantor playing Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” when a relief pitcher with the number 0 on his back is called to the mound; Connelly playing DMX’s “X Gonna Give It to Ya” when Xander Bogaerts hits a home run and to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of gay marriage being legal in Massachusetts, Kantor playing David Bowie’s “Modern Love.”

[Photo: Hillary Dixler/Eater.com, cjmartin/Flickr]

It looks like the City Council of Irwindale, California used bad science to create its case against Huy Fong Foods, the manufacturer of Sriracha. Last year, the city took Huy Fong Foods to court after residents complained that the plant's production of its signature hot sauce caused unpleasant odors. It also labeled the factory a public nuisance and temporarily shut down the plant. According to internal documents obtained by MuckRock through the Freedom of Information Act, the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) — the agency responsible for regulating air pollution — bungled their investigation. Their experiment to test the safety of Huy Fong Foods' pepper grinding process was deficient, though it ultimately was not the reason the city council decided to drop the case.

Vice points out that instead of conducting their experiment in a factory setting, the SCAQMD carried out their tests in a kitchenette. The group also performed the experiment when it wasn't pepper grinding season at Huy Fong. To make Sriracha, the factory uses over 100 million pounds of red jalapeños each year, but the investigators only used three pounds of green jalapeños in their test.

According to the documents, the SCAQMD also failed to use the factory's process for grinding the peppers: They used a manual grinder "to simulate the grinding process" and food processor "to simulate the grinding and mixing processes." Without acknowledging that using home appliances to grind peppers is incomparable to grinding peppers in a factory, they then measured the results and found that there was a "substantial increase" in the number of particles in the air during the hot sauce making process. Essentially the city council went off of results from a incredibly small-scale experiment that failed to account for variability.

Add the fact that most of the complaints against the Sriracha factory came from just four households makes it difficult to understand why the city council waged such an intense battle against the hot sauce maker. All is well now though: the city dropped the lawsuit and public nuisance declaration in May and there's a(n unrelated) Sriracha-themed EDM festival coming up in August.

· Srirachagate Revisted, Pt. 1 [MuckRock]
· The Jalapeño Grinding Experiment [Vice]
· All Sriracha Coverage on Eater [-E-]

Massachusetts liquor stores would be able to open their doors two hours earlier on Sundays under a bill approved by state lawmakers.

The Senate on Tuesday passed on a voice vote a bill to allow the retail sale of alcoholic beverages at 10 a.m. on Sundays.

Currently retain liquor sales are banned until noon.

The House has already approved the bill, which needs final approval in both chambers before heading to Gov. Deval Patrick’s desk for his signature.

The bill is the latest effort by lawmakers to chip away at Massachusetts so-called “blue laws” some of which dated back to the Puritan leaders of the original Massachusetts Bay Colony.

A total ban on Sunday sales of alcohol at liquor stores had remained in place for two centuries in Massachusetts until it was lifted in 2003.

Stories started surfacing last year about increased cases of marijuana poisoning in dogs and the problem is apparently getting worse. [ more › ]

An article in Vice by Amelia Tait today helps explain the existence of AmIUgly, a subreddit designed to help Redditors determine, well, if they're ugly. Tait spoke with a bunch of users and highlights some of the surprisingly positive sentiments surrounding the site, which some people with body dysmorphic disorder apparently find useful. It still seems odd at first glance, though, that so many people would volunteer for such scrutiny at the hands of potentially cruel internet strangers.

Brian Southwell, a UNC professor who studies this sort of thing, said in an email that this partially has to do with an underestimated benefit of online anonymity. "In the early days of the internet, people worried about the negative, inflammatory language that seemed to accompany the provision of anonymity to the masses," he wrote. "On the flip side, though, anonymity also now provides the possibility of objectivity — or at least the appearance of impartiality — that face-to-face interactions don’t."

He continued:

Think about it this way: If you ask a co-worker to judge your appearance, are you likely to get a completely honest answer? Alternatively, if you turn to an anonymous forum then you might just get positive feedback that you will really believe and trust. If it doesn’t work out and you get negative feedback, then you don’t need to face those judges in everyday life.

So while it would be easy to imagine the horrors of people piling on to an AmIUgly submitter with increasingly hurtful insults, in another sense this is actually a more straightforward, lower-stakes way to get feedback about one's looks. And if that feedback turns out to be negative? "One could argue that confirming others’ perceptions of one’s appearance, harsh as it might be, could serve as a jump start for a personal improvement effort."

Finally, "we also need to keep in mind that people also are simply fascinated by what others’ think," wrote Southwell. "We don’t want to be alone in the universe; for social beings, any feedback is arguably more gratifying than complete silence and isolation. "

It's hard to not see this as probably the biggest driving factor here: We humans just can't resist finding out what others think about us, even when the truth hurts.

Read more posts by Jesse Singal

Filed Under: body dysmorphic disorder ,reddit ,tech ,psychology

Apple is in the process of hiring a new PR boss, and Barack Obama's former press secretary could be the one.

Two months ago Apple's communications leader, Katie Cotton, announced that she was leaving the company. Since then Apple has been searching for her replacement, and a Re/Code article out today suggests that Jay Carney, who recently stepped down as Obama's press secretary, is one of the people in the running for the job.

Carney is also in the running as Uber's head of PR, according to Swisher's report.

Before joining the Obama administration, Carney was Time's Washington bureau chief. He's reported for Time in Moscow (during the collapse of the U.S.S.R.) and worked as a reporter at The Miami Herald. 

Join the conversation about this story »

Projectionists and lab folk have long loved the ladies (and occasional gentlemen) who appear in most films, but are seldom seen onscreen.  Even when they are, they are only there for a split second, as usually they are printed in 4 frames (24 frames per second).

Leader Ladies (more widely known as China Girls), have been used since at least the 1920s in color or density test frames made by labs to assure standardization of print quality.  In the image above, you’ll see the greyscale at the bottom of the frame.  Lab QC uses the greyscale to check the quality of their prints.

Most films used a standardized leader lady, Kodak’s LAD, but as you can see from our pictures and from others posted, there is quite a variety out there.

When I was a projectionist (ca. 1993-2003), my fellow projectionists and I collected these ladies, sometimes only one frame, from 35mm prints we showed.  We planned to make a film of them, but never quite got it together.  (We had never, by the way, heard the term China Girl, and when we did, assumed it was some Asian-lady fetishistic thing, which didn’t really add up considering the few Asian faces in these test frames.)

Back in 2005, the HFA’s former Film Conservators, Julie Buck and Karin Segal, made GIRLS ON FILM, an experimental film utilizing these lovely leader ladies.

You have perhaps seen them in the end credits (skip ahead to 2:25) of Tarentino’s brilliant GRINDHOUSE (leave it to Tarentino to put these faces on the BIG screen!).  After this film came out, we got a phone call from someone in the UK whose mother’s face appeared.  He was pretty thrilled!  There’s also a French film collage online, also using Chick Habit as the soundtrack!

Leader Ladies are all the rage these days among archivists.  Our friends at Northwest Chicago Film Society have been doing the best work with these gals, but others have delved into their world.

My favorites were always these weird 90s ones that look like Thunderbirds mannequins.

We are posting pix of Leader Ladies when we find good ones.  Keep your eyes on our flickr album!

 

 

 

 

@Fernsebner it'll live on as rehearsal space wall art (and we'll cross people off if they ever cross us)

A stunning recreation of arguably the most iconic coat in modern television folklore. The coat has been painstakingly recreated from the same patterns, stitch for stitch, fibre for fibre using original coats disassembled and forensically analysed with meticulous precision and unprecedented access to the original costume pieces. The only departure from the original off-the-shelf coat is that the collar has been specially stiffened at the request of the costume department to enable it to be worn up with ease. The older coats were modified by the costume department using flat corset boning to enable the collar to stand up. For the new coats, a specially made linen buckram stiffened collar was specified and incorporated into the final design. All details have been replicated with no expense spared: The same 100% wool tweed fabric used on the original coats was sourced directly from the UK supplier The embroidered acetate lining was custom recreated to the exact specifications as the original The buttons were custom machined out of colour matched buffalo horn using a 3D laser scan of the original buttons, then painted The same sizing - small through to x-large - has been replicated The buttonholes have been hand braided in red thread as in the original

Vantablack is a material that reflects only 0.04 percent of the light sent its way, sufficiently dark as to be beyond human perception: any folds or other contours that may be present will remain completely invisible under normal lighting. Read the rest

5.50 USD

Cotorienne Sheeeep by Anyan for Yuwa

100% cotton

Lightweight double gauze

1/2 metre (50cm x 110cm , 19" x 43")

If you would like continuous yardage please change the quantity at the checkout.

Parcels are shipped via small packet international airmail from Japan.

Japan Post does not provide tracking numbers for small packet airmail.

A shipping upgrade with a tracking number and insurance can be purchased
for an additional $5. If you would like to upgrade to registered small packet airmail
please let me know.

Thank you.

All images © Miss Matatabi

Cor Jaring, Environmentalist protest, Amsterdam, ca. 1965-69

[Photos: whoisstan/Flickr, Consumerist]

A Florida woman has set a new record for ordering the most expensive free drink possible at a Starbucks. She did not actually have to pay for the drink thanks to free drink coupon from her participation in the Starbucks' loyalty program. According to Consumerist, the woman's Frappuccino featured 60 shots of espresso, along with caramel-, white mocha-, and hazelnut syrups. The receipt also lists matcha powered and drizzles of vanilla and hazelnut syrups amongst other ingredients. The frozen concoction totaled out at $60.58, but scanning her loyalty card brought it down to $57.75.

There was a lot of planning that went into her order: She obtained permission from the Starbucks' location and brought along a large jug for the barista to use in lieu of a cup. She also alerted media outlets ahead of time and brought along a "support team." Thanks to all of her preparation she was able to edge out the previous record holder, who ordered a drink that cost $54.75.

It's surprising that the Starbucks location in Pembroke Pines, Florida allowed the woman to order the over-the-top drink. Shortly after the previous record holder made headlines, the coffee chain "reemphasized" an existing policy that in which "blended beverages and espresso drinks should not be served in amounts larger than 24 ounces for iced drinks (hot drinks have a 20-ounce cutoff)." Technically, the largest size drink a Starbucks' employee can serve a customer is Venti-sized (24-ounce) regardless of the size of the customer's own cup.

· Sexagintuple Frap Breaks Starbucks Drink Record [Consumerist]
· All Starbucks Coverage on Eater [-E-]

5.50 USD

Mustang by Melody Miller for Cotton + Steel

100% quilting cotton

1/2 metre (50cm x 112cm, 19" x 44")

If you would like continuous yardage please change the quantity at the checkout.

Parcels are shipped via small packet international airmail from Japan.

Japan Post does not provide tracking numbers for small packet airmail.

A shipping upgrade with a tracking number and insurance can be purchased
for an additional $5. If you would like to upgrade to registered small packet airmail
please let me know.

Thank you.

http://www.cottonandsteelfabrics.com/#/about

5.50 USD

Cotorienne Sheeeep by Anyan for Yuwa

100% cotton

Lightweight double gauze

1/2 metre (50cm x 110cm , 19" x 43")

If you would like continuous yardage please change the quantity at the checkout.

Parcels are shipped via small packet international airmail from Japan.

Japan Post does not provide tracking numbers for small packet airmail.

A shipping upgrade with a tracking number and insurance can be purchased
for an additional $5. If you would like to upgrade to registered small packet airmail
please let me know.

Thank you.

All images © Miss Matatabi

9.00 USD

Scallop lace edge solid double gauze

100% cotton

Lightweight double gauze. The lace edge runs along one selvedge only.

1/2 metre (50cm x 110cm , 19" x 43")

If you would like continuous yardage please change the quantity at the checkout.

Parcels are shipped via small packet international airmail from Japan.

Japan Post does not provide tracking numbers for small packet airmail.

A shipping upgrade with a tracking number and insurance can be purchased
for an additional $5. If you would like to upgrade to registered small packet airmail
please let me know.

Thank you.

All images © Miss Matatabi

7.75 USD

Fuccra : rakuen

2013 nani IRO basic new collection by Naomi Ito for Kokka

100% cotton double gauze

1/2 metre (50cm x 106cm , 19" x 41")

If you would like continuous yardage please change the quantity at the checkout.

Parcels are shipped via small packet international airmail from Japan.

Japan Post does not provide tracking numbers for small packet airmail.

A shipping upgrade with a tracking number and insurance can be purchased
for an additional $5. If you would like to upgrade to registered small packet airmail
please let me know.

Thank you very much.

All images © by Naomi Ito from ATELIER to nani IRO & KOKKA co.,ltd

Slavoj Žižek walks into a barber's and sits in a chair without an appointment. "Make my hair look TERRIBLE," he barks. "No eye contact."

(RNS) "Though Lord Ganesha merchandise is popular within the market we understand the sensitivities certain items may carry," the company said in a statement on Monday.

The post Update: Urban Outfitters pulls Lord Ganesh duvet cover after Hindus protest appeared first on Religion News Service.

7.00 USD

This small pot was standard on dressing tables in the US and Europe during Victorian times. Women would collect the hair from their brush and use it to craft keepsakes for their loved ones. They made intricate flowers or used it to stuff pincushions.

Times have changed. Cleaned up, the swirled celluloid top and amber glass are quite unique.

A few bubbles in the glass are visible in photos.

Skeletor Affirmations (by ghoulnextdoor)

TODAY I DO NOT LIVE IN FEAR OF MISSING OUT.
THERE IS NOTHING MORE EXCITING THAN WHAT I AM CURRENTLY DOING.

Before we begin this crash course in Guided By Voices— an attempt to initiate the newcomers and remind the buzzed stalwarts of all that has come before— we must first note that GBV albums are often comprised of many short, songs with surrealistic titles and lyrics, all of which add up to something whole, sturdy,... Read more »