Jon Stewart already made one special Late Show appearance earlier this week, but given yesterday’s news that Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes is stepping down, it seemed only right that Stephen Colbert let Stewart come back to take over the Late Show desk. Focusing on Sean “Lumpy” Hannity, Stewart outlines out how hypocritical […]
You want to learn some fun facts about how to fight off sharks? Turn to Mary Roach.
Roach writes journalistic popular science books that take deep dives into single topics, all of them with evocative monosyllabic titles. Stiffwas about the history of corpses. Spookwas about the science of the afterlife.
Her latest book, Grunt, covers military science. It’s not about the science of weaponry — there are no guns or bombs here — but the science that goes into developing military uniforms and teaching soldiers how to survive in a submarine and putting genitalia back together.
It’s a treasure trove of weird, obscure military science trivia; every chapter has at least one line that will make you sit up and say, "Huh. Who knew?"
Below are some of the best facts from Roach’s book:
Military uniform designers have more decorative backgrounds than you might think
Specifically, Roach cites Annette LaFleur, the US Army’s top staff fashion designer, and her colleague Dalila Fernandez.
LaFleur started off designing swimwear, which means, as Roach points out, that she has "expertise with high-performance active-wear fabrics and an understanding of the specialized activity they’re needed for."
Fernandez, meanwhile, comes from the world of high-end wedding dresses. That one might seem like more of a stretch, but Roach makes a compelling case:
A wedding gown entails multilayering of expensive specialty fabrics for an outfit whose useful lifespan may come and go in a single afternoon. Much like a bomb suit.
But there is no good reason for the Army’s obsession with berets
The Army has a lot of knowledgeable experts working on designing uniforms, but now and then someone further up in the chain of command will pull rank.
That’s what happened with berets. Although field data showed that visored cloth caps would be the best headwear for the Army — they’re cool, light, easy to stuff in a pocket, and they shade your eyes — an Army chief of staff decided on black wool berets instead. Why? Well, Roach explains, "he dug the look."
The same thing happened with the Universal Camouflage Pattern the Army developed in 2005:
The idea had been to develop a single camo pattern that would provide concealment for troops in desert, urban, and woodsy settings. The Natick Camouflage Evaluation Facility came up with thirteen pattern and color combinations, duly sent overseas for field tests and feedback. Before the data was in and the study completed, a highly placed general went ahead and picked a pattern. It was not even one of the ones being tested. The new camouflage performed so poorly in Afghanistan that in 2009, the Army spent $3.4 million developing a new and safer pattern for troops deployed there.
Don’t even mention NASCAR to the people who make armored combat vehicles
A general made that mistake once with Nicole Brockhoff of the Army Research Laboratory. Her job is to protect people in fast-moving vehicles from crashes, and surely, the good general reasoned, the folks at NASCAR must know something about that.
But as Roach points out, "the bottom of a personnel carrier is traveling many, many times faster than a NASCAR race car." Plus, NASCAR drivers are strapped in and braced with their heads facing straight ahead to prevent damage to their spines. You can’t do that in military vehicles, because the drivers need to be able to scan the road in all directions. "General, with all due respect," Brockhoff said, and then trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.
You get the impression Brockhoff is pretty sure NASCAR is filled with wimps.
The Army got really into a plan to basically turn soldiers into cyborgs
The Army’s solution to every problem is to throw equipment at it, to the point that soldiers complain they have too much equipment. So the Army started figuring out what kind of equipment it needed to solve that problem.
Their favorite solution? A wearable hydraulic exoskeleton known as the Human Universal Load Carrier, or HULC. It attaches to your legs with braces, leaving you free to bound around while it carries your equipment for you.
But so far, no one’s come up with a solution for the problem that inevitably arises when you run around in leg braces for a few hours: shin splints. Plus, the thing’s battery life sucks: It’s good for "five hours, presuming you’re moving slowly (2.5 mph) and on a level terrain." So the army’s dream of turning its soldiers into super-strong cyborgs remains currently unworkable.
There was a secret plan to win World War II with stink bombs
The military devoted significant resources to developing a smell that it could "distribute among Chinese resistance elements for the purpose of humiliating Japanese officers." The result was called Who, Me?, and it is, Roach reports, bad but not that bad: "It’s sulfury, but not in a jokey-farty rotten egg way. It’s got a meaner, spikier disposition."
It failed to humiliate the Japanese, and although the military quickly formulated a Who Me? II — "with skunkiness substituted for fecal odor" — it was never used. By the time it was ready for the field, the bomb had already dropped on Hiroshima.
Sharks are not actually that interested in attacking shipwrecked humans
The Navy has looked into creating shark repellant (unsuccessfully), but not because sailors are often attacked by sharks (they’re not). It’s a morale thing. The Navy is concerned that those who would otherwise enlist are put off by the idea that they might get eaten by sharks.
Well, worry not, says Roach. Sharks will sometimes eat human corpses, but it’s rare they’ll go after something that’s alive and kicking:
A floating sailor could dispatch a curious shark by hitting it or churning the water with his legs. ([A statistical analyst who specializes in shark attacks, David] Baldridge observed that even a kick to a shark’s nose from the rear leg of a swimming rat was enough to cause a "startled response and rapid departure from the vicinity.")
Getting six hours of sleep a night for two weeks is just as bad as staying up for two days straight
Actually, it’s worse, according to the Submarine Force's Force Operational Notes Newsletter (Special Crew Rest Edition). When you don’t get enough sleep, your ability to function keeps going down until you’re basically drunk — and two weeks of six-hour sleep has the same effect as two days of no sleep. But, Roach points out, "unlike the up-all-nighters, routine six-hours-a-nighters see no need for caution. They’ve felt mildly exhausted for so long it’s become their normal."
This is obviously important information for submarine crews, who routinely handle heavy machinery and weaponry in an environment where disrupted sleep is the norm.
But let it be a lesson to us all, particularly those of us who are used to cheerfully getting by on six hours of sleep a night and then wonder why we always feel a little bit drunk.
Netflix’s comedy slash drama slash animated existential crisis is proudly weird, deeply funny, and surprisingly harrowing, all at once. While its first season initially sold the show as yet another caustic take of Hollywood’s more narcissistic corners, the series slowly became much more complex than that, as well as far more human — which is hilarious, since the show stars a misanthropic horse, enthusiastic labrador, and jaded cat.
The flawed but sharp first season gave way to a brilliant second, sneakily exploring the depths of BoJack and company’s unhappiness underneath layers of absurd jokes. And BoJack Horseman’s third season — which Netflix released in its entirety on Friday, July 22 — is more ambitious than ever. Now that the show knows it doesn’t need to win over its audience, season three dives right into the mess, to stunning and sometimes horrifying effect.
I recently had the chance to dissect that third season with series creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg. We talked about how the writers dealt with the fallout from season two’s crucial episode "Escape from LA," season three’s gorgeous episode that takes place almost entirely underwater, and why it’s so important to this show that its characters keep changing. Spoilers, needless to say, follow.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Caroline Framke
I just finished the season last night.
Raphael Bob-Waksberg
Exciting! What did you think?
Caroline Framke
Ow. Just ... ow.
Raphael Bob-Waksberg
[laughs]Sorry.
Caroline Framke
I mean, look, it's something I come to expect at this point. I feel like I was watching the season going, "All right, where's the ‘Escape from LA’ episode ..."
Raphael Bob-Waksberg
I think if you don’t know what you’re getting out of the show at this point, that’s more your fault than our fault. [laughs] We really told you over and over what kind of show this is. We shouldn’t be surprising you anymore — though hopefully, we still are.
Caroline Framke
When you sat down to write the third season, was there anything you knew for sure that you wanted or needed to cover?
Raphael Bob-Waksberg
We wanted to show at the beginning of the season that Bojack was shell-shocked from that "Escape From LA" experience a little bit. He’s carrying this guilt with him, and though it kind of goes away for a good chunk of the [third] season, it’s always still there, lingering under the surface, and rears its head again by the end.
We knew we were going to do something with this Ana Spanakopita character [BoJack’s new publicist, voiced by Angela Bassett]. We knew were going to have this Oscar campaign run, and that was going to give us our initial framework for the season. We knew we had set up this idea of Jill Pill and BoJack’s other TV show, so that had to pay off in some way.
Somebody had this idea of having this loose flashback structure of the season of exploring 2007 and Bojack's last attempt at a comeback and showing what he was afraid of happening with this comeback. We also had the idea of sneakily looping that story around so it looped up with Sarah Lynn, which felt like a good surprise way to end it. That's ultimately what we were building toward with that story in 2007.
There were a few other things that we wanted to hit along the way like, "What would be a fun episode?" We had this idea of this underwater episode that we really wanted to do. We thought Diane should get an abortion at some point. That's kind of where we started from and then we built it up from there.
On how knowing people marathon shows on Netflix affects BoJack’s storytelling
Netflix
BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob Waksberg (second from left) attends a screening with the show's cast. (Please note Paul F. Tompkins's Mr. Peanutbutter suit.)
Raphael Bob-Waksberg
I’ve said before that one of the great discoveries in season one was this realization that the audience is going to watch the show in order, and we can really use that to our advantage. Even the idea that they're going to watch it quickly and they're going to binge watch it on schedule and in order is a tremendous thing as a storyteller to bet on.
I think you couldn't do this 10 years ago. Even now on network and cable they're more serialized than they used to be, but they still have to have some amount of enter-ability for every episode. Netflix shows don't have to do that at all if they don't want to.
We like to have a little bit of episodic-ness to our show and make every episode feel like it has a beginning, middle, and an end of itself. It's not just a Boardwalk Empire style chapter in a longer saga.
We get so much mileage out of knowing that people know our characters by this point. We don't have to spell everything out. From that we can grow, and we can change the dynamics, and people will appreciate what we're doing. No one is coming into any given episode blind. It's an amazing thing to have in our arsenal.
On treating 2007 flashbacks with the same kind of detail as any other period piece
Netflix
2007 BoJack and Princess Carolyn get acquainted
Caroline Framke
I was so excited when I realized that this season was going to be treating 2007 in the period piece way that we've been treating the '90s.
Raphael Bob-Waksberg
I felt good about it. When we were writing it, we were, like, "Are we the first people to do this? Are we pioneers? Are we nostalgizing the 2000s?" There's definitely a tongue-in-cheek attitude.
We talked about The Wedding Singer a lot, too, [because it] came out in '98. The '80s weren't that long before. They go so over the top in such funny ways. That was a touchstone a little bit, [wanting to] do The Wedding Singer of 2007.
I've always been enamored of the idea of being prematurely nostalgic. It's very funny to me. This idea of treating the past like, "Whoa, it's the past!" We did a lot of jokes like that [in season two] with Wanda going to the '50s diner, or in the first season of BoJack saying he hated all the '50s jokes in Back to the Future, and then he asks for a new Coke.
It's a very BoJack thing of dismissing or critiquing a kind of humor and then indulging in it all in the same breath. It's so hypocritical. I hate when other shows do that. I will be the first to pitch those jokes.
Ah, 2007. What a time to be alive. A time of innocence. We were so young then.
Caroline Framke
I had so many flashbacks to my Hot Topic accessories and green iPod mini.
Raphael Bob-Waksberg
Yeah! We had a lot of fun being like, "What was in the news? What was the fashion? Who were the celebrities at the time? What were people talking about?"
Caroline Framke
I was surprised by how the flashbacks almost ended up being more about Princess Carolyn by the end.
Raphael Bob-Waksberg
The big 2007 episode — episode two — we really broke out of the Princess Carolyn story. ... Primarily, we were tracking the story of Princess Carolyn and where she was in her life, and her professional goals, but also her love life.
Then when it comes back several episodes later, again, it's about Princess Carolyn and BoJack. A big part of this season is about her relationship with BoJack. It's something that we kind of see the tail end of in the first episode of the show, where she breaks up with him, and we hint that they've had this long on-again, off-again relationship.
But it felt like there's a lot there to delve into that we hadn't really discussed. What does that mean to give yourself to this guy for seven years that you kind of know is wasting your time? Why would a person subject herself to that if she knows that she ultimately wants to start a family some day? What exactly is she prioritizing?
Caroline Framke
That's the kind of thing you can explore in a third season when you have the time to do it.
Raphael Bob-Waksberg
It's amazing. As well as we know our characters, we're always finding new things to discover about them, which is really fun.
Someone came up with the idea to go to the Labrador Peninsula this year, which was like, "Oh, yeah, we don't know much about Mr. Peanutbutter's family, either." We explored his very happy-go-lucky upbringing in this perfect beautiful peninsula of Labrador, which I'm sure is much more pleasant than what the actual Labrador Peninsula is, because it's up in northern Canada, and I imagine it's very cold.
On making an episode that takes place entirely underwater
Netflix
BoJack and a lost baby seahorse try to find their way home. Underwater shenanigans ensue!
Caroline Framke
I don't often miss writing episodic recaps [which I previously did for BoJack Horseman at The A.V. Club], but when I watched "Fish Out of Water" ...
Raphael Bob-Waksberg
There's a lot there to talk about!
That was a very different experience, as far as making the episode goes, from anything we've ever done. It kind of came from two places at once. One was I had this idea of always looking for new challenges in format and different ways to tell story. The idea of doing an episode with no dialogue that really focused on the visual comedy and the visual beauty of our show really appealed to me.
To strip away all the conversation was the original idea. Meanwhile, we've hinted in the past that there are people who live underwater, and Mike Hollingsworth — our supervising director — has always wanted to do an underwater episode.
So at the beginning of this season, we had two challenges. One was saying, "all right, we want to do an underwater episode but how we would do that with our characters? How would they communicate with each other? How would they breathe?"
Then on the other hand we're thinking, "Okay, we want to do an episode without dialogue, but how can we justify that in a way that's not weird? That it's not this weird Charlie Chaplin-esque thing of people walking around and not talking to each other?"
One night, I woke up in the middle of the night and was, like, "Eureka! These two questions answer each other!"
Netflix was nervous about it, because it's so different from anything that we've done before. Every season, there's like one or two episodes that we get some push back on Netflix from. God bless them, they always let us do it. But there's always one or two where they're, like, "Are you sure?" Or, "Do you have to?" [So we say], "Yeah, man, we have to," and they go, "Okay, we think you know what you’re doing!" Then they ended up being so supportive of it, and they really came around on it. They love it now.
[But] I didn't know quite how to pitch it, because it's a very different thing. I had no idea how to write it. Jordan Young and Elijah Aron, thankfully, are brilliant, and they took this idea and they ran with it.
Netflix
BoJack gets packed in with the sardines on an underwater bus
They wrote a whole script with no dialogue, and it reads like a real script, except nobody's talking the whole time. It's all this description and direction, and it's really an incredible document.
Normally, what we do with an episode is we record all the voices first and we do a radio play. You have the full episode, just the dialogue. That's how we know that it's the right length because we can hear it. You don't want to animate more than you have to.
With this, there was no dialogue track to go to, so you're looking at the document going, "Is this a full half-hour of television or is this going to be like 10 minutes, or 50 minutes?"
Mike took the script and acted it out himself to imagine how long each beat would take ... There's a whole sequence that we took out completely, and you don't miss it. I'm glad we did, because it would have been burnt time and burnt energy.
We couldn't use our normal people and lemur extras. We had to create all new fish people. We had our team working overtime creating all these different backgrounds.
Then there were conversations, too, about how we show that it's underwater. We came up with bubbles, and there's a slight bluish tint that we played around with. Like, "Oh, no, this is too blue green. This kind of washes everything out." Or, "This feels too bright. It doesn't feel like we're underwater." It's kind of like we were making a new pilot, basically.
There was a lot of conversation about the rules, too. Do they walk around on the ground like Spongebob Squarepants, or are they swimming around like in The Little Mermaid? We watched the Futurama underwater episode to see what they did, to make sure we weren't doing too many of the same jokes.
I'm proud of it, as you can tell. I'm talking a lot about it. I think it's such a cool thing. I'm really glad we were able to do it, and that we did such good work on it.
On wanting Diane to get an abortion — and not have it be a Big Deal
Netflix
Mr. Peanutbutter, supporting Diane’s choices
Caroline Framke
WhatI like about that episode ("Brrap Brrap Pew Pew") is that it isn’t about whether or not Diane’s going to get the abortion.
Raphael Bob-Waksberg
Right. That was another really challenging episode for us. There were a lot of things that I knew I didn't want to do.
One of the things from the beginning was that I didn’t want this to feel like it's an Issue episode, especially because we had our big "Hank After Dark" episode last year [in which Diane goes after a star who’s allegedly a serial sexual abuser, which drew comparisons to Bill Cosby]. I didn’t want this to feel like we're trying to do that again.
That's why we had this really strong, unrelated, wacky Jerj Clooners B-story that has nothing to do with anything. I wanted it to structurally feel different, and I didn't want it to come in the same place in the season. I didn't want it to feel like, "Diane and her women issues, go!"
I wanted to tell a story about an abortion that wasn't about the scandal of getting an abortion, or about a women not knowing if she should or not. Diane knows that she doesn't want to have a baby. She's going to get an abortion, and that it’s the reasonable, legal thing for her to do. We don't have to spend a lot of time justifying that.
On the other side of that is that I didn’t want any of my other main characters to give her grief about it. If Mr. Peanutbutter’s like, "But what about the baby's soul?" Then I'm like, "Oh my God. What are we doing?!"
I didn't want the abortion to be a cause of tension in their marriage. That felt cheap to me as well. Part of the idea was, "Can we use the abortion to bring them closer together in a way?"
So then, what are you left with? There were certain parts were someone was like, "Why are we doing an abortion story if we can't touch any of these things?" And I was like, "Look, the whole point is that she gets an abortion, and it's not a big deal."
But having things not be a big deal is not good television writing. That's not the way you create a compelling episode of television, for something to not be a big deal.
I think Obvious Childwas definitely a touchstone point where they did it right. It was this romantic comedy, but it wasn't about her getting an abortion. That's not where the drama came from necessarily. I also didn't want to do a Citizen Ruth — as much as I love Citizen Ruth — where we're lampooning both sides, where everybody is crazy.
God bless [writer] Joanna Calo, who took all that and came up with this really fun, funny, interesting, compelling episode of television, given all the things I knew we didn't want to do.
On BoJack’s complicated, dark, twisted relationship with Sarah Lynn (and vice versa)
Netflix
Things tend to get blurry and bleak whenever BoJack and Sarah Lynn get together
Caroline Framke
Every season, BoJack keeps finding these funhouse mirrors in women he becomes obsessed with. There's Diane, Charlotte, Wanda, and then there's the surprising twist this season that he and Ana Spanikopita also find a connection in that way. Sarah Lynn, to me, feels like the darkest version of that.
So the 11th episode with her and BoJack partying until she finally overdoses and dies ("That’s Too Much, Man!") is fittingly the darkest version of the BoJack bender episode that we've seen.
Raphael Bob-Waksberg
I think we've always known that Sarah Lynn was heading towards trouble. In her very first episode, her kiss-off to Bojack is like, "There's no hope for me! I'm going to surround myself with enablers until I die tragically young!" We never tried to hide the ball on that. Throughout almost every appearance she's had, there's been some foreshadowing that this is not going to end well.
It felt like we could subvert that and do something more surprising with her, but it also felt like we've been teeing up this ball for a while, so we should pull the trigger (on that mixed metaphor). Early on, we thought, "This is the time to do it. This is where we're going with this season."
Ultimately, if the show is a story of Bojack's redemption — and I'm not sure it is — I feel like before he starts his climb back up, he needs to hit rock bottom. A lot of people felt like the end of season two was his rock bottom, but I felt like, "No, he could fall more."
Caroline Framke
There’s always further to fall!
Raphael Bob-Waksberg
Always. As far as the structure of the show goes, in season one and in season two, BoJack burns these bridges with guest characters like Herb and then Charlotte. A big part of the show this season as far as watching BoJack's fall was that he's got to really tear up these relationships he has with the characters we know and love, including Todd and Princess Carolyn. And ultimately, he has to destroy Sarah Lynn, because that's the darkness that we were building toward all season.
[Sarah Lynn’s death] is pretty clearly telegraphed, but my hope is you watch that episode and go, "Oh, God. Oh, no. They're not doing this, are they?" We're not trying to surprise you with it, necessarily, although I'm sure some people will be surprised. It’s [more] playing with the idea that you know what's coming, and you don't want it to.
That felt like an interesting note to play for her, this idea that’s it's not a big shock. The whole episode is setting that up, and even three episodes earlier where she goes, "I’m clean and sober!" I think savvy TV-watchers are going to go, "Okay ... "
Caroline Framke
"Not for long!"
Raphael Bob-Waksberg
No one gets out that easy on a TV show and is just clean and sober for the rest of the show. That's never a good sign.
The thing that we've come to many times in these three seasons is this idea that BoJack can't help himself, that he’s bad for the people around him, or at least he believes that about himself. And there’s something interesting about particularly the young women in his life, with the kind of parallel between Penny and Sarah Lynn, and then in the last episode to introduce this other young girl. He can see the cycle beginning again. To set that up is all really interesting to us.
Caroline Framke
Well, Sarah Lynn’s death did make sense to me, but I was especially sad because Kristen Schaal [who voices Sarah Lynn] is so good.
Raphael Bob-Waksberg
That's the saddest thing, is that we lost her. Sarah Lynn’s a great character, and we really enjoyed writing for her. There were a lot of times where we were like, "Are we sure we want to do this?"
We ultimately said we've been pushing this back for three seasons now. I think there was a version of the first season where she died. Then we thought about doing it in season two.
I'm really glad we at least got to give Kristen Schaal this amazing episode to go out on that's so Sarah Lynn focused. It's basically a two hander between BoJack and Sarah Lynn doing really funny things.
Also, fortunately, this is a show that employs flashbacks a lot ... That's not the last we’ll see of Kristen Schaal and Sarah Lynn, I would imagine.
On how BoJack Horseman is a show about feeling the weight of consequences
Netflix
A gorgeous shot says more than this caption could
Caroline Framke
Sarah Lynn’s death is a good example of how your show really believes in consequences. She and BoJack go on this crazy bender, and I'm watching her tear her house apart for drugs like, "He's a horse! He can probably handle more than she can ... probably."
Raphael Bob-Waksberg
[laughs] Yes, that's right. He can and does.
Caroline Framke
And then there’s the episode’s blackout structure — cutting to black and popping back in a new place as BoJack comes to — that shows how not even BoJack could handle how many drugs they were doing. So the fact that then the bender did result in this awful consequence made sense to me.
Raphael Bob-Waksberg
That is absolutely what this show is about. It's about consequences, and it's about actions having an effect on others and the world around you, and on yourself.
I remember very early on in the show having a meeting with Mike and Lisa [Hanawalt, BoJack's production designer] and the other designers and animators, and saying that this is not a status quo show. Err on the side of things staying the way they are at the end of the episode, as far as background details go. If BoJack has a big party and his house gets messed up, keep his house messed up for the next episode. Don't clean it up and start over. Even if we don't address it in the script, the default is that things stay damaged.
That kind of thinking has affected the way we tell stories, and is really a big part of what I think makes our show special. What excites me about working on the show is the idea that we are moving forward. We are building something forward. We are tearing things apart that we can never put back together, which feels very true and also scary as a writer.
Now, I work on every season not necessarily worrying about what's going to come next, but trying to tell as full a story as we can and a story that makes sense with our characters. I'm just starting to think about how we’re going to get BoJack and Todd in the same room again. I want to be very careful about the way we do that, and not just have things put back to normal. I don't know if we can.
You'll see when we have this conversation next year, you'll remind me and say, "You said things couldn't go back to normal, but then by episode three everything was back to normal" and I'll say, "TV writing is hard, man. Come on. What do you want me to do?"
Caroline Framke
I don't know if that'll be fair, because I'll know it'll all fall apart by episode 11.
Raphael Bob-Waksberg
I think there's some exciting new dynamics to play with based on the way this season ends. It felt like now's the time to really shake things up.
I can't pretend to know how long this show is going to last, but I feel like if we're into season four, we're past the beginning of the show at this point. The first three seasons are very of a piece, so it's time to start thinking about what the next chapter is for these characters. I think it's going to be fun paying that off.
Maybe we do a whole season where every character just has their own story and they don't interact with each other at all. That works for Girls. Why not? We'll see how it goes.
All three seasons of BoJack Horseman are now available to stream on Netflix.
A industria galega da madeira e do moble facturou 1.941 millóns de euros no 2015, o que supuxo un incremento do 11,2% respecto a 2014. Son as cifras globais dun sector que xera en Galicia uns 70.000 postos de traballo e no que 2015 supuxo un ano de récords en múltiples factores, entre eles, o volume de cortas: 8,25 millóns de metros cúbicos, o mellor rexistro desde 1996.
Estas son só algunhas das cifras que se recollen no Informe de Resultados da Industria da madeira e o moble de Galicia, un traballo que, tras múltiples anos de colaboracións puntuais, foi elaborado por primeira vez de xeito conxunto entre docentes da Escola de Enxeñaría Forestal e a Confederación Galega de Empresarios da Madeira, Confemadera Galicia.
O informe foi presentado este xoves na sede da vicerreitoría do campus de Pontevedra, un acto no que interviron o secretario e profesor da Escola de Enxeñaría Forestal, Juan Picos, e o presidente de Confemadera, Elier Ojea.
Máis exportacións, máis cortas, máis ingresos para as familias…
Respecto aos resultados do informe, o secretario da EE Forestal, admitiu que “aínda que o sector segue pagando moitos danos da crise, xa é apreciable un cambio de tendencia, especialmente en canto a corta de madeira en monte, volvendo a alcanzar e incluso superando a barreira dos oito millóns de metros cúbicos de madeira”. Neste sentido, o incremento no volume de cortas rexistrouse en todas as especies: eucalipto (19%), coníferas (1,5%) e frondosas (7,5%), representando o eucalipto, por sétimo ano consecutivo, máis do 50% das cortas realizadas.
Un dos datos cos que se exemplificou a tendencia favorable do sector son as exportacións, que ascenderon en 2015 a 768,1 millóns de euros, un 2,5% máis que no ano anterior, sendo a pasta para papel o principal produto exportado (189,2 millóns de euros) , mentres que a madeira e os mobles representan 578,9 millóns de euros, un 2% máis.
Sen embargo, se se comparan estes últimos datos cos das demais Comunidades Autónomas, Galicia foi a segunda na que menos medraron as exportacións de madeira e mobles, caendo ao terceiro posto en volume dende o segundo que ocupaba o pasado ano. Así, as exportacións seguen sendo lideradas por Cataluña, con 638 millóns e un crecemento do 15,3% en 2015 e pola Comunidade Valenciana, que desbanca a Galicia do segundo posto, cunhas exportacións por valor de 610 millóns e un incremento do 9,7%.
“Importante caída das exportacións galegas de madeira en bruto”
A destacar a importante caída das exportacións galegas de madeira en bruto que pasaron de 122 millóns de euros en 2014 a 71 millóns o pasado ano.
Con todo, a principal nota positiva é o aumento da balanza comercial favorable a Galicia neste sector, xa que mentres as exportacións, como se sinalou, medraron un 2,5% e ascenderon a 768 millóns, as importacións caeron un 11% en 2015 ata situarse nos 262 millóns de euros.
Polo demais, esta maior actividade industrial tamén beneficia ás familias. Neste sentido, os expertos indicaron que o sector xera en Galicia uns 70.000 postos de traballo e máis de 80.000 familias percibiron rendas pola venda de madeira de case 300 millóns, o que supón un incremento do 14% en comparación con 2014.
Consolidación dun sector vital para Galicia
En canto ao volume de negocio da industria da primeira transformación (rematantes, serradoiros, taboleiros e pasta…) medrou en 2015 un 12% e situouse en 1.555 millóns de euros, o que, a xuízo dos autores do informe, supón a consolidación da súa fortaleza en Galicia. Nesta liña o informe especifica que os rematantes tiveron unha maior actividade de cortas de madeira, pero cuns prezos lixeiramente inferiores, alcanzando unha facturación de 424 millóns de euros, un 5% máis ca no ano anterior.
No caso da industria de serradoiros aumentou a produción un 3% e alcanzou unha facturación de 306 millóns de euros e os subsectores de envase, embalaxe e mobiliario de exterior rexistraron tamén un comportamento máis positivo ca os tradicionalmente vinculados á construción.
Medra un 12% o volume de negocio da industria da primeira transformación
Destaca tamén o incremento dun 20% na facturación conxunta do taboleiro e a pasta, que ascendeu a 825 millóns de euros, crecemento que os autores atribúen á recuperación económica que se rexistrou no mercado europeo e á situación cambio euro/dólar, moi favorable naqueles mercados e produtos que teñen de referencia a divisa norteamericana.
Na segunda transformación obtivéronse en 2015 mellores resultados, cunha facturación de 386 millóns de euros, un 7,8% máis que en 2014, xa que as empresas souberon aproveitarse de diferentes segmentos de mercado con gran potencial.
Perspectivas “revolucionarias” para o futuro: madeira transparente, líquida…
Respecto ao futuro do sector, Picos incidiu especialmente nun feito: as enormes perspectivas que o futuro depara a este sector. “A día de hoxe non somos aínda conscientes dos produtos forestais revolucionarios que imos ver nun futuro non moi lonxano. De aquí en dez anos disporemos de múltiples produtos derivados da madeira e que a día de hoxe non imaxinamos”.
Entre os diferentes exemplos, este experto universitario falou de conceptos madeira transparente e madeira líquida. “Son diferentes desenvolvementos tecnolóxicos que van facer que a madeira deixe de ser un material tradicional para pasar a converterse nun produto absolutamente innovador e, neste sentido, Galicia ten moitas posibilidades de beneficiarse desta mellora tecnolóxica global”, recalcou Picos, que non dubidou en afirmar que a comunidade autónoma ten “todos os alicerces necesarios para destacar nun sector que vai ser revolucionario nos próximos anos”.
O presidente e o vicepresidente da Deputación da Coruña -José López Bouza e Ánxel Casal- estaban en Madrid o 18 de xullo de 1936 xunto con Castelao por mor da entrega do Estatuto de Galiza nas Cortes. Pero eles...
Ata o 11 de setembro poderá verse no Museo de Pontevedra a exposición Meu Pontevedra! Castelao 1916-1936, que amosa a enerxía que o autor dedicou a perfeccionar da arte da caricatura, o seu compromiso político e o duro labor de ser escritor e o seu propio ilustrador
Se rumorea que Linda Lovelace ni siquiera podía pronunciar la palabra "perro" después de que la obligaran a follar con uno. Cuando Lovelace se mudó a Nueva York con su tristemente famoso chulo-marido, Chuck Traynor, hizo películas en 8 mm para ganar algo de dinero extra. Quizá la más difícil de encontrar (y la más buscada por los coleccionistas de porno) es su 8 mm de bestialismo.
"Aquello fue lo más bajo que cayó en toda su vida", dijo su biógrafo Mike McGrady en la película The Real Linda Lovelace("La auténtica Linda Lovelace"). "En todos nuestros encuentros jamás pudo pronunciar la palabra 'perro' por todo lo que le hicieron en aquella película de 8 mm. En lugar de ello, si la tenía que usar la deletreaba".
Todos sabemos el argumento principal por el que la cópula interespecie entre animales y humanos está mal: la falta de lenguaje común. "Los animales no pueden hablar, por lo que no pueden acusar a nadie de obligarles a tener sexo con ellos contra su voluntad", escribió Ramsis en su estudio de 1969, citado por la sexóloga y escritora Dra. Hani Miletski en su libro Understanding Bestiality and Zoophilia ("Comprendiendo el bestialismo y la zoofilia"). Además, los animales son portadores de enfermedades, genes y hormonas diferentes; es todo demasiado oscuro. La mayoría de la gente cree que es biológicamente asqueroso y moralmente incorrecto.
Ahí me situaba yo cuando empecé esta investigación. ¿Por qué querría nadie tener sexo con otra cosa que no sea un ser humano? Pero conforme me conectaba a todos los foros sobre bestialismo que me aceptaban, leía los hilos de comentarios, descubría todas las teorías de terapeutas, médicos y sexólogos y hablaba con algunas mujeres amantes de la zoofilia, mi forma de pensar cambió. No estoy a favor, pero sus argumentos empezaron a parecerme, si no válidos, al menos comprensibles. ¿Mis noches pasadas en el foro "Beast" crearon una especie de síndrome de Estocolmo en mí? O sea, ¿qué hay de malo en desear a un reno?, me sorprendí a mí misma pensando, horrorizada. ¿En qué sentido es más cruel tener sexo con un cerdo que asesinarlo para hacer bacon? ¿Qué es peor, la violación o el asesinato? Mi lógica se desvanecía por culpa de un argumento.
¿Por qué querría nadie tener sexo con otra cosa que no sea un ser humano?
A pesar de la percepción generalizada de esta práctica como algo éticamente corrupto, el bestialismo siempre ha formado parte de la historia de la humanidad, aunque de forma silenciada. Según la Dra. Miletski, durante la fertilidad primaveral en Babilonia, los hombres y las mujeres usaban perros (en secreto) para realizar orgías que duraban varios días, extenuando a los animales abusados hasta que morían. Entonces cortaban el pene del perro muerto, lo secaban y lo usaban para sus escapadas sexuales. El antiguo faraón egipcio Keops, famoso por construir una de las pirámides, a menudo alardeaba del sexo apasionado que mantenía con las yeguas. Una de las más famosas orgías de la antigua Roma incluyó a la diosa Bona Dea y a un puñado de perros. Incluso se ha documentado que uno de los médicos de Hitler en Auschwitz estaba obsesionado con los experimentos sobre bestialismo y trató de crear un híbrido entre perro y mujer, usando mujeres judías y polacas, que serviría para los trabajos manuales (actualmente sabemos que, aunque el esperma de un perro nade hasta un óvulo humano, no puede inseminarlo). En opinión de Miletski, también existe un fuerte rumor que dice que la esposa de Hitler, Eva Braun, tenía sexo con perros por puro placer, lo que explicaría la fascinación que sentía Hitler por los Pastores alemanes.
En la sociedad moderna posterior a la guerra, Dinamarca fue el primer país de Europa en legalizar el bestialismo, en 1969. Poco después haría su aparición la reina de la pornografía bestialista, Bodil Joensen, que se crió en la Dinamarca rural con su religiosa y abusiva madre, quien no le permitía comunicarse o conversar con otros niños.
Muchos dirían que esto contribuyó al interés sexual de Joensen hacia los animales, porque Joensen fue separada de los humanos y encontró el amor en el perro de la familia. En un estudio sobre sexualidad realizado en 1974 para la Fundación Playboy, Morgan Hunt afirmó: "Durante los primeros años de la infancia, el ser humano es como una esponja y se le enseña a elegir a otros seres humanos como objetos de su amor y, finalmente, como objetos sexuales". De modo que, según Hunt, "la mayoría de encuentros sexuales entre humanos y animales son experiencias aisladas o muy raras de naturaleza principalmente experimental y quedan en su mayoría confinadas a los primeros años de vida". Joensen veía a su adorado perro como su único amigo y tuvo sus primeras experiencias sexuales con ese animal siendo adolescente. Se marchó de casa a los 15 años, siendo finalmente acogida por un granjero local que le dejaba ayudar con la inseminación de los cerdos.
En aquel momento Dinamarca se estaba convirtiendo en el centro de la pornografía escandalosa y su personaje más destacado fue el director Ole Ege. Joensen adquirió su propia granja (a la que bautizó como "Central de Inseminación"), en la que crió a todo tipo de animales que se puedan imaginar, y finalmente llamó a Ege para trabajar con él. Según el documental británico de 2006 "The Dark Side of Porn: The Real Story of Animal Farm" ("El lado oscuro del porno: la verdadera historia de Rebelión en la granja"), la misma Joensen fue quien sugirió a Ege que la grabara follando con otros animales. Entre 1969 y 1972 hizo más de 40 películas de bestialismo y finalmente Ege se unió a otro documentalista para filmar la vida de Joensen en la granja en una película llamada A Summerday ("Un día de verano"). La película incluía música de Beethoven y mostraba a Joensen viviendo entre sus conejos, gatos, perros, cerdos y caballos como si ella misma fuera un animal más. El documental ganó el primer premio en el festival de cine Wet Dream de Ámsterdam en 1970 y convirtió a Joensen en toda una estrella underground.
Sin embargo, después de años y años permitiendo que los turistas sexuales visitaran su granja e hicieran lo que les diera la gana, el mundo perdió interés por la "reina del bestialismo". Joensen finalmente dejó de ser el centro de atención, perdió su granja (debido a su estado de abandono) e incluso pasó algún tiempo en la cárcel. Cuando la policía mató a su adorado perro Spot, cayó en la prostitución y recurrió al vino barato y los sedantes para soportar su depresión.
Cuando empecé esta investigación, mi objetivo era muy sencillo: hablar con una mujer que hubiera tenido sexo con un animal, ya fuera por dinero o por placer. Los entusiastas de la zoofilia masculinos dominaban las estadísticas de Miletski (contaba con 80 participantes hombres y solo con 11 mujeres) y a mí no me interesaba en absoluto entrevistar a otro alemán paliducho para que me hablara sobre el "bello y recíproco" sexo que comparte con su perra mestiza.
Tiré de todos los contactos que tengo en el mundo del porno, siguiendo pistas que me llevaban a callejones sin salida: todas las actrices que habían hecho porno de bestialismo estaban muertas, habían desaparecido misteriosamente del mapa o estaban trabajando en Brasil y no respondían a mis solicitudes de contacto.
Derrotada y sin nadie a quien entrevistar, centré mi objetivo en aquellas personas que follan animales por placer y no por dinero, y me sumergí en lo más profundo del foro 'Beast', el chat internacional sobre zoofilia más grande que existe en este momento. Fui sincera al explicar por qué estaba ahí y lo repetía constantemente. Aquel era el único sitio donde podría encontrar una zoófila experimentada, así que rellené mi página de perfil con tanto esmero como habría empleado para Tinder y me uní a los chats la noche siguiente. De repente, varias mujeres estaban dispuestas a abrirse a mí. Rápidamente descubrí que las mujeres eran más de tener relaciones afectivas con los animales que de tener sexo con ellos, como Miletski me había confirmado.
"Estoy generalizando, pero en mis estudios clínicos las mujeres están menos interesadas en los comportamientos sexuales desviados", me dijo Miletski por teléfono semanas antes de mi entrada en el foro 'Beast'. "Las mujeres que participaron en mi estudio está insensibilizada ante lo extraño del bestialismo, porque todo lo que tienen es este foro y a sus miembros", escribió Lilknottyone.
Esa misma usuaria me explicó que no es una zoófila al uso: ella come carne y "nunca se ha enamorado de un animal", a pesar de haber mantenido varias relaciones sexuales con ellos desde que tenía 5 años, cuando jugaba con el pene del caniche de su familia. "Simplemente soy altamente sexual", me dijo. "Cuando la curiosidad me invadió, me dediqué a explorar. Es como masturbarse, pero con otro participante. El 99 % de mis actividades sexuales incluyen a otros humanos adultos de ambos sexos. No soy una zoófila en exclusiva en absoluto".
Lilknottyone me dijo que solo su pareja sabe de su bestialismo y que lo hacen juntos. ("Para ser sincera, un hombre follándose a una perra o a una yegua me pone los pelos de punta hasta límites insospechados. No tiene ningún sentido, pero no veo que haya nada de malo en ello", me escribió una noche cuando salió a relucir el tema). Como persona que participa en el bestialismo y no es una zoófila exclusiva como Joensen, ella habla en cierto modo con objetividad sobre su sexo interespecie como un tabú tan oscuro como la pedofilia.
Antes de que nuestras charlas, que se extendieron a lo largo de una semana, llegaran a su fin, Lilknottyone me advirtió acerca de otras personas del foro 'Beast'. "Si esto es realmente para un artículo que estás escribiendo, la mayoría de usuarios pensarán que eres una gilipollas y, o bien jugarán contigo, o intentarán convertirte, pensando que secretamente te gustaría follarte a tu perro, o pensarán que eres una poli de incógnito. LOL. Usa tu instinto para saber quién te está mintiendo".
Durante sus días de gloria, Joensen escribía una columna de consejos sobre bestialismo en una revista, ayudando a otras zoófilas curiosas a tener sexo con animales de forma segura. En una de las publicaciones, una lectora le preguntaba qué gracia podía tener chupársela a un cerdo, porque el semen "es tan espeso y se coagula con tanta rapidez que puede quedarse atascado en tu garganta y ahogarte hasta la muerte".
Joensen respondió con un consejo de belleza: "¿Pero no sabes que el semen es fantástico como mascarilla para que la piel de tu rostro luzca brillante y suave? Desde que hice este descubrimiento nunca más he vuelto a tener espinillas".
Parece que fue ayer, pero en septiembre se cumplirá un año desde el día en que comenzamos a pasar unas horas de relax con Pablo Escobar. Fue en Netflix, el mismo sitio al que el narco regresa el próximo día dos de septiembre. Tiempo de dejar crecer las uñas.
Llegaba el bueno de José Padilha de remakear un clásico de la ciencia ficción y la acción más visceral, Robocop (2014), igual de tocado que el pobre agente Murphy, con las críticas incendiarias y salidas de tono (merecidas o no) que esta era tecnológica nos planta a todos en la puerta de casa, sobre el felpudo, dentro de una bolsa de cartón en llamas. Y suya fue la primera temporada de Narcos, que funciona como un tiro, es técnicamente ejemplar y de regalo nos brinda los cadáveres más realistas de la historia de la televisión, algo lógico teniendo en cuenta que la ambiciosa producción quiere contar de la manera más fidedigna (dentro del espectáculo de thriller de acción puro y duro, muy duro) la realidad del día a día en la vida de Pablo Escobar.
El dos de septiembre Netflix estrenará la segunda temporada, donde volveremos a encontrarnos con el potente trío protagonista formado por Wagner Moura, Boyd Holbrook, Pedro Pascal y un buen montón de balas y dólares.
Lo primero que hice fue descalzarme. Así empezó todo. Yo creía que era por comodidad, pero luego nos explicaron que era porque estábamos en un centro budista. Nos habían citado a las 10 am en un lugar más o menos céntrico de Barcelona para asistir a una jornada de sábado dedicada exclusivamente al orgasmo femenino, un taller que imparte el Instituto de la Sexualidad y la Pareja desde hace más de 15 años. La noche antes le había explicado a todo el mundo lo que iba a hacer y me habían mirado entre maravilladas y sorprendidas "¡A ver todo lo que aprendes! ¡Quizás te cambia la vida!", me decían. Así que las expectativas eran casi tan altas como mis nervios.
Llegué unos cinco minutos antes y al poco empezaron a llegar mujeres de edades y perfiles muy diversos y entre nosotras nos saludamos con una mezcla de timidez muy divertida. Al fin y al cabo íbamos a pasar un sábado entero hablando de nuestros orgasmos con unas desconocidas. En total nos juntamos 17 mujeres y nos sentamos en semicírculo, de manera que pudiésemos ver todas las caras. Marina Castro, experta en sexología y terapia de pareja, la responsable del taller, empezó la ronda de presentaciones. Sin miedo, sin tapujos y animando al resto a explicar un poco la vida. A ella, le siguieron las demás. Hay que indicar aquí que todas las mujeres hablaron siempre de relaciones heterosexuales.
¿Quién se atreve a admitir que solo con penetración vaginal disfruta poco o nada?
"Después de 12 años casada con mi marido, he descubierto que no disfruto", arrancó el primer testimonio. "¿Esto es así? ¿Un orgasmo es eso? Entonces no es para tanto", "Me aburro con el sexo,"Después de 30 años, me he dado cuenta que soy una persona organizada, educada, trabajadora, puntual, pero no disfruto con el sexo, me he olvidado completamente de mí", "No sé lo que me gusta, porque nunca lo he pedido", "He estado tanto tiempo soltera y acostumbrada a masturbarme que siento que soy incapaz de disfrutar sexualmente ahora que tengo pareja", "Yo me puedo generar placer, pero mi marido es incapaz de provocarme un orgasmo".
Foto tomada con el móvil de la autora
Cada testimonio era bastante distinto entre sí, pero prácticamente todos obtenían la comprensión de alguna compañera que respondía con un "a mí me pasa lo mismo, yo siento igual". Charlamos un poco entre todas sobre la cultura sexual aprendida en casa, de nuestras primeras relaciones, de la incomprensión o falta de empatía de algunos hombres. Y fue curioso comprobar cómo entre las más veteranas del grupo, que rondaban unos 50 o 60, y las más jóvenes, de unos veintitantos o poco más, las experiencias compartidas a veces eran casi idénticas. ¡No han pasado tantos años!
"Está claro, nos ha pasado a muchas, ¿no? Estás con un hombre que está intentando aguantar mucho rato por ti, esperando a que tú te corras y tú solo estás pensando en que acabe ya ese infierno de una vez", explica Castro. Muchas asienten, claro, las clitorianas, es decir, mayoría del grupo. "¿Quién se atreve a admitir que solo con penetración vaginal disfruta poco o nada?", pregunta la sexóloga. Una mujer de unos cuarenta y pocos asiente con la cabeza y afirma que a ella le pasaba lo mismo: toda la vida fingiendo orgasmos hasta que un día se animó a contárselo a su pareja para buscar una solución. Problema: después de tanto años, ahora no sabe ni cómo empezar. La media de edad del grupo es de unos 35 años.
Estás con un hombre que está intentando aguantar mucho rato por ti, esperando a que te corras y tú solo estás pensando en que acabe ya ese infierno de una vez
"El porno es una trampa, te muestra ahí a una pareja durante 30 minutos de penetración vaginal y se supone que a ti te debería gustar", continua la sexóloga. Y muy ligado a eso, pasamos a ver los tipos de orgasmos que todo el mundo conoce, pero que provoca frustraciones en algunas. Equipo clitorianas, equipo vaginales. Es así. Eres lo que te ha tocado y no puedes cambiarte de bando cuando te de la gana. "Si eres clitoriana, tengo que decirte que no serás vaginal y lo mismo a la inversa", contesta Castro en respuesta a una mujer a la que le gustaría mucho ser vaginal. "Otra cosa es que la clitoriana pueda llegar a alcanzar el orgasmo con penetración vaginal a partir de la estimulación de otras partes", matiza. Ya sabes: con los dedos (tu mano nunca te abandona) y cacharros no humanos, es decir, consoladores. Apunta tres nombres robóticos que, al parecer, son mano de santo: Lelo-Ina Wabe, We Vibe 4 y G-Kii Joue. Y prepara unos cuantos euros, porque su precio ronda entre los 100 y 200 euros.
"Es muy frecuente encontrarte en los talleres con mujeres que creen que su orgasmo es "el peor" y que les gustaría tener otro, pero no hay que idealizar lo que tienen las demás y hay que aprender a disfrutar del propio orgasmo", explica Castro. Pasa lo mismo con el ritmo o la intensidad. Las hay que tienen orgasmo explosivo –según la sexóloga, solo un 5%– lo que significa un solo orgasmo corto, pero muy intenso. Luego está el grupo mayoritario: un orgasmo bastante intenso y, luego, posibilidad de réplica de otros más leves. Y un grupo más: un orgasmo prolongado, mucho menos intenso. "Este último es el menos común, es como un tembleque. Es frecuente que la mujer no identifique eso como el orgasmo y dude de si lo ha tenido o no", explica.
Estamos un buen rato hablando de la famosa complacencia, tan instalada en esta sociedad patriarcal, y como nos enseñan, desde pequeñas, a complacer siempre al hombre. "¿En cuántas películas hemos visto como la mujer hace una buena mamada a un hombre, y en cuantas pasa al revés, que el hombre coma un coño?", pregunta una chica. Las demás se suman al alegato y muchas de ellas (esto pasa durante la comida grupal) coinciden en haberse topado con hombres que se niegan a hacerlo o que ponen cara de que no les gusta. "Y el muy cretino incluso te avisa de que lo está haciendo porque sabe que te gusta, pero que a él eso no le va", añade una chica de unos 30 años.
Vayamos al punto G, o sea, la prostata femenina. Es muy importante saberla estimular y que la estimulen bien para tener orgasmos mucho más placenteros. Castro nos explica algunas posturas para poder estimulársela a una misma sin necesidad de otra mano ni de un consolador. Y nos da algunas claves para mejorar el suelo pélvico con la ayuda de Laura Pastor, una fisitoterapeuta especializada en fisiosexología. Hacemos unos cuantos ejercicios sobre una pelota bajo las nalgas y las piernas cruzadas. Teóricamente no debería doler. Pero duele. Eso nos indica el estado de nuestro suelo pélvico. Las mujeres que hacen yoga o pilates parece que controlan y no les duele ni un poco. Reconozco que aquí me han ganado. A mí me cuesta una barbaridad, las miro con un poco de envidia. "La musculatura del suelo pélvico es muy importante también para hacer más leve la incontinencia urinaria derivada del post-parto", explica la fisioterapeuta. Tengo mucho calor después de esta actividad, pero me siento afortunada de estar sentada justo enfrente del ventilador.
Después de esta parte de ejercicios, abordamos la última fase del taller. La visualización. Yo no sé qué diablos significará eso, pero pienso que por fin nos estamos acercando a la fase en la que pondremos en práctica todo lo aprendido. Primero nos pasan un vídeo muy ilustrativo de técnicas de masturbación femenina. La mujer que no logra el orgasmo con su marido exclama: "¡Se lo pienso enseñar en cuanto llegue a casa!". Después, sacamos unas colchonetas y la tallerista nos explica que ahora, quien se sienta cómoda, puede estimularse en este ejercicio de "masturbación colectiva". Es optativo y todas tenemos los ojos cerrados. De fondo, suena una música relajante. Ahí culmina bien la cosa... para algunas. Mientras que otras estarán pensando en lo que harán cuando lleguen a casa, en la importancia de pedir o guiar con las manos, o en el buen material que tienen para enseñar a sus parejas: un montón de hojas grapadas y unos cuantos lubricantes de regalo.
No sé si os acordáis del episodio de Julián Ruiz en Radio Galega. El hombre estaba de mala leche y le vino a decir a la presentadora que le parecía mal que le hablase en gallego. Total... Era un invitado que no tenía por qué saber gallego. Existe la posibilidad de que el hombre fuera tan negado para los idiomas que no entendiese ni papa.
Pero el radiochip de hoy es mucho más interesante. Dura unos 8 minutos, y lo dejó en los comentarios un lector llamado Carlos J. González. Se trata no tanto de un entrevistado sino de una oyente de Radio Galega que llama al programa de las noches, el "Pensando en ti", que es el programa que lo peta en las madrugadas en Galicia.
El presentador, Alberto Freire, como todos los de la cadena, está obligado a hablar en gallego. Esto es obvio, porque la radio pública gallega está precisamente para tener una radio que emita enteramente en gallego. Así pues, la entrevista no tiene sentido... Porque la señora se quejaba de que era una falta de respeto hablar en gallego, cuando durante 8 minutazos y pico la conversación discurre con toda normalidad, y la mujer entiende todo.
Vamos a escuchar este radiochip cooficial:
La música de fondo no era muy gallega, no.
Lo interesante es que se mete la mujer en cuestiones políticas. La mujer viene a decir que por supuesto que es de derechas. Se establece una relación misteriosa y 100% españolísima en la que lo español es de derechas, y lo que se sale de ahí es de izquierdas. Y esto lo podemos ver en esta llamada muy claramente.
Por otro lado, es simpático escuchar este tipo de música de fondo... mientras se dan 8 minutos de entrevista. Ojo, porque no está nada mal. De madrugada, si estás escuchando la radio, llamadas de estas igual te dan la vida. Y no hay obligación de cortar, no hay prisas... La madrugada es propicia para este tipo de llamadas.
Recientemente, un equipo de investigadores de la Queen Mary University de Londres ha publicado el primer estudio que analiza, desde un punto de vista científico, el comportamiento de hombres y mujeres al utilizar Tinder, la aplicación para cortejos y apareamientos más importante del mundo. Existen muchas formas de abordar el tema de las relaciones entre […]
Ni del resto de cosas de piratas y bucaneros. Starz, la cadena que emite Black Sails, anunció ayer que la cuarta temporada será la última de la serie. Los diez episodios que se emitan a principio de 2017 serán los últimos de esta precuela de La isla del tesoro.
Según informa Deadline, la ficción piratesca ha sido la primera de Starz en durar más allá de tres temporadas. Su estreno fue todo un éxito de audiencia, y también de nominaciones a premios: Los Emmys y los GLAAD Awards avalan su calidad. Sus creadores, como es lógico, se deshacen en elogios a la serie y a la cadena:
Es un raro privilegio en televisión el que te den la clase de libertad creativa de la que hemos disfrutado en este show durante los últimos cuatro años. Es una decisión dificil para nosotros el que esta sea la última temporada, pero no podemos imaginar nada más allá que fuera un mejor final a la historia, ni una antesala más natural a La isla del tesoro.
En lo concerniente al croquetismo, otra serie más con parejita y/o personajes lésbicos que se nos va. Un minutito de silencio por las croquetas de Nassau.
"Of course everybody knows that The Killing Joke has its controversial elements, so how do you make it exciting for the kids today? You add more controversy - namely you have SPOILERS AHOY [including the URL, so don't scroll over if you don't want to see]....
....Batman fuck Batgirl before she gets crippled. "
io9: The Killing Joke Movie Is a Disaster, Right Down to Its Comic-Con Panel
Unfortunately, it's what comes before and after the sex scene in The Killing Joke movie that makes it so much worse. Reports from fans who saw the movie at Comic-Con indicate that the first 30 minutes are an all-new prologue, before the remaining 45 minutes address the storyline of the original graphic novel. In that opening, we meet Barbara Gordon as a young librarian who has started donning the Batgirl costume in order to attract the attention of Batman—not just in crime-fighting prowess, but sexually, telling co-workers that she has "a man in her life" (throughout, Batman is apparently portrayed as emotionally distant from Barbara).
This culminates in the sex scene moment mentioned above. After the encounter, Batman keeps away from Barbara, refusing to speak with her, leaving the young woman spurned (the film shows Barbara waiting for Batman to call her on the phone). Then, of course, the rest of The Killing Joke happens—and any fan of Batgirl knows how that plays out. Barbara is paralyzed in front of her own father after being shot in the stomach by the Joker, an infamous moment widely considered to be one of the lowest points in Batgirl's 40+ year history.
The Hollywood Reporter:Comic-Con: 'Batman: The Killing Joke' Team Responds to Controversial Batgirl Sex Scene
But afterwards, things got heated when one fan asked this: "You have talked about how you wanted to give Barbara more story ... and yet the story you gave her ended up being about the men in her life. Why?"
Screenwriter Brian Azzarello responded by calling Barbara "stronger than the men in her life in this story."
"She controls the men in her life in this story," he said.
The fan shouted, she was strong by "using sex" as he walked away from the mic, sparking a minutes-long discussion about the scene. When said he Azzarello couldn't hear what the fan said, he challenged the fan to repeat himself, saying, "Wanna say that again? Pussy?"
Others chimed in, saying they added sex and Batgirl "pining after Bruce" to the film.
The fan Azzarello called a pussy was Bleeding Cool writer Jeremy Konrad, who writes:
The very last question posed to the panel addressed this. The question was asked by a person cosplaying as the Joker: Batgirl, Barbara Gordon is such a strong female character. Why was this more about the males in her life? The crowd applauded the question.
As they fumbled with the question,saying they do feel like she is portrayed as a very strong female character, I lost control of my emotions and, invigorated by someone asking the question I wanted to hear, I shouted from the audience with frustrated sarcasm,
Research firm E-Score asked Democrats and Republicans about their favorite shows. Game of Thrones was #1 in the Democrat list, but it didn't appear in the top 10 on the Republican list.
Ethnically Diverse
On the Democrats' list, 3 of the top 10 shows: The Haves and the Have Nots on OWN, How to Get Away with Murder on ABC, and Empire on FOX all have a racially diverse cast and have powerful lead roles for women. This reflects the Democratic viewer who is also typically more diverse, with higher concentration of black and female supporters.
Good vs. Evil
Republicans enjoy clearer "good vs. evil" characters and storylines compared to the Democrats' favorites. Republicans prefer shows featuring superheroes like The Flash, Arrow and the super intelligent team on Scorpion. Two procedural programs such as NCIS and Blue Bloods also have the "good vs. evil" component, as well as skewing slightly older than some other programs in the list.
If you want to watch a show with a member of the opposing party, watch The Walking Dead. Everyone likes The Walking Dead.
Inauguración del Museo Mares de Cedeira (foto: Diputación de A Coruña)
FERROL360 | Sábado 23 julio 2016 | 14:39
El Museo Mares de Cedeira ha sido inaugurado este sábado por parte del presidente de la Diputación de A Coruña, el alcalde cedeirés, el director xeral de Pesca de la Xunta de Galicia y la presidenta de la cofradía de pescadores de la villa. El recinto se dedica a la tradición marinera de la localidad y a los oficios vinculados con el mar.
El museo acogió entre el jueves y el viernes sus primeras visitas, previas al acto oficial de apertura. Por 1 euro, se podrá recorrer hasta el 15 de septiembre de 10:00 a 13:30 y de 17:00 a 19:00 horas. Cierra los lunes. El resto del año, de 10:00 a 13:00. Jornada festiva en Cedeira, ya que también se desarrolla en la zona portuaria su tradicional Festa do Percebe.
Esta semana que la gastronomía entra a patadas en la redacción no podíamos dejar pasar un anime que arrasa en 2016 en Japón. Indecente, erótico, sensual y muy, muy divertido acaba de estrenar su segunda temporada. Una de las características clave para que un anime triunfe en el país nipón...
El violento líder de PODEMOS asegura que “no le gustan los niños ni la familia”. Los escritos del comunista reflejan una personalidad violenta y peligrosa.
Pablo Iglesias es un personaje violento y peligroso. Así se desprende de sus conversaciones en el grupo de Telegram con los portavoces del partido. El líder comunista que apoyan secretamente algunos obispos no es más que una reedición del totalitarismo estalinista, que siente desprecio por la familia, los niños y las mujeres, e incluso es capaz de escribir que a alguna de ellas “la azotaría hasta que sangrase”.
A continuación, el pantallazo publicado por OKDIARIO.
One of the most delightful reads you might have is the periodically article in The Guardian titled "How To Eat". I am not 100% sure it is about food or whether is basically an excuse to be able to write some witty humour....
As regular readers of HTE know, this series takes a flexible line on sourcing. Cheap does not necessarily mean nasty and, ultimately, it is all down to the cash in your pocket. When you are skint and hungry, most things taste incredible. Moreover, we are children of the processed food age. We all love stuff, from Babybel to Dairy Milk, at which militant foodies would gag. HTE is a safe space. No one is judging you.
Depending on the size of your sausage (no giggling at the back), take three or four from the pan – you did fry them, right? – and split them lengthways. This will allow you to build a thorough, corrugated sausage coverage across your bread which, among other advantages (sausage in every bite!), will bring a welcome stability to your sandwich. That people still put whole, uncut sausages into huge, flappy slices of bread and then wonder why they spend half the sandwich trying to stop them falling out, is testament to man’s enduring stupidity. The only thing worse is using chipolatas.
Fundamentally, there are very few cheeses that truly work in a sandwich. If you wish to avoid creating a dry, claggy sanger of a muddled, indeterminate character, you need to use something hard, waxy and tangy in the lincolnshire poacher or mature cheddar line, which you may want to augment with a little red leicester or double gloucester. Wonderful as they may be elsewhere, a sandwich is no place for the crumbly and/or dense likes of feta; wensleydale; almost all Lancashire cheeses; goat’s cheese (that is a salad cheese, no matter how you moisten it with beetroot); brie (especially when paired, egregiously, with cranberries); any of the blue cheeses; cream cheese*; cheshire; stinking bishop or any other gooey cheeses which must be sealed in a lead Hazmat container in your fridge, to stop your neighbours complaining about the smell.
Pedants will take great pleasure in pointing out that this "classic" was only actually given a name and a PR push in the 1960s, by the Milk Marketing Board, but people, including some ploughmen, had been eating bread and cheese with beer for aeons. Therefore, no matter how it has been glossed, this stands as a much-loved British meal, and one which people feel passionately about. As Tommy Cooper once put it: "I had a ploughman's lunch the other day ... he was livid."
There are people – frigid, sexless husks of humanity tormented by issues of taste and decorum – who insist that guacamole, salsa and sour cream should be served on the side, in little pots, so that a) you can get an equal little dip of everything, as you see fit, and b) you won't get messy. What next? Eating nachos with a knife and fork?
The fish finger “scene” is divided into two often mutually antagonistic camps: posh and traditional. However, neither can claim to have produced the perfect fish finger sandwich. In fact, in their militant defence of their entrenched positions, both groups fail to see the flaws in their own methodology or the valuable lessons they could learn from one another.
For instance, no one really wants a fish finger sandwich served on huge doorstep slices of bread. In this instance, using great plateaux of loaf is a pose, a foodie affectation. Similarly, it is inverted snobbery of the worst kind to maintain that a “proper” fish finger sandwich can only be made with budget fish fingers, which offer a tiny, grey inner core of mulched, fish-derived protein matter at the centre of a limp, greasy lump of breadcrumb. They may bring on Proustian memories of school dinners/late-night adventures in bedsit cookery, but they cannot, in any objective sense, be said to taste “nice”. Hopefully, this blog will lay out the case for a third way forward.
A day after an expensive, multinational police effort to remove KickAssTorrents from the net culminated in the arrest of its founder and the confiscation of its domains, the inevitable happened. It's back online.
This morning the founder of kat.cr was arrested in Poland. It is another attack on freedom of rights of internet users globally. We think it's our duty not to stand aside but to fight back supporting our rights. In the world of regular terrorist attacks where global corporations are flooded with money while millions are dying of diseases and hunger, do you really think that torrents deserve so much attention? Do you really think this fight worth the money and resources spent on it? Do you really think it's the real issue to care of right now? We don’t!
You don't have to believe the rhetoric to understand how futile it is trying to push cybertoothpaste back in the cyberbottle. Effectively, all the attempt did here was turn an underground piracy site into a mainstream phenomenon, its mirrors linked to by every major news site on the internet.
Os mexicanos din falan de coña da Vitamina T, que é a que toman a maioría de eles... porque a Vitamina T son: Tacos, Tortas, Tamales (e máis Tlacoyos, Tostadas, Tlayudas....).
Aquí imos falar de TAMALES.
Aos estranxeiros das cousas da comida mexicana que menos lles gustan son os Tamales. Raramente ides ver a estranxeiros botándose enriba duns tamales, e tampouco veredes tamales habitualmente nos restaurantes mexicanos fora de México. De feito, tampouco se ven nos restaurantes en México. Os tamales adoitan a se vender na rúa, pola mañanciña cedo ou pola noite. E nas estacións de autobuses: nas estacións de autobuses sempre hai unha tendiña que vende tamales. Pero logo, restaurantes non vos hai. De feito eu son de tamales pola noite, pero o señor que se puña a vender tamales cerca de casa (que estaban ben bós) xa non ven, así que tomo menos tamales dos que quixera.
O tamal é a comida underground mexicana. Non chegou ós restaurantes, non se vende en postos 24 horas coma os tacos, non se fai na casa (porque é moito traballo), pero tomanse todo o rato, e é unha cousa á que raramente nengún mexicano lle di que non.
Porque ... se coma dixen ós estranxeiros non lles gustan os tamales, a min gustanme moito. En iso son raro. Tal vez me gusten porque sempre fun moi aficionado a todo tipo de masas de fariña cocidas ou feitas ó vapor, sexan os knödel alemáns, os knedlíky checos, os baos chinos, ....
... pero sobre todo porque os tamales temen un lonxano parecido cos bolos de pote ou petotes que de pequeno tomaban na casa da miña abóa. De feito os bolos do pote son tamén de fariña de millo.
Os bolos do pote cocíanse na auga (ca graxa do cocido) e quedaban suaviños (e cocidos por fora) mentras que no interior quedaban un chisco fariñentos.
Pois os tamales de millo sonvos tamén un pouco así, por fora quedan suaviños, pero no interior poden chegar a estar fariñentos (aquí depende moito do xeito de facer os tamales e no gusto do cociñeiro).
E coma nos bolos do pote, que se facían en grasa de porco (na que había do caldo) aquí nos tamales tamén hai graxa de porco, coma podedes ver neste video do grandioso Yuri de Gortari:
Iste video explica coma facer un dos tipos de tamales en México, os que se fan en millo (con fariña de millo). Pero hai moitos tipos de tamal. Vou facer unha pequena (e parcial) lista de tipos de tamal.
Polo tipo de envoltorio á hora de cocelos:
Tamal en folla de millo
Tamal en folla de plátano
(Tamén hai tamales feitos en outro tipo de folla, pero ises xa son casos raros)
Bueno, en realidade hai unha variedad eterna de tamales, pero con estas diferencias xa medio podedes ir facendovos unha idea.
Para contrapoñer á receita de antes dos tamales en folla de millo, aquí van outros tamales feitos en folla de plátano (por tanto dunha zona tropical de México, onde si teñen posibilidade de ter follas de plátano). Este caso é ainda máis especial, porque aproveitase o tamal para cociñar a carne do polo, co que o tamal queda moi feito:
Hai unha cousa importante a ter en conta no mundo do tamal. Probablemente sexa a maneira máis antiga de preparar a fariña de millo en México. Dos tacos, por exemplo, non se ten unha referencia histórica tan antiga. Ainda que probablemente o de comer dentro dunha tortilla é moi antigo.
Imos a ir dando un paseiño polos tamales, e xa iremos entrando máis o detalle en moitas das cousas especiais que teñen os tamales.
O almorzo chilango: a Guajolota
Un dos almorzos máis típicos (e baratos, e contundentes) do chilango é unha animalada que pode resultar contradictoria: tamal (que coma vedes e masa e millo) dentro dun bolo de pan:
É comida enerxética para xente que traballa na rúa. Pero sobre todo é moi convinte: a tradición era comer o tamal ca man, pero un emporcallase un pouco. Así, na bolo de pan, podese comer un de maneira un pouco máis decorsa. Para amantes das emocións fortes, hai unha versión ainda máis calórica: hai sitios onde o tamal fritese (moito) en aceite antes de meterse no bocadillo. Coma se non tivera xa graxa!
O tamal minimalista
Nas dúas recetas de Yuri que puxen enriba vichedes que o tamal levaba un guiso ou carne no medio. Non necesariamente... o tamal é comida de pobres e en moitos casos, non leva moito máis ca masa. Ou dito, de outra forma, de non ser porque levan graxa de porco, serían totalmente vexetarianos.
Estes dous que vedes nas fotos tomeinos en Taxco, Guerrero. E para que non pensedes, ese pensamento cuñado, que se non ten carne ou peixe non val nada... Estes dous sinxeos tamales foron das cousas que máis abraiado me deixaron en México.
Probando comida callejera guerrerense: tamal de elote con mole rojo y tamal de fijoles con mole verde pic.twitter.com/foVrbPfcmm
Coma xa ledes nos meus comentarios, o secreto foi ese mole. O mole verde eravos unha cousa de outro planeta, e o tamal se ben non tiña carne, tiña unha masa moi xeitosa... ben suaviña. (Nota, en iso, supoño que haberá gustos, pero un dos defectos dos tamales feitos sen moito cariño e en cantidade, é que a masa queda dura. Pero estan moito millor se estan tenriños, se podes meter ben a culler e desfanse fácilmente).
Coma podedes ver neste caso o mole non só e para as enchiladas (enmoladas) e para meterlle o guajolote, se non que tamén é importante para acompañar estes tamales que non levan guiso.
Un primo de eses tmales dos que falei antes son estes tamales de frijol que son moi típicos de Xochimilco e a Milpa Alta (a Milpa Alta antigamente dependía de Xochimilco). Neste caso coma no anterior, os tamales van cunha perola de mole, para acompañar. E por contra en comparación cos tamales de enriba que son grandes aquí son moi cativos (por iso veñen a media docena).
Os tamales e a Candelaria
Eu non estou moi posto nesto das festas católicas, pero a festa da Candelaria esta relacionada ca presentación de Xesús, pouco despois de nacer, no templo de Xerusalén.
En México o Día da Candelaria, ademáis de "vestir al niño", hai a tradición de comer tamales. Que se o pensades non ten moita explicación na tradición católica (o de comer os tamales). Pero sí que a ten nas antiguas relixións en México, onde os homes foron creados a partir de millo.
Termino la Candelaria al reves que todos: cenando tamales (de hoja de pollo con salsa roja, oaxaqueño de mole) pic.twitter.com/2y5Ph5FsHe
Así que ese día da Candelaria, é unha tolería conseguir tamales (teñense que deixar encargados). Ademáis está relacionado co día de Reis ... porque en México, o día de reis, tomase rosca, e se che toca unha figura no roscón, non eres rei, se non que tes que pagar tamales na Candelaria (que cae coma un mes despois).
A Ola
Nesta foto podedes ver unha ola de facer tamales. En realidade vese a parte de arriba, que encaixa en outra ola onde está fervendo a auga. Porque (ainda que hai tamales que se van de outras maneiras) normalmente fanse así ó vapor. E tamén é moi habitual que traian esta separación, co que se poñen nun lado os tamales de folla de maiz, tamales oaxaqueños (os de folla de plátano) e logo tamén se fan tamales dulces.
Oh sorpresa, para o almorzo encargaron tamales: oaxaqueños, salgados e dulces nun cocedeiro de lata pic.twitter.com/UoaL6nEgZN
Os tamales dulces son un chisco diferentes. Ademáis de doces (que é a diferencia obvia) fanse de maneira que queden máis esponxosos. De feito coido que en moitos casos non se usa fariña de millo, se non fariña de arroz.
Entre os sabores habituais dos tamales doces, pois o máis frecuente na cidade de méxico son os de fresa (que en realidade é un sabor artificial, porque para nada saben a fresa - son rosas, eso sí, na foto de enriba vedes un exemplo).
Os que si que me gustan máis son os canarios, que teñen este nome porque son amarelos. Levan pasas, e tamén lles engaden en moitos sitios un chisco de alcohol. Así que saben un pouco a xelado de ron con pasas.
Tamales y Tamales Oaxaqueños
Na Ciudad de México os tipos máis habituais son o que non ten apelido (os normais, os de folla de millo) e os Oaxaqueños (ainda que este tipo de tamales son populares en outras partes da costa).
O tamal habitual (os minimalistas de antes non o son tanto) son de masa de millo e dentro levan algún tipo de guiso de tomate (o verde) o jitomae (o rojo). Aquí é onde lle poñen o picante. Contrariamente a outros pratos mexicanos o picante dos tamales lévase ben, porque a masa mitiga moito o sabor picante.
Dentro dos guiso que se lle pon nos tamales, hai algúns que son un pouco curiosos porque son un poco difíciles de comer: por exemplo, o tamal de "costilla de puerco", que leva a costilla cos osos brancos, así que cando comes nel tes que ir sacando os osos.
Outros casos de tamales complicados de comer son: os tamales huastecos do video de Yuri - porque levan osos ou os tamales barbones de Sinaloa (que levan a cabezas de langostinos).
Os Oaxaqueños, ademáis de facere envoltos en unha folla diferente, teñen unha forma distinta, son en forma de prisma. Coma nos outros casos é habitual meterlle un guiso e carne de polo ou de porco.
Veña, se queres ler máis e ver máis sobre tamales:
If you’ve never thought about carrying a pocket knife, you’ve never met Opinel. The culty, cool, classic French brand will convince you to change your ways.
Opinel knives are straight out of the French Alps, and straight out of history (they’ve been around for over 125 years!). The iconic good looks of the pocket knife have remained mostly unchanged since their creation in 1890—a seriously sharp steel blade that tucks into a beautiful beechwood handle. Despite their cache and quality, they were made to be an affordable tool for farmers, and they’ve stayed that way. Here's why Opinel's knives are so darn practical, a brief history of the family-owned company, and four reasons we can't get enough of them.
The iconic No. 8 pocket knife, hot off the assembly line.
Photo by Thierry Vallier
An Opinel knife is the most helpful thing you’ll ever carry in your pocket (because no one uses pennies anymore). Don’t believe us? Picture any of the following scenarios:
You’re on a picnic with your friends—a watermelon is lugged, but the bearer didn’t bring a way to cut it.
You’ve made it out of IKEA alive, with a mountain of boxes in tow. Now you’re home and you have nearly 1,000 taped seams to slash.
Having arrived at your adorable Airbnb, you’re ready to relax at the end of a long day of sightseeing with a bottle of wine. The owners of said Airbnb, however, only have a chef’s knife that hasn’t been used in 15 years and a lone 1/2 cup measuring cup in the kitchen drawer.
Imagine how effortlessly prepared you will appear to your friends, as you unsheath a classic Opinel knife (the No. 10, with built-in corkscrew), in all its wood-handled, stainless steel-bladed glory. They’ll definitely want to know where you got it.
The classic numbered pocket knives are core to Opinel’s collection—the numbers correspond to different blade sizes, from smallest to largest, and originally numbered 1 to 12. Over the years, Opinel has expanded to include dozens of other tools to help you in the kitchen and the great outdoors.
They’re pictured as part of a decadent picnic spread, poised and ready to attack Manchego and salami. Tucked into a serious adventurer’s Appalachian Trail-ready pack. Reclining with a pile of freshly foraged wild mushrooms. Next to a flank of jambon, for some on-the-fly butchery. Cutting and coring a juicy honeydew melon.
A photo posted by Dennis Tierney (@strandedchef) on
Even more telling are the number of posts about an Opinel that has been in a single family for years and years.
As Alex Delecroix, U.S. Brand Manager for Opinel, puts it, “Some people have had their Opinel knife for more than 50 years. It’s a family tool, that gets passed on from generation to generation.”
The Opinels were blacksmiths spanning several generations, craftsmen who were known for making the sharpest farm tools in the tiny village of Albiez-le-Vieux, nestled into the French Alps. The gradual industrialization of France throughout the 19th century introduced new manufacturing techniques that began to make hand-performed metalwork less common.
Daniel Opinel poo-pooed the advent of this machine-driven work, but his son Josef, living up to the legacy of rebellious teens everywhere, was fascinated with these modern technologies. Josef began experimenting on his own time, eventually settling on a simple pocket knife to put into small-scale production. The Opinel knife was born!
Clockwise from left: Josef Opinel in 1929, with a giant version of his iconic pocket knife; A tear sheet from a 1936 Opinel catalouge; Josef's workshop in 1890
Photos by , Opinel
In the early 1900s the town of Chambery, just down the mountain from Josef’s village, was a busy freight hub. Josef gave train conductors his prototype (what is now the iconic Opinel No.8 knife) for free, in hopes that word of his name and his good craftsmanship would spread. It worked. Their booming commercial success led Josef to open the first Opinel factory in 1901 and production was quickly underway.
Opinel made its way to the United States in the 1940s after World War II—returning American soldiers brought with them the handy pocket knives they had acquired while overseas. Today, Opinel is still family-owned and family-operated from Chambery—they’re coming up on their fourth generation of Opinels in charge! Opinel knives are sold in more than 75 countries, and are starting to pop up in more and more stores across the U.S. (and right here at Food52!).
A worker puts together knives in the Opinel factory, 1930
Photo by Opinel
Why We Heart Opinel
Opinel knives have a rich legacy, look great, and work even better. But there's even more to love about this company:
They care about their environmental footprint
90% of the wood used for Opinel knife handles comes from sustainable tree farms. Even better, the wood chips leftover from crafting the handles are vacuumed up and then used to heat the factory in the winter.
They have a great respect for the integrity of the tools they produce
Opinel doesn’t introduce a new knife or tool without exhaustive testing and research. The No. 12 Explorer knife, which is being released this July, underwent three and half years of development. The No. 9 oyster knife was the result of placing several prototypes into the hands of oyster farmers on the Western coast of France; their feedback informed the final design of the knife. “We are a small company, but we want to do things the right way,” Alex says.
When Opinel introduced a hand-pruner, many loyalists were worried that the company was straying too far from its roots. But, in reality, the design was emblematic of their dedication to excellence: Prototypes of handcrafted pruners and scissors that Josef had tinkered with were found among his things after he died.
They place great importance in their process
90% of Opinel’s knives are made in their factory in Chambery (the other 10% are plastic-handled knives made in Portugal). The steel sheets used for their blades are sourced from Sweden, from the number one cutlery supplier in the world. The machinery used to make Opinel knives was developed and designed by the company itself. This is atypical of the cutlery industry, and is a testament to their attention to detail and dedication to manufacturing the highest-quality product.
Their pocket knife is a design icon and has a cult following
Opinel has accumulated scores of accolades and acknowledgements over the years. The Victoria and Albert Museum named the Opinel No. 8 as one of the “100 most beautiful products in the world” (in good company with the Rolex watch and the Porsche 911!). Opinel knives have been exhibited and sold at the Museum of Modern Art.
The steel blade gets honed to the sharpest perfection.
Photo by Thierry Vallier
And Pablo Picasso himself used an Opinel knife to carve his statues (the No. 5 knife, in case you’re wondering). The knives are so ubiquitous in France that in 1989, the word “opinel” was added into the French dictionary as the generic term for pocket knife (like kleenex or band-aid here in the States).
So, why are people so bonkers for Opinel? Alex put it best: “The iconic pocket knife is more than a knife. It’s a conversation starter. It’s slight, it’s packable, it’s affordable. You just want to keep it. It represents something cool. You are carrying a piece of history.”
Unsure if I've ever posted this before, but I certainly should have, at least when Brian tapped into my old DK's post.......I'm really interested in the response drawn by comics, because, my children, I have a LOT of them.......don't wanna put them up if it's a waste of my time, but I got TONS.....so PLEASE voice your opinion, we DO fucking aim to please round here......I got ALL the "Rock n Roll Comics", all the "classic" underground stuff, "Zap", "Freak Brothers", THOUSANDS more.....let me know, and if this is something popular, we can open another chapter of this blog! I just have to know what you guys want, we be here to fucking SERVE!
Que Franco sea el Hijo predilecto de la provincia de A Coruña o el Presidente de Honor de la Diputación, entre otros títulos, tiene los días contados. El próximo pleno del ente provincial, que se celebrará el próximo 29 de julio, recogerá en su acta la retirada de las distinciones con los votos a favor de todos los grupos políticos, o al menos así se adelantó en la junta de portavoces de este miércoles.
Además de Hijo predilecto y Presidente de Honor, Francisco Franco recibiría también la medalla del excombatiente gallego en 1943. Ahora, la iniciativa del Gobierno provincial despojará al militar golpista de estos honores y critica la carencia en el Estado español «dunha auténtica política publica da memoria que permita o coñecemento da verdade histórica, a reparación e rehabilitación das vítimas, o exercicio da xustiza e a suspensión da fenda e das feridas físicas e morais causadas polo levantamento militar e a ditadura».
Por ello, el día antes de que se celebre el pleno, también tendrá lugar un homenaje institucional a miembros de la Diputación y de las corporaciones municipales que fueron víctimas de la represión franquista, como su presidente, López Bouza o el vicepresidente Ánxel Casal, así como el alcalde de Ferrol, Xaime Quintanilla, o el de Cedeira, Ramón Souto.
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Polo demais, esta maior actividade industrial tamén beneficia ás familias. Neste sentido, os expertos indicaron que o sector xera en Galicia uns 70.000 postos de traballo e máis de 80.000 familias percibiron rendas pola venda de madeira de case 300 millóns, o que supón un incremento do 14% en comparación con 2014.
Toca radiochip gallego, ¿no?
FERROL360 | Sábado 23 julio 2016 | 14:39
Unsure if I've ever posted this before, but I certainly should have, at least when Brian tapped into my old DK's post.......I'm really interested in the response drawn by comics, because, my children, I have a LOT of them.......don't wanna put them up if it's a waste of my time, but I got TONS.....so PLEASE voice your opinion, we DO fucking aim to please round here......I got ALL the "Rock n Roll Comics", all the "classic" underground stuff, "Zap", "Freak Brothers", THOUSANDS more.....let me know, and if this is something popular, we can open another chapter of this blog! I just have to know what you guys want, we be here to fucking SERVE!