Friday, September 30, 2011

Happy Friday!




From Bunny: Lunch bag art! The man knows me well; he pointed this specific piece of artwork out to me.



From Julie: Spontaneous combustion? Yes. Yikes.



From Satori: It's the end of an era -- Andy Rooney's last segment airs this week.



Fafblog has an update! This is the best blog. Even if the update is a little bleak.



Not to worry, however; according to a link sent by my mom, the millennials will save us all. Yay, I think?



And finally, swiped from John Scalzi, a flowchart for sci-fi and fantasy books. It's pretty accurate, too!



Have a spiffy and safe weekend, everyone. See you Monday.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

After last night's amazing baseball developments (which were very nearly statistically impossible), it's time for the postseason. The Associated Press has a style guide for those writing about the World Series!




The Fake AP stylebook on Twitter is hilarious. Now they've come up with a sidekick: Fake Pew Research. My favorite so far: "4% of Frankensteins think fire is pretty OK."



The OED is turning 100, and you can read it online for free this week! Hurry and be educated, enlightened, and illuminated!



Also online for free: the Dead Sea Scrolls, digitized and available. Wow.



The Bodleian Library is showing off some of its hidden treasures, and asking the public which items should go into its permanent display collection.



I'm considering taking this route when explaining why we don't have [insert title here] in the library anymore. Fellow librarians understand. (Photo of the Maine State Library, from Jessamyn.)



Tomorrow: is Friday! And links from others.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Hooray, it's fall! This is the best time of the year around here, with the weather and Halloween approaching. It's time for corn mazes and pumpkin patches and all sort of autumn-themed festivals.




It's also time to start getting spooky! We will ease into it this year. Here are anatomical charts of Godzilla and other monsters; it's always good to know monster anatomy.



Swiped from Dawnowar, here's First Jason, a "monster metal" group from the man who played the first Jason Vorhees in the Friday the 13th films.



And if you're not quite ready for spooky just yet, you can make zillions of magnetic googly eyes and go around animating objects. The Evil Mad Scientists show you how!

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

A new edition of the Gatehouse Gazette is out, and it focuses on the world of the 1930s. Dieselpunk represent!



Also out is a new biography of H.G. Wells. He was quite the ladies' man, evidently.



Behold the wizard of Schenectady, Charles Steinmetz! It's a great story.



There are many wizards on the RPF boards, replicating props and making imaginary items come alive. Here's Dr. John Watson's service revolver, for instance!



And finally, David Malki! points to an article from the Christian Science Monitor dated 1893, which predicts what the United States will be like in 1992. It sounds, um, interesting?

Monday, September 26, 2011

Yesterday would have been Jim Henson's 75th birthday (he died much, much too young.) Michael De Pippo did some fantastic posters of an imaginary Electric Mayhem concert from 1981; imagine these framed in a row!




Andrew Kolb has illustrated David Bowie's "Space Oddity" as a children's book, and it's absolutely amazing and retro-beautiful. Do take a look.



I think a prop master's job is fascinating. Ross MacDonald shows off some of his incredible work!



Ruined cities are gaining attention as they grow in number.



And finally, how have I not heard of Romaine Brooks until now?

Friday, September 23, 2011

Happy Friday and happy Fall, everyone! Please keep an eye on the sky for falling satellite pieces, now expected to hit later today or early tomorrow.





From Brendan: an Eddie Izzard interview at Google, an hour-long one at that! Hooray!



From Cassandra: long and fascinating articles on Jung and Nostradamus, from The New Atlantis and Lapham's Quarterly, respectively.



From Zazoo: Cincinnatians have long known that Arnold's Bar is awesome, but now, thanks to Harry's Law, the whole nation will know it too. (The set looks to be a pretty decent replica of the original!)



Randomly found: Baseball during the Civil War: more important than you might think.



And finally, mega-congratulations to the Graveworm, who has an honest-to-goodness published book out running wild in the world. We just got our copy and it looks great!



Have a spiffy weekend, everyone. See you next week.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

How many books do you think you'll read in your lifetime? "Not all that many" seems to be the answer. I agree the number seems low, especially if you've had to slog through several years of higher education.

However, here's one way the number might increase: Books on Kindles are now available throughout 11,000 public libraries in the U.S., according to the press release by Amazon. I suppose I should start embracing electronic books, shouldn't I?

(Incidentally, here's a look at the darker side of Amazon. Sheesh, Amazon, turn on the A/C. I think you can afford it.)

"Reading books" is not a reason given in this study about how the women of Generation X are not having many (or any) kids. Man, we're always doing something wrong. It is rough being part of a small, cynical generation, let me tell you. At least our pop culture is awesome.

Links from others tomorrow! See you then.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Wow, I am back from the Maker Faire, and from the Clockworks Puppet production, and Arias with a Twist, and much more! While I get organized, there are photos of the trip, and here are links to some of the places and/or people I saw.

 

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Hello! Tomorrow I'm off to New York for adventures, so today is a grab bag of links. Folderol will be back next week, probably Wednesday but maybe sooner.




From Bunny, a link I forgot to use yesterday: Marie Antoinette's automaton dulcimer player. Wowzers.



From Julie: man cuts off thumb, has big toe attached in its place. Eeek.



From Chuck: behold, the anointed beluga!



And finally, some random fun: a matrix of robots in our world, and a collection of wacky photos of Vladimir Putin which sort of serve as a guide to Russia. I like the biker photos the best, I think, but the frying pan photo is also good!



Have a spiffy week and weekend, everyone! See you soon.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Some announcements!




The Steampunk Librarian Book Giveaway, Fall 2011 Edition, will be getting underway later this month. We have a huge pile of stuff to give away, and Sir Reginald is busy reading them all so he can opine about what you'll be winning.



This week, however, I'm off to New York to see the Maker Faire! I haven't been to a Faire yet, despite being a faithful subscriber to MAKE since day 1, so this is rather exciting. Also on the agenda this week is a performance of ClockWorks Puppetry Studio's Evening of Miniature Masterpieces, a visit to the Daphne Guinness exhibition at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and perhaps a brief glimpse of the "steampunk para-architecture" going on at the moment over on Second Avenue. Say hello if you see me, New York steampunk types!



Over on the other side of the country, a steampunk octopus held court at Burning Man, and there is video.



And finally, David Brothers writes about the innate idealism of steampunk, which is what draws so many of us to it, I think.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Protesters of Anonymous, here's something additional to protest. Those "V for Vendetta" Guy Fawkes masks you wear? Time Warner's making money off them. Oops.



The rest of the links today are literary! Shakespeare theatre is thriving -- a huge festival is part of the 2012 Olympics in London, and right now you can see The Tempest in puppet form (with help from Franz Ferdinand's guitarist Nick McCarthy).



A new book on Chet Baker is out, and the review is a lovely piece of writing in and of itself. Also out are two volumes of T.S. Eliot's letters, which apparently range from "boring to a degree that can hardly be borne" to "weirdly gripping." Intriguing!

Friday, September 09, 2011

Happy Friday!




From Chuck via Cassandra: Spreading terror through Twitter? A state in Mexico is trying to figure out what to do.



From Julie: Gloucester Cathedral's monastic library is now open to the public. Ooooo.



From Cassandra: Are jobs becoming obsolete? For further discussion, see Metafilter's take on the article.



Also from Cassandra: a photo of Saturn that's just amazing.



Looking for a fun read? Check out the Weird Soda Review! Someday I will upload the footage of the spooky librarians tasting and reviewing various Coca-Cola drinks at EPCOT.



Have a spiffy weekend, everyone. See you next week.

Thursday, September 08, 2011

We are going to start with the depressing stuff today and work our way up to optimism by the end of the post. Ready? Here we go!



Bill Lucey features a multitude of information (including many links) about September 11, 2001. Incidentally, you can see how clueless I was on that day, at least at first.



A Pulitzer-winning photojournalist, faced with laying off staff, chooses to resign instead.



TinEye is a "reverse image search" so you can find out just who took that photo/designed that logo.



JSTOR is making older journal content (as in 1923 and earlier) available for free!



Thinking about names? Thinking about literary connotations? Flavorwire has you covered.



I wish there were photos to go along with this profile of a librarian breaking the fashion stereotypes of the profession, but we'll just have to imagine how fabulous the looks are.



Finally, here's a brief story. Lawyer puts up ads all over town. Facebook page making fun of the ads appears. Page quickly grows in popularity. Lawyer learns of Facebook page. In a surprise twist ending, the lawyer not only finds the page hilarious, he's going to throw a party in town to celebrate! Everyone wins! (Take note, people. This is a great life lesson.)



Tomorrow: links from others, so stop back.

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

I'm back! This month will be a little erratic, with some traveling and some additional dental fun, but I'll try to keep up.



Speaking of travel, if you are planning on visiting the New York Maker Faire this month, say hi -- I'll be there, too!



This weekend, we all buckle down and get back to work, more or less, and the anniversary of Sept. 11th means a lot of somber events in the U.S.. But there are still strange happenings, such as Greeley, Colorado's Potato Day (which seems to have very little to do with potatoes), and over on the other side of the pond, the Black Pudding Throwing Championships, which seems to have everything to do with throwing black pudding at each other.


The Brits are also planning to destroy the planet with an artificial volcano, or, uh, something like that. (What could possibly go wrong?) And if you can't trust the future, now it turns out you can't totally trust the past, because there are fake fossils out there! The nerve!

Friday, September 02, 2011

Happy Friday, everyone!

From Cassandra: Soviet-era illustrations in children's books. Interesting stuff!

From Julie: The British Film Institute has a new home for its fragile flammable movies.

Also from Julie: a man who can only draw in his sleep. Wow!

From Zazoo: the story of our teenagerhood. See, we turned out fine!

Have a safe and spiffy weekend, everyone! See you next week.

Thursday, September 01, 2011

Just finished phase 8.5 (out of 10) of my ongoing dental implant fun by getting a nail rammed into my head! (Well, sort of. That's the non-technical version.) All is well but Folderol is taking the day off. See you soon!