Friday, May 25, 2012

Happy Friday! We have a veritable bonanza of links from others this week, and that’s an especially good thing because Folderol will be on a mini-vacation next week. I’ll be in New York to see Labapalooza! There may be some spotty updates here and on Facebook (I’m at facebook.com/jinnet, say hi if you like!), and regular updates should resume a week from Monday.




And now, on to the links, with the contributor listed in parentheses just to be different.



The many voices of Charles Dickens, as observed on his 200th birthday. (Cassandra)



Literary maps of the USA and Great Britain, arranged by general locale of the authors! (Bunny)



Queen Victoria’s diaries are online! And, if you’re outside the UK, you can read them for free through June. This is very exciting for history geeks. (Julie)



Americans sound ridiculous when talking about international soccer (er, football) games; now a Brit announces an NBA game to even the score a bit. (Bunny)



The Bigfoot investigations continue! DNA tests will be performed on possible yeti remnants. (Julie)



When, exactly, is the future? Here’s a handy chart by decade, as seen through sci-fi literature. (Bunny)



Speaking of the future, Colin Powell has come out in favor of same-sex marriage. (Zazoo)



The Catholic Church continues to alienate many of its followers; is this an intentional downsizing? (Mom)



“Two links on dealing with nerd-grief at the death of an RPG character (since this is on the horizon in our campaign, it may be good reading for others out there). First: Wil Wheaton's entry on his elf character that died during a podcast, and second, another gamer's take on how to deal with it...complete with graveyard and burning of character sheets (hahaha).” (Bunny)



Get a bad review on Yelp? Go with it and make it a source of pride! (Bunny)



Parry Gripp’s Song of the Week is reminiscent of ye olde Dial-a-Song from They Might Be Giants. Enjoy!



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

Thursday, May 24, 2012

The new entries in the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry range from Leonard Bernstein to Donna Summer. How fun is that?




Also fun from a historical perspective: the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, complete with a list of “New Elizabethans” which range from David Bowie to Margaret Thatcher. (The Queen is also on the list, which seems oddly redundant.)



Here’s a good idea for promoting e-books: the BuzzBook features excerpts from over 30 upcoming publications.



A good idea for promoting libraries comes from the Swiss Army Librarian. I think this would be especially effective against the “I pay your salary!” taxpayer complaints.



And finally, something fantastic and like a spy novel: a Russian library has discovered hundreds of books hidden behind a fake wall. Awesome.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Drop whatever you’re doing and go play with Google’s Moog simulator! You can even record and play back your compositions. I hear it’s good for scaring pets, too.




This weekend kicks off the summer, and the happenings include the Carnaval in San Francisco and the International Clown Festival in Denmark.



Next weekend, however, brings even better stuff – it’s the Labapalooza puppeteering festival in New York City! Friends Zazoo, Satori, and Poison Eve are putting on a performance – you can see more information about the artists and their shows at the Shredding Wench Factory’s Facebook page – and one of their puppets was chosen as the main image for the production. If you’re in the NYC area next weekend, I highly recommend it!

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

To begin, here are many gorgeous photos of last weekend’s Steampunk World’s Fair!




Today is the birthdate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who deserves a moment (or several) in respect.



Bunny sent me a link to Neatorama’s post on heaven and hell-themed nightclubs in Victorian Paris, which, in turn, links to the full text of the 1899 publication Bohemian Paris of To-Day.



Meanwhile, in the world of sport, women were making their mark as well, and here are more great photographs to prove it.



Need an extra hand when soldering? Why not make it as steampunk as possible, just for the fun of it?



The Chronicles of Harriet site explores the League of Extraordinary Black People. Great stuff.



Sky Alchemist is a puzzle game with steampunk designs and a strong female protagonist. What more could one want?



And finally, in honor of the running joke that “steampunk is what happened when goths discovered the color brown,” happy World Goth Day to all. Stay spooky, my friends.

Monday, May 21, 2012

A few weeks ago, I linked to the El Nour Wal Amal Blind Girls Chamber Orchestra and said I wished there was more information on them. Voila, the Washington Post delivers.




There’s a man making intricate art in the New York subway; if you’re in the area, look out for him and his work!



Also in New York: The Shakespeare Exchange sounds like all kinds of fun, and their Sonnet Project just got funded by Kickstarter.



Who knew Magritte did music covers? The Brain Pickings website did, and the site is a lovely new discovery for me, too.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Happy Friday!




Sometimes the headline (or sub-headline) says it all. From Julie: “A rubber chicken wearing an outfit knitted from plastic bags by a woman from Rugby is to be launched into space by Nasa on Sunday.”



From Bunny: Science! In cool vintage poster format!



Also from Bunny: Life in the Singularity…if/when lawyers get to it.



From Cassandra: A Dale Chihuly exhibit’s about to open in Seattle, and it looks beautiful.



Have a spiffy weekend, everyone!

Thursday, May 17, 2012

It’s time for the annual “most well-read cities in America” list, and my city is still in the top 20! I think our public library system must be responsible.




Meanwhile, in New York City, the NYC Municipal Archives has opened an enormous photo gallery; hours of immersion await you. If you're into that sort of thing, that is.



If you prefer globetrotting, the Book Depository has a “live” page in which you can watch books being ordered from around the world!



All about books: the New Yorker debuted its Page-Turner site this month.



All about baseball history: The always fantastic Baseball Researcher begins a series of posts dedicated to the old (mostly gone) ballparks around the country.



Tomorrow: links from others!

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Well, now a new discovery indicates the Mayans did not believe in the world ending in 2012. Do you think that this was discovered a while ago, but the announcement was postponed for maximum effect?




This weekend is chock full of crazy festivals, from the Calaveras County Jumping Frog Jubilee to the Mike the Headless Chicken Festival. It’s also the weekend of the Bay to Breakers race, which is always hilarious.



And for the armchair tourist, Berenice Abbott’s amazing photos of 1930s New York City are online.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

It looks as if last weekend’s Watch City Festival was splendid. This weekend, it’s on to the Steampunk World’s Fair!




If you’re attending these festivals and looking for something to wear, Kate Beaton has a vintage photograph of a man dressed like “a side of bacon.” He was a hipster before he knew it.



Also hipster, but in the most wonderful way possible, is ~Flow, “electro-acoustic musical machinery powered by the River Tyne.” Very impressive, and beautiful as well.



I found ~Flow via BLDGBLOG, which also has a fantastic entry on New York City’s quarries of yesteryear.



In related rock-smashing news, the Daily Mash has reassured us that the dramatic increase in potential fracking activity will cause only a 30% chance of awakening Cthulhu. Don’t you feel better? Er...hello?

Monday, May 14, 2012

Happy Monday! Did you have a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious weekend? Did you know that supercalifragilisticexpialidocious wasn’t invented by Disney?




Booklist Online is celebrating Mystery Month – if you’re a mystery fan, get thee to the website.



This is a new one to me: I didn’t know one could make x-ray sound recordings. Very cool.



The Metropolitan Opera has a wall of fame consisting of 800 photographs. Take a look!



And lastly, a moment of silent appreciation for the Futuro design, which didn’t make it into mainstream society but really should have.

Friday, May 11, 2012

Happy Friday! Today’s links are brought to you by Cassandra and Bunny, friends and link-hunters extraordinaire.



From Cassandra:



Look out, humans – the chimps are getting smarter.



The scale of the universe, on a web page.



Is childlessness still a taboo?



From Bunny:



Look out, humans – the fish are starting to walk.



Disney’s Electric Light Parade, in miniature!



Roman emperors, ranked by the gruesomeness of their respective deaths.



Have a spiffy weekend, everyone! See you next week. Look out for the animals.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Today’s links have a(n) historical bent.



What happened to the newspaper morgues full of photographs? WNYC explores the fate of the New York Times morgue.



Meanwhile, in Springfield, Illinois, many of the photographs were donated and digitized, which means everyone can see the history of the city.



When is a baseball photo interesting to non-sports fans? When it’s a benefit game for the survivors of the Titanic and it references The Great Gatsby, maybe?



The mystery of the lost colony of Roanoke is a little closer to being solved; thanks to some detective work on an old map, the settlement may have (secretly?) moved.



And finally, look at these drawings from 1982, predicting the future! They’re eerily close to reality. We’re living in the future, even if we don’t quite have the jetpacks and flying cars yet. Pretty amazing.

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Today’s a bit of a stream-of-consciousness post. Roll with it, won’t you?




We start off in Belgium, where the annual Cat Parade takes place in Ypres this weekend.



From there, it’s architecture concerned with animals – this year’s design contest features the urban animal in particular.



And from architecture concerned with animals, to architecture concerned with people – the Age of Zinc talks about what it means to build in poverty-stricken areas like favelas and ghettos.



Cities lead to transportation, which leads to this post about River Song riding the Tube in London. (I told you it was a stream-of-consciousness sort of thing!)



And then, finally, in totally unrelated thinking, and for the spooky among the readers, I’d like to visit the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft.

Tuesday, May 08, 2012

Unlacing the Victorians has some nice summaries of the recent Steampunk Empire Symposium, among other great posts!




If you’re looking for more steampunk convention fun, fear not – Waltham, Massachusetts becomes an International Steampunk City this weekend. Many thanks to the Sparkle Queen for sending on this news! (One of these years I will attend. I will also meet the Sparkle Queen then and the world will explode for reasons too complicated to explain here, so really, it’s for your own good that I will not be there.)



The Steampunk Tribune webmaster continues his yeoman’s work of chronicling the many steampunk-related Facebook pages out there on the aetherweb.



A lengthy examination of personality types and steampunk archetypes yields some interesting results!



And lastly, the renewed interest in handmade crafts (a strong aspect of steampunk) is explored in a Der Spiegel article.

Monday, May 07, 2012

We go around the world in today’s post. Ready?




The Chinese zither known as the guquin is making a comeback in performance halls.



Edinburgh’s mystery sculptor is back! Hooray!



I’m fascinated by this article on the Al Nour Wal Amal Blind Girls Chamber Orchestra, but can’t find much more about them (in English, at least).



The New York Public Library has opened an exhibit on Percy Bysshe Shelley’s life and legacy. The Smart Set has an article on Shelley which puts forth the opinion that he was sort of an overrated jerk. I don’t think I agree, but it’s always entertaining to read dissenting opinions on poets and writers.


Woodcut Maps are just what they say – but they can be designed by anyone, with the help of Google Maps. It’s a fun way to keep a piece of geography with you, no matter where you are.

Friday, May 04, 2012

Happy Friday! On to the links from others.




From Julie: photos of the annual Whitby Gothic Weekend, which look fantastic (as always) and also include steampunks!



Also from Julie: a look at how London has historically treated its insane people, courtesy of a new book titled Bedlam which sounds fascinating.



Cassandra is all about the Super Moon this weekend! There are also supposed to be meteor showers. Let's all hope it doesn’t rain.



From Bunny: Descriptive Camera describes a scene in words rather than images, which is amazing.



Also from Bunny, possibly the best video game ever – Perfect Strangers! (It was down yesterday but is up again as of this morning.) I have some work to do in chasing my dream, according to Balki.


Have a spiffy Cinco de Mayo/Derby Day/Super Moon/weekend, and May the Fourth be with you!

Thursday, May 03, 2012

Argh, busy day. Possibly more later today, definitely an update tomorrow!

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

With both Cinco de Mayo and the Kentucky Derby happening this weekend, there will be no lack of entertainment. But! If you’re not in the mood for margaritas or mint juleps, you can chase cheese down a hill, or dress up like a giant garland. (Both of those will probably work out better if you’re in Stilton and Hastings, respectively, but who knows? Give it a try where you live!)




The Great Steamboat Race takes place as part of the Derby Festival this weekend, too.



And, for something rather different, Bunny has sent in some film of an expedition to Tibet…in 1938…by Nazi scientists. This is a different expedition than the one which resulted in the Seven Years in Tibet book and movie, but is no less fascinating to see on film.

Tuesday, May 01, 2012

Happy May Day to everyone!

The Steampunk Symposium was a great amount of fun, and you can see for yourself via some photos of the event! I was sad I didn't get a chance to meet Ay-leen, but I did get a chance to see many of the activities and browse the merchant bazaar, which included fantastic items from Time Traveler Outfitters and Altered History. It looks as if a good time was had by all!