Happy Monday!

RIP, Jeanne Moreau. 

Atlas Obscura has a good article about Nüshu, a Chinese written language specific to women. 

StoryThings is related to How We Get to Next, and aims to tell stories online in a way that speaks to readers. They have a conference coming up soon which looks like all sorts of fun.

Happy Friday! It is no small relief to wake up and find that while we are living in a seriously dark timeline, it is not the darkest one possible.

From my mom: Nuns are suing to stop a proposed pipeline. (Related: Seven hundred nuns publicly opposed the recent health care bill.)

From Zazoo and Satori: Debbie Harry is wearing a crazy hat which may have been made by NYC design talent extraordinaire Machine Dazzle. 

From Twitter: How good are these college athletes at drawing their own team’s logo? Well, none of them is an art major, most likely.

Also from Twitter: Gladstone, the chief mouser at the UK Treasury, reflects on a year in office. 

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

Good morning! Before the next catastrophe hits, here are some library and/or law-related links for your reading enjoyment.

For a feed of legal news, lglnws.com is a bare-bones, easy to read site. (Found via Metafilter Projects)

We previously posted about librarians using Narcan for heroin users. Library Journal and Catapult have more on what it’s like to be a first responder / librarian, and whether or not that’s something librarians should be doing.

The Library of Congress published a book all about the card catalog, and the Washington Post celebrates it as an art form (the catalog, not the book…although that’s definitely a piece of art in its own way).

Librarian Zoe Fisher has an absolutely fantastic essay at the Rumpus about libraries and how they can change your life. She has a weblog, too!

My feelings this morning are accurately summed up by this comic, brought to you by Emily’s Cartoons (which are great, check them out). It’s going to be a long slog.

Meanwhile, southern Europe is increasingly on fire and drought-ravaged, due to climate change.

In a month, a solar eclipse will take place, and you can see how much of it you’ll witness in the U.S.

So, today is fraught with tension in America. (Call your legislators. Please.)

As a diversion, here is a lovely little article on umbrella etiquette.

Happy Monday!

Literature: The Strand Bookstore turns 90 this year, and how I wish I’d been able to see “Book Row” back in the day.

Art: The Parallax Gap is an ongoing exhibit at Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C., showing “iconic ceilings of U.S. buildings.”

Travel: Eurostar now features a virtual reality experience for passengers traveling underwater. I’m not sure I’d do this; I don’t really like remembering I’m underwater and could be crushed at any moment. (Same for NYC subways. I’m under the East River right now? That’s nice. Lalalalalala.)

Friday! And it’s Marshall McLuhan’s birthday, too. Google Doodle remembers.

From Zazoo: A wonderful point about the “bathroom bills” issue. 

Also from Zazoo: More on Steve Whitmire’s departure from the Muppets. It sounds…messy. 

From Holly: Forget American Girl dolls, these Lottie dolls are cooler. They have an astronomer and a paleontologist! And free biographies of great women! And more!

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

ProPublica has a chilling, detailed project about how many U.S. women died of childbirth-related causes in 2016. Definitely worth your time.

Pew Research has some good news – millennials are most likely to use public libraries! 

What was the biggest (and/or best) movie the year you were born? For me, it was The Godfather and Pink Flamingos. This…may explain some stuff, actually.

Make Your Point is a daily email which aims to improve your vocabulary, one word at a time.

And lastly, Retronaut has a gallery of car crashes from 1930s Boston. There were a LOT of cars going into the water, apparently.

While I was out east, I got to visit Woodlawn Cemetery. I was amazed when I just happened upon the grave of Elizabeth Cady Stanton; I had no idea she was buried there. Today marks the anniversary of the Seneca Falls convention, and also marks the date of death for Margaret Fuller. It’s a good day to read up on history and women’s suffrage.

In other news, there’s a Scottish island for sale, complete with a lighthouse (which is also a murder site). The only thing I don’t like about it is the lack of trees.

And speaking of trees, I have encountered many wolf trees, but didn’t know the name for them. Now I do!

It's another busy morning, but fear not - Bill Lucey has a fantastic post on websites, podcasts, and apps recommended by journalists. Some are familiar, but I haven't heard of others, and am going to check them out as soon as it calms down around here.

Hello! Super busy today. However, here are twenty great photos of UNESCO’s new World Heritage Sites. Also, one man has made it his life mission to visit every Heritage Site, and here’s his website chronicling his adventures!

We’ve made it through another week!

NPR does some good work. However, current contract negotiations are not going so well. Here’s more info, and how you can help. 

From Julie: Personal correspondence has been discovered near Hadrian’s Wall. This is so cool.

Also from Julie: Mars is not friendly to microbes. I mean, you really can’t blame the planet.

Just how big is the ice shelf that broke off Antarctica? Here are several frames of reference, depending on where you live.

The Theme from S’Express is a classic (and I will fight anyone who says differently). Here’s some background on its creation, back in the wild days of sampling without permission.

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

Sneakers, tennis shoes, or gym shoes? I admit, I say gym shoes. I guess you can tell where I’m from. (I also say “you all.” I’m a linguistic mess.)

NPR’s Fresh Air has thirty years of shows digitally archived for your (re)listening pleasure! 

Atlas Obscura has found one of my favorite libraries, the Conjuring Arts Research Center. 

Need a useless social media app? Meet Binky! It doesn’t do anything! It’s awesome in a surrealist way.

In planetary news, we now have to redraw all our maps of Antarctica. Yikes.

It’s Henry David Thoreau’s 200th birthday, and the society in his name is celebrating all week. 

It’s also the birthday of designer extraordinaire Eiko Ishioka! 

Remember last week’s story about Amelia Earhart? Well, it was a short-lived theory. 

While the world is still turning, it’s not too late to see the amazing 12th-century churches in Ethiopia, carved from volcanic rock.

Good news, for once! Silent films – nearly five hundred of them – have been found in the Yukon! 

Back in WWI, Parisians protected buildings and monuments with sandbags. They also put tape on building windows, and some got artistic. 

The planned Shiki-Shima train in Japan is slow, and that’s on purpose. It’s so you can enjoy the scenery both outside and in.

Happy Monday and happy Palindrome Week to you. The NY Mag article on climate change is the most important read today, but here are some others.

During WWII, textiles were used for espionage, including messages delivered via knitting.

Robert Macfarlane’s Twitter is filled with the beauty of nature and the words used in describing it. 

Isadora Duncan’s autobiography is, in some ways, fictionalized, and a fiction author talks about using it in her own work.

Happy Friday!

Zazoo and Satori introduced me to Ken Nordine’s “Colors” album while I was visiting, so we found this especially funny. From Satori: “How Yellow affects your state of mind and then this ‘related article:’ Why we all need green in our lives.”

From Julie: Maybe forgetting things is just the brain’s way of weeding out useless information. (I don't recommend trying this as an excuse after an exam, however.)

From Mental Floss: What are the most distinctive (American) names of each generation?  (Also, babies being born these days belong to the "Homeland Generation"? Yikes.)

From Twitter: Maker Faire Nantes is here, and looks amazing!

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

We’re back! And the world is still turning! Huzzah!

A rediscovered photograph has added to (or perhaps solved) the mystery of Amelia Earhart’s disappearance.

The remnants of a basilica have been found underwater in what was once Nicaea.

Do you know Latin? And magic? Your help in transcribing manuscripts is hereby requested!