Do you know of any artists who have run into trouble at U.S. borders? Share the Art Borders Project. 

Also share the Shadowing Trump group, which consists of several brilliant individuals.

China’s “zombie factories and unborn cities” are real, not dystopian fiction, and the subject of an eerie photoessay.

Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, the feral bunnies are taking over. (Eeek? Yay?)

And speaking of mammals, it’s time to fill out your bracket for March Mammal Madness 2017! There are lots of great entrants (including one non-mammal). I am partial to the quokka, but haven’t quite decided yet.

It’s Monday, and it’s the day after the Oscars, and is anyone else starting to seriously wonder if we’re in an alternate timeline and/or science experiment?

I’ve linked to Soundcities before, but it was a while ago, and it’s grown by leaps and bounds since then.

Bunny showed me NativLang’s YouTube channel over the weekend, and I’m hooked, even if I’m occasionally totally lost.

Meanwhile, in design news: Roller guardrails are less smashy and more bouncy for you and your car!

It is Friday once more, huzzah.

Serious links:

- The New Yorker has a long, detailed report on the relationship between Russia and the United States – how it’s changed throughout the decades, and where it might be headed now. I recommend this – take some time and read it.

- Frommers reports that travel to the U.S. has taken a nosedive. Gee, I wonder why.

Fun links:

- It’s the year of the Resistance Rooster! 

- Hot Kenobi places action figures in all sorts of situations. Check out the superheroes demolishing beer cans. Also check out the superheroes recreating La La Land's dance moves.

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

Newly discovered, possibly habitable exoplanets! Living in perpetual twilight with possibly black plants? Close enough to each other to planet hop (per this excellent poster from NASA)? Sign me up. 

You can track the progress (or lack of) recent administration nominations and nominees in this handy database. 

When imagined places become real: a list by the Guardian. Did you know there’s a whole town with streets named for Tolkien characters?

How deficient are the bridges in your (American) town? Now you can find out! (The rates for where I live and work are surprisingly low, considering we have a massive, very creaky bridge over the Ohio that everyone says is a disaster waiting to happen. It makes driving very exciting.)

The underground tunnels of Malta are full of secrets (and more than a few film crews).

If you’re wondering how far one has to walk in Arkham in order to encounter something terrible, wonder no more – now there’s a street map of the town! (The answer, by the way, is “not very far, no matter where you are.”)

A Tim Burton-themed bar is opening in NYC’s East Village. The drink menu looks especially entertaining.

In Russia, filmmakers are running into some bizarre problems. Censorship is forbidden, but insulting “religious feelings” is a criminal offense, and a new film on Tsar Nicholas II sets one issue against the other. 

Lost in the Past tells of days gone by, including this fascinating look at the Edwardian dancer Maud Allan. 

Jeffro Uitto creates incredible art. Look at the driftwood eagle! Look at the archway!

Harvesting water from fog can be done, and is being done now. Some parts of the future don’t look so bleak.

Happy Monday!

Good news – there’s now a Resistance Calendar to help you get organized.

The puppets are coming (literal puppets, not figurative ones) and there are some amazing shows out there at the moment.

Why were all the doomed poets lionized? Isn’t there something to be said for surviving? So goes a review of Deaths of the Poets. 

 Over the weekend, I discovered Ameno by Era. It’s not a new song, and the video is hilariously over the top, but the music is great. Listen!




 

Friday! Here is some good news, to balance out….everything else.

At 4 pm Mountain Time today, the 2017 March Mammals Madness announcement bursts forth, like a butterfly from…wait. Well, anyway, the divisions will be announced, along with a lot more!

If you like LEGO, and you like Dungeons & Dragons, why not both? (These could also double as miniatures for campaigns!)

From Zazoo: Boy George paid for the funeral of Pete Burns, and it was apparently an '80s reunion of sorts.

And finally, our alter egos Butch and Joan Cleaver made it into the Horror Host Hall of Fame! Induction ceremony is at Horrorhound next month. We've gotta find and unpack our outfits.

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

Hi. Today's post is super short and is provided to you courtesy of Julie, who sent in this amazing story of rare book thieves. We don't condone book thievery at all, but this sounds like something straight out of a James Bond film! Back tomorrow with more.

Today’s installment of “fake news is terrible”: That “NYE assaults in Germany” story was completely fabricated. 

Today’s installment of random Twitterness and/or gallows humor: The Russian spy ship currently off the coast of Connecticut now has its own account. (It’s currently reading emails, last I checked.)

Today’s installment of “there is still good in the world”: Kuwait’s Maker Faire features some amazing women.

Late night political shenanigans make early mornings more exciting. Er. Right?

Consider the dandy as subversive art. No, really, consider it! 

William Henry Fox Talbot invented photography, and captured thousands of images. The Bodleian has been digitizing and sharing them online, along with a very spiffy weekly weblog on the man and his work.

Harry Houdini was not only a great magician and escape artist, but an inventor as well. (He didn’t want to make his secrets public via patents, however!)

A new Twitter account reimagines our current president as a supervillain. It’s true that many of his statements sound like something out of a comic…

Bill McKibben looks at the resurgence of vinyl records and Moleskine notebooks, and considers the analog vs. digital divide.

On the other hand, apps like DecoratorApp are useful when trying to figure out how to furnish a new place (as we are trying to do right now)!

The world of miniatures is kind of strange, at least to me. But to those immersed in the hobby, it can be therapeutic. (I think, anyway. It would drive me stark raving mad.)

Happy Friday! Let’s all hear it for our (still working, if only just) system of checks and balances. 

From Holly: Fragile Rock is a puppet emo band. What more do you need to know?

From Bill Lucey: We’re still learning about women’s lives in occupied Paris during WWII. 

From Paleofuture: a WWII pamphlet on how to speak Australian. Sort of.

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

To arms, librarians! Battle the fake news we will!

Some pleasant news: the Metropolitan Museum of Art has made 375,000 images open access.

Also, you can download coloring books from the Library of Congress, among many other resources. Sometimes it’s the little things.

Today, in the spirit of persistent women, we celebrate this newly discovered photo of Harriet Tubman. She was one of my childhood heroes. (She still is.)

In Siberia, there’s an ice library of dreams. That sounds like the intro to a fantasy novel, but it’s actual news.

Beachcombing’s Bizarre History Blog always has wonderful posts. Here’s one all about Victorian criminal slang. (I like “starring the glaze” for breaking a window. It sounds so elegant!)

If you’re looking to disorient or discombobulate someone, I recommend these Hieronymus Bosch figurines. Extra points if you manage to install tiny recordings in them that go off at random times.

I love travel posters, especially those to fictional or offbeat places. Now there’s one for my hometown! Come see our mythical beast! (Good luck. We’ve never seen it. Hope springs eternal, though.)

Remember when the world wasn’t (quite as much) on fire and I posted goofy steampunk stuff on Tuesdays? In that nostalgic spirit, it’s time for Steampunk Hands Around the World 2017, and here’s a passel of great links!

Also, in a meeting of the past and present, here is Rusty the robot with some helpful memes on how to civilly disagree. 

Madame Clairvoyant’s weekly horoscopes are not so much astrological predictions as they are inspiring challenges. That’s how I see them, anyway. Here’s an interview with the madame behind the clairvoyance.

We’re back! And we are all moved in. Mostly. Just don’t ask us where anything is at the moment. While we get caught up, here are a few links from others (thanks, all!).

From Julie: Bat Bot! It’s creepy and cool, just the way we like it.

From Zazoo: The story of the girl with the tattooed face.