Hello everyone! Folderol is packing up for a week or so, while we take care of some stuff. All is well and we’ll be back next week, probably by Wednesday. In the interim, enjoy these links!

From Cassandra: Raising a child free of gender stereotypes. This is long but fascinating, and close to home!

You can help the Boston Public Library transcribe anti-slavery manuscripts. 

Beneath a parking garage in France, an urban farm is growing food! 

On my to-read list: Jinnealogy, which combines religion, history, and the supernatural.

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

Hello, we’re back. Happy Monday!

Biophilia is not just a Bjork album; it’s also a theory about designing buildings that celebrate nature. It’s a little complicated, but the feeling biophilic design evokes is simple.

Who knew Mongolia would produce so many talented opera singers? 

Bobbi Baker Burrows, the photo archive custodian for Life, has died.

The Ransom Center digital movie poster collection is extensive and amazing.

Happy Friday! Many thanks to everyone for sending in links. Our posting schedule may be a little off for the next few weeks, but we’ll be here in spirit.

From Cassandra: Behold, the death positive movement, driven by women. 

From Satori: One genealogist is proving the hypocrisy of the immigration panic…and showing that many of us have the same story, just from different time periods. (I want to work for this woman.) 

From Dave: H.P. Lovecraft meets Billy Joel and they make lovely (?) music together. 

From Julie: Part of a Dead Sea Scroll has been deciphered! 

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

It’s Virginia Woolf’s birthday, and it’s also Burns Night, so celebrate as you see fit!

In other news, home movies from 1945 St. Louis have been discovered, and they’re lovely – they’re the home movies of gay men, flying under the radar as best they could during the era.

RIP, Ursula Le Guin. Back with more soon.

Happy Friday! Quick news: We’ll be gone part of next week, so posting will be erratic at best.

From Satori: Are cats aliens from outer space? Let’s look at the facts.

From Cassandra: How sensitive are children to their environment? It seems there are three distinct types.

From Julie: Vindication for the rats! The Black Plague was spread by fleas and lice, most likely. 

From Metafilter and elsewhere: Behold the amazing names of grit trucks (gritters) in Scotland and England. My favorite so far is Gritsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Anti Slip Machiney, but there are so many good ones.

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

It’s the 10th anniversary of the Flickr Commons, which is not only a wonderful time-waster but also a great resource for education, genealogy, artistry, and so much more.

On the other side of the image media, we have the Swim Reaper, New Zealand’s water safety mascot! This is amazing.

Women Farmers of Appalachia is a photography and interview series focusing on female-run farms, and it’s beautiful.

There was a meteor over Detroit! There are reports of jets flying around to investigate. (Also, the meteor has its own Twitter account, because of course it does.)

Nexto is a very cool new app which tells stories about your surroundings.

If you’re feeling creative, the Decent project channel is very inspiring.

Climate change is revealing some buried secrets, like this Scythian tomb in Siberia. (I don’t know much about the Scythians – they seem fascinating.)

Greetings! It’s my birthday, and it’s also Lin-Manuel Miranda’s birthday. He’s posting some old home movies on his Twitter, and they’re hilarious.

Keas are among my favorite animals ever, and New Zealand is setting up curbside gyms for them, in hopes they’ll stop moving traffic cones around randomly. (See? They’re awesome.)

Champing is camping inside a church. Often with furnishings and provisions, even!

Queens (the NYC borough, that is) has some bizarre and wonderful architecture, and All the Queens Houses celebrates the glorious weirdness of it all.

Happy Friday!

From Julie, two disconcerting stories: A man thought dead wakes up in a morgue, and a deep dive on what we really experience during anesthesia. 

If you’re looking for something more lighthearted, check out the candidates for Tokyo’s 2020 Olympics mascot. Which is your favorite?

We’ll be back on Tuesday, weather and political upheavals permitting. Have a safe and spiffy weekend, everyone!

Yep, it's a busy Thursday. If you're on Twitter at all, there's a news service that I'm trying out and it seems okay so far. More tomorrow!

They’ve made a movie about the Winchester Mystery House! You can see the trailer at the house’s website. Everyone should visit this house if you can, it’s incredible.

What did the people of the past predict for 2018? Some predictions actually came to pass!

At the Tate, you can take a virtual reality tour of Modigliani’s studio. This sounds amazing, and is getting rave reviews. 

Also in London, you can travel back in time a different way and see WWII films in an underground tunnel. (All the Hidden London programs sound great.)

Light from plants? Yes! Living Light is working to produce light via photosynthesis.

Greetings! It’s all ice and sleet and rain and who knows what else here. However, here is a super cool story about how a scrap of paper found on a pirate ship was traced to a book. Seriously, take a look!

Remember when we thought 2018 might be a little less frenetic than 2017? Ha. We were so young and innocent then!

From Julie: You can now drink a cappuccino with your selfie on it, drawn in foam. (I agree with Julie’s comment: “Why?”)

The Guardian has a great page of sport photography as seen from above. 

Why are some of us left-handed? It might be due to our spinal cords, not our brains. 

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

Bombogenesis Watch is in effect!

(Yeah, it’s a slow link day.)

Some random bits of goodness on this inauspicious day:

- The Bodleian has an exhibit on the Shelleys and their works.

- Thomas Sopwith, a geologist, was also trained in cabinetmaking. This combination resulted in amazing depictions of strata! 

- Imagine the newer Star Wars characters in Regency costumes. Pretty awesome.

Hello and Happy 2018! We are settling in and trying to stay warm (it’s kind of cold out there). 

Fortunately, Pantone’s color for 2018 is a lovely peppy purple. (This is pretty much the color of our gaming room, actually!)

Why do nature sounds help us relax? The answer seems rather obvious, but fear not, scientists are on the case!