Cracking down on the monstrous evil of tiny Free Lending Libraries
It’s good to know, Charlie Jane Anders reports at io9, that people are focusing on what’s really important. Some local governments have looked past the problems of homelessness and crumbling city services to tackle the real crisis: people are putting up tiny “take a book, leave a book” libraries.
Los Angeles, Shreveport, LA and Leawood, KS have all tried to levy fines and other sanctions against people who put up these tiny birdhouse-like lending libraries.
Read the whole story HERE
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“US Company will be Cursed if Ancient Fairy Fort is Destroyed”
Stone ringfort, “Ring of Kerry” in Ireland. (Francis Bijl/CC BY 2.0) Representational image.
Bad luck is sure to befall a US company if it builds a new factory over a fairy fort in Ireland, warns a traditional Irish lore keeper.
West Pharmaceutical Services is building a new factory on a site situated over an ancient ringfort (rath, or fairyfort) which dates back thousands of years.
Eddie Lenihan, famed Irish author, storyteller and broadcaster, says that destruction or removal of the fairy fort would spell dire consequences and bad luck for all those involved in construction or clearing the ancient dwelling, according to the Irish Examiner.
Read the whole story HERE
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Stories are addictive
Photo by Thibaud Saintin
“Sometimes friends will be over, everybody talking, and one of the little kids will get antsy so I’ll pick up a book and start reading,” Ann Finkbeiner writes in Last Word on Nothing. “…pretty soon nobody is talking any more, everybody’s listening to Winnie the Pooh and Piglet track the Heffalump. I’ll bet you can sit in any small coffee shop, open a book, start reading aloud “Once upon a time,” and by the third paragraph, the whole coffee shop will be dead silent.
“Stories. I’ve always thought of them as addictive entertainment for which – for some reason – we happen to be hardwired.”
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Matika Wilbur, Darkfeather, Bibiana and Eckos Ancheta (Tulalip), 2014. Inkjet print 16 x 20 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Indigenous Americans Without the Stereotypes
Three years ago photographer Matika Wilbur, a member of the Tulalip and Swinomish tribes, set out on a vast road trip across America to photograph members of all 562 of America’s federally-recognized tribes, Natasha Donovan wrote in an article in Yes Magazine.
Her collection so far includes images from more than 200 tribes she has visited in the course of traveling 80,000 miles around the western United States.
Read the whole story HERE
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The classical jokes hiding in your favorite children’s books
From Harry Potter to Winnie the Pooh, many well loved children’s books look back to the classical world in unexpected ways, Frances Myatt writes at The Guardian.
For example:
Tom Felton as Draco in Harry Potter:
JK Rowling actually studied classics and French, so it’s unsurprising the Harry Potter books are packed full of classical references. Most of the exotic sounding spells are really just simple commands translated into Latin – for example “crucio” means “I torture”, “evanesco” translates as “I vanish” and “accio” means “I summon”. Rowling also drew on the ancient world when naming many of her characters.Take Draco – not only does his name mean “serpent” or “dragon”, but in ancient Athens there was a famously vicious lawmaker called Draco who put people to death for stealing fruit or just being lazy.
Read the whole story HERE
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Quirky characters on the streets of Ann Arbor
David Zinn stalks the streets of Ann Arbor, Michigan, creating temporary illustrations with chalk and charcoal, Christopher Jobson tells us at Colossal.
Zinn improvises each piece on the spot and makes use of found objects, street fixtures, and stair steps to create trompe d’oeil illusions. You can see others in his 2013 book Lost & Unfounded: Street Art by David Zinn.
See more examples HERE
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Quote of the Day
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Alma Alexander My books Email me
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