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Roald Dahl (1916-1990) is probably best known as one of the principal architects of the 20th century children’s fairy tale, with such sly, savage and addictive masterpieces as The Enormous Crocodile, The Witches, The BFG, and personal favourite The Twits.
posted by turgid dahlia at 5:36 PM Jul 22 2008 - 62 comments [49 favorites]

For years, Wired magazine has tapped a bevy of designers and artists in the tech field to craft detailed visions of futuristic objects for a monthly showcase at the close of each issue. Now, after hinting as much in the July edition, it is clear that that the tradition of FOUND has been brought to an end. What better way to say goodbye to this whimsical feature than by taking a look back at the full archived run of the series?
posted by Rhaomi at 5:42 PM Jul 22 2008 - 26 comments [37 favorites]

Cake Wrecks. "When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong." [via]
posted by kolophon at 4:57 PM Jul 22 2008 - 66 comments [32 favorites]

In the summer of 1897, the Devil transported a minor Decadent poet named Enoch Soames one hundred years into the future to see what posterity would make of his work. The only witness to the affair was the parodist Max Beerbohm, whose account of Soames and his journey ensured that at 2:10 P.M. on June 7, 1997, some dozen pilgrims waited in the Round Reading Room of the British Museum to see the poet appear...
posted by Iridic at 10:58 AM Jul 22 2008 - 26 comments [29 favorites]

The Comic Bardo Thodol, or: Everything you ever wanted to know about the Tibetan Book of the Dead but were afraid to not read in a streamlined comic context. [via mefi projects]
posted by cortex at 6:34 AM Jul 23 2008 - 20 comments [22 favorites]

Art Deco was the dominant style of the interwar era, coming out of Paris in the 1920's and ruling the roost until World War II broke out. Randy Juster's Decopix - The Art Deco Resource has enough pictures of Art Deco architecture to send one hurtling into The Gernsback Continuum. If that's not enough then there's always the 11000+ images of the Flickr Art Deco Pool. But Art Deco wasn't just about architecture. On the Victoria and Albert Musem's Art Deco site one can view Art Deco objects in great detail, rotating them and listening to audio lectures on each object. But before Art Deco was a design aesthetic it was an art-style. Illustrations for the Art Deco Book in France has more than 170 images from the proponents of that then-new style (some images are not safe for work, especially in the George Barbier section).
posted by Kattullus at 6:59 AM Jul 22 2008 - 22 comments [53 favorites]

In January of 2004, Disney shut down their Florida animation studio, part of their decision to move away from 2D, or cell-shaded, animation for good. Two years later, as part of the new deal with Pixar, John Lasseter and Ed Catmull were brought in as heads of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, and promptly declared that 2-D Animation would thrive again on their watch. For their first new project, the team wanted to show support for the still-struggling New Orleans, and simultaneously introduce Disney's first Black Princess in "The Frog Princess" (Or The Princess and the Frog, as it is now known), a fairy tale set in 1920's Jazz-era Louisiana, with Randy Newman providing a period-specific score. Much response to the project has been quite positive, but as with all things, the devil is in the details.
posted by Navelgazer at 5:46 PM Jul 22 2008 - 96 comments [16 favorites]

The Historic American Sheet Music archive at the Duke University Library has over 3000 pieces published in the United States available online, from the 1850s up to 1920. Composers represented include well-known names such as Scott Joplin, Irving Berlin, and John Philip Sousa. All the music is now in the public domain, and may be printed and performed freely. [Note: Language or stereotypes may occasionally be NSFW.]
posted by Upton O'Good at 4:59 PM Jul 22 2008 - 6 comments [16 favorites]

The Mercury Prize shortlist for 2008 is: Adele - 19 | British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music? | Burial - Untrue | Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid | Estelle - Shine | Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim | Neon Neon - Stainless Style | Portico Quartet - Knee-Deep in the North Sea | Rachel Unthank & The Winterset - The Bairns | Radiohead - In Rainbows | Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand | The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of the Understatement
posted by chuckdarwin at 12:46 PM Jul 22 2008 - 44 comments [15 favorites]

Butch Cassidy wanted to call his gang The Train Robber's Syndicate, but the name never stuck. The gang's core members - most notable among them The Sundance Kid - and a revolving cast of supporting outlaws were most commonly called The Hole-in-the-Wall Gang and The Wild Bunch, and their goal was to be the most successful train robbers in history. The Butch and Sundance site is a comprehensive collection of "the hundreds, if not thousands, of theories, legends and folk tales" surrounding the gang, including an exhaustive list of biographies of the members, their associates, the lawmen who pursued them and the women who loved them, an archive of transcribed news articles dating from the 1880s (including a letter to the editor from Sundance himself), a picture gallery and more.
posted by amyms at 11:39 PM Jul 22 2008 - 23 comments [14 favorites]

Font Conference. A video from CollegeHumor which made me laugh more than a video from CollegeHumor really should.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:19 AM Jul 22 2008 - 57 comments [13 favorites]

The Muppets have their own YouTube channels! Enjoy a little classical music with Beaker or Gonzo, opera with the Swedish Chef, get patriotic with Sam the Eagle, or just leave commentary with Statler and Waldorf.
posted by EarBucket at 6:05 AM Jul 21 2008 - 14 comments [39 favorites]

Lifetime, Wow! A blog devoted to watching, reviewing, and ranking Lifetime movies, including such classics as Fifteen and Pregnant, Fatal Trust, and Love Sick: Secrets of a Sex Addict.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 2:52 PM Jul 22 2008 - 61 comments [8 favorites]

Fivedollarcomparison.org is a collaborative photo project designed by a number of Nokia researchers to understand the buying power of 5 dollars across the world. The goal of this project is vague: to understand how culture, context and communication might change the world. Post your own example here. Sample photo.
posted by |n$eCur3 at 5:07 PM Jul 22 2008 - 17 comments [8 favorites]

Lionel Richiie's voice has a makeover in this creepy audio dub of the video to Hello. If you get bored half way skip to the Sinister/ridiculous drama at the end.
posted by Arnolfini at 2:29 AM Jul 23 2008 - 25 comments [7 favorites]

Mygazines is for sharing magazines online.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 7:19 AM Jul 22 2008 - 45 comments [17 favorites]

The future of classical music lies in China. Chinese enthusiasm for Western classical music is deep, says New Yorker music critic Alex Ross, but traditional Chinese music is older and more classical than anything in the West.
posted by plexi at 2:14 PM Jul 22 2008 - 25 comments [6 favorites]

A tasty chocolate cake you can make from scratch in five minutes. In the microwave. In a mug. Other 5-minute variations include peanut butter chocolate cake (picture), jello cake (picture), and spice cake
posted by blahblahblah at 9:15 AM Jul 21 2008 - 73 comments [58 favorites]

Active in the years before padded jungle gyms (and class action lawsuits), Action Park was a sometimes bloody rite of passage for many New Jersey kids. Infamous for its gravity-and-friction-defying looping waterslide and beer gardens, it eventually produced so many injuries that the park bought the surrounding city extra ambulances to cope. It still is alive in many New Jersey hearts today.<-video.
posted by concreteforest at 5:09 PM Jul 21 2008 - 69 comments [38 favorites]

When you first hear of a shrimp breaking out of it's tank, the prospect isn't really frightening. But when you learn that the mantis shrimp has punched through the glass container, it becomes a little more serious.
posted by thatbrunette at 9:56 PM Jul 20 2008 - 68 comments [33 favorites]

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