The following is a guest blog by Craig Conley, author of Magic Words: A Dictionary

If you've ever paid a compliment, written a mission statement, stated an affirmation, made a wish, shouted a command, or said a little prayer, you've used some magic words.

Indeed, magic words aren't just for stage performers or superstitious folks. They're powerful language tools, like blueprints for constructing reality. With magic words, we define a sacred arena where miracles can come into play. There are profound truths in that old cliché of a magician pulling a rabbit out of an empty hat with the magic word abracadabra. Almost everyone recognizes the image. But what relatively few people know is that our stereotypical magician is speaking an ancient Hebrew phrase that means "I will create with words." He is making something out of nothing, echoing that famous line from Genesis: "Let there be light, and there was light."

In the course of compiling Magic Words: A Dictionary, we unearthed a wealth of magical expressions from comic books, television shows, rock 'n' roll, ancient Egyptian scrolls, and pulp fiction. Here are some of our whimsical favorites:

THE POWER OF PURPLE

The title "Purple One" popularly refers to the artist formerly known as Prince. But former teen idol and now game show host Donnie Osmond was a purple one back in the mid-1970's. Elprup is the word that Donnie Osmond spoke on The Donnie and Marie Show to transform into Captain Purple. The word is purple spelled backward.

FROSTY THE SNOWMAN'S SECRET

Frosty the Snowman's secret comes to us courtesy of home automation expert Gordon Meyer, author of Smart Home Hacks. Animovividus Homonivalis is a pseudo-Latin spell for bringing a snowman to life. The word animo refers to the life force or soul of the snowman, which is conjured to vivify with the word vividus. Nivalis means "snowy," and homo means "man."

BART SIMPSON'S ZOMBIE SPELL

Zabar, Kresge, Caldor, Wal-Mart is Bart Simpson's spell for conjuring zombies, chanted in Matt Groening's animated series The Simpsons (Season 4, Episode 64, "Dial Z For Zombies," Oct. 29, 1992). The words are actually names of discount retail markets.

Bart also has another zombie spell: Cullen, Rayburn, Narz, Trebek. The words are names of game show hosts: Bill Cullen of To Tell the Truth, Gene Rayburn of Match Game, Jack Narz of Concentration, and Alex Trebek of Jeopardy.

A SPELL FOR A LA-Z-BOY

The magic word rantorp (a Scandinavian name) changes people into chairs in the play General Gorgeous by Michael McClure (1982).

"HOLY COW!"

Alizebu is a magic word for revealing hidden passages in the computer game King's Quest 6 (Sierra Entertainment, 1992). The word zebu comes from the Tibetan ceba, meaning "hump." Zebu is a breed of hump-backed India ox. With the Arabic Ali ("by the most high") in front, Alizebu could be translated as "holy cow."

OOO EEE OOO-AH-AH TING TANG WALLA-WALLA BING-BANG

This phrase is a love spell chanted in the song "Witch Doctor" by David Seville (1958). "It is a song of unrequited love cured by the magic incantations of the witch doctor" (Bob McCann, "The Declension Song," 2003). Diana Winn Levine suggests that ting tang are the magic words and walla walla bing bang mean the magic is over.

A CAT IN A HAT

If Dr. Seuss's Cat in the Hat were a magician, his magic word might be inspiratus, Latin for the divine "breath" that inspires creativity. We unearthed a delightful fakir's incantation that incorporates the word as it celebrates a Schrödinger's Cat paradox:

Hocus, pocus, inspiratus,
there is a cat in the hat;
hocus, pocus, inspiratus,
there is no cat in the hat.

(Incantation quoted in Lawrence Bruehl's The Mathematics of Unlimited Prosperity, 1939)

PEANUT BUTTER AND SESAME STREET

Abba Zabba recalls the expanse of the alphabet, A (abba) to Z (zabba), the alpha and omega of creative power. The words appear in a Captain Beefheart song of the same name (1974). The lyrics are a sort of nursery rhyme about childhood rituals and seem to suggest that the primal syllables abba zabba are "song before song before song." Abba Zabba is also the name of an old-fashioned peanut butter taffy candy bar.

Interestingly, peanut butter figures into other magic words. A-la Peanut Butter Sandwiches has appeared in a "Rugrats" comic strip and is the Amazing Mumford's magic expression on the Sesame Street television series. The peanut is like the sesame seed of Open Sesame fame—a spiritual food which unlocks a doorway to a world of wonders. The pods of peanuts and sesame plants open to reveal their seeds, just as the wall of rock opened for the legendary Ali Baba when he said the secret password.

SMALL CHANGE

Here's a magic word that is tailor made for a wishing well. Found in 18th-century Kabbalistic treatises, matba is a magic word for obtaining small coins. It literally means "bring forth." As a talisman to be carried in one's money purse, matba was to be written on a square of paper.

PEE-WEE HERMAN

Mekka-Lekka-Hi, Mekka-Hiney-Ho was popularized by the children's television series Pee-Wee's Playhouse (1986). "One of Pee-wee's visiting pals to pop into the Playhouse was in the form of a genie—a disembodied, turban-topped talking head named Jambi. Always a jokester, Jambi swiveled his head and worked his magic much to Pee-wee's rapture; he granted wishes if Pee-wee chanted along with him" (Stephen Cox, Dreaming of Jeannie, 2000).

FROM INSIDE PANDORA'S BOX

Jiggery pokery is action with astonishing results or a clever deception. It is the name of one of the plagues and misfortunes that was contained inside Pandora's box of mythology.

JOHNNY THUNDER'S SECRET

Cei-u (pronounced "say you") is the word that gives comic book character Johnny Thunder (Flash Comics, 1940) the power to summon The Thunderbolt (his magical partner who appears as a puff of pink smoke).

A GHOSTLY NAME

In the folklore of West Cornwall, England, Nomme Domme was a name that spirit-quellers used to address and obtain power over ghosts. The name is undoubtedly a corruption of the Latin In Nomine Domini ("In the Name of the Lord"). The name was considered "a magical word, very likely the spirit's name among spirits, for old folks held that they acquire new ones quite different from what they bore when in mortal bodies" (William Bottrell, Stories and Folk-Lore of West Cornwall, 1880).

A WATCHED POT NEVER BOILS?

It's been said that a watched pot never boils, and perhaps that inspired this Italian magic spell for getting water to bubble: Pentola, pentola, pentola, bolli.

BRUCE LEE-STYLE

Exclaimed at the end of a chant, the magic word harrahya could be likened to the shout of a martial artist delivering a knifehand strike, focusing power toward an amazing conclusion.

HOLY MOLY

Popularized by the Captain Marvel comics in 1940, Holy Moly is an expression of wonderment that recalls a magic herb of Greek mythology. Sporting white flowers and black roots, moly was Hermes' gift to Odysseus, to protect against incantations.

MAGIC IN OZ

In the Oz books by L. Frank Baum, it is said that to transform people and objects, the word pyrzqxgl must be pronounced correctly. The Munchkin named Bini Aru, who discovered the word, hid away the pronunciation directions after Princess Ozma decreed that only Glinda could practice magic in the land.

BROCCOLI

Oh! Brocoli,
Oh! Brocoli,
A magic word
is Brocoli!
—J.A.H., "The Masonic Password," Freemason's Magazine (Aug. 15, 1868)

The incantation quoted above was said in jest, yet it's not preposterous that the vegetable broccoli have a magical name. The word derives from a Latin root, brocchus, meaning "projecting." A simple definition of a magic word is "a powered projection" (to paraphrase W. Ong, The Presence of the Word, 1967).

UN-BEWITCHING

Zolda Pranken Kopeck Lum are the magic words the character Uncle Arthur teaches Darrin Stephens in the television series Bewitched, when Darrin is convinced he's been turned into a Warlock.

EXCELSIOR

Excelsior is a cry of ascendancy, supremacy, mastery, greatness. It is a charm for gaining the upper hand. The silvery tones of this heart-stirring magic word "put a soul in every bell / To triumph o'er the powers of hell—Excelsior!" (Thomas Bracken, "Longfellow," Musings in Maoriland, 1890). In his poem "Excelsior," Henry Wadsworth Longfellow likened the word to a sigh, an oft-repeated prayer, the accents of an unknown tongue, and a falling star. Excelsior is of Latin origin, ex meaning "beyond" and celsus meaning "lofty." It is typically taken to mean "ever upward."

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Described by Encarta as "America's most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation," Craig Conley has also been called a 'cult hero' by Publisher's Weekly. A former college teacher of writing and literature, he left academia to pursue his research into one-letter words, magic words and ancient Zen versions of Rock-Paper-Scissors.

In addition to Magic Words: A Dictionary (Weiser Books) and One-Letter Words, a Dictionary (HarperCollins), he has written a field guide to identifying unicorns by sound, a coloring book that requires no crayons, an atlas of blank maps, and four editions of the textbook Human Diversity: A Guide for Understanding . Craig blogs at OneLetterWords.com/weblog and MysteryArts.blogspot.com.

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Are you an author and would like your book featured on Neatorama? Please email me about a possible guest blog post just like this one!

[YouTube Link]

A while ago, Neatorama reviewed Conn and Hal Iggulden’s bestseller The Dangerous Book for Boys – a manual for boys on how to rediscover fun and adventure. But what about girls? Sure, today’s girls have emails, iPods, cell phones, and other things that their mothers couldn’t imagine when they were young girls, but for many, something is missing.

That something is the magic of girlhood: stories, crafts, outdoor activities and plain good old fashioned fun that young girls had been doing for decades before the age of the Web. To help today’s girls take a break from the digital life and recapture a little of that "magic" is Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz’s book The Daring Book for Girls.

Daring picks up where Dangerous left off: the beautifully bound, blue and sparkly (yes, sparkly!) book covers over 100 topics ranging from how to play hopscotch, press a flower, make friendship bracelets, to how to build a fort (it’s not just for boys, you know).

Forgot how to play Four Square? Wonder what the slumber party classic "Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board" game is all about? … And how does that campfire song "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" go again? (girls, a tip: your parents looove this song, especially if you sing it for them over and over again on long car trips!) Well, The Daring Book for Girls got you covered.

In addition to the neat how-to’s, the book also has great stories about famous women in history: queens and princesses, sportswomen, explorers and inventors (excerpted on Neatorama here). It has an article about women spies (did you know that during World War I, the counter-intelligence agency MI-5 used Girl Guides – the British version of Girl Scouts – to deliver secret messages because Boy Scouts couldn’t do the job properly?) The book also has a list of women pirates (think Blackbeard was tough? Read about Ching-Shih, the early 19th century commander of the infamous and undefeated Red Flag Fleet. She commanded about 1,800 ships and 80,000 pirates!)

True to its name, The Daring Book for Girls itself does a daring thing: it tries to explain the mysterious, gross and yet fascinating beings called … boys! But you have to read the book yourself to find out what. (To my daughter Maddy, who might be reading this in a few years’ time: ignore boys until you’re twenty five, please.)

On a personal note, this is a book I truly looked forward to reviewing. I’ve heard good things about it. Andi and Miriam were interviewed on the Today Show and there are tons of great reviews in the blogosphere. The book is already a bestseller (it’s ranked #9 on Amazon’s after just a couple of weeks on sale). When I got the book, it was readily apparent that it was not just hype: the book really delivered. This is the sort of classic book that I will keep so when my daughter is old enough, we can go over it together.

Get a FREE The Daring Book for Girls Book

Now, the good folks at HarperCollins are generously sponsoring a book giveaway. For a FREE copy of The Daring Book for Girls, visit the website and leave a comment below about your most memorable experience or activity with your mother/daughter/sister, or an advice for a fun activity you can do together with your child. Best 20 comments win. Good luck!

Links: The Daring Book for Girls official website | at HarperCollins | Authors’ websites: Andi Buchanan, Miriam Peskowitz. For your convenience, here’s the Amazon link.

See also our accompanying article, an excerpt of A Short History of Women Inventors and Scientists.

This review and book giveaway are sponsored by HarperCollins.

Update 11/30/07: Thank you for your comments, guys! They were amazing and it was really difficult to pick the best ones. I had emailed the winners and will get the book shipped asap. Thank you again for participating!

Cinnamon disapproves of this post. And of Neatorama. And of all of you reading.

I’ve reviewed a number of books from HarperCollins before on Neatorama – and they’ve always been a good read, but this one is different: it’s funny – very funny.

One day, Sharon Stiteler (who also wrote the Birdchick blog) got a cute Dwarf/Hotot rabbit mix named Latte. Sure, he was cute, but as soon as Sharon and her husband brought him home, he sat across the room all hunched up, looking sorely dissatisfied.

At first, Sharon didn’t think too much of it – but the disapproving look continued, and no amount of parsley would ever make him approve of anything.

Turns out, this wasn’t just an isolated case with that one rabbit. Later, Sharon got other pet rabbits from the animal shelter. When she first saw Cinnamon (the cute bunny above), Sharon put her face up to the cage and the rabbit hopped over, frowning its immediate disapproval. Sharon knew it was the perfect bunny for her.

Over the years, she tried to talk to the rabbits about birds and other topics, but they always, always disapproved. In a cute way, mind you, but they still disapproved nonetheless. So, the author in Sharon decided to delve further into the impossibility of living up to a bunny’s standard.

In her book Disapproving Rabbits (180 pages chockful of fun and cute photos), Sharon tirelessly researched the phenomenon of rabbit disapproval – not just documenting the looks, but also deducing the thought of disapproval that flashed through the critter’s tiny little brains. Like, for instance, what these rabbits think about (click for larger pictures) …

… the Internet	… Craigslist	… split ends
… mullets	… Brazilian wax	… dressing up

Disapproving Rabbits Caption Contest – Win a Free Book!

And now, something that the bunnies would absolutely disapprove of. Thanks to HarperCollins, we have 20 Disapproving Rabbits book to give away to the winners of this caption contest:

Caption this photo above – the funniest twenty captions will get a Free Disapproving Rabbits Book by Sharon Stiteler. Place your caption in the comment section: one caption per comment, but you can enter as many captions as you can think of (one book per winning submitter). Please, no obscenities – the rabbits (and Neatorama) really disapprove of those.

Lastly, be sure to visit Disapproving Rabbits (you should go there for inspirations!) and HarperCollins’ web page for the book.

The review above as well as the giveaway are sponsored by HarperCollins – it is also disapproved by the rabbits.

Update 11/4/07 – Whoa! Awesome response! Thank you for all your captions, guys – I’ve notified the lucky winners by email.

Hit play or go to Link[YouTube] for a neat video for the book. Connand Hal Iggulden’s “TheDangerous Book for Boys” is the one book that I wish I had when I was a young boy. In today’s age of computer and video games, this book reminds you that there is still a place for knots, go-karts, treehouses, as well as stories of adventure and courage. The Dangerous Book for Boys is more than just a book -it’s a manual on how to recapture Sunday afternoons and long summer days. It covers things that belong in the quintessential boyhood, like the five knots every boy should know, how to navigate using a compass (or a watch or a stick if you don’t have a compass – yes, it can be done), and how to make invisible ink (how? With urine, of course!) Can’t tell the difference between latitude and longitude? This book will set you straight – it has general (well, for boys anyways) knowledge chapters on dinosaurs, famous battles, ciphers, and more. It even has a chapter on – gasp – girls! More on this later. The book itself is gorgeous: the red hardcover version harkens back to the good ol’ days of classy books, complete with marbled paper inside the covers. True to form, there is an instruction inside on how to make your own marbled paper! When it was first released in the UK (this review covers the US version), the book quickly became the number one seller on Amazon UK. But it wasn’t free of controversy: The Dangerous Book for Boys is not a stereotypical children’s book – it celebrates the rough-and-tumble nature of boys and unapologetically states that “boys will be boys.” They always have been and always will be different from girls. OK, enough intro, let’s take a peek at the book: Girls You may already have noticed that girls are quite different from you. By this, we do not mean the physical differences, more the fact that they remain unimpressed by your mastery of a game involving wizards, or your understanding of Morse code. Some will be impressed, of course, but as a general rule, girls do not get quite as excited by the use of urine as a secret ink as boys do. We thought long and hard about what advice could possible be suitable. It is an inescapable fact that boys spend a great deal of their lives thinking and dreaming about girls, so the subject should be mentioned here – as delicately as possible. Here’s a select choice of advice (for the complete list, get the book – hey, these kinds of valuable advice aren’t free!): 3. When you are older, flowers really do work – women love them. When you are young, however, there is a ghastly sense of being awkward rather than romantic – and she will guess your mother boughtthem. 4. Valentine’s Day cards. Do not put your name on them. The whole point is the excitement a girl feels, wondering who finds her attractive. If it says “From Brian” on it, the magic isn’t really there. This is actually quite a nice thing to do to someone you don’t think will get a card. If you do this, it is even more important that you never say, “I sent you one because I thought you wouldn’t get any.” Keep the cards. simple. You do not want one with fancy stuff of any kind. If there ever was a book to make your boys (age 8 to 80!) turn off the Playstation and actually go out and play, this is it. Definitely worth checking out. Here’s the link: The Dangerous Book for Boys. Now, HarperCollins has generously sponsored a book giveaway to kick off the launch of The Dangerous Book for Boys. If you want a FREE copy of the book, visit the website and then tell us (in Neatorama’s comment section) your most memorable Sunday afternoon experience/activity with your father/son or an advice some fun and educational (funducational?) activity to do with your child on those long summer days. Make it good, because best comments win (while supplies last).

The review above as well as the giveaway are sponsored by HarperCollins.

Japanese apparel company Beams T wants to make art more accessible. Since original art is way too expensive for the average Joe, the company focuses instead on printing art on the wearable blank canvas: T-shirts!

Every year since its launch in 2001, Beams T has invited hundreds of international designers, artists, musicians, and pop culture icons to add their own T-shirts designs and promote the "art on T-shirt" movement.

The culmination of that collaboration is featured in the book T-Shirt Factory, where Beams T showcased 300 of the hottest art and designs to ever graced its shirts. Included are designs by artists like Kevin Lyons, Ryan McGinnes, Unnon, Yoko Ono, The Wonderful! Design Works, Tsuyoshi Kusano, and more.

With a company motto of "Art for Everyday," it’s fitting that Beams T included a CD-ROM with 10 original T-shirt designs that you can print (onto transfer paper) and iron on a T-shirt. You’ll get designs by Palm Graphics, Tomoki Kurokawa, Hiroki Tsukuda, Adapter, UJT, Tsuyoshi Hirooka, Tsuyoshi Kusano, Hi-Dutch, The Wonderful! Design Works, and Kiyoshi Kuroda.

To launch the book, HarperCollins has been kind enough to sponsor a book givewaway (more on that below) in addition to creating a nifty video showcasing samples of the book’s artwork:

YouTube Link

Okay – T-Shirt Factory is an art book afterall, so let’s take a look at some of the cool T-shirt designs:

Designs by Hiroshi Iguchi (The Album) (L) and Enlightenment (R)

Design by UNNON

Design by Ryan McGinnis

Designs by tw2ntyf4urse7en (L) and sunjoong (R)

Design by Geoff McFetridge

Now, onto the free T-Shirt Factory book giveaway, courtesy of HarperCollins. Go to Beams T’s website and tell me your favorite shirt design or artist and why in the comment section. Please, one comment per person, best 15 will get a Free T-Shirt Factory book (Note: I can only ship to US addresses, though).

And please, check the book out: T-Shirt Factory, a must-have for T-shirt junkies and art lovers alike.

The review above as well as the giveaway are sponsored by HarperCollins.

There is a trend underfoot: designer toys or urban vinyl are becoming mainstream. These aren’t mass produced toys that you’d find in bigbox toy stores, in fact to call them “toys” is a bit misleading: these are pop art sculptures that happen to use toys as canvas.

Chances are you’ve seen urban vinyl toys. They are collectible figures and toys, made from vinyl or plastic, designed by both budding artists and famous ones alike. The whole thing got started in the late 1990s when Hong Kong artist Michael Lau created the first urban vinyl figure from an underground comic, which looked like a custom-made GI Joe action figure. After friends raved about the unique toy, one thing led to another and a genre was born. Now, you can find artworks by artists like Takashi Murakami, Gary Baseman, Tim Biskup, Coop, KAWS and Pete Fowler as urban vinyl.

This whole trend is captured by Ivan Vartanian in his new book Full Vinyl: The Subversive Art of Designer Toys. Ivan called the movement “subversive” because:

… we realized a consistently recurring theme: the act of subversion. Either the content of the work itself is subversive or the means of production is. The producers are subverting rules by how they work and the nature of their figures. Mass-produced toys are replaced by small-scale productions. Band-released “limited editions” are worthless compared to “insider picks.” Cute and pop characters have an erotic, aggressive, or gruesome element. High-brow is mixed with low-brow art.

Full Vinyl is like a who’s who of the urban vinyl movement: it has over 400 color photos of vinyl toys from the some of the most famous artists in the industry. True to form, the book comes with a corrugated cardboard cover (just like the box those toys come in!) and a cute vinyl squid keychain to boot!

But enough readin’, let’s see a couple of examples from the book:

Urban vinyl figures by Gary Baseman and Tim Biskup:

From Junko Mizuno and KAWS:

This fun one is from Nathan Jurevicius:

Last, but not least, from Pete Fowler:

That’s not all: HarperCollins is kind enough to sponsor a book giveaway to kick off the launch of Full Vinyl. If you want a FREE copy of the book, please leave a comment on your most favorite urban vinyl artist/creation (you can mention a few, but please one comment per person) – top 10 comments will get a free Full Vinyl book (Note: I can only ship to US addresses, though).

And please, visit the website: Full Vinyl to order.

The review above as well as the giveaway are sponsored by HarperCollins.

Vintage T-Shirts, a collection of more than 500 authentic tees from the ’70s and ’80s, is a book by Lisa Kidner and Sam Knee. This book documents the history of the ubiquitous T-shirt through the history of rock-and-roll and pop culture.

From the book:

The roots: The T-shirt began life as a functional item of underwear designed not to be seen. In the early days it would have been considered offensive to reveal the shirt.

WW1: The origins of the T-shirt stem from Europe. During WW1, American soldiers were sweating in their woolen uniforms while their European counterparts were less restricted in their lightweight cotton undershirts.

WW2: The cotton T-shirt was standard issue as an undergarment in the US armed forces. WW2 also provided another preview of the T-shirt as soldiers crudely customized their vest-style tees to identify their station and using any materials they could find – often handmade, cut-out stencils and vehicle spray paint.

1940s and 1950s: American colleges started printing their names and logos on tees: in the early days, normally using flock iron-on fonts. These were sold in the college stores on campus for students to wear with American pride. Later versions fo these Americna university tees, such as Yale and Harvard, became a part of the early 1960s English mod look alongside other US Ivy League-style preppy garments.

The trend for small US businesses, such as garages, diners and electrical stores, to print their own logo or products on shirts for customers became common in the 1950s. They advertised brand loyalty in this way long before the major big league companies caught on. By th emid-1960s these ‘walking billboard’ advertising tees were big business.

Marlon Brando and James Dean shocked Americans by wearing their underwear on the big screen in The Wild One and Rebel Without a Cause. This marked the T-shirt’s long-awaited progression from underwear to outerwear, infusing the style with a fashionable sex appeal at the same time. The rebel association was the catalyst for the style becoming a desirable item of clothing with the youth of the day and coincided with the birth of rock and roll.

1960s: The popularity of the printed rock-and-roll band shirt exploded in the 1970s, but the roots lie firmly in the 1960s. Although mid 1960s invasion-style groups dipped their toes in the T-shirt market, it was West Coast gig promoters, such as Bill Graham pushing local acts like the Grateful Dead, who first realized this emerging potential to sell T-shirts as well as gig tickets at venues.

1970s: The first wave of Sex Pistols and Clash fans, particularly those outside central London, had to take it upon themselves to create their own customized Kings Road-esque creations. These do-it-yourself T-shirts were crudely vandalized and defaced using marker pens, tape, pins and zips.

Who knew T-shirts had such a history, anyway?

Links: Vintage T-Shirts at HarperCollins | Kidner and Knee Interview with the Guardian

Book courtesy of Harper Collins – Thanks Felicia! Please contact us if you want your book reviewed in Neatorama.

Traveling the world over, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, award-winning photographer Brutus Östling managed to capture some magnificent photos of birds in their natural settings.

Östling’s photos, along with text by nature writer Magnus Ullman, made the book Between the Wingtips, the Secret Life of Birds not only a beautiful read, but a very informative one as well.

For instance, did you know that hygiene is very important to birds?

Parasites are an acute problem for birds, and all kinds of lice, mites, and other insects thrive inthe warmth of their plumage. Many of these pests spend their entire lives on the host bird. But the vermin must be controlled, and so bathing, preening, and scratching take up a large part of the daily life of birds. That parasites constitute a real threat is demonstrated when a bird sustains a serious injury or is in any other way reduced to a weakened state. The first thing that usually happens in such a situation is that lice and mites colonize the defenseless bird, often causing its death.

No King Eider female will accept a male, regardless of how bright his face is and how seductive his coloring, if he is not well groomed.

Above is a snapshot of the "seductively" colored King Eider, taken by Östling in Norway.

Links: HarperCollins | Brutus Östling’s Website – Book courtesy of Harper Collins – Thanks Felicia! Please contact us if you want your book reviewed in Neatorama.

I’ve got a preview copy of Larry Gonick’s new book, which picked up where his awesome Cartoon History of the Universe series left off, and I can tell you: it rocks!

The first part of Cartoon History of the Modern World describes the history of the ancient Mexico, the arrival of Columbus in the New World, the Spanish conquest, Protestant Reformation, the American Revolution and so on (it’s a history book, people!) and ends with the writing of the US Constitution.

Avid history readers, comic lovers and students who don’t want to read dusty history tomes rejoice! The book will go on sale in January 2007.

Links: Cartoon History of the Modern World (Part 1) at Harper Collins, at Larry Gonick’s website (includes sample pages!) Book courtesy of Harper Collins – Thanks Felicia! Please contact us if you want your book reviewed in Neatorama.

Mangaka America is an art, interview plus tutorial book on American Manga artists. Now I profess that I don’t know much about comics, much less Manga: but the artworks (many never-before-seen) are fantastic!

This one above is by Jesse Philips, who specializes in drawing giant robots. And I don’t understand what he means by "Bean Jam Ball Feeling Being Good!" but that’s my new motto!

Mangaka America at Harper Collins | SteelRiver Studio | Jesse Philips’ website – Book courtesy of Harper Collins – Thanks Felicia! Please contact us if you want your book reviewed in Neatorama.

A chapter called "T-Shirt Underwear" by Logan Billingham explains how to turn a T-shirt into an undie!

This how-to is just one of 40 DIY craft projects in the book "Craftivity – 40 Projects for the DIY Lifestyle" by Tsia Carson, the founder of SuperNaturale.

Other fun projects include how to make a crotchet skull, wheelbarrow fireplace, moss graffiti and a suitcase coffee table, and many others.

Link: Craftivity – Book courtesy of Harper Collins – Thanks Felicia! Please contact us if you want your book reviewed in Neatorama.