Look at this amazing cake! It’s got multiple references to events that happened in the TV series The Walking Dead. This image has been passed around Pinterest and Twitter for months with no reference to the artist who created it, although they deserve a golden spatula. It’s just one of the many Walking Dead-themed cakes in a collection at Uproxx. Who knew there were so many ways to incorporate zombies into cakes?
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The first attempts at sex education in the U.S. over 100 years ago were to reduce the incidence of venereal disease (now called STDs). The medium of movies proved to be a valuable tool for disseminating information, although laws against pornography caused problems for those who honestly tried to educate. Public health concerns, changing laws, moral panic, and politics created a tug-of-war over sex education in schools (which continues today), although the military cut right to the chase in the war against VD. Sex education films for schools continued to demonize premarital sex, masturbation, and homosexuality, and didn’t even address venereal disease until 1959.
In Coronet’s 1947 film “Are You Popular?,” Jenny, the promiscuous high schooler, is shamed and compared unfavorably to proper, virginal Carolyn. The voice-over says, “Jenny thinks she has the keys to popularity, parking in cars with boys at night. When Jerry brags about taking Jenny out, he learns that she dates all the boys, and he feels less important. No, those who park in cars are not really popular, not even with the boys they park with. Not when they meet at school or elsewhere.”
“That was certainly a message in these films, which I think still exists today, that a young woman who is interested in sexual relationships, who maybe initiates sex, is seen as the ‘bad girl’—and that’s the girl nobody wants to sustain a relationship with.” Goodman says. “That was a burdensome message to many young women.”
Sex education films changed drastically in the 1970s, when movies were produced that would never be approved for schools today. You can read a fairly comprehensive history of sex education films going back to the beginning of motion pictures at Collectors Weekly.
Chef Thomas Keller owns the renowned Bouchon Bakery in Napa, California. Oliver Bernardino is a 23-year-old pastry cook in Vancouver who idolizes Keller and would love to work for him. Instead of sending a letter or a resume, Bernardino spent 70 hours baking and constructing an exact replica of the Bouchon Bakery out of gingerbread!
"I wanted to make something that I was truly inspired by, and would motivate me to bring out my best work," says Bernardino. So he meticulously studied the Bouchon Bakery cookbook, his own photos from the visit, and info on the Web to replicate the look, down to tiny details like a table stacked with Keller's signature TKOs, blue apron, and a roll of green painter's tape and a Sharpie, used in Keller's kitchens to mark containers. "It's a take on what I thought their version of a 'plate of cookies for Santa' would look like," he says. Other replica elements include a macaron tree, a stack of baguettes, and the bakery's signature yellow awnings. "I was also really happy with how the benches and garbage bins came out," he says.
Bernardino’s gingerbread bakery is now on display in an exhibit called Gingerbread Lane at the Vancouver Hyatt, to benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Read more about it and see pictures from all angles at San Francisco Eater. -via Messy Nessy Chic
Vat19, who brought us the gummy peppers, offers a 26-pound gummy candy in the form of a python. The Gummy party Python measures 84 inches long and packs in 36,000 calories. Of course, you don’t want to eat it all yourself, do you? It’s said to contain over 300 servings, which is some party. It could make a good gift for the right person -the candyholic on your list. The Party Python comes in two flavors, but both are sold out right now (they expect more December 17th). You can see more pictures and a video at the product page. -via Geeks Are Sexy
George Strother and his wife, of Escondido, California, thought they felt an earthquake early Wednesday morning. It was only when an Escondido police officer knocked on their door that they found out a car had crashed through the roof of their garage! A BMW had broken through the roof and landed on Strother’s Nissan Pathfinder. His Mazda Miata was also damaged by the falling roof. The driver of the BMW, which was loaned out from a car dealer, didn’t stick around to face the damage. The Strother’s home sits around twenty feet below a roadway, and police estimate that the driver of the BMW took a turnoff too fast. The garage can be repaired, but the two cars may be totaled. -via Arbroath
(Image credit: George Strothers)
Santa Claus is an extremely busy man this time of year, what with corporate and TV appearances, meeting children at schools, public and private parties (which he charges big time for), and hospital visits (which are free). But Claus took some time to talk to Elizabeth Segran at Fast Company.
If you’re wondering why I’m referring to this bearded man in his sixties from Valley Stream, New York—not the North Pole—as Santa Claus, well, it's because Santa Claus is his legal name. (And no, he won't give up his given name.) He officially changed it two years ago. "I was having a difficult time convincing kids that I was the real deal," Santa tells me. "Kids would be confused and upset, asking me where my sleigh and reindeer were when they saw me leaving the party in my pickup truck. I needed to convince them that I was really Santa Claus, so now I can pull out my driver’s license or my insurance card and it says right there: Santa Claus."
Claus talks about the strange events that led him to become Santa Claus, how his December schedule is going, and what he does the rest of the year. -via Digg
(Image credit: Valerie Lapinski for Fast Company)
Here we have NASA’s song parody of Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass.” It’s a natural! The song and video were created by the Pathways Interns of NASA's Johnson Space Center. That’s the same student group that did the parody song NASA Johnson Style a couple of years ago (although probably not the same students). This song is about the Orion project, which may someday take us into deep space. -via reddit
Every year since 1966 the people of Gävle, Sweden, erect a huge straw goat for Christmas. The traditional Gävle Goat went up the the last weekend in November this year. The big question is: will it survive until Christmas? Many of the goats have been the victim of arsonists over the years. How many? Atlas Obscura plotted the fates of each goat since 1966 and produced a timeline memorializing those that did not survive the holiday season.
The graphic above is just the beginning of the timeline; you’ll need to scroll right at the site to ponder the 37 unfortunate events that have befallen the goat over the years, which include auto accidents, attack by fireworks, and a kidnapping by helicopter. To keep up with this year’s Gävle Goat, you can follow it on Twitter and check out the Gävle webcam.
Champagne is a lie! Your sparkling wine doesn’t have to come from France to be authentic. Here are six products that can really only be produced in one place on the globe.
1. Cowichan Sweaters
Long before it accompanied him on his many misadventures, Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski’s bulky, brown sweater was a sartorial staple of he Pacific Northwest. Known as a Cowichan, the outerwear has been hand-knit by indigenous people in British Columbia since the 1800s, when Scottish settlers and missionaries first introduced the Indians to knitting. (They’d been weaving their garments from goat hair in previous centuries.) The distinctive sweater made waves at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair; since then, the shops in Vancouver have been brimming with Cowichans, all showcasing similarly beautiful tribal patterns. So how can you spot a fake in a crowd? Throw some water on it. Real Cowichans aren’t just warm- they’re waterproof! Because they’re made with untreated wool, the garments contain enough lanolin (a waxy substance produced by wooly animals) to keep sweaters dry.
2. Vidalia Onions
(Image credit: Yumion)
Snickers bards and Tootsie Roll Pops weren’t the only sweet things to come out of the Great Depression- onions belong on the list, too! In 1931, Georgia farmer Mose Coleman planted a batch of the pungent bulbs but was shocked when the onions turned out so mild that they could be eaten like apples. It turns out, the low sulphur content in East Georgia’s sandy soil was perfect for turning plain old onions into dirt candy. Over the next 50 years, the grocery chain Piggly Wiggly made Vidalia onions a produce aisle superstar by distributing the veggies across the South. Meanwhile, local farmers won protection for their distinctive crop in the 1980s; as a result, only 13 counties and portions of seven others can legally call their onions Vidalias. Today, the state pays tribute to its favorite veggie with an onion museum, where visitors can learn about Vidalias while hanging out with Yumion, Georgia’s official onion mascot.
3. Cuban Cigars
Did your family ever pull that “Instead of buying toys this year…” business with you? If you’re talking to a young child, you better be talking about going to Disneyland, where you’re sure to get souvenir toys. Getting a “family gift” like a new TV never quite cut it when all you ever heard from your friends and your old TV was toys, toys, toys. Once the kids are around ten or eleven, it just might work. This comic is from The Gentleman’s Armchair. -via reddit
Christmas is a great time for cats: so many toys, boxes, ribbons, lights, and boxes to play with -and even a tree in the house! Timo the Ragdoll Cat has a great time during the tree decoration. And there’s a bonus, as many of the ornaments appear to be furry. You may as well just hang cat toys from the tree!
I first saw this newspaper clipping at Bad Newspaper a couple of weeks ago. Today I found out where it came from. The story is from Forge Press, the student newspaper at Sheffield University. You can see the full page here. The paper is to be commended for saying what many were already thinking.
In case you are confused, the British actor is named Benedict Cumberbatch. I think.
James Houston created a Christmas greeting for the Glasgow School of Art last year using obsolete equipment to generate old-school synthetic speech singing “The Carol of the Bells.” The idea is about repurposing Christmas gifts of the past.
The ensemble: A collection of vintage Mac computers, a Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum + 1 and a SEGA Mega Drive perform a rendition of "Carol of the Bells" with lyrics re-written by Robert Florence & Philip Larkin in the Mackintosh Library at The Glasgow School of Art. Jacket by Ten30.co.uk (Alan Moore, GSA Textiles alumnus 2008).
We also get the appropriate 8-bit graphics on nearby screens. You won’t be able to understand the lyrics, but they are posted at the vimeo page- and they are hilariously geeky! -via Metafilter
Bruce Farrer has been a high school teacher for decades. He gives every student an assignment to write a ten-page letter to the person they will be twenty years from now. It’s not an uncommon assignment, but Farrer goes the extra mile by keeping those letters for twenty years, and then he sends them! What a gift it is to receive ten pages that show what you were like twenty years ago. This profile of Farrer’s ongoing project not only illustrates his dedication, but is also a commentary on the lost art of letter-writing. -via Viral Viral Videos
When anyone visits Iceland, they find the place so beautiful and surreal that they are compelled to make a travelogue. Alex Cornell wanted his to be a little different, so it is framed as an expedition to another planet, recalled twenty years after the fact. It works surprisingly well!
We visited the planet Iceland in August of 2014. This is what we remember. Scattered memories from a strange and beautiful place. Not soon to be forgotten.
-Thanks, Alex!
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