Among the many popular pinup illustrations of the 20th century, the character called Hilda is one of the most delightful, if rarely seen these days. Created by artist Duane Bryers, Hilda was a woman of dimension. She was pleasingly plump (without the belly that real women have), but more than that, she was pictured in real-life situations, having fun and reacting to surprises, instead of the standard sexy poses and sultry stares of other pinups. Hilda graced American calendars from the 1950s to the 1980s. See more of her at Messy Nessy. No actual nudity, but some images may be NSFW. Link -via Metafilter
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By now you've heard the news that Ben Affleck has been cast as Batman in the upcoming film tentatively titled Superman vs. Batman. The outcry of protest on the internet was immediate. Jason Inman lays out the case for giving him the benefit of a doubt at this point. Contains NSFW language. I'll reserve judgment on the casting -after all, we heard the same reaction about Heath Ledger as The Joker. And now we're going to have to go through this again. -Thanks, Jason!
A couple hundred years ago, pottery figurines were used as decoration, souvenirs, collector's items, political statements, and images of news stories. News stories? Yes, before tabloids and TV, potteries in Staffordshire, England, offered figurines that illustrated current events and poked fun at the powerful. Collectors Weekly talked to Myrna Schkolne, author of the upcoming book Staffordshire Figures, 1780 to 1840, who tells how the figurines of the time meant more than we realized.
Collectors Weekly: What forgotten events or characters have you discovered through Staffordshire figurines?
Schkolne: Well, my favorite is a figure showing a tiger or tigress mauling a woman and her baby. That sounds so wrong. The tigress is holding the baby in her mouth and the woman beneath her paws. The figure is titled “Menagerie.” A Staffordshire menagerie is a well-known genre, but this was clearly not a normal menagerie object. The thing drove me nuts. I couldn’t work out the whys and the wherefores. [See image at top.]
Then one night at about 1:00 a.m., I came across an old broadside that led me to the Colindale newspaper archive in the U.K. A small paragraph in the Northumberland Herald for February of 1834 describes how Wombwell’s Menagerie had stopped in a town overnight, and during the night, a tigress and a lion had escaped, and they had killed a woman with a child in her arms. Usually, any sort of menagerie mishap is very well publicized, but I think in this case the owner of the menagerie, George Wombwell, was very quick to open his wallet because if word got about, people wouldn’t have wanted his menagerie in town.
Read about other stories enshrined in pottery, like the changing laws of marriage, sports scandals, tax protests, and a lurid murder trial that would have been all but forgotten if not for surviving figurines. Link
(Image credit: © Myrna Schkolne 2013)
Saturday Night Live has been a foot in the door for some of the biggest stars of the past 40 years, with a rotating roster of up-and-coming actors and comics, but only one boss. Lorne Michaels is the only person you have to impress to get your chance on the show. There are a few openings right now. Can you imagine the pressure of an audition with Michaels? You could be rejected, or you could get a shot at becoming the next John Belushi, Eddie Murphy, or Adam Sandler. The New York Times talked to 22 former SNL cast members about their audition.
SETH MEYERS The hotel I was staying at, everybody was somebody who’d been flown in for the audition. If you went and got ice, you would hear snippets of auditions. Everybody else’s stuff sounds better than yours.
KRISTEN WIIG They said the audition should be five minutes long, and do not go over five minutes. I ended up buying a stopwatch because I was so nervous. I would time it and it would say “5:02,” and I would be like, “I’m going to get this in five minutes exactly.” Then I heard that some people were out there for 11 minutes. I was like, “What?”
BILL HADER I got in an elevator, and there was a guy who was also auditioning, and I thought: “That guy brought a lot of props. I didn’t bring anything.” And he was looking at me, going, “That guy didn’t have to bring any props.” We were just sizing each other up in the elevator. And that was Andy Samberg.
There are also links to extended conversations with a few SNL veterans. Link -via Digg
(Image credit: Norman Ng/NBC)
(Image credit: Flickr user Claire Yuki)
1. THE BIG BANG THEORY Explained by a Muffin
IN THE CLASSROOM
Around 13.7 billion years ago, not a single element of the entire known universe existed. There was no space, no matter, no time, no wonderful magazine for knowledge junkies. Then, for an unknown reason, an infinitesimally small point called a singularity started to expand. Boom! That’s the Big Bang. Both blazing hot and unimaginably dense, this tiny point started expanding and cooling, and to this day the universe is still doing both.
The Big Bang theory was first proposed by Belgian physicist Georges Lemaître in 1927. Realizing that objects in space were moving farther apart, Lemaître hypothesized that if everything in the universe is now expanding, it originally must have been smaller. His idea: that it all originated from one intensely hot “primeval atom.” While the notion is generally accepted today, not everyone bought into Lemaître’s theory; the Big Bang gets its name from a sarcastic remark made by Fred Hoyle, an astronomer, science fiction novelist, and Big Bang skeptic.
IN THE KITCHEN
Imagine a muffin tin with one cup half-full of blueberry batter (the singularity). Inside this batter are all the building blocks of a blueberry muffin. As the batter’s temperature changes, it begins expanding, just like the universe started expanding with the temperature change of the Big Bang. The blueberries in the batter are analogous to the planets, stars, and other matter, moving right along with the rest of the muffinverse. But they’re not floating at random inside the batter—they’re moving with it, getting farther apart as the muffin bakes. And that muffin? It represents the entirety of the universe. Beyond the edge of the muffin lies a vast abyss of nothingness. All that exists are blueberries, sugar crystals, and, if the baker got a little creative, a hint of nutmeg.
2. Stirring the Pot with KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS
(Image credit: Flickr user Paul 李加乂 Li)
IN THE CLASSROOM
When the impressively mustachioed economist John Maynard Keynes published The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money in 1936, it was a watershed moment for modern macro-economic thought. The book launched the revolutionary idea that government spending is the best way to stimulate the economy. In Keynes’s now commonly accepted view, money flows in a circle, meaning one person’s spending provides income for another. In a recession, people slow their spending, thereby slowing someone else’s earning. To grease the cycle, Keynes proposed something radically different from other free market economists—he called on the government to inject money into the economy and kickstart the cycle by “priming the pump.” His argument was that the government should solve economic problems rather than waiting for markets to self correct in the long run because, “In the long run, we’re all dead.”
IN THE KITCHEN
Our own David Israel, the founder of Twaggies, will be hosting a live Twitter event tomorrow with Go Comics, which syndicates Twaggies. You can be a part of it! Find the particulars at Facebook. Link
We don't really know the whole story behind this piece of security video from Brazil, but we can assume it's a caper the perpetrators do not want to stay around for. -via Daily of the Day
Sculptor Louise Bourgeois, who was also called Spiderwoman, left her mark in many places. Her 30-foot-tall sculpture of a spider, called Maman, has been installed permanently in Canada, Russia, Spain, Japan, Qatar, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. It was also installed temporarily in many other places, including Switzerland, shown in the above picture. The sculpture was inspired by Bourgeois' mother, who died when the artist was 21.
Bourgeois says, "The Spider is an ode to my mother. She was my best friend. Like a spider, my mother was a weaver. My family was in the business of tapestry restoration, and my mother was in charge of the workshop. Like spiders, my mother was very clever. Spiders are friendly presences that eat mosquitoes. We know that mosquitoes spread diseases and are therefore unwanted. So, spiders are helpful and protective, just like my mother."
See pictures of Maman in her various habitats at My Modern Met. Link -via the Presurfer
The Assumption Parish sinkhole in Louisiana has been growing for a year now. In this video, taken yesterday, you can see a clump of cypress trees being swallowed by the hole. First the trees lean a little, then they disappear, then the water rushes into the hole, lowering the water level as you can see on the remaining tree trunks.
The sinkhole has been growing since it emerged from the swamps sometime late on Aug. 2 or early on Aug. 3, 2012, as the suspected result of a salt dome cavern failure deep underground months beforehand.
Scientists have said this growth is expected as the hole seeks a final shape and size, a geologic process that may take years.
Though the watery hole — now approaching some 25 acres in size at the surface with some sections that may plunge hundreds of feet deep — has undergone continuing edge collapses or slough-ins, rarely have such sizeable failures been caught on video.
Ze Frank explains how difficult it is to fit in. But just like this comic we had last week, those who feel like this might be surprised at how many of those cool, savvy folks around you feel exactly the same way. -via Viral Viral Videos
General Mills normally brings back Count Chocula, Frankenberry, and Boo Berry breakfast cereals for Halloween each year. This year, they will be joined by Frute Brute, which was discontinued in 1982, and Yummy Mummy, which hasn't been seen since 1992! All five cereals will be on shelves in new, horror movie-themed boxes. However, there will also be a line of the cereals in retro boxes, available at Target stores for the holiday.
“It’s exciting to see the passion for the return of these two cereals,” says Ari Zainudden, marketing manager in Big G. “We chose the current flavors of Fruity Yummy Mummy and Frute Brute to be as close as possible to the original flavors while taking into consideration consumers’ preferences. Consumers can get a taste for what these cereals were like when they were originally on shelves.”
“The love for the Monsters that we make available each Halloween continues to be huge and the passion for all of them across social media is incredible,” says Julie Anderla, integrated communications senior manager in Big G. “We’re bringing back Frute Brute and Fruity Yummy Mummy in an effort to give our fans what they asked for.”
Note that "Frute Brute" is spelled differently from the 1970s version. This will be the first time that all five cereals are available at the same time. There's a possibility that collectors may invade grocery stores to purchase the collections, and cereal connoisseurs may hoard their favorite flavor. They better make plenty! Link -via Uproxx
The question is: what is it? It's time for our collaboration with the fascinating What Is It? Blog! Do you know what the object in this picture is? You can win even if you don't know! We don't know what the item is, but serious guesses will be investigated, and if yours check out, you can win a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! Read what we know about the object, and see more pictures at the What Is It? Blog.
Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will each win a T-shirt from the NeatoShop.
Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest a Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt, or Artist-Designed T-Shirts?
So let's recap: this is a true mystery item, but if you figure it out before anyone else, you win the shirt you designate with your guess. There are more clues at the What Is It? Blog. If you have the funniest wrong guess, you'll win a shirt, as long as you select one and include it in your comment. Good luck!
Update: the mystery object …is still a mystery object. We don't know what it is! But we have a t-shirt from the NeatoShop for Paul Bryant 2, who gave us this funny answer: "It's a primitive bowling ball. Scores were marked on the side, meaning that not only was it hard to control, but only good for one game. It was quickly decided that round would be better." Yes, that that way progress is made. See the answers to the other mystery items of the week at the What Is It? blog.
Here's a video clip compilation of different animals playing on a trampoline. Let's see, we have plenty of dogs, some cats, goats, foxes, and a buffalo. Yah, really. With the perfect music to accompany them. -via Tastefully Offensive
Rory, a cat in Tauranga, New Zealand, was in sad shape after eating rat poison. In fact, he was dying. The only thing that could save him was a blood transfusion.
It was Friday night and no labs were open to check his blood type, let alone get supplies. So vet Kate Heller sought advice and was told to try dog blood.
"I hadn't heard about it or read about it. It's not in any textbook," says Ms Heller.
Rory needed a donor fast. So Ms Edwards thought fast and phoned a friend in her book club.
"[I had] never heard of anything like that before. I thought she was joking," says Macy's owner, Michelle Whitemore.
But Rory desperately needed the 18-month-old Labrador. Macy was rushed to the vet where she donated 120ml of blood, and within an hour Rory the cat was saved.
A cat can only take a small amount of dog blood, but he's a small animal, and it was enough to dilute the poison. Three weeks later, Rory has recovered from the incident. Link -via Arbroath
Who knew German chocolate cake wasn't German? It was named after an American named German! The Kentucky Hot Brown sandwich is named after the owner of the Brown Hotel, not the color of the dish. Which is brown. Those are just two of the stories about foods you are familiar with named after people you aren't familiar with, in the latest mental_floss video. -via mental_floss
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