Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
Rick's Cafe Americain in Casablanca was an exciting place to hang out, There was one problem: it was fictional. But the 1942 film Casablanca made it in real in the minds of fans, including Kathy Kriger. Kriger went further than just enjoying the movie -she went to Morocco and opened a nightclub.
“After 9/11, I thought people would become xenophobic and anti-Muslim,” Kriger says. “I thought that Rick’s Café, just by existing, would show that there was something different about Morocco if an American woman like me could do this all by herself.”
To realize her dream, Kriger drew from every source she could think of — family, friends, and, especially, the film — to ensure her homage was as close to the “original” as possible.
“I’ve watched the movie hundreds and hundreds of times,” she says. “I would also watch it to keep encouraged…I was seeing my goal flashing on the [screen].”
Rick's opened in 2004, with details as close to the movie version as possible, down to a grand piano playing "As Time Goes By." Kriger wrote a book about the adventure of opening a business in Morocco. Read more about the new Rick's Cafe at National Geographic Intelligent Travel blog. Link -Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!
(Image credit: Cotton Coulson and Sisse Brimberg, Keenpress)
The Hawkeye Initiative is a place to draw attention to ridiculously sexist comic book character drawings by replacing a female in a typical superhero pose with the character Hawkeye. We are used to seeing women drawn as contortionists as they attempt to show butt and boobs at the same time, but when a male character does it, you see how comically painful it is. The project was inspired by a blog post from yesterday. Yes, this tumblr blog only went up Sunday, and it already has tons of submissions. As these are female drawings from comic books, they may be NSFW. Link -via Metafilter
These people will most likely never meet each other, but they play together on YouTube, thanks to the editing skills of kutiman, and thanks to Led Zeppelin's awesome song. There's a list of links to the source videos at the YouTube page. -via Everlasting Blort
Is there any question that zero is an even number? It came up after hurricane Sandy, when New York mayor Michael Bloomberg announced gas restrictions. He used the words "Those with license plates ending in an even number, or the number zero," which made people think about the nature of zero. Dr James Grime of the Millennium Maths Project at Cambridge University says that people sometimes think of zero as even, odd, or neither.
Children find it particularly difficult to recognise if zero is odd or even. "A survey of primary school children in the 1990s showed that about 50% thought zero is even, about 20% thought it was odd and the remaining 30% thought it was neither, both, or that they don't know," explains Dr Grime.
"It appears that we may file numbers mentally into lists such as the even numbers two, four, six, eight or numbers to the power of two which would include two, four, six, eight or two, four, eight, 16. Zero is not on these lists so it takes us longer to work out."
Just for the record, zero is an even number, although it took mathematicians a thousand years to decide it is. Bloomberg worded his announcement to eliminate any possible confusion. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user Gabrie Coletti)
Behold, a tribute to ramen tendered in LEGO bricks! This was created by Lego enthusiasts at the University of Tokyo.
The display was part of the school’s 63rd Komaba Festival which hosts more than 100,000 people and is one of Tokyo’s largest festivals. The exhibition piece was inspired by Ramen Jiro, a tokyo-based ramen shop that is renown throughout the country and has even made The Guardian’s 50 Best Things to Eat in the World.
See the soup it was modeled on at Foodbeast. Link -via mental_floss
The picture was taken outside a classroom at George Brown College in Toronto. After many jokes and much conjecture, johannap, the creator of the power point presentation, came forward at Buzzfeed and explained that it was for an ESL class, and that Olive the cat didn't actually have to get wet during its creation. Link -via Buzzfeed
Never underestimate the power of moving water -especially over millions of years. The canyons created by rivers are sculptural wonders found all over the globe. You are probably familiar with the Grand Canyon in the U.S. but do you know about Blyde River Canyon in South Africa? Unlike the Arizona canyon, this one (shown here) features tropical flora and fauna along its average depth of 2,500 feet. And the view is spectacular! See the other canyons at Environmental Graffiti. Link
(Image credit: Dr. Thomas Wagner)
Lollyphile, the folks who brought us the maple bacon lollipop, has a selection of lollipop flavors for adults, including the intriguing absinthe flavor. Others taste like Habanero tequila, whisky, and white Russian. No, they do not contain alcohol; they just taste like it. Link -via Laughing Squid
In the past week, there have been news stories from normally serious sources concerning a unicorn, yeti, sasquatch, chupacabra, and a vampire. We passed on all of them except for the vampire story (which had no mention of scientists) because they didn't pass the smell test. Most of the stories managed to combine "scientist" and "legendary creatures" in a way that would lead some people to take them seriously -at least if you read the short versions that make the news feeds. Nate Anderson at Ars Technica looks a little deeper and gives us more information that turns up when look deeper, behind the attention-grabbing headlines. Link -via reddit
(Image credit: Mike Mitchell)
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.
Louis Fineberg was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 5, 1902. Louis grew up as a normal boy with an easygoing personality and a devil-may-care attitude (traits he would keep for his entire life).
One day, young Louis (or Larry) picked up a cup of the acid that his father used to etch the jewelry in his jewelry shop and tried to drink it, thinking it was a beverage. (If the incident hadn't been so frightening, one might easily imagine it being in a Three Stooges short.) His father, seeing his son bring the acid to his lips, instantly smacked it out of his hand. This may have saved his life, but the acid spilled on and deformed young Larry's arm.
As therapy for his now-withered arm, Larry took up the violin. It should come as no surprise to anyone reading this article that Louis Fineberg was later to grow up, begin a career in show business, join the great comedy team the Three Stooges, and become one of the most famous movie actors of all time.
All of the above is true, but it doesn't quite fit, doesn't sound quite right, does it? "One of the most famous movie actors of all time"?
Well, who doesn't know the Three Stooges? Who hasn't laughed, even if while protesting how stupid and silly they were? Larry Fine was "that middle guy" in the Three Stooges. The one everyone was sort of aware of, but no one really cared about. I've even had people ask me if he was Curly. Of course, they had seen his trademark curly, frizzy hair and assumed he was the one they called Curly.
Larry's world-famous frizzy-haired, bald-in-the-middle hairstyle came about when he was performing in vaudeville in 1925 and a comic named Ted Healy, along with fellow comics Moe Howard and his brother Shemp, came into his dressing room and tried to recruit Larry to become a member of their comedy team. They weren't yet called "The Three Stooges," but they would be in a few short years.
In his dressing room, Larry had been washing his hair in a sink and it was dripping wet. Like a fast-growing chia pet, Larry's hair started to blossom out into an Afro-like monstrosity. Moe, Shemp, and Ted all immediately knew Larry had to be a part of their act and Larry, in turn, agreed to sign on. At that time, Larry had a violin-playing act with his wife, Mabel. Ted Healy offered him $90 a week, and even $100 -if he'd drop the fiddle.
Put a little Bob Marley on the turntable, and pretty soon all the cool cats are coming around. -via Daily of the Day
There's a world of variety in movie theaters beyond your mall cineplex. Flavorwire shows us open air theaters, solar-powered theaters, theaters that float on water, and even a drive-in on the roof!
The disappearance of the drive-in is largely a matter of space and location; us city folk who’d like to frequent them often live in places where there’s just not room for them. And that’s the genius of the Electric Dusk in Los Angeles: their monthly (“sometimes bimonthly” their website charmingly hedges) drive-in screenings are held on the roof of an LA parking garage. If there’s a better nighttime use for garages, we can’t think of it — and there’s some karmic justice to it as well, considering how many wonderful old theaters were demolished to make way for parking garages.
Maybe you'll travel to one of these theaters someday -or maybe one of them is near where you live! Link -via mental_floss
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