The State Fair of Texas opens September 29 and runs through October 22. But competition is already underway among concessionaires for the Big Tex Choice Awards for the best state fair foods. Winners will be crowned August 27. Texas Monthly runs down the ten finalists with a fictional tasting. Here's what they had to say about deep-fried chicken noodle soup on a stick.

“There’s been a mistake,” said the man. He hoped it was a mistake.

“What do you mean?”

“Says here this is soup. I don’t see no soup.”

“The soup’s in the little balls,” said the woman. “You can try it if you want. I won’t ask for payment. Not for you.”

The man wavered. It felt like an insult, but his curiosity was potent. He looked at the stick of fried dough encasing the soup like a funeral shroud and took his hand out of his duster. The woman took a step forward and gently offered him the stick. He took the stick, but he didn’t eat it.

Editor’s note: Please pay the State Fair vendors, and absolutely try the deep-fried chicken noodle soup on a stick.

See what they think of the Surfin’ Turfin’ Tator Boat, the Tamale Donut, the Funnel Cake Bacon Queso Burger, the Fried Texas Sheet Cake, the Gulf Coast Fish Bowl, Pinot Noir Popcorn, Texas Fajita Fries, Deep Fried Froot Loops®, and something called a Fat Smooth, all at Texas Monthly. -Thanks, Walter!   

On August 19, 1977, Groucho Marx died at the age of 86. He spent more than 70 of those years entertaining those around him. Fifty years later, Marx Brothers movies are still entertaining generations who never knew them in life. To mark the milestone, you might enjoy some stories about Groucho and his brothers Harpo, Chico, Zeppo, and Gummo.

1. A RUNAWAY MULE INSPIRED THEM TO TAKE A STAB AT COMEDY.

Julius, Milton, and Arthur Marx originally aspired to be professional singers. In 1907, the boys joined a group called “The Three Nightingales.” Managed by their mother, Minnie, the ensemble performed covers of popular songs in theaters all over the country. As Nightingales, the brothers enjoyed some moderate success, but they might never have found their true calling if it weren’t for an unruly equid. During a 1907 gig at the Nacogdoches Opera House in East Texas, someone interrupted the performance by barging in and shouting “Mule’s loose!” Immediately, the crowd raced out to watch the newly-liberated animal. Back inside, Julius seethed. Furious at having lost the spotlight, he skewered his audience upon their return. “The jackass is the finest flower of Tex-ass!” he shouted, among many other ad-libbed jabs. Rather than boo, the patrons roared with laughter. Word of his wit soon spread and demand for these Marx brothers grew.

Read more about the Marx Brothers at Mental Floss.

Confederate statues are being taken down in cities across the South. Where will they go? The United States is far from the first country to confront such a dilemma, and there are places all around the world that can be seen as "retirement homes" for statues and monuments that have been removed from public places.

Sometimes statues are collected in one place, where the immortalized fallen crowd together in awkward silence, historical repositories of different eras. Take the “Garden of the Generalissimos” in Cihu, Taiwan, where scores of Chiang Kai-shek statues sit together, regarding one another. The statues are some of the thousands on the island—a controversial legacy of the late leader of the Republic of China (not to be confused with the modern mainland People’s Republic of China).

There are places like this in Hungary and Lithuania, and even in Dallas, where there's a private collection of statues of erstwhile European rulers. Read about them at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Prince Roy)

No one likes a late night conference call from the boss when you're at home trying to relax, supposedly off-duty. But if you're going to lie about helping him, maybe it would be best to keep up the ruse until you are darn sure he is offline. Still, in this case Chet can figure out that fixing the problem himself is the correct thing to do. This comic is from Jeff Lovfers at Don't Hit Save. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell cares for and exhibits historical clothing, and she loves her job. She has an appreciation not only for the textiles and the displays, but also for the people who once wore them, even if they lived hundreds of years ago. Preserving those clothes helps us to know those people and what their lives were like.   

Thanks to modern technology and the efforts of specialist textile scientists, curators can now appreciate historical garments in ways their original beholders and wearers could not. Polarizing microscopes and high-resolution digital images reveal textures, weaves, and threads invisible to the naked eye. Cutting-edge conservation treatments reinflate sleeves crushed by centuries of careless storage or restore shattered silk linings. X-rays reveal the complex interior boning of a Balenciaga evening gown, and military-grade chemical inhibitors remove aluminum corrosion on Neil Armstrong’s space suit.

But no amount of scientific analysis can capture the feel, sound, and smell of historic clothing—and that’s where costume curators and conservators (who are responsible for the technical examination and treatment of textiles) have a privileged perspective. We get to touch it. We enjoy intimate proximity with other people’s clothes, laid out on lab tables under lights and magnifying glasses like surgical patients, not in dimly illuminated public galleries where the objects are kept out of reach behind glass or velvet ropes. We find the hidden pockets; the discreet padding; the lingering whiff of perfume or tobacco. By the time they go on public display, we know them as well as the clothes on our own backs.

The article goes on to tell us about some of the nuts-and-bolts details of historic garment display. Read more about the work of a costume curator at The Atlantic. 

(Image credit:  Katie Posner)

WL Intelligent Technology Co, Ltd, in Guangzhou set up 1,069 Dobi robots and had them all dance in unison. This set a new world record. Well, they actually set up more robots than that, but the few that fell over while dancing were deducted from the total count by Guinness officials. They still looked good.

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The Dobi robots broke the previous record that was set only a couple of weeks ago by another Chinese company. This may be the beginning of a competitive back-and-forth that could eventually bring the robot apocalypse upon us. -via Boing Boing

Artist Frank Kunert makes beautiful miniature scenes, but they each have something weird going on. The doorway above opens up to a small but nice balcony for a little fresh air, and it's only when you look at the ground below that you see how deadly it is.The scene below is a little more obvious.

Every dumb thing we humans do in this modern-day ‘civilized’ world is laid out in excruciating detail in these miniature scenes by artist Frank Kunert – not to mention our fears and anxieties. A row of public toilets is placed on a stage so strangers can watch you poop. A bride and groom poise at the end of a diving platform far too high above a pool, their friends and family watching below. A children’s slide empties onto a highway, and a bassinet is equipped with a desk so the little one can get to work as soon as possible. Pipes funnel human waste straight from the toilet upstairs into a television set, and a balcony projects into the path of a train.

See a selection of Kunart's works at Web Urbanist.  -via Nag on the Lake

Cats are experts at yoga. They can bend themselves into any position, because they are liquid, of course. Simon's Cat wordlessly demonstrates his abilities in this video.

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But do cats get the same benefits out of yoga that humans do? For them, it's just everyday posing, and they are already as limber as a stream of water.

Robert is ready. He's got his eclipse glasses, a GoPro headband, and an array of various types of cameras since he doesn't know what will work. Yeah, that's a flash attachment. You give a little pre-flash to reduce red-eye in the sun, or the moon as the case may be. His wife Heather is supposedly pretty chill about his obsession with getting the perfect eclipse photograph, as if there won't be millions of them taken by people who actually know what they're doing. Redditor robertandheather posted this picture last night. He's still got three days to hold that position.  

How often do you think this adjustable desk will be adjusted? She could've saved money by just using a pillow or a yoga mat, but this way she can refer to her "standing desk" when communicating with others on the 'net. This is the latest comic from Dami Lee at As Per Usual.

Yellowstone National Park's many thermal mineral springs and geysers are features of the volcanic activity underneath the ground. Scientists at NASA are convinced that the threat of a supervolcano erupting from the magma chamber under Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho is greater than the threat of an asteroid or comet hitting the earth.

When Nasa scientists came to consider the problem, they found that the most logical solution could simply be to cool a supervolcano down. A volcano the size of Yellowstone is essentially a gigantic heat generator, equivalent to six industrial power plants. Yellowstone currently leaks about 60-70% of the heat coming up from below into the atmosphere, via water which seeps into the magma chamber through cracks. The remainder builds up inside the magma, enabling it to dissolve more and more volatile gases and surrounding rocks. Once this heat reaches a certain threshold, then an explosive eruption is inevitable.

The solution is to vent more heat from the ground. The side benefit would be that the energy released could be harvested for our use. Read about a plan to do just that, at BBC Future. -via Digg

The movie The Social Network came out in 2010 and was supposed to tell the story of how Mark Zuckerberg developed Facebook and then dealt with the many lawsuits that followed. Zuckerberg had no involvement in the film, nor in the book it was based on. If you saw the movie, you'll probably enjoy finding out some of the behind-the-scenes trivia about its production. For example:   

7. Jesse Eisenberg used fencing lessons to get into character.

It makes a good deal of sense. Fencing has a lot to do with strategy and trying to outmaneuver your opponent, much like business in a way.

6. The opening scene took 99 takes.

There’s no real explanation for why this took so long. Maybe the actors were having trouble getting into character or maybe the director wanted to see it from different angles.

Read the rest of the trivia list about The Social Network at TVOM.

On crowded city streets, builders have long taken advantage of the idea of shared walls. Why build four walls when you can build two and appropriate the brick walls of the buildings on either side? That eventually leads to the phenomena of "ghost buildings." They aren't there anymore, but have left evidence of their existence on the shared walls of the adjacent buildings -sometimes even evidence of their interiors.   

Ghost buildings are a product of constant urban development and regeneration. They can be found throughout by cities and towns wherever old buildings are being torn down, and their modern replacements have yet to be built. These poignant relics of old homes are in always in plain sight, but are more often that not unnoticed by passers by. They’re found in open air carparks, abandoned building sights, or half way up modern adjoining structures.

Urbex photographer Luke J. Spencer documents ghost buildings and shares them on his Instagram feed. He also tells us the stories behind some of them at Messy Messy Chic.

(Image credit: Luke J. Spencer)

In a segment from The Late Late Show with James Corden, Corden's Crosswalk ensemble got a little help from Lin-Manuel Miranda in performing selections from the musical Hair -at an intersection on Beverly Boulevard.

Both CBS and the state of California have told us we can't be nude in a crosswalk. Then again, people told me that Alexander Hamilton wasn't a Puerto Rican rapper with beautiful brown eyes.

So guess what happened.

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Of course, this was TV, so my guess is that there were flesh-tone Speedos underneath all that pixelation. Otherwise, there would be people bragging on Facebook about seeing Lin-Manuel Miranda in the altogether during their evening commute. -via Mashable

Potential entrepreneurs are always given this concrete advice: identify a need, and then fulfill it. Chinese immigrants who settled in the Mississippi Delta a hundred years ago saw an economic opportunity. They sold goods to both blacks and whites, although separately, as was required at the time. Unwelcome at any of the local segregated schools, they sent their children to small church-organized schools until just a few decades ago. Their descendants still live in the South. 

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A hundred years later, people outside the community are still surprised to see them, and even more surprised to hear those Southern accents. "Who taught you to speak English?" Why, their parents, of course! -via reddit