What trying to write 60 pages by Feb. 2 feels like:
We’re Number 1!
Some things the US is number 1 in, listed in no particular order, according to the American Economy Profile at NationMaster.com:
Exports:
- Animal oil/fat
- Cotton
- Ferrous waste scrap
- Arms and Ammunition
- Hide skin (not fur)
- Gold (nonmonetary, excluding ore)
- Oil seeds
- Printed Matter
- Manufactured fertilizers
- Art collection/antiques
- Beef: fresh/chilled/frozen
- Steam generating boilers
- Medical and other electric diagnostic equipment also medical instruments
- Wood in rough squared
Imports:
- Aircraft
- Spacecraft
- Alcoholic Beverages
- Cocoa
- Jewelry
- Crustaceans and Mollusks
In sum, we send out big animals and small machines, and take in small animals and big machines. When it comes to guns we can’t quite make up our minds: turns out we’re both the biggest importer and the biggest exporter of arms and ammunition. #1 going and coming! And 3rd in cutlery exports.
(via)
Sunday Videos
The Very First Kiss on Film (via @brainpickings):
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IUyTcpvTPu0]
BATS! (via io9):
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Oc8ACBiwIyE]
Q: When is a Guitar Not A Guitar?
A: When A Bird Mistakes a Bluegrass Singer For a Disney Princess. (via @zunguzungu)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=7vBo0ptYJNs#t=87s]
Animal, Vegetable, Mineral
(Photos taken 1/18/2012).
2666–Notes on La Parte de los Críticos
(I’m fulfilling last year’s New Resolution, which was to read 2666. I’ve managed—consciously—to insulate myself pretty thoroughly from any critical commentary on Bolaño, so I know nothing of what happens in the book. At this point, I’m on p. 384, halfway through the third part, and realizing that there’s no way to hold this entire beast in my head. I’m going back and taking notes on the parts I’ve underlined, just so I have a point of reference when I try to make sense of things later. Doing it, too, because other friends are reading it concurrently, so I figured it might be useful to make some of the thinking (or flailing) visible.
That’s a long way of saying that no one should actually read this–it’s just quotes, with very slight noticings on my part, as I try to lay down breadcrumbs for later. But I’m posting it here in case anyone else is navigating similar waters and feels like rowing in company. I could use some other points of view.
As of right now, my notes only cover the first part up through p. 165, halfway through Amalfitano’s major speech.)
Red. Yellow.
The Mission: beefsteak tomatoes and fresh paint.
A Cure for Balding
Joannes de Mediolanus’ 1528 cookbook is full of intriguing accounts of what food does to bodies and bodies do to food. Here, he prescribes onions as
- an aphrodisiac
- an antidote for dog bites
- a tremendous cure for baldness
- and warts
- the opposite of a cognitive enhancer
(Spelling has been modernized.)
Onions sodden and stamped restore hairs again, if the place where the hairs were be rubbed therewith. This is of truth when the hair goeth away through stopping of the pores and corruption of the matter under the skin. For the onions open the pores and resolve the ill matter under the skin and draw good matter to the same place. And therefore, as Avicen saith, oft robbing with onions is very wholesome for bald men.
Wherefore the text concludeth that this rubbing with onions prepareth the beauty of the head: for hairs are the beauty of the head.
For a farther knowledge of onions’ operation, witteth that they steer to carnal lust, provoke the appetite, bring color in the face. Mingled with honey they destroy warts, they engender thirst, they hurt the understanding (for they engender an ill gross humour), they increase spittle, and the juice of them is good for watering eyes and doth clarify the sight, as Avicen saith.
Farther note that onions, honey and vinegar stamped together is good for biting of a mad dog.
Are Women People?
I’ve written about a delightful little book from 1915, called “Are Women People?”, over at The Hairpin.
DIY Periscopes
That’s clearly what these are, right? For the Boo Radleys of the Earth, who wish to benevolently (and conspicuously) spy on their neighbors.
(Photo taken 1/18/2012)