A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago is a very cool blog. I don’t know how long I’ve been checking in on a regular basis, but because I’m always finding so many cool things there, I keep going back. The latest treasure I’ve found there is Shorpy: The 100-Year-Old Photo Blog. Shorpy is a “photo blog about what life a hundred years ago was like: How people looked and what they did for a living, back when not having a job usually meant not eating.” It is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a boy who worked in an Alabama coal mine near the turn of the century. Here is just a very small sample of the photography from Shorpy, which you should already be bookmarking/blogrolling (click on the images to go to the originals and full-sized versions):
I was watching an episode from the second season (1958-59) of “Leave It to Beaver” tonight when I got to the part where Ward reads a note from Beaver’s principal, Mrs. Rayburn. If you freeze-frame the note it says: (see the text of the note if you click through!).
I just ran across this flickr group for HDR (high dynamic range) imaging (a photograpy technique made possible by computers and digital photography). Some of the images are absolutely breathtaking.
more from this photographer
more HDR photography
I gotta get a better camera…
Back on the lighter side of the world, here are a few amusing little tidbits I’ve run across recently:
Cup of Joe Powell points to a game/contest that’s sweeping the blogosphere: in a nutshell, the object is to name Steven Segal’s “next movie.” My favorites are Joe’s Steven Segal in Buffet Under Seige and Steven Segal in My Three Chins.
Shakespeare’s Sister points us to a video of the “final scene from Star Wars acted out using hands.” It’s very clever.
And thanks to Cory at Boing Boing for directing us to this awesome photo of the inside of a grocery store (click on “all sizes” to see a bigger version). It contrasts nicely with the photo of market shelves at the end of a post from Keera titled “About writing about Norway.” Small markets aren’t an option for many of us in the US, but I do enjoy them when I’m in Europe — the lighting tends to be much less harsh, there’s none of that horrible piped in muzik (thank goodness for my iPod!) and I can find what I need without hiking across fifteen acres of linoleum (who the heck needs 15 different brands of kitty litter?!?).
Back on the lighter side of the world, here are a few amusing little tidbits I’ve run across recently:
Cup of Joe Powell points to a game/contest that’s sweeping the blogosphere: in a nutshell, the object is to name Steven Segal’s “next movie.” My favorites are Joe’s Steven Segal in Buffet Under Seige and Steven Segal in My Three Chins.
Shakespeare’s Sister points us to a video of the “final scene from Star Wars acted out using hands.” It’s very clever.
And thanks to Cory at Boing Boing for directing us to this awesome photo of the inside of a grocery store (click on “all sizes” to see a bigger version). It contrasts nicely with the photo of market shelves at the end of a post from Keera titled “About writing about Norway.” Small markets aren’t an option for many of us in the US, but I do enjoy them when I’m in Europe — the lighting tends to be much less harsh, there’s none of that horrible piped in muzik (thank goodness for my iPod!) and I can find what I need without hiking across fifteen acres of linoleum (who the heck needs 15 different brands of kitty litter?!?).
Lost in 2004, Edvard Munch’s The Scream and Madonna have been recovered, though some questions still remain about their recovery (including who will get the M&Ms?).
I got to see versions of both paintings at the Munch Museum when I was in Oslo a couple of years before the paintings were stolen (if you’ve ever visited our home you’ve no doubt noticed the copy of Nude With Red Hair we brought back with us). The Scream can be ubiquitous in the pop art world, so I suspect many people take Munch’s work a bit for granted, which is a shame because there’s so much to see beyond that one series. It was a relief to hear both paintings have been recovered and that they didn’t sustain much damage. I hope they can go back on display soon.
These ads (via TN Guerilla Women) take my breath away. They’re going up in New York as part of a campaign by the Ali Forney Center in NYC, which provides safe shelter for LGBT youth in the City and seeks to promote awareness of the plight of these young people in the United States.
The Taipei Building opened in Taiwan, and it’s officially the world’s tallest building (at least for now). And in France, the new world’s tallest bridge recently opened in Millau.
Man is nothing if not ambitious.
I just realized that I haven’t put a picture up in a while. I don’t have anything I’ve taken ready, so here’s a little something from the iPods Around the World Gallery to spruce up the page a bit:
Clockwise from top left, the images are from: Zwolle, Shinjuku, Genova and Portsmouth (not that the locations are particularly relevant in this selection of photos, but there ya go).
