April 8
Margaret Wise Brown. Margaret Wise Brown, the author of Goodnight Moon and dozens of other children's classics, all but invented the picture book as we know it today. Combining poetic instinct with a profound empathy for small children, she knew of a child's need for security, love, and a sense of being at home in the worldóand she brought that unique tenderness to the page. Yet these were comforts that eluded her. Brown's youthful presence and professional successóas an editor, best-selling author, and self-styled impresarioómasked an insecurity that left her restless and vulnerable.
My favorite children's book author.
The Runaway Bunny is my favorite title of hers that I've read--I've run her name in Search before but never saw this site before:I had no idea she'd written so many titles. Nor how important she was to the genre. A
biography. An
autobiographical essay.
Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon by Leonard S. Marcus looks interesting, too.
And here's a
fan page. And, just for the heck of it--
a 1957 Little Golden Books display.
posted by y2karl at 10:15 PM PST - 3 comments
French politicians polish cultural credentials. France's presidential hopefuls have begun pledging to defend the country's cherished culture, hoping to drum up support from artists worried that American films and music will steamroll finer French productions.
This rhetoric makes it sound like American films are picking up guns to massacre poor defenseless French culture. Maybe American films are so successful because they give people something that the "finer French productions" don't, and if so, then is that such a horrible thing? After all, we are just giving the people what they want, right? And if that takes money away from more artsy productions, then whose fault is that anyway?
posted by epimorph at 9:50 PM PST - 8 comments
Real World Studios If you were a recording musician, how could you
not want to record here at least once? A gorgeous environment that's inspiring on mulitple levels. Peter Gabriel deserves more credit than he gets. He's a forward thinking, decent guy who never stops trying. Now - release "Up" dammit.
posted by davebush at 8:44 PM PST - 2 comments
"It's the ring. It's getting heavier". This site is offering a 20Mb Quicktime download of the trailer for LOTR: The Two Towers. Very obviously a bootleg filmed in a theatre -- it's got an annoying flicker and the sound is a bit mussy -- but pretty decent quality otherwise.
posted by maudlin at 3:36 PM PST - 20 comments
Why aren't ghostwritten works considered frauds? Pop historians are on the rack for using unattributed passages, Milli Vanilla were shamed off the charts for lip-synching, Joe Klein was pilloried for playing coy about a book he
did write. Yet Reagan's autobiography, Clinton's "It Takes a Village", and recent works by V. C. Andrews and Lawrence Sanders weren't written by the names on the jackets. Kind of odd, no?
posted by nikzhowz at 2:15 PM PST - 12 comments
Beer makes me smart...Beer, me make art.
After trying to make little "Golden Child" men out of Bud Lite cans Saturday, I checked the web for other beer inspired artforms. The results are range from the folky-
Beer Label art to cozy
beer bottle homes and dangerous
beer can guns. Even cash can be made...for hilarious
rent woes... to Big $$$ as with David Hockney's
Pearl Blossom Highway currently at the Getty Museum. Anyone else inspired by beer?
posted by hellinskira at 2:07 PM PST - 2 comments
Is
this the script to
Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones? It seems to be the same film
Harry Knowles claims to have watched. (If you prefer, there's a .txt file version
here.)
posted by Reggie452 at 2:05 PM PST - 10 comments What's the oldest MP3 on the web? Not the first MP3 created by the
Fraunhofer Institute, but the oldest recorded sound that's been turned into an MP3? Audio restorer
Art Shifrin has a
1931 detective show; PBS offers some early recordings, including a
1919 track by Earl Fuller's Famous Jazz Band; but the reigning champeen seems to be
Tinfoil.com, a website dedicated to early recordings, which features a largely unintelligible recording ripped from an
1878 "talking clock" recording.
posted by snarkout at 11:30 AM PST - 17 commentsMindvox: The original cooler-than-thou online community. What is it now? What was it then? Anyone else here still searching to discover the person ahead of you in the grocery store line is
3jane or
Simonmoon?
posted by milkman at 9:27 AM PST - 18 comments
McDonald's 'collector' conquers North America Peter Holden may well be the true burger king, having dined at 11,000 of the more than 13,500 McDonald's franchises in North America.
Surely this has to be damaging to your health? I mean, can the human body really sustain two Maccas "meals" a day?
posted by helloboys at 5:37 AM PST - 18 comments
exso - Epinions for ex-significant others? This public service (?) gives you a forum to tell your ex and the world how you rate him/her -- wonder if this can be used for good and not evil. They also offer interesting
e-cards to send to your ex. The site seems pretty new, but would you use it?
posted by lnicole at 12:36 AM PST - 9 comments
