"Muscan of girly music"

Somebody's been pranking Founding Father and Brigadier General William Whipple's Wikipedia entry! Talk about bored.

"After the war he became a painter and a muscan of girly music of the Superior Court of New Hampshire."

Zooming with Errol Morris

One of the many, many things Thee New York Times web site does so smartly is to create a space for things like Zoom, an irregular blog/feature by Errol Morris that (and this is my lame-ass explanation) examines how photographic images capture and distort moments from the real world. A new Zoom began on Sunday: Morris is attempting to track down the identity (both in a basic and a more conceptual sense) of the father of this boy in this photo, who was an unknown fatality at the Battle of Gettysburg.

The photo (an ambrotype, to be precise) has its own history. As an October 19, 1863 Philadelphia Inquirer put it:

"After the battle of Gettysburg, a Union soldier was found in a secluded spot on the field, where, wounded, he had laid himself down to die. In his hands, tightly clasped, was an ambrotype containing the portraits of three small children, and upon this picture his eyes, set in death, rested. The last object upon which the dying father looked was the image of his children, and as he silently gazed upon them his soul passed away. How touching! how solemn! What pen can describe the emotions of this patriot-father as he gazed upon these children, so soon to be made orphans!"

This marks part one of five in the series; check out this three-parter about a famous Crimean war photo.

Curious Cabinetry

From Morbid Anatomy, "the last surviving fragment of the once famed cabinet of Bonnier de la Mosson."

Complete flickr set of the images.

(via boingboing)

24 Hour Party People

"James Mann got interested in writing about Ronald Reagan when he discovered that, while Reagan was president, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld used to sneak off to undisclosed locations to prepare for Armageddon."


-The Washington Post, 3/26/09

Presenting Hakodate Japan: Where history is felt and beautiful spectacle enclosed by sea

This is how you entice people to visit your city, which in this case is Hakodate, Japan (home of the Comfortable Hakodate Tram Course).

(Endadget via Pink Tentacle)

Malexicon

Brobvious (brōb'vē-əs)
adj. - Apparent or easily understood but only to dudes.

"It's brobvious that hottie is scoping my lats. She's just pretending to read Pynchon."

"What do you mean, 'Should we rent Ladies in Lavender or Vanishing Point?' The answer is brobvious."

Tracking sushi shot

This is late, I know, these sushi-conveyor-belt movies are already over now. This is the first one I ever saw: It's Lost in a Moment from Dennis Wheatley. Shot back in 1998, I think. There's a chillaxing musical score.

When Toy Sets Were Better and More Irradiatey

Behold the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab:

"The set came with four types of uranium ore, a beta-alpha source (Pb-210), a pure beta source (Ru-106), a gamma source (Zn-65?), a spinthariscope, a cloud chamber with its own short-lived alpha source (Po-210), an electroscope, a geiger counter, a manual, a comic book (Dagwood Splits the Atom) and a government manual 'Prospecting for Uranium.'"

(as seen on BoingBoing)

My Beard, My Self

Beardymore: Geoff