A Momentary Taste of Being

Depression Era color photographs--very, very nice --Thanks Bea!

The Sculpture:

A Template for every lame argument you've ever seen on facebook

"When Is a Basket Like a Tower?" Beautiful convergences.

Walton Ford, just go and look--gorgeous And this is one of the things I love so much about Biblioklept--the eclectic and exotic nature of much of what is posted.  Again, simply gorgeous--treat yourself.

Herge meets Lovecraft For those of you who missed them: The Adventures of Tintin at the Mountains of Madness , and Tintin and the Reanimator among others.

Artistic failure, or not? The writer characterizes his as an artistic failure--but I think not.  I'm with Frank, from whom I derived the post.

I may have linked to this post about Portrait of the Artist before, but I wanted to be able to find it again.

Images from the Codex Seraphinianus and a longer article referenced in the above: The Codex Seraphinianus

Don't Overstay Your Welcome (via Books Inq.)

Girl with a Pearl Earring a la Bic  (yes, as in pens) Perhaps more a stunt that anything else, but certainly interesting and showing some thought.

Link thanks to TSO: Queen Victoria's Passion for Nudity I'm surprised that anyone is surprised.  Just because one does not wish flagrant display of naked flesh in person in public does not mean that one cannot appreciate great art depicting the nude.  There is a considerable distance between here/now/in-person and artistic representation.  We need to get over our prejudices about the Victorian Era and begin to discover what it was really about.  Rather like our prejudices about puritans in this country.  Steampunk has gone a ways toward reexamination, but not nearly far enough.

From Books Inq., this fascinating article about a scholar's seder.

Do It Yourself built-in shelving You know who you are--and providence provides--you need only ask.

Better than best first lines-- magnificent beginnings . . . Or at least favorite ones.  Doesn't include some of mine, and seems to have a chronochauvinist bent, but so be it.

What your romance titles say about you

Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astrozombies reviewed at the New Yorker. I have to say that the title of the book certainly includes two possibilities for the worst, each in a different Genre.  Showgirls has to be one of the very worst A-Budget highly touted films ever made.  Because it is so bad it has become cultic and made the producers and director back all of their investment and then some.  Bad movies are something of a specialty for me--and I would include in the honorable ranks that howler Dante's Peak , notable not merely for bad film-making but also for atrocious science.

Sylvia Beach and James Joyce at the New Yorker

This elegant and tasteful end-time clock. Buy now, and we'll throw in a lifetime supply of demi-urge repellent, guaranteed to keep away denizens of the lower circles of fallen angels.

I'm also an H.P. Lovecraft fan, and this postcard of Downtown Arkham comes from a site that epitomizes the extremes in fandom.  It's nice to see that kind of interest and passion in something that isn't of itself destructive.