Support Your Local Library
UK’s most prolific library book borrower
by Severin Carrell
A 91-year-old woman from Stranraer in south-west Scotland is believed to be Britain’s most prolific library book reader after staff at her local library realised she is on the brink of borrowing her 25,000th book. Louise Brown, who borrowed her first book from Castle Douglas library in 1946, now reads about 12 books every week – chiefly Mills & Boon romances, war stories and historical dramas – and has never had a fine for returning a book late.
Two Pi Bitches
Kigurumi Yu
Behind The Lists
from Slate (lifted from Michelle Gagnon, author of the great book BONEYARD)
The Book Industry’s Best-Seller ListsWhat are they, and why do they matter so much?
Posted Thursday, Sept. 3, 1998, at 3:30 AM ET
These days, it seems as if half the books in bookstores have the word “best seller” or some variant on the cover or the flap copy, as in “the best-selling author of …” But what does that mean? About as much as the phrase “original recipe” does on a jar of spaghetti sauce. Neither the government nor the publishing industry regulates the use of the term, and besides, there are many different kinds of best-seller lists published every week in the United States. There are the major national lists (the New York Times, theWall Street Journal, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly) and the major regional lists (the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and the Chicago Tribune). There are lists that compare sales at chain stores with sales at independent stores. There are romance lists, business lists, African-American lists, religious lists, health lists, and children’s lists.
What is a best-seller list? It is a ranking of the relative sales of particular kinds of books at certain groups of stores within a one-week period. Best-seller lists tell us not which books sell the most, in absolute terms, but which fiction, nonfiction, or advice books sell the fastest at the bookstores list makers think deserve attention. A how-to book that sells 20,000 copies in one week will shoot to the top of the best-seller lists, whether or not those are the only copies it ever sells. A novel that sells 200 copies a week for 10 years will never appear on the lists, because each week it will be beaten by faster-selling books.
Little Boots in the Bedroom Getting Her Tenori-on
Two Turntables And A Set of Sure-Grip Wheels
Could roller disco save clubbing?
A series of skating events, starting tonight, will be hosted by high-profile DJs, as music promoters experiment with new ways to make the crowds roll in. Emma Love reports
DJs these days pop up in the most unexpected places. Not just in nightclubs or on the summer festival circuit, but now as entertainment at roller discos too. Yes, you read that right; it seems that roller discos are having something of a moment, helped along by a healthy dose of well-known DJs on the decks and plenty of live performances by bands. But is this latest mix-up in the arts world a step too far – we’re already used to seeing poetry and book classes at festivals, dance in art galleries, theatre under railway arches, pianos on the streets and debates in nightclubs – or simply a brilliant swing back to all things 1970s with a cool, live music twist?
It’s not that roller discos haven’t always had DJs on the decks, rather it’s that by introducing high-profile names and live bands to perform alongside them, they’ve suddenly upped their game considerably. What was once just a kitsch night out with a touch of nostalgia has become a music event that counts. The question is what’s next: live gospel choirs singing Christmas carols at ice-skating rinks? Now that would definitely be something else worth getting your skates on for.
Cobus Toxicity
Run And Pee And Miss Not A Beat
Web site helps time mid-movie bathroom breaks
NEW YORK — The mid-movie dash to the restroom can turn us into calculating Hussein Bolt wannabes: Ah, this looks like a lull — time to dash.
When we return to our seats, we pray the answer to “What did I miss?” isn’t “Darth Vader is really Luke’s father” or “the girlfriend is a really guy.”
The Web site RunPee.com can help with such anxious guess work.
The site provides recommended opportunities to race to the restroom. It tells you when the action or romance wanes, and gives you a cue (“Baby O.J. is taken from Bruno”) for your exit.
There are, of course, limits to the usefulness of RunPee. But it’s also found friends in cyberspace like WhereToWee.com, a site in the works that tells you where the nearest restroom is.
High-tailing It Out Of Church
Preston Scarbrough, 7, ‘steals’ family car to avoid going to church and leads police on a car chase
Aww! The lengths some people will go to avoid attending church.
A seven-year-old boy in Plain City, Utah, decided it was too hot to go to church on July 26, so he “borrowed” the family car and went on a joy ride instead.
Deputies found the car near the local high school and tailed it for 10 blocks, all while the driver weaved in traffic lanes and blew through stop signs.
Preston maintained speeds up to 45 miles an hour, even though he had some trouble reaching the pedals.
“His speed was slow, but erratic … and so he would kind of scoot down lower to push on the gas and kinda sit up on the seat more to see right where he was going,” Bell said.
The chase came to an end at Preston’s home, when he got out of the car, ran and hid in the basement.
Old Folks Music Reviews
Feed The Little Baby Owl Yum Yum
A snowy owl hatchling swallows a mouse at the Geiselwind leisure park in Germany
The Woman With The Melon And The 9mm
Amen, Brother – Six Seconds To Jungle
lifted from Taylor O
The Gorilla And The Meat Cleaver
S.C. worker fights off robber wearing gorilla suit
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CONWAY — It was far from an inconspicuous robbery attempt.
Authorities say someone in a gorilla suit tried to rob a Conway restaurant this week, but the crime was foiled by a worker wielding a meat cleaver.
The Sun News of Myrtle Beach reported that the worker said he was hit over the head late Monday night while taking out the trash. The 21-year-old worker told authorities that he wrestled with the costumed suspect and ran back into the business, but the suspect followed him.
When the robber ran to the cash register, the employee said he picked up the cleaver and hit the suspect in the arm, sending the person running out with the kitchen utensil stuck in the suit.
No money was taken.
Pole Dancing Rookie
Emiri Miyasaka’s Porny Outfit
Miss Universe Japan’s Sexy Outfit Causes a Serious Stir
Posted Jul 29th 2009 at 3:15PM by Katie Hintz
Studly Effects
Amanda Lear – The Stud – My Beat Club
Performed at Musikladen!
Keywords: guilty pleasures classic hits musikladen classic rock concert clips rock disco hits playback lipsync seventies beat club 70s
Video from my-beatclub
Pink Panther Lives
Balkans’ Pink Panther jewel thieves smash their way into myth
Members of the unglamorous gang, which has hit boutiques in Paris, London and Dubai, are heroes to some in their war-ravaged native Serbia. ‘I hope you rob the U.S. Federal Reserve,’ one fan writes.
By Jeffrey Fleishman
Reporting from Belgrade, Serbia — So let’s get this straight. A guy in the raspberry business from western Serbia smashes and grabs his way through a heist eight time zones away in Tokyo and scoots off past shopping centers and sushi bars with a $31-million necklace known as the Countess of Vendome.
It happens.
Djordjije Rasovic graced arrest warrants, a thief with brazen nerves, part of an international Balkan crime gang known as the Pink Panthers. He and one of his accomplices, Snowy, another name too whimsical for the harsh impulses of the former Yugoslavia, brought a bit of high jinks to a land haunted by war criminals and atrocities.
They come in rough, swinging hammers and axes, shattering glass, flashing semiautomatic pistols and an occasional grenade, and vanishing with gems in satchels lined with toilet paper to prevent scratching.
They’re untailored and uncoiffed, preferring black leather jackets and ball caps to cashmere and cuff links, a kind of “Ocean’s 11” minus the panache. But they’re disciplined and fluent in many languages, and they strike with precision.
“They’ve become more than pure criminals, they’re heroes,” said Dragan Ilic, a morning radio talk show host in Belgrade, the Serbian capital. “They’re violent but they haven’t killed anyone. It’s as if they’re saying, ‘We can beat the technologically superior West with our raw power and intelligence.’ They’re feeding the Western myth of the dark, tribal Balkans — these criminals coming from those wars and woods.”
Spirited Woman Almost Shoots Old Man Having Sex With Her Young Filly
Police: Man’s sex with horse captured on tape
by Jeffrey Collins – Jul. 29, 2009 11:29 AM, Associated Press
COLUMBIA, S.C. – A South Carolina man has been arrested for having sex with a horse after police say the animal’s owner caught him on surveillance camera.
Police say this isn’t the first time 50-year-old Rodell Vereen has been charged with buggery – last year he pleaded guilty to having sex with the same horse and was placed on the state’s sex offender list.
Police arrested Vereen on Monday, when he returned to the stable 20 miles northeast of Myrtle Beach where owner Barbara Kenley says a camera caught him having sex with her horse earlier this month. This time she was waiting for him with a shotgun and says she thought about shooting him but didn’t want to go to prison.
ForgottenBookmarks.com
I work at a used and rare bookstore, and I buy books from people everyday. These are the personal, funny, heartbreaking and weird things I find in those books.
Today’s post comes from author Jan Markley.
From Jan:
I have a friend who loans me books and there are always weird bookmarks left in them. I have her copy of Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh and inside was a sticky note that read: “11 am wear open toed shoes,” a scrap of paper with ” thievery corporation” scrawled on it, a costco card and a coupon for a manicure.
UPS To Use Robots To Deliver Packages Via Sewer Lines Maybe
Robot Design Delivers Packages Through Sewers
It’s 2020, and cities are so overcrowded that it’s impossible to deliver packages. UPS trucks have nowhere to double-park, and obnoxious bike messengers can’t even ride on pedestrian-jammed sidewalks. How, then, can important parcels reach their destinations in a squalid megalopolis of the future?
Through the sewers, of course.
The brainchild of designer Phillip Hermes, the Urban Mole is a capsule that travels through existing networks of underground pipes in order to transport packages as diverse as groceries, signed documents and any title that appears on Oprah’s Book Club. The Mole frees up our streets and roads for important matters, like mobilizing armies against the cyborgs that will inevitably plague our future cities.
Able to move parcels as large as a shoebox, the Mole fully encapsulates its contents from surrounding waste water.
Dude, Relax – It’s More Batter Than Chicken Anyway
Feed The Horse Yum Yum
German Buzz On Frey
Merce Cunningham Gone
from AFP via The Times South Africa
Dance legend Cunningham dies
AFP
Merce Cunningham, the legendary New York-based choreographer who revolutionised modern dance, has died at age 90, his foundation said on Monday.
“It is with great sorrow that we note the passing of Merce Cunningham, who died peacefully in his home last night of natural causes,” the Cunningham Dance Foundation and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company said in a statement.
The statement hailed Cunningham, saying he “revolutionized the visual and performing arts – not for the sake of iconoclasm, but for the beauty and wonder that lay in exploring new possibilities.”
Ikeahaus
Making the most of Bauhaus minimalism
New Berlin retrospective for movement banned by Nazis and now reflected at Ikea
by Kate Connolly in Berlin
A woman looks at Denkmal der Maerzgefallenen in Weimar by Walter Gropius during the exhibition Bauhaus. A Conceptual Model in Berlin Photograph: Tobias Schwarz/Reuters
It started as a controversial experiment in the social effects of art and design, producing ideas that were often considered impractical, uncomfortable and costly. But 90 years after its conception by radical and combative designers the Bauhaus movement is nowadays credited with having had the biggest influence of any movement on modern, minimalist style.
Many proponents of the decidedly non-conformist movement, which was founded in 1919 by the architect Walter Gropius, argue that, like it or loathe it, the Bauhaus’ most powerful modern-day legacy is the Swedish flat-pack furniture store Ikea. “Mass-market design like Ikea’s would be inconceivable today without the Bauhaus,” said the newly-appointed director of the Bauhaus foundation, Philipp Oswalt, in an interview ahead of the anniversary celebrations. Events taking place across Germany include dance and theatre productions, architectural tours, readings and workshops.
The movement is still very much in existence but nowadays it largely concentrates on urban planning rather than household objects. Gone too are the movement’s utopian ideas about establishing a conflict-free world. “Today we have relinquished the naive hopes and realise that utopias are not enough,” Oswalt said. The Berlin exhibition charts the movement’s progress through its 14-year existence, from the Weimar school, which was founded in 1919 to the Dessau school and finally to the Berlin school, led by architect Mies van der Rohe, that was closed by the Nazis in 1933. While some say the Nazi ban led to the movement’s break-up, the very fact that many of its members fled to all corners of the world such as China, America and Israel allowed the Bauhaus influence to spread much more effectively than it might have done had its focus remained in Germany.
“Schizophrenic rant documentary extraordinaire….”
When The Bluff Goes Bad
from the Panama City News Herald
82-year-old shoots, kills robber; 3 women charged
By JON MILTIMORE / News Herald Writer
2009-07-22 17:54:15
BRISTOL — Octavious Barnes died Sunday still clutching the $1,100 he took from an 82-year-old bar owner before he was shot.
Now, three Blountstown women accused of helping Barnes, 24, face murder charges in connection to his death.“
As we were processing the crime scene, it became clearer and clearer he (Barnes) didn’t do everything himself,” Liberty County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Brigham Shuler said Wednesday.Jessica Nicole Long, 19; Heather Marie Ammons, 22; and Mandy Allen, 43, planned and aided Barnes in the robbery of 82-year-old Bradley Harvil, owner and operator of the Slip N’ Slide bar, Shuler said.
On Sunday, authorities said Barnes broke into Harvil’s house, which is connected to the bar, and demanded money. Shuler said Barnes was waving a black pistol and assaulted Harvil with a shocking device used to debilitate people with heart conditions.
Harvil gave Barnes about $1,100, but then a second struggle ensued, authorities said. Harvil was knocked over and a TV set fell on top of him, but Harvil was able to reach his own gun, a .357 magnum. He fired twice, hitting Barnes once in the chest and a second time in the eye.
The second shot killed Barnes, Shuler said. Only later was it learned Barnes had robbed Harvil using a toy pistol made to look like a real weapon.“
He had blackened the gun with a magic marker,” Shuler said.
Public Forecloses On Neighborhood
from The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PBS cuts back on ‘Mister Rogers’ again
PBS has told member stations that “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” will only be available to air one episode weekly beginning in the fall. This past season, stations that wanted to air the “Neighborhood” daily had that option. Not anymore.
“PBS is operating under very tight budget constraints and it already has a full program lineup to support Monday through Friday,” said Kevin Morrison, chief operating officer for Rogers’ Oakland-based Family Communications Inc. “If it was offering ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’ on a daily basis it would only be as an option to the existing full lineup of programs, and that option is an expensive option for them and the financial situation prevents them from making that an option.”
Presumably that means WQED will also air the show just once a week, although I haven’t gotten definitive clarification on that yet.