Rare chair was put out with the rubbish
The missing sixth item in a museum's set has reappeared after 50 years
The High Tatras hide the most spectacular outhouse
Mountaineer Ľubomír Mäkký shares tips for easy hikes in the majestic Slovak mountains on this week's episode.
When GoFundMe Gets Ugly
The largest crowdfunding site in the world puts up a mirror to who we are and what matters most to us. Try not to look away.
Psychologist branded father 'psychopathic' with no evidence, breaking him up from his son
ABC NEWSFor First Time In 27 Years, And Despite The Rules, Booker Prize Is Shared By Two Titles
Yes, one of them is Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments; the other is Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other. Over more than five hours of debate, the judges were told repeatedly that splitting the prize was not permitted, so the panel unanimously made the decision “to flout the rules.” – The Guardian
Memoirs From Beyond the Grave. Chateaubriand wanted his 2,000-page book published only after his death. Then financial hardship stuck
The discovery of a hidden camera in a water bottle used to secretly film sunbathers Lady Robinsons Beach at Brighton-Le-Sands Beach has outraged residents.
ISN’T THAT JUST LIKE A CAT? Enormous lion terrifies photographer with loud roar — then smiles at him
CHANGE: Kenyan runner Eliud Kipchoge just became the first person in history to finish a marathon in under 2 hours.
CHANGE: Kenyan runner Eliud Kipchoge just became the first person in history to finish a marathon in under 2 hours.
Pro skateboarder Felipe Nunes hails from Brazil, is 20 years old, and recently signed on to Tony Hawk’s Birdhouse team. Nunes also lost both legs when he was six. From an interview with Nunes in Thrasher:
I was six when it happened but the doctors said it was super fast. I didn’t really hesitate because I was so young. I used a wheelchair until about the age of 11. I was a kid who wanted to do everything. Regardless of not having two legs I wanted to do it all. I rode my bike, played soccer, pretty much everything out in front of my house. I was a normal kid. It didn’t even look like I was missing part of my legs. My parents were essential in my recovery because they never stopped me from doing anything. They were afraid of me getting hurt like any parents, but they never held me back. When I wanted to give up the wheelchair and ride the skateboard full time, they let me go.
Minae Mizumura, both imaginatively cosmopolitan and linguistically rooted, exemplifies the change in what it means to be an immigrant writer
Young people who are convinced they should give away all of their inherited wealth
Saturday Night at the Oldies: 'The King' Dead Forty Years
Preparing for Czech army Days - Elvis Presley died on 16 August 1977, 40 years ago. We can't let this weekend pass without a few tunes in commemoration.
First a couple of 'Italian' numbers modeled, respectively, on O Sole Mio and Torna a Surriento:
Continuing in the romantic vein:
Can't Help Falling in Love. A version by Andrea Bocelli. A woman for a heterosexual man is the highest finite object. The trick is to avoid idolatry and maintain custody of the heart.
A Gospel number:
From the spiritual to the secular:
And then there was hokey stuff like this reflecting his time in the Army in Germany:
Can't leave out the overdone and hyperromantic:
The Wonder of You. (Per mia moglie)
San Francisco Chronicle: “California Attorney General Xavier Becerra released a series of draft regulations Thursday aimed at getting businesses to comply with the state’s landmark data privacy law, scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, signed into law in June 2018, businesses must disclose to consumers the various kinds of data they collect about them. Companies must stop selling consumer data to third parties if customers ask them to, delete personal data on request, and explicitly seek consent from consumers aged 16 or younger to sell personal information. The bill also states that consumers who exercise their rights under the law cannot be discriminated against…”
They’ve Rediscovered The Naughty Bits From Europe’s Most Famous Medieval Romance
Fragments of a manuscript of Le Roman de la Rose — containing a double entendre-filled episode about a pilgrim at a shrine — were found in a centuries-old book binding in the public records office of the English city of Worcester. – Live Science
Billy Collins, “Introduction to Poetry
Introduction to Poetry (from Poetry)
Billy Collins
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.