Oct 5, 2009
Loneliness does not come from being alone, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important, said Carl Jung.
The interesting thing is why we're so desperate for this anesthetic against loneliness, said David Foster Wallace.
We're all in this alone, said Lily Tomlin.
Foraging for thimbleberries and gooseberries >> more
Rodney King engaged to "juror number 5" from his trial against the city of Los Angeles >> more
Combat meals >> more
The "exaggerated passion of adolescence": breaking into pools, drinking beer, driving beat-up old cars at night while reading aloud from a quiz in a women's magazine >> more
Degrees of beef marbling >> more
Crimes punishable by death in China include smuggling gold and passing forged checks >> more
Next edition of Oxford English Dictionary (third edition) will also be the last edition >> more
Guerrilla bike lane >> more
Types of bitches >> more
Photographs of slime molds >> more
The phenomenology of ugly >> more
Envy, or, dating Jonathan Franzen: ". . . what did his success prove if not that when the gift is prodigious enough, the world does need us?" >> more
Nine-day traffic jam >> more
Neuroscientist who studies the brains of psychopaths discovers he has the brain of a psycopath -- and is related to Lizzy Borden >> more
Chemical reason secondhand bookstores smell like "good quality vanilla absolute" >> more
"Freedom to do whatever we want and the freedom to not matter" >> more
Company hides opt-out clause in online legal disclaimer giving them ownership of your immortal soul >> more
Former food critic lives off $200 a month in food stamps >> more
Films that most frequently use the word "fuck" >> more
U.S. government's list of street terms for "pot" >> more
Bespoke, handknit sweaters >> more
Plans for a gay bar next door to the mosque near Ground Zero >> more
Spelling bee for cheaters >> more
Stereotyping people by their favorite indie bands >> more >> more
Mongolian neo-Nazi group Tsagaan Khass ("White Swastika") >> more
Salvador Dali had a pet anteater >> more
Triceratops may have never existed >> more
U.S. states in which it is illegal to collect rainwater >> more
"People tell me, 'Your website makes me feel okay with collecting weird things, being messy, having weird shoes'" >> more
Items seized at New York's JFK airport >> more
Leaning Tower of Pisa has stopped leaning >> more
Origin of currency symbols >> more
Emailing while sleeping >> more
"Undiscovered public knowledge emboldens us to question claims to originality: Is a creative offering truly novel, or have we just forgotten a worthy precursor?" >> more
Russian speakers are better able to visually distinguish shades of blue than English speakers >> more
Portion sizes in depictions of the Last Supper have doubled since Medieval period >> more
On the menu at the Last Supper: grilled eel and orange slices >> more
Indigo dying DIY >> more
Laver's law: the lifecycle of fashion >> more
Olivier Theysken's corner deli shopping list >> more
Jeffrey Eugenides: "Bellow was good at writing about himself, but not me. I don’t know who I am." >> more
South pole of Jupiter >> more
Researchers create 'lesbian' mice by deleting a single gene >> more
Chicken came before the egg >> more
Live in a museum for a month >> more
Appeals court rejects FCC policy on "fleeting expletives" >> more
“I don’t even like to look at albums of my kids when they were little. This is today. Once it’s over, it’s over.” >> more
Al Qaeda launches English-language online magazine >> more
Iran bans the mullet >> more
"The idea that artists can treat the city like a canvas ends up suggesting that it is a lost cause, an entire metropolitan area written off as raw material for upcycling." >> more
Michael Jackson's patent for anti-gravity shoes >> more
It's true what he said: I often like the idea of a thing more than the thing itself >> more
Intellectual property among chefs >> more
Islands for sale >> more
Woodlands for sale >> more
eBay price guide for first issues of magazines >> more
Locked, writers-only private room in the New York Public Library >> more
Craving sassafras twig syrup: "Think root beer with a lot of lemon in it." >> more
"'Art is a way of showing the outside world what your inside world is like.' So is vomiting." >> more
Map of public art in Los Angeles >> more
What happened to King Tut's penis? >> more
Raids on illegal pinatas >> more
Landlocked countries >> more
Female, non-white Marvel superheroes >> more
There are more Ethiopian doctors practicing in Chicago than in all of Ethiopia >> more
We experience greater pain when we believe it to be intentionally inflicted, rather than by accident >> more
"Sometimes, we simply like pain; it confirms our sense of how the world is. . . . it appeals to our essentialism, our preference for the authentic . . . the quality of being profoundly true to life." >> more
Headless rooster lives for 18 months after non-lethal decapitation >> more
Contest: Turn your dissertation into an interpretive dance >> more
"When I can’t sleep, I think about what I’m missing. . . . I wonder what I would be dreaming about, if only I could fall asleep." >> more
Reuters working with Adobe on Photoshop component that would record changes made to photographs >> more
Video of world record-setting free dive >> more
Hebrew University owns the rights to Albert Einstein's likeness >> more
Make something cool everyday >> more
Street vendors without a license in New York City can legally sell books and art >> more
Why Los Angeles is no place for a poet >> more
Displaying sun-faded paintings in a state of "simulated newness" >> more
As evidenced by my "About" section, I'm a big fan of subject postponement >> more
Frank Gehry: LEED certification has become fetishized, like "if you wear an American flag on your lapel." >> more
Supreme Court closes front door: "We are becoming a nation of moles, timorous creatures who scurry through side and subterranean entrances." >> more
Top 40 magazine covers of the last 40 years >> more
Kathleen Hanna bequeaths her papers to NYU, for the university library's Riot Grrrrl Collection >> more
The business of poverty >> more
Monkeys writing Shakespeare: "The appeal . . . has never had anything to do with monkeys, but rather with the notion of greatness through infinity." >> more
Fourteen-year-old Malcolm Gladwell running in a 1,500 meter race >> more
Portraits of rural Africans: one in typical poverty pose and one dressed “wochena” (“dressed to kill”) >> more
"Would you pay $109 for a notebook? >> more
The New York Times bans the word "tweet" >> more
Squid ink buns, taro rolls and sea salt lattes >> more
Columbia University Press to publish David Foster Wallace's undergraduate thesis >> more
Keanu Reeves is super-nice >> more
Reverse engineering McDonald's french fries >> more
The four signs of the apocalypse: "formulae for the creation of art; a narcissistic, self-reinforcing cult; the return of sentiment; and the alibi of cynicism" >> more
Shaquille O'Neal curates art exhibit about size >> more
Most bohemian cities in the United States, according to Richard Florida >> more
Should affirmative action consider class instead of race? >> more
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service auctions items seized from illegal animal trade >> more >> more
"Introverts are people who find other people tiring" >> more
Philosophy classes on YouTube >> more
Caviar vending machine in Moscow >> more
Free mini-album of collected sounds by Jarvis Cocker >> more
Black American babies cost $8,000 less to adopt than Hispanic or white babies; girls cost $2,000 more than boys >> more
Koreans and Greeks work the most: Average hours worked per year, by country >> more
Heinz ketchup changing its recipe for first time in 60 years >> more
Each 100 point increase in a woman's SAT score increases compensation for egg donation by $2,350 >> more
Stealing tiny fragments from priceless works of art >> more
Noam Chomsky denied entry into Israel >> more
Should artists have a right to a share of the profits from resale of their work? >> more
"Daria: The Complete Animated Series" released on DVD >> more
Fashion Law Institute, finally >> more
Subway applies to U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for exclusive use of the term "footlong" >> more
Last Jew in Afghanistan >> more
Last of the Asian Godfathers >> more
Woolly mammoths had antifreeze blood >> more
Imelda Marcos running for congress >> more
NASA logo known in-house as "the meatball" >> more
Newsweek is for sale >> more
Hirshhorn Museum director asks staff to help make the lobby/gift shop look busy during donor visit >> more
Only 20 percent of the salt on a potato chip dissolves on the tongue; the rest is ingested with no contribution to taste >> more
On the duty to be happy: "How did we become unhappy about not being happy?" >> more
Blood type discrimination in Japan >> more
Peter Singer advocated eating oysters in Animal Liberation >> more
Lead a tour of something, somewhere: "Going Places, Doing Stuff" call for proposals >> more
How do you pronounce "Moleskine"? >> more
Somewhere in the world there is a sunset right now >> more
Sound of space dust colliding with Earth's ionosphere >> more
Ramp season! >> more
The words David Foster Wallace circled in his dictionary >> more
Why are there so few female critics? >> more
Well-deserved Pulitzer Prize >> more
Does anyone care about the World Expo? >> more
"I Love You, Phillip Morris" trailer >> more
Shyness as a preoccupation with the self: "At the very least, if you’re shy, you’re never bored" >> more
History of Prussian blue, the first synthetic color >> more
Cake vs. pie bracket >> more
Tournament of books >> more
Writers' day jobs >> more
Ai Weiwei spends eight hours a day on Twitter >> more
The courage of the present >> more
Soldiers in Afghanistan wash their clothes in cement mixers >> more
Off-menu fast food items >> more
"You know that feeling when you see a little tennis star, she’s trying really hard and she breaks your heart. I don’t think you find that in women’s publishing at the moment, there isn’t a general enthusiasm for people" >> more
Condolence gift bag for Oscar nominees who didn't win includes one-year supply of Altoids and African safari >> more
China's latest fashion icon: the "Handsome Vagabond" >> more
“Broadly speaking, girl groups correlate with economic expansion, boy bands with stagnation" >> more
The pleasures of boredom >> more
Kit Kat flavors worldwide, including Salt-Watermelon and Chestnut >> more
"Real criticism is not about distinguishing good from bad; it is about distinguishing good from great. . . . The curse of our time, in the arts, is mediocrity and ordinariness . . ." >> more
Transcriptions of a sleeptalker >> more
Rejected New York Times slogans: "Always decent; never dull" >> more
Taxing the human body >> more
NBA projects losses of $400 million next year, says David Stern >> more
Job opening: Obama's twitterer >> more
Buy seeds and grow your own Nicotiana Tabacum >> more
Intersex people aren't allowed to serve in the U.S. military >> more
Art idea #21: Pour a glass of water to look at. Brilliant >> more
Five cent shopping bags and behavioral economics >> more
Is this work of art really "uncollectable"? Or just always on sale? >> more
Rebel artist's tragic ending >> more
After five years of deliberate spending, works by women now account for 17 percent of Centre Pompidou's collection >> more
Top corporate and special-interest donors to federal-level politics >> more
In the history of material culture, the Makapansgat pebble represents "the birth of want" >> more
What typeface are you? >> more
History of the ampersand >> more
"Can we ever find 'perfection' or 'certainty' or 'truth'? No! Then let us stop using such words in our formulations.": An argument for eliminating all forms of the verb "to be" >> more
How to guarantee your luggage won't be lost >> more
There are 35,000 stray dogs in Moscow. Some have even learned how to ride the Metro >> more
New book about the Getty: "Chasing Aphrodite: Decline and Fall of the World's Richest Museum" >> more
Snowballs made by wind >> more
In defense of a "general and massive easing-up on widows and orphans" >> more
How to be insulting without being ill-bred, or, the only thing written by Bertrand Russell that I've ever wanted to read >> more
Bravo announces new reality show competition for artists >> more
Roman dialect has word to describe the act of stabbing someone in the butt >> more
Neanderthals wore make-up and were thus "capable of symbolic thinking" >> more
On art projects that are never completed: "It is the “unbuilt” or unfulfilled nature of the future that drives manifestos" >> more
Helvetica in Arabic >> more
State of Illinois sued for serving prison inmates too much soy >> more
Dim sum visual dictionary >> more
Say what you will about Adam Gopnik, this line is sticking: "To trust in luck is to be courageous, and courage, the one essential virtue, on which all others depend, is also the one ambiguous virtue . . ." >> more >> more
"Life Before Death": Walter Schel's photographs of people before and right after they have died >> more
The morality of selling babies >> more
Sensor-studded clothing that records domestic violence >> more
The only writer to graduate from Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters >> more
"I will seriously consider eliminating the penny," Obama said >> more
Walking drunk vs. driving drunk vs. biking drunk >> more
Journalism corrections of the year >> more
Is art blogging really that bad, asks Christopher Knight in the Los Angeles Times >> more
Michael Stipe's capsule line for Maison Martin Margiela >> more
Idi Amin and gallerist Robert Fraser had a sexual liaison? >> more
Italian anthropologists to run DNA tests on Caravaggio's exhumed remains >> more
Terranaut II: A fish-powered bicycle >> more
First time there will be live nudity at the MoMA >> more
Duke University Press publishes two-decade-old doctoral dissertation by S. Ann Dunham, Barack Obama's mother >> more
Switzerland bans minarets >> more
Was just debating this the other day: The fashion trends for which this decade will be remembered >> more
Bush's lawyer in Bush v. Gore leading Prop. 8 legal challenge >> more
Forty-six percent of people who own a fake designer handbag buy the real thing within two years: "People were becoming increasingly attached to the real brand even though they never possessed it at all." >> more
The Paradox of Choice, revisited >> more
Maybe this is why art matters: People are willing to pay a lot for it >> more
Should conservatives reappropriate the term "teabagger"? >> more
Gallery show opens at 1 p.m. today. At sundown, all the art will be set on fire >> more
What's the world's most-stolen artwork? >> more
PETA considered "domestic special-interest terrorist" organization by U.S. government >> more
"Eternal Sunshine": Drug wipes out single, specific memory in mice while keeping others intact >> more
Filler words such as "um" and "like" in different languages >> more
I can't believe I hadn't seen this before. A three-way tie on Jeopardy! >> more >> more
Corduroy skirts are a sin >> more
Coalition of artists files FOIA to reveal which songs were used to interrogate detainees: "Mohammed al Qahtani, the so-called twentieth hijacker, said that whenever he fell asleep, the guards would crank up Christina Aguilera" >> more
The two main types of lists, according to Umberto Eco: "etcetera" and "everything included" >> more
Most of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions come from sheep burps? >> more
While growing up on Catalina Island, D.'s mom used to feed pickles to the wild bison. Now, those bison's descendants are getting contraceptive injections >> more
Two butterflies are born on the space shuttle Atlantis >> more
Has sleepwalking ever been captured on tape? Why researchers know so little about people who kill in their sleep >> more
The BBC's artist reality TV competition premiered this week. I'm scared to watch >> more
Pope urges artists to make works that are beautiful >>
Is Design Within Reach in trouble? >> more
Yemen will be first country to run out of water >> more
Galileo's fingers discovered in a jar >> more
S. A. Andrée's ill-fated balloon journey to the North Pole >> more
How to choose a pen name >> more
Do assassinations matter? An analysis of all 298 assassination attempts from 1875 to 2004 and their political repercussions >> more
Creating the signage that will warn future generations about toxic waste dump sites: "There will always be someone who studies ancient languages." >> more >> more
Make your own Sriracha hot sauce >> more
The importance of a museum's permanent collection >> more
"Two Month's Salary" >> more
The two humanistic enterprises that most loudly declare their commitment to truth are barely on speaking terms. Why we need a Philosophy of Journalism >> more
Jeanne-Claude, dead at 74 >> more Daul Kim, dead at 20 >> more
Is there such a thing as a publicly owned image? Or are there only not-yet copyrighted images? >> more
President of Ultimate Fighting Championship becomes first head of major sports league to welcome openly gay athletes >> more
Discontinued McDonald's menu items, including corndogs and the Jason Kidd burger >> more
Morehouse College dress code bans men from wearing "clothing usually worn by women" >> more
Is Call of Duty 2 an anti-war game? >> more
TSA bans snowglobes in carry-on luggage >> more
Naming an aesthetic: "Modern Hemingway" or "New Antiquarian" or "Haute Americana"? >> more
An ongoing, eight-decade science experiment, unseen by anyone: "It took eight years for the first drop to fall." >> more
The 15 Fortune 500 companies run by women >> more
Revisiting the death of the American Dream >> more
Instead of a communal water font, machines that dispense single servings of holy water >> more
I ate my first mangosteen last month. I'm drinking bilberry tea right now. Next up: paw paw gelato >> more
The quest to create a new, rational language, absent redundancies and irregularities >> more
Top 200 artists of the 20th century to now, according to an online poll >> more
Paleontologists made stew from the neck of an extinct steppe bison that had been frozen for 36,000 years >> more
Mars Rover is stuck in a pit. "The choice on which way to drive will not be made lightly." >> more
Finally, a decent newspaper in San Francisco? Too bad the San Francisco Panorama is a one-off >> more
Twenty least powerful people in the art world. Rosalind Krauss makes the cut: "We couldn't remember who she is and we were too lazy to Google her." >> more
Claude Levi-Strauss is dead >> more
The weirdest people in the world? Great academic paper topic I can't believe hasn't been covered before >> more
Ron Artest raps about violence against women in Afghanistan, seriously >> more
Anti-rape condom >> more
Meatless Mondays in Baltimore's public schools has drawn ire from something called Pork Magazine >> more
Yale University Press refuses to publish controversial Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons in book about the controversy >> more
Economics experiment demonstrates benefits of backstabbing >> more
Royalties from The Great Gatsby totaled $8,397 in F. Scott Fitzgerald's lifetime >> more
"No Woman No Cry": Does this lyric mean "There is no woman that does not cry" or "Don't cry if you don't have a woman"? A philologist weighs in >> more
Is there really no word to describe the person at whom a stare is directed? >> more
Slavoj Zizek lecture on new book, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, interrupted by bomb threat >> more
Editor of WaPo says he "failed to reconcile language with intentions." >> more
Tom Cruise was Christian Bale's inspiration for Patrick Bateman in 'American Psycho' >> more
ACLU considers destroying tapes of board meetings, claiming verbatim recordings are "working papers" not official record >> more
Most popular submission titles to Virginia Quarterly Review more
Genocide in Iraq against homosexual men and boys, who are publicly tortured, mutilated and killed >> more
