Secret stashes tend to fall along the lines of either those crappy fake hollow books you buy at Bed Bath & Beyond or DIY stashes (for the herb!) that simply do the job but look like Hell. Yiting Cheng has gloriously overturned these assumptions with his/her (?) art project, Secret Stash. Glasses of orange...
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Q: Why do some people pronounce strength as strenth? Q: Why do self-styled badass, bro-type guys like to shake hands sideways, palms flat? A: Likely solved. A friend suggested to me that it’s a dominating move, especially since their hands are on top, facing downward. Q: Why does Pink in the movie Pink Floyd’s...
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Quintessential “New England poet” Robert Frost was born in San Francisco. Quintessential “British poet T.S. Eliot” was born in St. Louis, Missouri. The father of Married with Children‘s Katey Sagal was decapitated by a helicopter at Timberline Lodge, Mt. Hood, Oregon. Adding to the weirdness, the Timberline Lodge was the location for filming The...
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I love antiquated words. Some of the best stories about the origins of words come from a book called I Love It When You Talk Retro, by Ralph Keyes. The word “widget” comes from a 1924 play called Beggar on Horseback, by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly. “Taken aback” is a sailing term...
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So, a Portland, OR masseuse claims that in 2006, Vice-President Al Gore, groped and man-handled her in a hotel room. Yeah, whatever; fine and dandy. The most interesting aspect, to me and apparently also to Alexandra Petri of The Washington Post, is the almost-literary quality of this case–if your literature runs toward cheap and...
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Holy cow. Previously, I have written about the Almighty Helvetica and how it was used to convey a sense of faux humility in advertisements in the 1960s. In fact, I plant the faux humility flag at about 1966. Turns out I’m not the only joker with this idea. Gary Hustwit has directed a documentary...
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I landed on a great site called Linkbait Generator. Linkbait is any kind of zippy, high-concept web content that gets picked up and spread virally. Typical linkbait emanates from places like Cracked.com: 5 Ridiculous Gun Myths Everyone Believes (Thanks to Movies). Well, now you can make your own linkbait with the Linkbait Generator. The...
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