The Story Of Marita Lorenz, the CIA Agent Who Was Sent To Kill Castro But Slept With Him Instead

The U.S. government invented all sorts of harebrained schemes to kill Fidel Castro—and I mean really, truly off-the-wall plots. There was the time the CIA tried to poison his milkshake. There was the ploy to discredit him by spraying him down with LSD and watching him go insane during a live radio broadcast. There was, I shit you not, an idea to pack his omnipresent cigar with explosives. Then there was Marita Lorenz.

-Jezebel

Armés de livres

Le douanier américain soupèse nos affirmations d’un air dubitatif et sentencieux. Jeudi après-midi, à la frontière de North Troy, au Vermont, un léger crachin, rien pour inspirer le tourisme. « Comme ça, vous allez passer la fin de semaine dans un B&B ? Pas d’anniversaire spécial ? Les “couleurs” sont terminées, il n’y a pas de neige. Vous allez faire quoi ? »
  
Lire. C’est la réponse la plus honnête, la moins libidineuse (encore que), la plus sensée vu la météo. Outre nos livres, qu’il observe avec plus de méfiance que pour des carabines chargées, ce fier représentant des angry white males républicains ruraux peu éduqués de plus de 45 ans, qui gagneront leurs élections dans quelques jours, semble détenir la preuve que nous sommes de futurs réfugiés illégaux venus voler des jobs : « Vous ne travaillez pas le vendredi ? Vous faites quoi dans la vie ? »
   
Un prof d’université et une journaliste pigiste qui lisent un vendredi de novembre, je vous assure que ça ne pèse pas lourd dans la balance morale du pouvoir archétypal armé jusqu’aux dents. Notre cerbère nous a à l’oeil au beurre noir, probablement un cadeau de sa femme, une angry white pussy.
  
« That’s the story, hey ? ! » ironise notre brave représentant de la loi. Et nous avons droit à un petit sermon de circonstance sur ceux qui travaillent et font rouler l’économie (vendredi compris), tandis que d’autres… lisent.

-Le Devoir

This 30-million-year-old cave in New Zealand has a beautiful phenomenon that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world

Deep underground in New Zealand's North Island, a winding underground universe of limestone caves glow with a magical blue-green light. While it might seem like pure fantasy, these caves are very real. Their dark interior is brought to life by twinkling colonies of glow worms, or arachnocampa luminosa.

-Business Insider

Solar-Powered Cylindrical Treehouse In Mexico Is Made With Sustainable Bamboo

On a lush stretch of beach in Mexico, north of Acapulco, lies a sustainable resort called Playa Viva. They recently opened a bi-level treehouse designed by Chicago firm Deture Culsign. Made of bamboo, the solar-powered cylindrical treehouse offers gorgeous views of the Pacific Ocean. At 700 square feet, the treehouse is designed to “visually intrigue and highlight sustainable strategies to deliver a natural immersive guest experience,” according to Deture Culsign. The treehouse is built six feet off the ground amidst palm trees, which act as “living piers.” There is a bedroom with a king bed, lounge area, built-in hammock, and private bathroom in the treehouse. California-based ArtisTree constructed the the treehouse.

-Design You Trust

You’ve decided to visit a Caribbean island — but which one? Here’s our island-by-island guide

Think “Caribbean,” and images of palm trees, aquamarine seas and fruity drinks with umbrellas typically come to mind. But scratch the surface, and you’ll find distinctly different vibes, landscapes, weather and attractions defining the region’s more than 7,000 individual islands.

-Washington Post

Découvrir les eaux béliziennes

Petit pays d'Amérique centrale bordé par le Mexique et le Guatemala, le Belize est une destination un peu moins accessible que ses voisins pour les touristes québécois. Le pays reste néanmoins la Mecque de la plongée sous-marine des Amériques, en plus d'être considéré comme l'une des plus belles destinations du monde pour pratiquer ce sport.

-La Presse

Mort du plongeur en apnée italien Enzo Maiorca

Sa rivalité avec Jacques Mayol l’avait rendu célèbre dans le monde entier et avait inspiré le film Le grand bleu de Luc Besson : le légendaire plongeur italien Enzo Maiorca est mort dimanche à 85 ans dans sa ville natale de Syracuse, en Sicile.

-Le Devoir

The Funk by Coldcut

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnc0Y4wTYSrCMS2g9sDauBWeHw9nSPvbL

Dining with death: crime fiction’s long affair with food

From Sherlock Holmes to Inspector Maigret, fictional detectives often have healthy appetites, while ‘culinary cozy’ combines murders with recipes. Why do crime writers have a taste for food?

-The Guardian

R. Crumb Illustrates Bukowski

In the early 1990s, two titans of the artfully cynical and subversive joined forces in an extraordinary collaboration: Legendary cartoonist and album cover artistR. Crumb illustrated two short books by Charles Bukowski, Bring Me Your Love(public library) and There’s No Business (public library). Crumb’s signature underground comix aesthetic and Bukowski’s commentary on contemporary culture and the human condition by way of his familiar tropes — sex, alcohol, the drudgery of work — coalesce into the kind of fit that makes you wonder why it hadn’t happened sooner.

-Salad Days

The Wit And Wisdom Of Leonard Cohen - As important to poetry as he was the music, the late Leonard Cohen's words live on

"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."


-Esquire

Vintage Photos of New York and Boston That Look Like 'Stills from a Horror Film'

The following excerpt is from photographer Richard Sandler's new book 'The Eyes of the City' (out November 15 through powerHouse), which features nearly 200 street photos taken in New York and Boston between 1977 and 2001.

-Vice

Stunning Atmospheric Photographs Of London Streets At Night In The 1930s

There was another London, before clean air, before the Blitz, before post-war reconstruction. It was a night time London. These atmospheric images of London streets in the 1930s, before the Blitz, before the clean air act, before sodium lighting. It was a city of gloomy back streets lit by dim lamps, with forbidding alleys and the occasional welcoming light. The photographs are from a book called London Night, by John Morrison and Harold Burdekin, which was published in 1934.

-Design You Trust

She Wears Short Shorts: 55 Images from the Golden Age of Hotpants

The official birthday of hotpants is 1970 by Mariuccia Mandelli of the Italian fashion label Krizia.  However, some also cite Mary Quant, the miniskirt’s originator, as the creator of hotpants in the late 1960s (although they weren’t officially called “hotpants” until later). Whoever deserves credit, it goes without saying, the world owes her a debt of gratitude.

Short shorts had been worn informally since the 1920s, generally for sports activities. It wasn’t until the women’s liberation movement and sexual revolution of the late sixties that they became fashionable.  As the seventies wore on, hotpants gradually grew out of favor, but equally high hemmed running shorts and dolphin shorts as well as Daisy Dukes filled the short-shorts void.

-Flashbak

Take a Step Back in Time into these Flower Power Fashion Comic Books

Today I went in search of mindless distractions from reality. Perhaps you did the same. I went to my happy place and took a deep dive into the archives and photo pools of Flickr. There, I found these 1960s hippie-mod fashion pages from various romance comic books of the 60s and 70s. Some of them have empowering messages for women, some are still stuck in a “Mad Men” world, but mostly I just enjoyed them for their outrageous outfits that brightened up my day a little. I hope they do the same for you…

-Messy Nessy Chic

Le Montréal de Leonard Cohen, le poète

Sa ville n’a jamais cessé d’habiter son oeuvre, ses romans, ses poèmes, ses chansons. Un court parcours en quatre lieux.

Suzanne Verdal accompagnait Armand Vaillancourt dans une soirée dansante sur des airs de jazz quand le sculpteur a présenté la jeune femme au poète. Après la séparation du couple, Suzanne vivait dans le Vieux-Montréal, avec sa fille Julie, dans un appartement déglingué, avec vue sur le fleuve. Leonard Cohen la visitait à l’été 1965 et il en a tiré la fameuse chanson Suzanne : « Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river you can hear the boats go by you can spend the night beside her
And you know she's half crazy And she feeds you tea and oranges That come all the way from China ». Le véritable sujet de la chanson demeure le plus vieux quartier de la ville et son ambiance portuaire. « Cette chanson est presque un reportage, c’est l’évocation précise de ce qui s’est exactement passé. » Lui-même s’est ensuite installé près du boulevard Saint-Laurent, en face de ce qui allait devenir le parc du Portugal. Armand Vaillancourt est passé s’y recueillir vendredi comme bien d’autres Montréalais depuis l’annonce de la mort du poète chansonnier.

-Le Devoir

Leonard Cohen: ses femmes, ses muses

Plusieurs amoureuses, amies et inspiratrices sont passées dans la vie de Leonard Cohen. Véritables muses de l'auteur-compositeur-interprète, elles lui ont inspiré, dans certains cas, des chansons dont certaines font partie de ses plus grands succès.

-La Presse