A Beginner’s Guide to the Bath Houses of Japan

You’re probably familiar with the favourite Roman past time of nude public bathing, but did you know that it’s an even bigger phenomenon in Japan? Getting hot and steamy is deeply rooted in the Japanese culture, and public baths are still as popular as ever. The archipelago, which consists of over 6, 800 islands, is home to over 30, 000 baths, so wherever you go you’ll be sure to find one. You can usually spot whether there’s a bath nearby by looking for the ♨ symbol…

- Messy Nessy Chic

The Surprising Secrets to Living Longer — And Better

Old age demands to be taken very seriously–and it usually gets its way. It’s hard to be cavalier about a time of life defined by loss of vigor, increasing frailty, rising disease risk and falling cognitive faculties. Then there’s the unavoidable matter of the end of consciousness and the self–death, in other words–that’s drawing closer and closer. It’s the rare person who can confront the final decline with flippancy or ease. That, as it turns out, might be our first mistake.

- Time

Netflix innove avec un épisode interactif de la série Black Mirror

Netflix a proposé ce vendredi une expérience inédite à ses abonnés dans le monde, en diffusant pour la première fois un épisode spécial, entièrement interactif, de la série d'anticipation Black Mirror.

Dans cette création présentée sous la forme d'un film d'une heure trente environ, intitulé Bandersnatch, le téléspectateur sort pour une fois de son rôle passif et doit effectuer une série de choix successifs, à la manière des « livres dont vous êtes le héros », qui vont déterminer la suite des événements.

- La Presse

La mécanique du malheur

Chacun de ses romans est accueilli à la façon d’un oracle. Son dernier tour de piste, Soumission, un roman de politique-fiction imaginant dans un futur proche une France islamisée, était sorti le jour même de l’attentat contre l’hebdomadaire satirique Charlie Hebdo en janvier 2015.

Quatre ans plus tard, avec Sérotonine, Michel Houellebecq relance les enchères.

Dans le style en apparence neutre qu’on lui connaît, l’écrivain de 62 ans continue à lécher les plaies du malheur avec la mauvaise foi et l’ironie noire qu’on lui connaît. Il persiste dans sa critique du libéralisme et des relations amoureuses, nous offrant un autre portrait peu reluisant de l’homme blanc occidental et de la misère sexuelle de ses contemporains.

- Le Devoir

Sex Diary: The Married Woman Who’s Been Cheating for 6 Years

12:30 p.m. Hospital has been crazy all day. I work in emergency medicine, and my husband is in advertising; we both commute into the city every day on the train. I always look around at everyone on the train and wonder what skeletons they’re hiding in their closets. Who else is leading a double life?

I text M asking how his weekend was because he hasn’t messaged me yet. He loves to play head games. It’s his thing. Anxiety hits a peak once I hit send on the text message … I never know when he will respond.

12:45 p.m. Time for a “bathroom break.” Because I have a lot of anxiety, I counteract that with a lot of masturbation — usually about seven or eight times a day. Luckily, we have private bathrooms in our section of the hospital. It literally takes me all of 20 seconds to get myself off so I make a lot of very short bathroom visits over the course of my day. Better than popping Xanax, right?

- The Cut

I don't know who anyone is anymore

I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon

Holiday parties were right around the corner, and I needed a cover story. I didn’t feel like admitting to casual acquaintances, or even to some good friends, that I drive a van for Amazon. I decided to tell them, if asked, that I consult for Amazon, which is loosely true: I spend my days consulting a Rabbit, the handheld Android device loaded with the app that tells me where my next stop is, how many packages are coming off the van, and how hopelessly behind I’ve fallen.

- The Atlantic

“The Death Of Colossus”: Striking Candid Photographs That Capture Everyday Life In The USSR In 1984-1989

The ’80s weren’t a great time for those living in the USSR, although those living in Moscow had it better than most. Here’s a look at everyday life of the Soviets in the late 1980s. These amazing photographs were taken by Chris Niedenthal in 1984 through 1989.

- Design you Trust

Love Is Not a Permanent State of Enthusiasm: An Interview with Esther Perel

The psychotherapist Esther Perel knows how to work a room. Since the publication of her first book, “Mating in Captivity,” in 2006, she has travelled the world, speaking to audiences about love, sex, intimacy, and infidelity: the nuts and bolts of romantic life. (Those who do not have an opportunity to see her live can watch her on the ted stage, where her videos, subtitled in more than thirty languages, have been viewed tens of millions of times.) Perel, who grew up in Antwerp as the daughter of Holocaust survivors, got her start as a family therapist, focussing on issues of trauma and cultural conflict. Couples have since become her clinical and theoretical specialty. In a style marked by humor, frankness, and empathy, Perel’s talks and books take a counterintuitive approach to answering provocative questions: How did the romantic couple become the primary unit of organization in society? Can romantic desire truly be sustained? Is infidelity ever a good thing?

- The New Yorker

James Bond esclave de l’alcool

Il défie les pires méchants et protège le monde de leurs attaques sournoises. Mais qui va sauver James Bond, qui, lui, doit composer depuis plus de 50 ans avec un grave problème « d’alcoolisme chronique », comme le révèle une analyse en règle de ses comportements dans 24 films ?

- Le Devoir

ANNA POLINA : « JE PENSAIS QUE LE PORNO ÉTAIT SUPER PUNK »

Tu crois qu’on pourrait un jour retrouver du porno au cinéma ?

-Ah non. C’est impossible. Je pense que ça n’arrivera pas. Nous vivons dans une société ou l’on nous fait croire qu’on est « libéré » en nous vendant 50 Shades of Grey dans les supermarchés, mais à côté de ça tout est de plus en plus compliqué. Je pensais aux Valseuses récemment et à l’époque il y avait une liberté. Ça baisait sur le tournage ! Et pour 50 Shade of Grey on est quand même dans une comédie romantique ratée avec du SM pour papa et maman absolument horrible. Les gens ont l’impression de se sentir libres en regardant ça, c’est si triste. Je trouve qu’on fait tout pour que les gens soient frustrés, stagnent dans une sorte de misère sociale et sexuelle, qui contraste avec leur mise en avant sur les réseaux sociaux.

- Le Tag Parfait

Vintage Photographs of People Reading Newspapers Before the Invention of That Grossly Antisocial Device: The Smartphone

Since the smartphone boom put tiny computers in hundreds of millions of pockets, there’ve been countless critics eager to point out that invasive technology is changing our lives for the worse, and worse, changing who we are. It’s turning us into selfish, anti-social automatons, they say, again and again and again.

But how much has really changed? Sure, we’re media-obsessed, anti-social crazy people, but we’ve always been this way.

- Vintage Everyday

What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

When Mt. Vesuvius erupted on August 24 in A.D. 79, Pompeii, Herculaneum, and other Roman settlements were sealed as time capsules. They were first excavated in the 18th century, and since then these sites have given us a wonderful view into ancient Roman society.

Many of the bathrooms uncovered at Pompeii and elsewhere were communal. In many cases, they were beautiful, with frescoes on the walls, sculptures in the corners, and rows of holes carved into cold, Italian marble slabs.

- Sapiens

LE PARFUM, la série inspirée du roman sur Netflix

Le best-seller Le Parfum inspire une série télé allemande à découvrir courant décembre en exclusivité sur Netflix.

Chef d’œuvre de la littérature moderne sorti en 1985, le roman de Patrick Süskind a rapidement suscité les envies de nombreux producteurs au vu de son succès. Pendant longtemps, l’auteur ne voulait qu’un seul homme pour réaliser l’adaptation de son livre,  le réalisateur Stanley Kubrick. À la mort de celui-ci, l’écrivain s’était finalement résigné à céder les droits aux producteur allemand  Bernd Eichinger qui avait sorti en 2006 une version ciné réalisée par Tom Tykwer après que de prestigieux réalisateurs dont Martin Scorsese se soient cassé les dents sur le projet. Douze ans plus tard, Netflix nous propose de découvrir une nouvelle adaptation très libre du Parfum sous la forme d’une série télé allemande à partir du 21 décembre 2018.

- Freakin Geek

A Holiday Potpourri of 40 Classy to Wildly Irreverent Vintage Christmas Magazine Covers

Sure, we could have delivered a bunch of boring Christmas magazine back issues, but that’s no fun.  Instead, I’ve selected a stack of holiday editions which I found interesting – for their irreverence, nostalgia or just plain intangible awesomeness.  Enjoy…

- Flashbak

Ten mistakes smart people never make twice

Everybody makes mistakes—that’s a given—but we don’t always learn from them. Sometimes we make the same mistakes over and over again, fail to make any real progress, and can’t figure out why.

“Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.”—Bruce Lee

When we make mistakes, it can be hard to admit them because doing so feels like an attack on our self-worth. This tendency poses a huge problem because new research proves something that common sense has told us for a very long time—fully acknowledging and embracing errors is the only way to avoid repeating them.

- Quartz

A letter to… my friend with benefits

I've just seen you again after about 10 years, three marriages and four children between us, and it feels as if nothing has changed. But of course it has. We’re in our 40s now; both older, a bit fatter (well, me, certainly), a bit more jaded. Those heady days of our 20s are well and truly behind us. Gone are the days of no responsibility – and even this lunch date had to be planned well in advance.

- The Guardian

The Cliffside Town of Tropea

Tropea is a seaside resort located in the region of Calabria, in the south of Italy. The town is perched on top of an imposing cliff, in the gulf of St. Euphemia which is connected with the mainland by a narrow strip in the Tyrrhenian Sea. This stretch of coastline on the Tyrrhenian Sea is called the Costa degli Dei – the “Coast of the Gods”, and is one of Italy’s finest summer holiday destinations. With dramatic cliffs overlooking a crystal clear blue sea and sunny beaches, Tropea is a famous bathing place. Although it is not particularly well-known to English-speaking travellers, Tropea is popular with Italians.

The town is a puzzling maze of pretty little lanes and piazzas. The cobbled streets are lined with old buildings made from golden stone and at various points, flights of stairs descend down to the beaches below. 

- Amusing Planet