Documenting the Beauty of Italy’s Abandoned Villas

The photographer Eleonora Costi spent the last four years tracking down her country’s crumbling treasures.

Four years ago, Eleonora Costi, an Italian photographer based in Florence, was skimming through a local paper when she came across an article about an abandoned 14th-century villa located just few miles north of Milan. “It sounded like a good location to take photos, so I decided to go and check it out,” she says. “The first thing I remember is a vivid scent of wet wood and a haunting silence.”

- Atlas Obscura

Worst Roommate Ever

“You’ve got your whole life in front of you. You’re pretty, you’ve got this house — well, you don’t have this house anymore. This house is my house.”

Alex Miller’s spare room had been on Craigslist for two weeks when, last March, she got the call she’d been waiting for. The man at the other end identified himself as Jed Creek. Creek was a lawyer from New York, but he had grown up just outside Philadelphia, only a few minutes’ drive from Miller’s apartment in the city’s well-to-do neighborhood of Chestnut Hill. Creek explained that he needed a place to stay while he tended to family matters — his mother was old and frail and his older brother was suffering from complications with hepatitis C, he said — and he’d been looking for a place without much luck. “I find Philadelphians to be very difficult,” he said. “A lot of flaky people.”

- NY Mag

The brutal mirror - What the psychedelic drug ayahuasca showed me about my life

When I finally puked on the fourth night, I felt an odd sense of pride.

Inside the loud, stuffy ceremony room, people were laughing, crying, chanting, gyrating, and, yes, vomiting, around me. When my time finally comes, I think: Just aim for the bucket and keep your ass above your head like the shaman told you.

I try to wipe my face but can’t grab the tissue paper because it melts every time I reach for it. Nearby, a man starts to scream. I can’t make out what he’s saying on account of the shaman singing beautiful Colombian songs in the other room.

I finish vomiting and start crying and laughing and smiling all at once. Something has been lifted in this “purge,” something dark and deep I was carrying around for years. Relief washes over me, and I slowly make my way back to my mattress on the floor.

- Vox

Study reveals why we trust some strangers and not others

From getting into a taxi to asking a fellow train passenger to keep an eye on your luggage while buying a coffee, we’ve all put our trust in those we do not know.

Now researchers have revealed that strangers are more likely to be trusted if they look like someone who has earned your trust before – and more likely to be distrusted if they resemble someone who has betrayed your faith in them.

- The Guardian

Polyamory Diaries: “I want us to sleep with other people”

He wants to sleep with her. She wants to sleep with other people. After 10 years and three kids together, what happens when your wife wants an open relationship and you really don’t ?

- Cosmopolitan

The Artists Who Gave 1960s Pulp Fiction Its Killer Look

The men on the pulp fiction book covers were muscular, two-fisted, unsmiling and action-eyed. The women were titillating, often partially clothed, dangerous and suggestive. They were the lurid, raunchy, exploitative, popular and vilified faces of work by the likes of Mickey Spillane, Earl Stanley Gardner, Hammond Innes, Alistair Mclean and Helen McInnes, whose paperback books sold by the millions. The covers of these stories one reviewer called “daydreams for the frustrated and the sick” seduced readers. The wrappers on mass-marketed, accessible literature peeped from wire racks in supermarkets, drug store and kiosk. Publishing houses noted the success of these books for people who never read, and before long art in the pulp style was appearing on all manner of titles, not just on pulp fiction comic books for adults, but in magazines and around texts written by highbrow authors, like Simone de Beauvoir, Sinclair Lewis and CP Snow.

- Flashbak

Bon roman, bad sex

Dès que la sexualité s'évade de la littérature érotique pour pénétrer la littérature grand public, les écrivains s'exposent au ridicule. On pardonne à Fifty Shades of Grey ses maladresses, car il n'a d'autre prétention que d'exciter la lectrice, mais moins à l'écrivain qui se frotte maladroitement à l'érotisme pour pimenter son roman. Mais puisqu'on peut lire le mot «cul» dans le mot «ridicule», nous posons la question: pourquoi écrire sur le sexe est-il si compliqué ?

- La Presse

Alan Watts and the Eternal Present

In 1950, both the world and Alan Watts were at a pivotal point. Russia had recently detonated its first atomic weapon, ushering in an age of global anxiety.

By the spring, Watts himself was undergoing a jarring transformation: his first wife had their marriage annulled because of an affair, and he resigned his position as an Episcopalian minister. Watts left the church, he later remembered, “not because it doesn’t practice what it preaches, but because it preaches.”

And so, the newly single Alan Watts — practitioner of Zen Buddhism, student of Taoism, authority on comparative philosophy, ex-priest and prolific author — began hobnobbing with the likes of Joseph Campbell and John Cage. He moved to a little farmhouse in upstate New York and began writing The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety. Given the circumstances, the book was aptly named. What it contains is timeless.

- Longreads

Inflatable Plastic Crowd in Movies

Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) is expensive and extras are difficult to handle, besides costing money. The Inflatable Crowd Company offers the alternative – plastic, inflatable mannequins, thirty thousands of them for use in movies where large crowd is required. The company was formed in 2002 for creating crowd scenes for the Hollywood movie Sea Biscuit. Their inflatable crowd have since appeared in over 80 feature films including many memorable ones like The King’s Speech, Frost/Nixon, American Gangster, Spiderman 3 and many more. These plastic men and women were featured in many TV shows and commercials as well.

- Amusing Planet

Artist Spends Hours Arranging Natural Objects Into Stunning Mandalas, Leaves Them For You To Find

Nature is beautiful as it is, but James Brunt is constantly finding new ways to make it look even more appealing. James creates artworks using natural objects he finds around his home in Yorkshire, England, and their intricacy will please both your eyes and your soul.

- Bored Panda

13 Habits of Exceptionally Likeable People

Too many people succumb to the mistaken belief that being likeable comes from natural, unteachable traits that belong only to a lucky few—the good looking, the fiercely social, and the incredibly talented. It’s easy to fall prey to this misconception. In reality, being likeable is under your control, and it’s a matter of emotional intelligence (EQ).

In a study conducted at UCLA, subjects rated over 500 adjectives based on their perceived significance to likeability. The top-rated adjectives had nothing to do with being gregarious, intelligent, or attractive (innate characteristics). Instead, the top adjectives were sincerity, transparency, and capacity for understanding (another person).

- TALENTSMART

‘Back-burner relationships’ are more common than you’d think

Valentine’s Day tends to make people think about their romantic relationships. Single? Maybe there’s someone you’ve been texting regularly whom you realize you want to ask out on a date. In a relationship? You might start thinking that your current flame is your one and only.

But no matter what your relationship status is, if you’re like the average young adult, chances are you’ve also been chatting with other potential partners, or back burners. These aren’t people you’re cheating on your partner with. Instead, they’re prospects you keep in touch with just in case your number one option falls through.

- The Conversation

Me & My TRS-80: Kids And Their Computers in the 1980s

I don’t know about you, but nothing warms my heart more than the sight of a photograph of kid at a personal computer in the 1980s. A pleasant whiff of nostalgia mixed with interesting paleo-technology, makes for a great image.  Let’s have a look at a handful of images of kids and families as history was being made: when computers first entered our schools and homes…

- Flashbak

Dangereux, les réseaux sociaux?

Des actionnaires d'Apple qui demandent à la multinationale de protéger les enfants contre ses produits. D'anciens dirigeants de Facebook qui affirment que les réseaux sociaux exploitent des vulnérabilités de la psychologie humaine. Des citoyens de tous âges qui se questionnent sur leur utilisation du téléphone portable. Nos écrans et les mondes virtuels auxquels ils donnent accès sont-ils vraiment en train de nous rendre fous ? Voici l'état de la science sur le sujet.

- La Presse

Instagram’s Most Adventurous Naked Hippie

Magdalena Wosinska‘s photographs feel like proof that this generation still has a place for the real hippie; a true and fearless wanderer . While I’m hesitant to ever step in front of the lens and often feeling shy about looking like a tourist with my camera, Magdalena has already ripped off her clothes and run in front of the lens to capture the moment. She’s been shooting self-portraits for about 8 years, while travelling the world with her metal band and best friends, and documenting what she calls “the experience“, alluding to the classic Jimi Hendrix album.

- Messy Nessy Chic

Banksy’s Top Selection Of Work (127 Pics)

Banksy is an anonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist and film director. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti executed in a distinctive stenciling technique. ( Wikipedia )

- Stationgossip

The Lost Art of Staying Put

NOT ALL THAT LONG AGO, air travel was a clear badge of elite cultural distinction, from the “jet set” to the Sinatra-mangling ad slogan, “Come Fly With Me.” Droit-de-seigneur sexual fantasies of stewardess life were memorialized in that elegantly titled sixties tell-all Coffee, Tea, or Me? People actually used to dress up to take a plane. But that’s all over. Now you need a bulletproof vest when dealing with the cabin crew.

Airlines seem to be competing for Jerk of the Year awards. When they’re not bumping people off, figuratively or literally, they’re frighteningly “reaching out” to the customers they abused, customers with “issues.” (The language is patronizing and predatory.) We’re all sorry United’s planes are so attractive to terrorists. The staff must be under constant strain. But so are the passengers, with whom these tin-pot dictators are increasingly strict, banning leggings on ten-year-olds and bodily removing people from the passenger manifests.

- The Baffler

The Story of Heady Topper, America’s Most Loved Craft Beer

For eight years, until Tropical Storm Irene struck the village of Waterbury, Vermont, the corner of South Main Street and Elm was occupied by The Alchemist Pub and Brewery. It was, by most measures, a common small-town bar. The walls were chocolate brown brick. The barstools were steel and backless and topped with black leather. A pool table sat in the corner. The ceilings were high, and the lighting was soft. A cast of regulars helped fill the pub’s 60 seats. It was charming in its familiarity, quaint and comfortable, but brewing in the basement was a beer capable of inspiring obsession. It was called Heady Topper and since the pub was the only place you could buy it, Waterbury—home to just a few thousand—soon became a mecca for craft beer drinkers.

- Longreads

Enjoyment, no matter how brief is a philosophical good

Philosophers have traditionally been highly suspicious of fleeting pleasures, but to enjoy the moment is a radical act.

One fine evening a band is playing. People are dancing and enjoying themselves. A woman is there, relishing the event. Then she thinks to herself: 

Everywhere, imperceptibly or otherwise, things are passing, ending, going. And there will be other summers, other band concerts, but never this one, never again, never as now. Next year I will not be the self of this year now. And that is why I laugh at the transient, the ephemeral; laugh, while clutching, holding, tenderly, like a fool his toy, cracked glass, water through fingers.
These thoughts from the journal of the American poet Sylvia Plath ask whether there is something inescapably painful about enjoyment. Maybe enjoyment makes you anguished and miserable; perhaps this vitiates its worth entirely. Certainly, there have been many philosophers who have endorsed just such a negative position. But they are wrong.

- Aeon

20 Wikipedia Pages That Will Actually Give You Nightmares

Your teachers have probably told you that Wikipedia isn't any good but contrary to popular belief, Wikipedia has revolutionised learning. It's lowered the barriers to knowledge and increased engagement levels on topics most would have been unaware of. Admittedly, anyone can edit the pages, and as such, Wikipedia will never gain a universal kudos. But with thousands of loyal moderators, the articles are more authentic than people think. And we're not only referring to academic ones. 

In fact, there are plenty of horrific articles that can keep you up for nights-on-end so with that in mind, and to make sure you don't get a good night's sleep, here are 20 Wikipedia pages that many might find too disturbing to read.

- Omglane