Leatherman (vagabond)

The Leatherman (ca. 1839–1889) was a particular vagabond, famous for his handmade leather suit of clothes, who traveled a circuit between the Connecticut River and the Hudson River, roughly from 1857 to 1889. Of unknown origin, he was thought to be French-Canadian, because of his fluency in the French language, his "broken English", and the French-language prayer book found on his person after his death. His identity remains unknown, and controversial. Indeed he predated the term hobo, some may call him the original hobo. He walked a 365-mile route (taking 34–36 days) in western Connecticut and eastern New York.

-Wikipedia

 

I Live in a Ghost Town

If only I could construct my own little French ghost town to escape to. Thibaut Derien created one through his photography project “I Live in a Ghost Town”. From his extensive travels throughout France, capturing old storefronts, he invites us to explore his fictional town and walk down the empty, silent streets with him. A complete town with all the shops and businesses that its ghost in residence could possibly need…

-Messy Nessy Chic

The Holly and the Ivy: How Pagan Practices Found Their Way into Christmas

Every year, almost without thinking about it, we incorporate certain plant species into out Christmas celebrations. The most obvious is the Christmas tree, linked historically in England to Prince Albert – but its use in British homes goes back to at least 1761 when Charlotte wife of George III put up a tree at the royal court. (It’s probably worth noting here that the first artificial-brush Christmas tree was produced using the same machinery that was originally designed to produce toilet brushes.) Three other plants are intimately associated with Christmas: holly, ivy and mistletoe – and in all cases their ecology is closely linked to their cultural uses. 

-Ancient Origins

The Sick, Sick World of Liverpool Library Press

At first glance, they look like wholesome little children’s books from a bygone era…. but a second look reveals they are actually adult erotica of the most graphic and taboo-shattering variety.  Indeed, the books published by the Liverpool Library Press were designed to looked quaint and family-friendly at first glance, but were anything but. So, what’s the backstory here?  What is this Liverpool Library, and why do their books look like something that would’ve been on a 1950s’ kid’s bookshelf?

-Flashbak

Banned Books and Blockbusters - How the publishing industry took on the taboo.

Contrary to what, Googling around, you might assume, obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. “There is a bone in my prick six inches long. I will ream out every wrinkle in your cunt.” Those sentences are from the opening pages of Henry Miller’s first novel, “Tropic of Cancer,” which was published in France in 1934. Are they obscene? It took thirty years, but American courts eventually decided that they are not, and therefore the book they appear in cannot be banned. To get to that result, judges had to ignore the usual understanding of “obscene”—most people probably think that if “cunt” isn’t obscene, what is?—and invent a new definition for constitutional purposes. But the decision changed the way books, and, soon afterward, movies and music, are created, sold, and consumed. Depending on your point of view, it either lowered the drawbridge or opened the floodgates.

-The New Yorker

How Kinky Sex Might Make You More Creative

In the typically staid classical music section of The New York Times, readers this past February were treated to an article about kinky sex as a conduit to a more creative life. Georg Friedrich Haas, widely seen as one of the world’s leading composers, came out in the newspaper of record as a BDSM master to his wife Mollena, and credited their dynamic with helping him write his most recent, and well-reviewed, new works.

Once considered a shameful pathology, recent research has suggested BDSM can reduce anxiety and stress while promoting bonding. But could it actually make you more creative? A new study from the Science of BDSM research group at the Northern Illinois University indicates it certainly can’t hurt.

-MEL

Who is NSO Group?

An Israeli company named NSO Group is reportedly behind the hacking tool for iPhones that forced Apple to issue a critical software update on Thursday. The tool was apparently discovered in a hacking attempt on a human rights activist in the United Arab Emirates, but details on the ultra-secretive company are hard to come by. That's because NSO Group sells sophisticated hacking tools to governments, militaries, and intelligence agencies — and it tries to keep such a low profile it even changes its name on a regular basis.

-Business Insider

Les humains, ces singes agressifs

Les carnages perpétré à Alep, en Syrie, ces jours-ci, nous montre combien l’humain est capable d’une brutalité destructrice envers ses semblables. Mais d’où l’humain tire-t-il cette agressivité sanguinaire ?

L’éternel débat entre l’inné et l’acquis n’a toujours pas fourni la réponse, mais dans la revue Nature de cette semaine, des chercheurs espagnols démontrent à l’aide de modèles statistiques de la biologie évolutive que l’humain a vraisemblablement hérité de ses proches ancêtres, les singes, d’une certaine propension à la violence meurtrière envers ses congénères, et que cette violence est même plus grande que celle de la moyenne des mammifères. Ces chercheurs indiquent aussi que l’organisation sociopolitique de certaines sociétés peut modifier, voire dompter cette tendance innée à la violence.

-Le Devoir

Suicide Journalism on the Crazy-Mean Streets of Tijuana

The editors and reporters of the Zeta weekly risk their lives with every issue—and nobody reads them more closely than the cartels.

-The Daily Beast

The Origin of Just About Everything, Visualized

The world is full of simple questions that have complicated answers. For example: What is the universe made of? Why do we have wax in our ears? And where exactly does belly button lint come from? “There are so many great scientific origin stories out there,” says Graham Lawton, features editor at New Scientist.
In his new book, The Origin of (Almost) Everything, Lawton worked with designer Jennifer Daniel to unravel dozens of life’s biggest mysteries. Lawton crafts the narration while Daniel handles the infographics. Together they’re able to answer nagging questions that have inspired centuries of scientific inquiry.

-Wired

21 photos which prove that having kids can be seriously fun

Even when they paint your white rug blue, or get covered in dirt up to their ears, kids never do anything to deliberately upset you. Perhaps it would be better to tell them off less, and instead learn to just appreciate all the crazy stuff they get up to. After all, it’s thanks to all that mischief that they learn to understand the world around them!

-Bright Side

Is the Self-Driving Car Un-American?

“If I were asked to condense the whole of the present century into one mental picture,” the novelist J. G. Ballard wrote in 1971, “I would pick a familiar everyday sight: a man in a motor car, driving along a concrete highway to some unknown destination. Almost every aspect of modern life is there, both for good and for ill — our sense of speed, drama, and aggression, the worlds of advertising and consumer goods, engineering and mass-manufacture, and the shared experience of moving together through an elaborately signaled landscape.” In other words: Life is a highway. And the highway, Ballard believed, was a bloody, beautiful mess.

-NY Mag