The Complicated, Controversial History of "Baby, It's Cold Outside"

Once a piece of art is released into the world, people are free to debate its meaning and merits until the end of time. This is especially true if the work in question is a holiday song that pops back into the public consciousness each December. If the song is “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”—a ’40s-era American standard that some modern listeners hear as a misogynistic depiction of sexual misconduct—it’s cause for an annual barrage of controversies, radio bans, and think pieces.

- mentalfloss

 

Johnny Knoxville’s Last Rodeo

As he prepares to release his final Jackass film, the stuntman takes stock of a surprisingly long, hilariously painful, and unusually influential career.

The other day, Johnny Knoxville came across a relic from his past buried in a drawer at home. “I found a packet of those things at the house,” he said. “What do you call it? I can't remember what they were called.” He paused, searching for the word. 

Eventually, he found it. “Yeah, the catheter,” he said. “They're pretty sizable—about the width of a No. 2 pencil.” 

This sort of thing now happens to Knoxville—run-ins with the random detritus of an extraordinary career. “You'll find arm casts, things like that,” he said. “Bunch of gauze in this drawer. Arm cast over there.” A pair of extra-long prop testicles, from his film Bad Grandpa, are mounted like a work of art in his home office.

- GQ

 

100 ways to slightly improve your life without really trying

Whether it’s taking fruit to work (and to the bedroom!), being polite to rude strangers or taking up skinny-dipping, here’s a century of ways to make life better, with little effort involved …

- The Guardian

 

Welcome to the weird world of erotic wrestling: An adult photographic guide

Suplex sex, leotard busting Swanton Bombs and old school jackhammer action, is all part of the blood, sweat and bikinis in the wild world of W.W.E., or rather weird wrestling eroticism. This is the story of how one of the oldest sports known to man, entered the tangential world of all-American erotic wrestling and the Exquisite Mayhem contained therein. 

In the mid-1960s, the aspiring photographer Theo Ehret entered the Grand Olympic Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles clutching his beloved humble Rolleiflex camera. At that time, he could not have possibly prognosticated the life he was about to beget as he creaked open the doors to the hushed amphitheatre of bedlam that would soon be bustling. 

- Far Out

How I Became Obsessed With Accidental Time Travel

The web is awash with ordinary peoples’ stories of “time slips.” Their real magic is what they can tell us about our relationship to time.

This year, I turned 30, a development that came with a breathless sense of dread at time’s passing. It wakes me up in the early mornings: Nocturnal terror breaks through the surface of sleep like a whale breaching for air. My ambition and fear kick in together until I get up, pour myself some water and look out the window at the squid-ink sky and the string of lights along my neighbors’ houses. I lie down again after finding firmer mental ground, dry land.

So when a guy that my friend was seeing evangelized about “time slips” — a genre of urban legend in which people claim that, while walking in particular places, they accidentally traveled back, and sometimes forward, in time — I was a ripe target. 

- NY Times

 

Bathing Machines of The 19th Century

Back in the 18th and 19th century, the ladies just couldn't strip to their swimwear and run towards the waves on the beach. There are certain sea-side etiquettes that needed to be observed and decorum to be maintained. Getting oneself seen in their bathing costumes by the members of the opposite sex was certainly not one of them.

- Amusing Planet

 

Curious Photos Of Cynthia, A Superstar Mannequin In The ‘30s

In 1932, a life-like mannequin named Cynthia was created by Lester Gaba. After several shoots around New York City for Life Magazine in 1937, her career was launched, and for a matter of months, Cynthia became a household name.

- Design you Trust

 

The story behind the Christmas pickle tradition

If you’ve wondered about this lesser-known holiday tradition, you’re not alone.

Yes, you’ve already heard Nat King Cole sing about those chestnuts and that fire 50 times before mid-December even rolls around. But traditions, no matter how hackneyed they’ve become, are what keep us grounded during this stressful time of year.

For some people, those Yuletide rituals include having the little ones hunt for a pickle that’s hidden on the tree on Christmas morning.

- Seattle pi

 

The Humble Beginnings of Today’s Culinary Delicacies

Many of our most revered dishes were perfected by those in need, then co-opted by the affluent. Is that populism at play, or just the abuse of power?

Throughout history, foods that were once a marker of precarity and a lack of resources — dishes eked from scraps; tough cuts of meat; seafood too abundant to be of value to those who treasure rarity; wild roots scraped out of the earth with hardened hands — have gradually been co-opted by the upper classes, sometimes to the point that they’re no longer accessible to the people who once relied on them. For deliciousness has never been a fixed quality, wholly measurable by sensors on the tongue; it’s an invocation and reflection of memory, history and prevailing hierarchies. To have taste, in the cultural sense of showing discernment and an awareness of higher aesthetics, is to defeat taste in the physical sense: the animal instinct to simply eat what pleases us.

- NY Times

 

Photographer Richard Kern on nudity, selfies and his 59 portraits of women

He’s been shockin’, repulsin’ and pissin’ people off since his late ’70s beginnings as a subversive filmmaker. Now he’s back with a new photo book, Baron.

Richard Kern knows he’s pissing people off. At 66-years-old, the filmmaker turned photographer has just released his seventh instalment of Baron. Featuring 59 portraits of women, including photographer Petra Collins and actress Dasha Nekrasova, the photo series explores the dichotomy between girl and woman, nude and clothed, playful and deadly fucking serious.

The topless photos explore the power dynamic between the photographer (an old man) and the subject (a young woman), as well as the male gaze that comes with it. But also the subjects having total agency over their bodies.

- The Face

 

Prostitution In Ancient Greece And Rome

The oldest profession had a strong presence in ancient Greece and Rome. Here is everything you need to know about professional courtesans in the classical world.

Although the so-called oldest profession has long been a taboo subject, and is only recently beginning to emerge into open conversation, intercourse has always been for sale in human societies. It is a hugely complex issue, with a wide range of social, personal, political and even economic repercussions. Could looking at the carnal practices of the ancient Greeks and Romans help to open our eyes to new perspectives on the oldest profession?

- The Collector

 

Incursion dans le monde de l'Opus Dei

Un homme qui se présente sous une fausse identité contacte l’équipe d’Enquête. Il veut dénoncer ce qu’il a vécu au sein de l’Opus Dei pendant 30 ans, mais il est craintif. Une peur irrationnelle, un peu paranoïaque, admet-il, qui lui vient de ces années dans cette organisation catholique.

L’Opus Dei veut dire l’œuvre de Dieu. Le groupe est fondé par Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer en 1928 en Espagne. Il a séduit le Vatican par son côté novateur, par cette idée que des laïcs peuvent atteindre la sainteté dans le travail et la vie de tous les jours.

- Radio Canada

 

Fear not

You might think that horror movies are a delicious, trashy pleasure. But watching them has surprisingly wholesome effects. 

- Aeon