Thomas Jefferson's recipe for vanilla ice cream

Waiting for the End of the World

An incredible photography book featuring images of bomb shelters. Eerie. One of them actually contained a jail and operating room.

Tristin Lowe

Giant felt whale inspired by Moby Dick. Can be unzipped, packed together, and transported easily, barnacles and all. Via Supernaturale.

Edward Gorey's house

Life in Las Vegas storm-sewers

Also via Boing Boing.

An extra in your own life

Miranda July photographed herself as extras in scenes from six movies - including The Outsiders.

Nabokov's notes on Kafka

Via BoingBoing. Pretty cool. I also just bought Nabakov's lectures on literature.

What a dog!

Someone Shane knows posted this photo on Facebook. I love it so much. It's at a counter demonstration against the awful "God hates fags" people.

Huckleberry Finn

"I went up to my room with a piece of candle and put it on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the window and tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn’t no use. I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars was shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die; and the wind was trying to whisper something to me and I couldn’t make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me."

Mark Twain

Three places I used to go

Luc Sante

He's the kind of writer I want to be. Political, philosophical, fascinated by the hidden life in ordinary things. He has a (now defunct) Flickr page, blog, and a bunch of books. He's up there with Lawrence Weschler on my mental list of cool people.

Hillsdale, Michigan

ABC, in case you forgot

Dogville shorts

There's no way to follow that post, really. I'll try to lighten things up. I just watched this and really liked it.

Rohatyn

This is the town where my great-grandfather was murdered.


This is a model of the town where my great-grandfather was murdered.


This is a memorial to the murder of my great-grandfather and over 3,000 other Jews in the town, on the spot where they were killed.

This is an excerpt from an eyewitness account of Friday, March 20, 1942: the day my great-grandfather was murdered:

"With blows and curses the sleepy inhabitants were dragged to the market place. Nobody was spared -- old people, women, children and the sick. All of them were driven into the cold and compelled to stand half-naked. This continued until 10 in the morning. Then they were all ordered to stretch out on the ground, with faces to the earth. Anybody who looked up was immediately shot.

"The captured Jews were then loaded on trucks, driven to the pits, and ordered to stand at the edge of the hole. Eight armed Germans shot at them and the dead bodies fell into the pit, together with the wounded and the unharmed. These were covered by another layer of bodies.

"Before the shooting all the Jews were ordered to undress and to hand over any valuables they had. This continued until evening. When the church bells struck five the shooting stopped and the naked Jews who were still alive were told to go home. 3,000 adults and 600 children were murdered and buried in the mass grave on that Friday."

This is the man who led the attack.

Peafowl

Sometimes it's hard for me to tell photos from drawings.

Fruit by the Foot

This makes me uncomfortable. It's really short. Also I don't usually post ads but.. apparently I do.

Daniel Zeller

Pretty. Via Kate.

The Rings of Saturn

Time itself grows old. Pyramids, arches and obelisks are melting pillars of snow. Not even those who have found a place amidst the heavenly constellations have perpetuated their names: Nimrod is lost in Orion, and Osiris in the Dog Star.

- W.G. Sebald