a garden of varied delights

Row vs. Wade [via: talby]

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:30:19 -0500

Row vs. Wade [via: talby]

Is that Kristen Bell in a Princess Leia bikini? [via: pajiba]

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:27:40 -0500

Is that Kristen Bell in a Princess Leia bikini?

[via: pajiba]

“Albert D. J. Cashier, birth name Jennie Irene Hodgers...

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:12:49 -0500

“Albert D. J. Cashier, birth name Jennie Irene Hodgers (December 25, 1843 – October 10, 1915) was an Irish-born soldier in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Cashier was biologically female, but lived as a man.”

“On August 6, 1862, Hodgers enlisted into the 95th Illinois Infantry Regiment using the name Albert Cashier and was assigned to Company G. The regiment was part of the Army of the Tennessee under Ulysses S. Grant and fought in approximately forty battles, including the siege at Vicksburg, the Red River Campaign and the combat at Guntown, Mississippi, where they suffered heavy casualties.

Other soldiers thought that Cashier was just small and preferred to be alone, which was not that uncommon. He was once captured in battle, but escaped back to Union lines after overpowering a prison guard.”

Albert Cashier - Wikipedia

I heard of Cashier from the book Tishomingo Blues (spoilers) by Elmore Leonard. The book deals somewhat heavily with Civil War re-enacters, so there are many references to actual Civil War events and people throughout the book, including Cashier. At first I thought the story sounded far-fetched, a real-life Eowyn in the Civil War. But, I looked it up and it’s true. Fascinating.

The article above also leads to a list of wartime cross-dressers.

Car under street light (via T.SC)

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:22:27 -0500

Car under street light (via T.SC)

"Brown: So are you going to run for governor? Barkley: I plan on it in 2014. Brown: You are..."

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:16:47 -0500

“

Brown: So are you going to run for governor?

Barkley: I plan on it in 2014.

Brown: You are serious.

Barkley: I am, I can’t screw up Alabama.

Brown: There is no place to go but up in your view?

Barkley: We are number 48 in everything and Arkansas and Mississippi aren’t going anywhere.

”

- Charles Barkley interviewed by Campbell Brown on CNN

It would be offensive were it not true.

[via: svn]

YouTube - Tim Minchin - If You Open Your Mind Too Much Your...

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 10:51:16 -0500

YouTube - Tim Minchin - If You Open Your Mind Too Much Your Brain Will Fall Out [NSFW]

I wish my hair was that awesome.

[via: amb]

"I take dictation from that place within my mind that knows what to say. I think most good writers..."

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:25:35 -0500

“I take dictation from that place within my mind that knows what to say. I think most good writers do. There is no such thing as waiting for inspiration. The idea of “diagramming” an essay in advance, as we are taught in school, may be useful to students but is foolishness for any practicing writer. The Muse visits during the process of creation, not before.”

- I think I’m musing my mind - Roger Ebert’s Journal

YouTube - Formation of a whopper 100 solar mass star (via...

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:17:25 -0500

YouTube - Formation of a whopper 100 solar mass star (via TheBadAstronomer)

Description: “This video shows the formation of a massive star — 100 times the Sun’s mass — from a cold cloud of gas and dust. It’s a visualization generated from computer models done by Mark Krumholz at Princeton University. The long view is on the left, and a closeup on the right.”

Bacon Weave I don’t recall where I found this.

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:52:51 -0500

Bacon Weave

I don’t recall where I found this.

"A knife fight is a fight in which each combatant is armed with a knife. It is similar to a sword..."

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:34:05 -0500

“A knife fight is a fight in which each combatant is armed with a knife. It is similar to a sword fight, except that knives are much shorter than swords, resulting in the combatants engaging at closer ranges.”

- Knife fight - Wikipedia

In case anyone was curious as to the encyclopedic definition of “knife fight”.

PartiallyClips - Laughing Man You will likely have to click...

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:29:00 -0500

PartiallyClips - Laughing Man

You will likely have to click through to read the text.

"It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though..."

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 10:42:38 -0500

“It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.”

- H.L. Mencken, in reference to the rhythm method. [via: bht]

MGK Versus His Adolescent Reading Habits The others are good,...

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:44:00 -0500

MGK Versus His Adolescent Reading Habits

The others are good, but this one struck me as the funniest and most true.

P.S. - I’m back! I was gonna do a long post about where I’ve been, but then I realized I wasn’t even sure if anyone was visting/following/rss’ing me anymore. So, eff it.

[via: pajiba]

'The Book of my Enemy Has Been Remaindered' by Clive James

Tue, 13 May 2008 13:26:40 -0500

The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am pleased.
In vast quantities it has been remaindered
Like a van-load of counterfeit that has been seized
And sits in piles in a police warehouse,
My enemy’s much-prized effort sits in piles
In the kind of bookshop where remaindering occurs.
Great, square stacks of rejected books and, between them, aisles
One passes down reflecting on life’s vanities,
Pausing to remember all those thoughtful reviews
Lavished to no avail upon one’s enemy’s book —
For behold, here is that book
Among these ranks and banks of duds,
These ponderous and seeminly irreducible cairns
Of complete stiffs.

The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I rejoice.
It has gone with bowed head like a defeated legion
Beneath the yoke.
What avail him now his awards and prizes,
The praise expended upon his meticulous technique,
His individual new voice?
Knocked into the middle of next week
His brainchild now consorts with the bad buys
The sinker, clinkers, dogs and dregs,
The Edsels of the world of moveable type,
The bummers that no amount of hype could shift,
The unbudgeable turkeys.

Yea, his slim volume with its understated wrapper
Bathes in the blare of the brightly jacketed Hitler’s War Machine,
His unmistakably individual new voice
Shares the same scrapyart with a forlorn skyscraper
Of The Kung-Fu Cookbook,
His honesty, proclaimed by himself and believed by others,
His renowned abhorrence of all posturing and pretense,
Is there with Pertwee’s Promenades and Pierrots—
One Hundred Years of Seaside Entertainment,
And (oh, this above all) his sensibility,
His sensibility and its hair-like filaments,
His delicate, quivering sensibility is now as one
With Barbara Windsor’s Book of Boobs,
A volume graced by the descriptive rubric
“My boobs will give everyone hours of fun”.

Soon now a book of mine could be remaindered also,
Though not to the monumental extent
In which the chastisement of remaindering has been meted out
To the book of my enemy,
Since in the case of my own book it will be due
To a miscalculated print run, a marketing error—
Nothing to do with merit.
But just supposing that such an event should hold
Some slight element of sadness, it will be offset
By the memory of this sweet moment.
Chill the champagne and polish the crystal goblets!
The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am glad.

From here, via Scalzi, heard of first in Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird.

Great tits enjoying the warmer weather – so far - New Scientist Environment

Fri, 09 May 2008 13:05:08 -0500

Great tits enjoying the warmer weather – so far - New Scientist Environment:

“Since 1961, ecologists have been tracking the population of great tits that breed in Wytham Woods, near Oxford, UK.” Also, “The great tits in the UK may be an exception, Visser says.”

What I am I, like, 10? Why am I laughing so hard at this?

[via: this comment at pharyngula]

YouTube - Batman Dance There is no good reason why this should...

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 12:24:00 -0500

YouTube - Batman Dance

There is no good reason why this should make me laugh as hard as it does.

"ACT I SCENE 2. A road, morning. Enter a carriage, with JULES and VINCENT, murderers. J: And..."

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 10:23:25 -0500

“ACT I SCENE 2. A road, morning. Enter a carriage, with JULES and VINCENT, murderers.
J: And know’st thou what the French name cottage pie?
V: Say they not cottage pie, in their own tongue?
J: But nay, their tongues, for speech and taste alike
Are strange to ours, with their own history:
Gaul knoweth not a cottage from a house.
V: What say they then, pray?
J: Hachis Parmentier.
V: Hachis Parmentier! What name they cream?
J: Cream is but cream, only they say le crème.
V: What do they name black pudding?
J: I know not;
I visited no inn it could be bought.”

- metaquotes: Pulp Fiction, as performed by the King’s Men

[via: sidelights]

Time Lapse - Los Angeles to New York City | Lacquer -...

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 07:25:23 -0500

Time Lapse - Los Angeles to New York City | Lacquer - Behind

peterwknox:

Michel Gondry’s music video for a French band. It’s a road trip across the States, and it’s inspiring.

Basically there’s a static camera on the back of this classic convertible filming straight for 7 days and you get it all in 4 minutes.

[via: peterwknox]

And Great Lyrics Quiz Rock Roll The

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:51:19 -0500

And Great Lyrics Quiz Rock Roll The:

Try to guess the rock song by looking at the lyrics in alpabetical order. Tougher than it might sound.

[via: sidelights]

Michael Penn - “No Myth” I put this song up on my muxtape and a...

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:48:00 -0500

Michael Penn - “No Myth”

I put this song up on my muxtape and a scant few weeks later Ubiquitous Internet Personality Merlin Mann posts the video on his tumblelog.

Coinicidence? Yeah, most likely.

[via: merlin]