“Patrick Dougherty, a sculptor who weaves tree saplings into whirling, animated shapes that resemble tumbleweeds or gusts of wind, likes to say that his first artwork was his house.”
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Beyond the Valley of the Rhinestones: What Made Liberace Great
“His total lack of irony makes for a ferociously compelling spectacle. Liberace MEANS it! With his white minks and bejeweled everythings, he is the most blithely flamboyant dude to walk the planet since Louis XIV. … He is the un-Ralph Lauren, the anti-WASP, a gorgeous paean to the utter pointlessness of good taste. He is FUN.”
‘The Human Hard Drive: How We Make (And Lose) Memories’
Behavioral neurobiologist Dr. Antonio Damasio “says that memory is actually a complex process where the brain scatters information across its neurons and then reconnects it using sequential cues. Our brains are not at all like video cameras,” but more like computers’ hard drives. (So how should we defragment?)
The Hidden Messages in One TV Producer’s Credits
“Typically, TV producers display their personal production logos at the end of a show’s credits – famous examples include Gary David Goldberg’s ‘Sit, Ubu, sit!’ or Joss Whedon’s ‘Grr! Argh!’ monster.” Not producer Chuck Lorre …
The Results of the Architects-Designing-Sukkahs Contest
“Sukkah City will include one shelter made from a single 5,400-foot-long steel cable; another that resembles an inflatable pool toy; yet another made of cardboard signs printed by homeless people … None of them look anything like the traditional booths erected outside Jewish homes during Sukkot, the weeklong festival that starts on Wednesday evening.”
Haitian Dancer Who Lost Leg in Quake Dances Again
“[A] prize-winning competitive dancer, [George] Exantus lost his right leg below the knee after he was pinned under rubble for two days in the Jan. 12 earthquake. Still determined to dance, Exantus learned to move well on a donated prosthetic, but was unable to compete or teach.” Now he can.
Bustling Brooklyn Art Space Funded by Invisible Dog Leashes
The factory where Invisible Dog Leashes were once manufactured (it was during the pet-rock era) has now become a busy four-floor arts center with a black-box theater, galleries and studios. And when founder Lucien Zayan runs short on money, he sells some of the leftover leashes.
Using Science to Attract Hot Babes on the Dance Floor
“A team of psychologists used video footage of men strutting their stuff to pinpoint the killer moves that separate good dancers from bad. … The dancers were judged by 37 straight women, also aged 18 to 35.”
The Painter Who Messed With Mao Takes On More Chinese Icons
Chinese-American artist Zhang Hongtu made his name by painting portraits of the Chairman in the style of Picasso, Lichtenstein, the Quaker Oats box and the like. Now he’s re-creating the masterpieces of Chinese landscape painting to highlight China’s pollution crisis.
Japanese Architects Create Eye-Catching Homes For Really Small Lots
“Few Americans would consider a parking-space-sized lot as an adequate site to build a house. But in Japan, homes are rising on odd parcels of land, some as tiny as 300 square feet” – spaces for which inventive architects are designing “unorthodox and visually stunning houses.”