From today’s book of the day, Frightening the Horses: Gay Icons of the Cinema by Eric Braun:

“Oscar Wilde’s association with mainstream cinema dates back to 1923, when the most flamboyant of all Hollywood’s silent female stars, Alla Nazimova, directed, under the name of her husband, Charles Bryant, an all gay/lesbian verson of Salome. It seems that not only were all the cast homosexual, but also the crew. It was the first production after Nazimova left Metro, the studio at which all her films since 1916 had been made.”

The costumes were designed by Nazimova’s lover, Natasha Rambova- Rudolph Valentino’s wife!

Check it out: Rhino Handmade sells boutique CDs- short runs of that stuff you’ve been looking for forever, including Dan Hicks’ It Happened One Bite!

Scroll about 2/3rds of the way down this story on American values, and click to enlarge the map of colored blobs- it’s a map of where different countries fall on axes of traditional versus secular-rational values and survival versus self-expression values. It’s a fascinating way to group ways of thinking, based on a particular way of looking at the development of nations.

I second Craig’s sentiment, and start the new year off with my new favorite web-celeb, Bambi. She’s a part of Smoking Gun’s year-end display of mug shots. Her face speaks volumes.

I’ve only read the (strangely touching) section on ema, but this web site looks really cool: Quirky Japan Homepage.

I don’t actually copy all the FP items from BoingBoing, it just seems like it. Here’s some cool labels from products containing drugs that are no longer legal. Check out the “Dragees Antiseptiques au Menthol” that were also au cocaine, “pour affections de la gorge.”

Here’s a few posters from Poland in the 50s- amazing design, and they look strikingly like the American WPA posters from the 30s and 40s. All of them offer an interesting intersection of politics, art, and attempts at social engineering.

Through the immensely interesting and perceptive blog by Bruce Sterling, a link to the changing face of the War of the Worlds.

A concern-making article about problems with iPod battery life- I wonder if there is any data on whether the new batteries work any better.

Update: lots of people have ended up looking at this page, so I figured I’d better update the information. Turns out that updating the iPod software makes the battery life much longer. It’s 8 hours instead of the 10 it started out being when I first got it, I’m betting that it’s the clock they added. Now all of my accessories tell me the time. Fwuh.

Here’s what a Poultry Offal Icer does. About what you’d expect.

Another source of excellent words: Offal Separator.