Nepenthe

We knew she wanted to be Grushenka in a Brothers Karamazov play, and we know she had a brilliant mind (only the ones who still buy into good looks/poor brains doubt that, but alas, they're many and widespread), but if she did read ALL of Ulysses ... WOW, I didn't, most professors in college admitted they didn't, and this beautiful and tortured soul did. (thanx to Mawalien for the pic) October edition of Vanity Fair , totally collectible ;)

PAUL NEWMAN (1925-2008) R.I.P. photo from billy_greek on Flickr Plus The Newman Chronicles by Vanity Fair

To celebrate the centenary of Ian Fleming’s birth, Times Online have created an exclusive 100 year interactive Fleming and Bond timeline . Packed with articles and photography from the Times Archive and the original reviews of Bond novels and films, it shows how closely Bond's fictional life paralleled Fleming's Times Online has teamed up with Imperial War Museum London to offer you an interactive sneak preview of its brand new For Your Eyes Only exhibition which features an array of fascinating material, much on public display for the first time. James Bond's gadgets, guns, gizmos and cars At the dawn of a new consumer age, Ian Fleming gave Bond his own love of techno-trickery and marvellous machines. Isto entre resmas de coisas boas ;)

Why the new English translation of Victor Hugo's masterpiece is 100,000 words longer than its best-known predecessor In the preface to her bold new translation of Les Misérables, Julie Rose states that Victor Hugo wrote his novel “standing in the room he’d nicknamed ‘the lookout’ at the top of Hauteville House, on the isle of Guernsey”. In fact, much of the novel had already been completed when Hugo fled from Paris, disguised as a worker, after Louis-Napoléon’s coup d’état of December 2, 1851. A bulky manuscript titled “Les Misères”, begun in 1845, had survived the invasion of Hugo’s house by insurgents in 1848, and then the flight of the banished author to Brussels, London, Jersey and, finally, Guernsey. It was in the sun-baked, wind-blasted “look-out” that “Les Misères” ballooned into the ten-volume epic that Hugo called “the social and historical drama of the nineteenth century”. Les Misérables was published from April 3 to June 30, 1862, by which time nine translations were ne...

Think of an intimate, fan-club-only album launch party, and you might picture a cramped club with sweat raining off the low ceiling on to the lucky few. Not so with Metallica, 27-year-old Danish-Californian rock monoliths. Their fan club easily fills the O2 Arena. When the band arrive on stage, 20,000 people begin roaring and barely let up for two hours. By this gargantuan band's touring standards, this gig is actually a radically scaled-back affair. Billed as a party in honour of the release of their No 1 album Death Magnetic, this show has no stage set, save a spine of amps; few theatrics, no video screens, or any of the pyrotechnics that traditionally light up Metallica shows. When I saw them at Earls Court in 1996, by contrast, stunt men on fire ran amok and the stage pretended to collapse. Tonight, singing guitarist James Hetfield struts about on the amps; lead guitarist Kirk Hammett does too. That's about it. When, midway through a closing 'Seek and Destroy', the ...

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he civics teacher had an inspired idea: bring American jurisprudence to life by showing the class an award-winning 1957 film. Twelve Angry Men had all the requisites of instructive high drama: suspense, as one juror tries to change the minds of 11 others hell-bent on sending the accused to death row; crackling dialogue, written by Reginald Rose, a luminary of television’s Golden Age; a scintillating cast, led by Henry Fonda and directed by Sidney Lumet. The title flashed on-screen—immediately followed by a chorus of groans. One 15-year-old wailed for all his disappointed colleagues: “You didn’t tell us it was going to be in black-and-white!” The place was New Rochelle High School in Westchester, New York, but the same scene could have played across the United States. The owner of my local video-rental place puts it succinctly: “Most of our customers are under 30. The way they see it, life is in color, so why not movies? Which is why we stopped offering black-and-whites, except for th...

1943-2008 Pink Floyd keyboard player and founder member Richard Wright has died, aged 65, from cancer. Wright appeared on the group's first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, in 1967 alongside lead guitarist Syd Barrett, Roger Waters and Nick Mason. Dave Gilmour joined the band at the start of 1968 while Barrett left the group shortly afterwards. Gilmour said: "No-one can replace Richard Wright - he was my musical partner and my friend." Writing on his website, he added: "In the welter of arguments about who or what was Pink Floyd, Rick's enormous input was frequently forgotten." Wright's spokesman said in a statement: "The family of Richard Wright, founder member of Pink Floyd, announce with great sadness that Richard died today after a short struggle with cancer. "The family have asked that their privacy is respected at this difficult time." He did not say what form of cancer the self-taught keyboard player and pianist had. ...

For Barry McKernan and Saavik Ford, academics who live with their baby son in New York, sitting down to the television news is a nightly ritual, as it has been for generations of families. But there the tradition ends. Instead of watching heavyweight presenters dispense news from on high, the couple switch to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, known for delivering stories with lacerating humour and an inbuilt bullshit detector. They know Stewart will part politicians from their reputations with laser-like precision, while simultaneously rubbing the media's nose in its own deference. And, more importantly, they trust him. 'The Daily Show is probably more reliable for news than anything on TV except PBS [Public Broadcasting Service],' said McKernan, 36, who teaches astronomy at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. 'It stands apart from everything else because it unspins the news. It frankly points out how ridiculous the 24-hour news ...

Depois das iniciativas Ciência Viva, gosto mesmo disto! Magazine digital (há que poupar papel) em português (há que honrar a língua), de subscrição gratuita (há que poupar tout court , sei lá :) do Prof. Rui Galopim de Carvalho: LabGem

At the age of 15, Noël Coward was staying in an English country house and found a copy of Beasts and Super-Beasts on a table: “I took it up to my bedroom, opened it casually and was unable to go to sleep until I had finished it.” I had a similar experience at about the same age, and I agree with Coward that H. H. Munro—or “Saki,” the author of the book in question—is among those few writers, inspirational when read at an early age, who definitely retain their magic when revisited decades later. I have the impression that Saki is not very much appreciated in the United States. Good. That means I can put into my debt many of you who are reading these words. Go and get an edition of this Edwardian master of the short story. Begin with, say, “Sredni Vashtar” or “The Lumber-Room” or “The Open Window.” Then see whether you can put the book down. The spellbinding quality of the stories is almost too easy to analyze and looks mawkish when set down in plain words, because Saki’s great gift w...

Touriga nacional is vigorous and robust, but it produces notoriously low yields and small grapes. This has made it unpopular with growers, and nearly led to its extinction in the mid-20th century. Since then, however, much effort has been spent on clonal selection of the variety so that newer cuttings are slightly more productive and sugar levels even higher. Port is made from a blend of grapes - more than 80 varieties are planted in almost 100,000 acres in Portugal - but touriga nacional stands as the most famous and revered. Portugal As well as making port, touriga nacional is now also grown to produce extremely concentrated, dark, tannic table wines both in the Douro Valley and elsewhere in Portugal, notably Dão. In the same way that cabernet sauvignon is softened by blending with another grape, touriga can be partnered with local versions of tempranillo. Another grape classified as one of the best port varieties is touriga franca (which, despite the name, has no proven connection w...