Laughingacademy

deducecanoe:

aniseshaw:

‘The Great Gatsby’ Still Gets Flappers Wrong

Through their writings, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald—the young, glamorous literary couple du jour—defined the Jazz Age as we know it. Scott declared his Southern belle wife, whom he married in 1920, “the first American flapper.” The inspiration for Daisy Buchanan in “The Great Gatsby,” Zelda was known for her wild antics, like drunkenly jumping, fully clothed, into the fountain at New York’s Plaza Hotel. Even as a kid, she was always creating a scene: She stole a car when she was 8; she went swimming in a flesh-colored bathing suit in her teens…. 

But Zelda, as fearless and trail-blazing as she was, can’t even embody the flapper movement fully. For one, it was not all white women, as NYU’s Modern America reports: “For the time being, the bob and the entire Flapper wardrobe, united blacks and whites under a common hip-culture.” Secondly, the flapper’s rebellion against Victorian sexual mores didn’t start among the high-society debutantes, but in “working-class neighborhoods and radical circles in the early 1900s before it spread to middle-class youth and college campuses.”

Pictured: African American Flappers at a football game in Washington D.C. from the Smithsonian Institute.

Yet another reason to dislike TGG.

I like Gatsby, both the novel and the newest film; I’m reblogging for the link.

abandonedography:

9 of the Most Fascinating Abandoned Mansions from Around the World

(via tennyowithaluger)

karnythia:

theotheryang:

karnythia:

tyndall-blue:

riskycuriosity:

artemisiumabsinthia:

Josephine Baker, later known as ‘Bronze Venus’, ‘Black Pearl’ and ‘Créole Goddess’ was born in America in 1906 and later moved to France to become a singer, dancer, and actress. She was the first African-American woman to star in a major motion picture, and became famous worldwide.

Though she grew up as a maid in wealthy white households she eventually became an exotic dancer in France, famously appearing in next to no clothing, and became a French citizen in 1937. 

Ernest Hemingway referred to Baker as ‘the most sensational woman anyone ever saw’ and she received approximately 1500 marriage proposals in her life time. She became a muse for Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, and Christian Dior. She had a variety of exotic pets including a cheetah named Chiquita, a chimpanzee named Ethel, a pig named Albert, a snake named Kiki, a goat, a parrot, parakeets, fish, three cats, and seven dogs. 

When WWII broke out, Baker became a volunteer spy for France, and assisted the French Resistance by smuggling messages written in invisible ink on sheet music. She made great efforts to aid those in danger of enemy attack, sent Christmas presents to French soldiers, and smuggled information she gathered in Spain back to France by pinning notes containing the information on the inside of her underwear. She was awarded the Medal of Resistance with Rosette and later named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. 

Baker also aided many civil rights movements by refusing to perform to segregated audiences and storming out of a club in Manhattan with actress Grace Kelly after she was refused service. She worked with the NAACP and spoke at a Washington march alongside Martin Luther King Jr. as the only official female speaker. Baker was actually asked by Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow to take his place as leader of the American Civil Rights Movement, but Baker declined on the grounds her twelve adopted children ‘were too young to lose their mother’. 

Baker died in 1975, four days after her final show, attended by such names as Mick Jagger, Shirley Bassey, and Liza Minnelli. 

Oh and she was queer and had a relationship with Frida Kahlo. All around badass.

Still waiting for her movie. And appearances in period dramas.

I heard there was a movie in the works[http://www.inquisitr.com/658074/rihanna-to-play-josephine-baker/] and that they were eyeing Rihanna for the role.
Imo, that’s a no.
And I’ve only ever seen her in Midnight in Paris, but I don’t think they said her name.

I will fight them if they try to cast Rihanna. Not just no, hell no.

There was an HBO biopic back in the 1990s: The Josephine Baker Story.

leupagus:

knittedlampshade:

thebigblackwolfe:

auberginebreeze:

atimo-taguy:

pipud:

ulinawi:

misszilla:

So I made a cheeky end-of-term project for my zombies in pop culture class.

Most of the semester has consisted of reading accounts of white dudes visiting the natives of various countries and talking about cannibalism. So I came up with a story (I had video game in mind when I was making it) where the white settlers were trying to escape Europe and the plague that brought the dead to life.

Just before making landfall, everyone on the ships catches the illness and become the flesh eating undead. The native americans are left to find these massive ships that have washed ashore and are full of pale walking corpses

and they’re like WELP IT’S NOT LIKE THE COLD WINTERS AND OCCASIONAL STARVATION AND WRESTLING WITH BEARS EVER KILLED US so they all just set out to hit all the zombie settlers in the brains with tomahawks and shit and just take it with a grain of salt.

I hope I can keep a straight face when I present this in class oh my god.

PS: The native american outfits are all more or less accurate (albeit from different tribes and eras) considering I did this whole project in two days. But for the settlers I was literally just referencing Halloween costumes hahaha.

A+ 10/10 I would play the hell out of this

:)

the puritans are portrayed perfectly, when they first landed on our lands they were so ill prepared for winter and were resorting to digging up Native graves and eating the dead

OMG I DID NOT NO THAT jfc moniyawak 

THE BABY THO

this is the coolest fuckin’ thing ever

I WOULD READ THIS CHILDREN’S BOOK. OR PLAY THIS VIDEO GAME.

MORE UNDEAD PURITANS PLZ.

(via hellotailor)

odditiesoflife:

The Abandoned Ghost Continent of Antarctica

Antarctic spirits have an abundance of residences to choose from thanks to the huge number of ghost towns, deserted islands and other such haunts. For obvious reasons, Antarctica is a very popular place to abandon.

The most famous and disturbingly well-preserved of these places is the camp built by Robert Scott (pictured above) and his party on Ross Island in 1911. The seaweed-insulated wooden cabin and its outbuildings were supposed to be the team’s shelter when they returned from their attempt to be the first people to visit the South Pole. Scott and four others set out from the base to reach the pole. They reached it in January 1912 only to find that the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had gotten there weeks before them. All five men died trying to get back to the base camp. The final three – Scott, Wilson and Bowers – were just 11 miles from it when they died.

South Georgia is another Antarctic island that people rushed to abandon. At least seven whaling communities existed there during the first half of the 20th century. When all were up and running, the island was estimated to have 2,000 people living on it. Most of the towns are in the process of returning to a state of wilderness.

It is worth noting that these frozen islands have been the subject of heated arguments over who actually owns them – mostly by the UK and Argentina. South Georgia and the South Shetland islands are still possessed by the UK. The dispute over ownership of South Georgia was a contributing factor in The Falklands War described by Argentine writer Jorge Louis Borges as “two bald men fighting over a comb.”

ckck:

Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch gang. Fort Worth, Texas, 1900.

Photograph by John Schwartz.

Standing (L to R): Will Carver and Harvey “Kid Curry” Logan.
Sitting: Harry A. “The Sundance Kid” Longabaugh, Ben “The Tall Texan” Kilpatrick and Robert Leroy “Butch Cassidy” Parker.

(via girlwithglassestoo)

Source:

odditiesoflife:

Yokai - Japanese Monsters

In the Edo period of sophisticated popular culture (1603-1868), much attention was devoted to Japan’s rich variety of traditional monsters and apparitions, known as yokai. The above yokai are from a work titled Hyakkai Zukan in 1737 by Sawaki Suushi, a relatively unknown artist who studied under master painter Hanabusa Itcho (1702-1772). Hyakkai Zukan’s colorful depictions of Japan’s most notorious creatures inspired and were copied by yokai artists for generations.

1. Ushi-oni (“cow devil”) is a malevolent sea monster with the head of a bull and the body of a giant spider or crab. It is most often encountered in the coastal waters where it is feared for its vicious attacks on fishermen.
2. Mikoshi-nyudo is a large, cross-eyed mendicant encountered on mountain passes or on lonely roads at night. He grows taller when you look up at him — and the higher you look, the taller he grows. Look up for too long and you will die, but say “mikoshita” (“I see higher”) and he disappears.
3. Ouni is a mountain hag with a mouth stretching from ear to ear and a thick coat of long, black hair covering her entire body. She can place raw hemp fiber into her mouth and pull out finished yarn.
4. Nure-onna (“wet woman”) is a fast-swimming amphibious creature with the head of a human female and the body of a gigantic snake. She carries a small child, which she uses to attract potential victims. When a well-intentioned person offers to hold the baby, the child attaches itself to the victim’s hands and grows heavy, making it nearly impossible to flee. She uses her long, powerful tongue to suck all the blood from her victim’s body.
5. Uwan is a disembodied voice that inhabits old, abandoned temples and homes. When a person enters a haunted building, the formless spirit belts out an ear-piercing “Uwan!” (hence the name).
   
6. Kami-kiri (“hair-cutter”) are ghostly spirits known for sneaking up on people and cutting all their hair off when they are unknowingly engaged to marry another yokai posing as a human. These hair-cutting attacks are intended to delay or prevent weddings between humans and otherworldly beings, which are typically doomed to failure.

thebrainscoop:

American Museum of Natural History - 
Restoring the Hall of North American Mammals

The AMNH is launching a new, short video series documenting their Hall of Mammals restoration project, which occurred in 2011.  The visuals of these curators and restorators climbing into the dioramas is akin to stepping into another world - the animals are so lifelike, you would almost think they’d react.  Restoring natural history mounts would definitely be on my top 5 list of dream jobs! 

marielikestodraw:

our-flag-was-still-there:

Why history is important to me, summed up in four images.
I love this “Know Where You Stand” deal.

wow…

bookshop:

wstcollins:

wholockcat:

dontsparemyfeelingsanymore:

cas-get-into-my-ass:

thememorythatcarrieson:

morice:

kikismisandryservice:

lightspeedsound:

crying

 DEAD 

do most american world maps seriously have america in the centre?

WE DO HAHAHAHA

Are you fucking kidding me.

In Chinese maps, Asia is in the center. Which nation is centralized depends on the map’s origins.

In Canada, our maps are cut through the Pacific, so we don’t offend anyone.

sometimes i feel like canadian stereotypes go too far and then this happens

i will NEVER FORGET being in 4th grade and studying world geography with a world map on the wall when one of my classmates raised his hand and asked why there were two continents called Asia, and at first we all thought he was making a cruel joke about my name because that happened constantly, lol, but IT TURNED OUT HE WAS JUST REALLY CONFUSED because he thought there was like an East Asia and then a West Asia on two different sides of the world. I DON’T BLAME YOU, 4TH GRADE STUDENT.

odditiesoflife:

The Great Moon Hoax of 1835 - Life on the Moon

On Tuesday, 25 August 1835, the New York Sun began publishing, in serial form, a long account of stunning astronomical breakthroughs by the famous British astronomer, Sir John Herschel. They were made “by means of a telescope of vast dimensions and an entirely new principle.” Herschel, the article declared, had discovered planets in other solar systems and had “solved or corrected nearly every leading problem of mathematical astronomy.” Then, almost as if it were an afterthought, the article revealed Herschel’s final, stunning achievement: he had discovered life on the moon!

But the newspaper article described more than just life, they discovered entire civilizations. The account told of fantastic animals, including bison, goats, unicorns, bipedal tail-less beavers, and bat-like winged humanoids who built temples. There were even trees, oceans and beaches.

Eventually, the authors announced that the observations had been terminated by the destruction of the telescope, by means of the sun causing the lens to act as a ‘burning glass’, setting fire to the observatory.

The article was an elaborate hoax. Herschel hadn’t observed life on the moon, nor had he accomplished any of the other astronomical breakthroughs credited to him in the article. In fact, Herschel wasn’t even aware until much later that such discoveries had been attributed to him. However, the announcement caused enormous excitement throughout America and Europe. To this day, the moon hoax is remembered as one of the most sensational media hoaxes of all time.

Authorship of the article has been attributed to Richard A. Locke, a Cambridge-educated reporter who was working for the New York Sun at the time. Locke never publicly admitted to being the author and the newspaper never issued a retraction.

(via odditiesoflife)

Source:

airspaniel:

dontbearuiner:

asianhistory:

To the tune of Frère Jacques:

 

Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han,

Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han,

 

 Sui, Tang, Song,

Sui, Tang, Song,

 

Yuan, Ming, Qing, Republic~

Yuan, Ming, Qing, Republic~

 

Mao Zedong (Deng!)

Mao Zedong (Deng!)

Actually helpful mnemonic.

Nice!  It’s not as catchy as “In 1215 at Runnymeade (doo dah, doo dah)…” but it’s still mad helpful.  :D

odditiesoflife:

The Magical Illustrator for Disney and Beyond

Born in New York in 1916, Eyvind Earle began his prolific career at the age of ten when his father, Ferdinand Earle, gave him a challenging choice: read 50 pages of a book or paint a picture every day. Earle choose both. From the time of his first one-man showing in France when he was 14, Earle’s fame had grown steadily. At the age of 21, Earle bicycled across country from Hollywood to New York, paying his way by painting 42 watercolors. In 1937, he opened at the Charles Morgan Galleries, the first of many one-man shows in New York. Two years later at his third consecutive showing at the gallery, the response to his work was so positive that the exhibition sold out and the Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased one of his paintings for their permanent collection.

In 1951 Earle joined Walt Disney studios as an assistant background painter. Earle intrigued Disney in 1953 when he created the look of “Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom” an animated short that won an Academy Award and a Cannes Film Festival Award. Disney kept the artist busy for the rest of decade, painting the settings for such stories as Peter Pan, Paul Bunyan, and Lady and the Tramp. Earle was responsible for the styling, background and colors for the highly acclaimed movie Sleeping Beauty and gave the movie its magical, medieval look. He also painted the dioramas for Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at Disneyland in Anaheim, California.

After 15 years creating animated art, Earle returned to painting full time in 1966 and kept working until the end of his life. Eyvind Earle passed away on July 20, 2000 at the age of 84. You can peruse the majority of his work at his website here.

coolchicksfromhistory:

Iron Jawed Angels dramatization of the March 3, 1913 Suffrage Parade.

Hillary Swank = Militant suffragist and parade organizer Alice Paul

Frances O’Connor = Militant suffragist and parade organizer Lucy Burns

Julia Ormond (on horseback with wings) = Inez Milholland

Laura Fraser (brown hat, holding US flag) = Doris Stevens

Angelic Huston = Carrie Chapman Catt

Margo Martindale (in the car with Angelica Huston) = Harriot Blatch

Adilah Barnes = Ida B. Wells (Ida B. Wells and the Howard students)

Vera Farmiga = Ruza Wenclawska/Rose Winslow

Brooke Smith = Mabel Vernon

rubberhoseanimation:

vintagemickeymouse:

The only black and white Mickey Mouse pencil test known to exist: The Mail Pilot, 1933 

You guys, look. Look at this fabulous thing.

(via jigglykat)