The School of Life advises on "how the act of complaining can go better or worse, depending on our our approach." Guess what: Live fury doesn't tend to work. Neither does cold fury. Mature complaint is the goal but, well, easier explained than done, at least for me. (via Laughing Squid)

This is like watching a cheap 1980s horror stalker movie, where the villain is an old guy with a magically teleporting pickup truck who is hell-bent on entrapping a couple of dirt bikers in his trans-dimensional prison.

The beauty of pills and capsules releasing their payload.

Congratulations to Tim Berners-Lee for winning the Turing Award this week. It's well deserved. Curiously, Berners-Lee doesn't think you should use a VPN even though the current administration just repealed the Federal Communications Commission’s privacy rules for Internet providers.From the Standard Examiner:

Zoë Quinn, creator of punk games, knows more than most about the sharp end of online harassment. But she also knows what it takes to fight back, an important skill now that the same playbook used against her is wielded broadly by abusive reactionaries of all stripes.So I can't wait to read her book, Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate, which is finally available for preorder. The release date: September 5, 2017.Here's the blurb, from Amazon:

In a recent Vlogbrothers video, author and YouTuber John Green offers an easy-to-follow overview of the U.S. health care system and why it’s so difficult to reform it.

Rentberry -- run by a Travis Kalanick-style markets-fix-everything doctrinaire named Alex Lubinksy -- collects renters' personal information and their bids on apartments, then presents them to landlords, who get to choose among high bidders to rent to. (more…)

Peter Serafinowicz brings us Three new 'Sassy Trump' episodes.(more…)

Submarine emergency ascents are really cool. The soundtrack kind of sucks. I turned it off after a few iterations.

This Friday through Sunday in San Francisco, my extreme maker pals Kal Spelletich (Survival Research Labs, Seemen) and Mitch Altman (Noisebridge, TV-B-Gone) invite you to what's sure to be a mind-bending experience of neuro-robotic weirdness and art at The Lab. From the description of the installation:

Unesco's Frank La Rue has published a letter to Tim Berners-Lee, Director of the World Wide Web Consortium, warning him of the grave free-speech consequences of making DRM for the web without ensuring that lawful activity that requires bypassing it is also protected. (more…)

Carla and I took a one-week trip to Tokyo. It was my sixth visit to Japan's capital, and it was my favorite so far. For the next few days, I'll be writing about recommended things to do there. See them all here.Our plan for day 3 was to visit a neighborhood of Tokyo called Kichijōji. It known for its large park called Inokashira Koen. Kichijōji has interesting shopping and a grid of alleys called Hamonika Yokocho, which contain over 100 tiny dining bars called izakaya that offer skewers of fried meat and vegetables, sashimi, noodles, pickles, beer, and sake. We also had a reservation to visit a nearby onsen (Japanese hot spring and bathing facility).After cooking breakfast in our Airbnb -- scrambled eggs and yaki onigiri (fried rice triangles) we took a short walk to the massive, mind-bogglingly complex Shinjuku station.There was a Blue Bottle Coffee (8am - 10pm) on the way so we stopped for a tasty espresso.We were hoping to see a lot of cherry blossoms during our stay (March 17-23) but we were a bit too early. This tree outside Shinjuku station was a rare exception. A lot of people were hanging around for hanami (cherry blossom viewing) and taking photos. We took a few photos then worked our way into the station.The ticket machines at Japanese rail stations will present instructions in English, but they don't tell you how much a ticket to your destination costs. Here's what we learned to do: buy the cheapest ticket, then when you reach your destination, insert your ticket into one of the "Additional Fare" machines near the exit turnstiles. The machine will tell you how much money to add. Also, the ticket vending machines accept all forms of coins (except 1 yen coins) and all currency denominations up to 10,000 yen (about $100) and give you change in paper and coins. I love that. Here's another tip - Google Maps often doesn't tell you which platform to go to. There are conductors who speak English at every entrance. Just ask them! The rail stations in Japan are wonderful.We got off at Kichijōji station and took a 5-minute walk to Inokashira Park. There's a long pond in the park with paddle boats you can rent. We walked around the pond and stopped at a shrine dedicated to Benzaiten, a Japanese Buddhist goddess. This park is also connected to the famed Studio Ghibli Museum, a must-see attraction (we went the last time we were in Japan so we didn't go again).We headed back towards the Kichijōji station to have lunch before going to the Japanese hot springs. Unfortunately, all the alley bars were not yet open (we went back at night, and I'll cover that in the next post), but we stumbled on a place called Ishigamaya Hamburg Atre Kichijoji (11am - 11pm) that makes incredibly delicious large baked meat balls. They were so juicy that you are instructed to cover your torso with a napkin while the server cuts them open. My mouth waters just thinking of them. The next time we go back to Japan, I'm eating here again.Next, we headed to the onsen. We took a train to another station, then waited for a shuttle to pick us up. There were no other foreigners in line or on the shuttle. When I asked the driver "Onsen ni ikmasu ka?" (which is very mangled Japanese that might mean something along the lines of "As for the bath, is it going?" he grunted in affirmation.After a drive through a nondescript neighborhood that could almost pass for a boring part of Los Angeles if you squinted, we arrived at a plain looking building. This was the Yumori No Sato onsen (10am - 10pm). We stepped inside and everyone was taking off their shoes at the front. They all wore socks. I wasn't wearing socks (I never do) so I started to panic. Was it OK for me to walk around barefooted when everyone else was in socks? What was I going to do? Luckily, Carla spotted a single pair of plastic sandals, which I put on. Crisis averted!No one spoke English at the Onsen. We showed the desk our reservation number and they gave us a key and a towel. None of the signs had a single romaji (English) character. It was all hiragana, katakana, and kanji. It was fun, even though it made me a little nervous that I was going to do something gravely offensive at any moment. We know enough kanji to recognize things like entrance, exit, man, woman, etc., so we at least knew which locker room to enter.Once inside the locker room, I saw a lot of signs in Japanese with some words in red and with exclamation points. I just kept watching everyone out of the corner of my eye and copying what they did. They stripped off their clothes and walked into another room with a pool on one side and a row of showers on the other. They sat on tiny stools under the showers and soaped up, washing every part of their head and body. Once thoroughly clean, some of them men tied small towels to their head like headbands. They looked pretty cool, but I didn't know how to do it, so I just copied the guys who didn't do it. Some of the men entered the pool inside the room, others went through a door leading outside. I went outside and saw several pools of steaming black water. This was charcoal water. I got in and it was hot and felt really good. My anxiety melted away. After staying in for as long as I could stand it (20 minutes or so) I got out, showered, and dried off. I walked into the main part of the building and found a room where people were napping on the floor and reading books. I went in and found another door leading out to some comfortable-looking chairs that were hanging from chains. I got in one and closed my eyes for another 20 minutes. I met Carla there and we walked around the rest of the building to check it out and discovered that they give massages. We booked them and it was a great way to end our visit to the onsen. There are some photos and more information about Yumori no Sato Onsen here.Tomorrow, I'll write about the second part of our day in and around Kichijōji.

Lawfare's Charlie Winter got ahold of a copy of Media Operative, ISIS's long-rumored, three-party guide to media strategy for jihadis; his fascinating account of the organization's media strategy is important reading, if only to see how ISIS views its own operations. (more…)

Fantastic version by the always amazing Ella Fitzgerald.Of course, there is that time Hugh Laurie sang it...

Mark Frauenfelder and I are researchers at the non-profit Institute for the Future. During the course of our work, we frequently meet fascinating scientists, engineers, and big thinkers who are shaping the future through their groundbreaking work in the present. For Future Reference is IFTF's new podcast where we share those conversations about the expanding horizons of science, technology, and culture over the next decade. Listen below and please subscribe now: iTunes, RSS, SoundcloudWe hope you enjoy it!Episode 1: Teaching Robots TeamworkInstitute for the Future researchers Mark Frauenfelder and David Pescovitz talk with University of Southern California roboticist Nora Ayanian about what robots can learn from humans working together, and vice versa.Episode 2: Alien HuntingInstitute for the Future researchers Mark Frauenfelder and David Pescovitz talk with Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.Episode 3: Hacking Your BiologyInstitute for the Future researchers Mark Frauenfelder and David Pescovitz talk with rogue biophysicist Josiah Zayner about affordable tools for DIY genetic engineering and how to hack your biome.Episode 4: Fueling Greener FuelsInstitute for the Future researchers Mark Frauenfelder and David Pescovitz talk with chemist Kendra Kuhl, CEO of Opus 12, about her technology for recycling carbon dioxide into useful fuels and chemicals.Episode 5: Mind MeldingInstitute for the Future researchers Mark Frauenfelder and David Pescovitz talk with neuroscientist and IFTF fellow Melina Uncapher, CEO and co-founder of the Institute for Applied Neuroscience that brings scientific research about our brains to critical social issues.Episode 6: What the Bugs KnowInstitute for the Future researchers Mark Frauenfelder and David Pescovitz talk with evolutionary biologist Tamsin Woolley-Barker, author of Teeming: How Superorganisms work to Build Infinite Wealth in a Finite World, about what insects and fungi can teach us about politics, successful organizations, and the dilemmas of decision-making.Episode 7: Recreational GeneticsInstitute for the Future researchers Mark Frauenfelder and David Pescovitz talk with Murray Robinson, founder of Molquant, about new tools designed to make sense of the big data within the human genome.Episode 8: You Can’t Consume Your Way Out of Global WarmingInstitute for the Future researchers Mark Frauenfelder and David Pescovitz talk with inventor and MacArthur "genius grant" recipient Saul Griffith about how need new mindsets as much as new technologies to alleviate climate change.Episode 9: DIY NeurotechInstitute for the Future researchers Mark Frauenfelder and David Pescovitz talk with Joel Murphy, co-founder of OpenBCI, about the implications of low cost, open-source brain-computer interfaces.Episode 10: Cosmetic ComputingInstitute for the Future researchers Mark Frauenfelder and David Pescovitz talk with UC Berkeley computer scientist and artist Eric Paulos about wild ideas for wearable technologies

A woman delivered an obscenity-laden rant when she spied a couple kissing each other at a fast food restaurant. One of her mildest statements was, "Excuse me! This is a place where you eat, not where you make out. Go get a room!"The boyfriend videoed the encounter, he wrote:

Information security is a race between peak indifference to surveillance and the point of no return for data-collection and retention. (more…)

I think it's amazing. It's more Scientology than Scientology. She looks like she's about to drop the first forty minutes of Mallwave, a genre of electronic music made of irony that's been aged in acrylic casks since 1987, ready to blast all the other waves into space to dance among the stars.Update: of course it turns out Mallwave is not only already a thing but is already over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0ZFgZ0FkuAYoutube has democratized the practice of using expensive industrial and scientific apparatus to torment inanimate objects, giving us all a peek into the world of the lucky few who happen to have a hydraulic press gathering dust; but if you thing compressing things is fun, wait until you've seen recreational decompression in action; as with this giant gummi-bear-shaped marshmallow, being subjected to hard vac in the name of science-adjacent fun. (via Neatorama)

Heavy rains on the west coast have caused rockslides like this behemoth blocking an Oregon highway south of Eugene. Oregon DOT set up a camera as they blasted it into manageable chunks.Spoiler: it went way better than Oregon's exploding whale...https://youtu.be/uD5sPgV61bwPS: here's the "blowed up real good" reference if you're scratching your head.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHkvD7-u7y8• 200-ton rock blown up on Oregon highway (The Oregonian)

Professional pianist and Steinway Artist Daniel Beliavsky and his student Charlotte Bennett agreed to perform while hooked up to an eye-tracking device that superimposes the wearer's eye movements. (more…)

Anyone who prefers the superior sound quality of over-ear headphones is all too familiar with the hassle of keeping your gear accessible but still out of the way when you aren’t using it. Instead of ruining your headphones by repeatedly shoving them in a drawer, why not hang them up to have them ready at a moment’s notice without crowding precious desktop real estate?The Anchor is the perfect answer to your equipment clutter woes. This silicon hook sticks underneath your desk with industrial-grade adhesive to hold headphones and cables. Sturdy enough to hold even the bulkiest sets, its flexible material won’t send you into a cascade of pain when you inevitably bump your knee against it, unlike coat hooks.Keeping your gear neat and tidy doesn’t mean you need to install extra shelves. Usually $19.95, you can get The Anchor here for $9.99.Explore other Best-Sellers in our store:

Not the greatest audio but a lot of fun to watch!

Socialist Worker has a profile of Anthony Papa of the Drug Policy Alliance. He has a book out about his experiences after being released from prison, where he served a sentence for a drug crime that he'd been entrapped into committing. The book is called This Side of Freedom: Life After Clemency.Snip:

https://youtu.be/deITLnM73uoApple computers was founded on April 1, 1976. In this commercial for the Japanese human resources brand PERSOL, Steve Wozniak talks about how he "stumbled into a journal about digital computer topics" and how it changed his life.

My friend Robyn Miller (co-creator of the Myst series of computer games) is an accomplished musician. His soundtrack for the award winning short documentary film "Little Potato," is available on iTunes, and you can listen to a few tracks above.From IndieWire:

A gang of masked thieves attempted a late-night heist at a bank (or some other building) in Pernes-les-Fontaines (southeastern France). They succeeded in partially ramming through the wall with a large flatbed truck, but then the truck got stuck. They ended up lighting the truck cab on fire and taking off in two cars. Someone caught the whole thing on video and posted it to YouTube.It's a scene out of one of Donald Westlake's Dortmunder novels.

In 1966, Burt "Robin" Ward recorded with the Mothers of Invention under the direction of Frank Zappa. The result is really something.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjoLQbJCPTIFrom Burt Ward's autobiography Boy Wonder: My Life in Tights:

The Q made this nifty coin sorting machine from cardboard.

This guy tried to kick a dog on the beach and failed. It gets even better from there.[via]

William Powell, author of the iconic counterculture how-to guide The Anarchist Cookbook, died last year of a heart attack. His death was just made public. As a teen, I learned many important things from The Anarchist Cookbook: mixing tincture of iodine with ammonia is indeed explosive, smoking banana peels won't get you high (contrary to the book), and Rikers Island is to be avoided. Powell wrote the book when he was 19 and disavowed it later in life after becoming a Christian. The Anarchist Cookbook remained in print, much to his chagrin. “The central idea to the book was that violence is an acceptable means to bring about political change,” he wrote on the book's Amazon page. “I no longer agree with this.” From the Los Angeles Times:

The thinking behind Twitter's replacement for the troll-favorite egg profile photo is a vaguely human placeholder that is unpleasant enough to encourage people to replace it with a custom icon.

Alex Yeatts, a student at the Culinary Institute of America, worked for six months to cook up amazing chocolate geode cakes. Crack one open to reveal the dazzling sugar crystals. Stunning work.

Chinese bookstore Yangzhou Zhongshuge has arguably the most breathtaking bookstore entrance in the world. (more…)

When you hear “laptop bag”, you probably think of a worn-out black padded pleather abomination carried by the world’s grumpiest IT guy. Since we all know that stereotypes are hurtful, let’s put the myth of unfashionable computer gear to rest. Not all workplace accessories are on the same aesthetic level as a cubicle farm, Dilbert.Born in America’s biggest apple, this laptop-sized messenger bag has enough storage pockets to keep all your devices in order without looking like it belongs in the basement of Initech. On the outside, it features a subtle gray pattern that pairs just as well with jeans as it does with a suit.With an adjustable strap and ample padding to keep everything inside safe, this bag is a perfect companion for your morning commute. Usually $89.99, you can get this Slim Laptop Carrier here for $24.99.Explore other Best-Sellers in our store:

Gizmodo's Ashley Feinberg (almost certainly) figured out that James Comey's secret Twitter handle was @projectexile7, because America's top G-man failed at some of the most basic elements of operational security. (more…)

These two cats have trained their human servant well.

You have to admire the insight, investigative prowess and sheer imagination of the tabloids, which this week are brimming with information that few people on earth could possibly know.It has been widely reported that a Secret Service agent’s laptop was stolen from her car, containing blueprints of President Trump’s homes. But only the ‘National Enquirer’ has the inside scoop to reveal the culprit behind the theft: "Terrorists steal laptop.”It’s doubtless the same network of impeccable inside sources that allows the ‘Globe’ to definitively report that a “booze-free” Ben Affleck “packs on 48 lbs,” presumably because they have bugged his bathroom scales and know he hasn’t gained 47 lbs or 49 lbs - it’s exactly 48 lbs. That’s how accurate their information is.The ‘Globe’ promises veteran actor Michael Caine disclosing: “My Cancer Hell!” And what hell it is! Beneath the headline “Michael Caine, 84, Wrestling Death!” the British star confesses that he tries to eat healthily so that he never gets cancer. Way to wrestle, Michael. “I know my days are numbered,” he says. “I’ll probably drop dead.” And that’s a quote that everyone alive could safely say without fear of contradiction. Great reporting.“Starsky & Hutch Deathbed Reunion!” screams the ‘Globe’ cover, though the photos of Paul Michael Glaser pushing his former TV co-star David Soul in a wheelchair suggests otherwise. If Glaser was pushing Soul in a Sealy Posturepedic down the street I’d buy the “deathbed reunion,” but last time I checked the fact of being in a wheelchair didn’t mean you had hours left to live.Antonio Banderas recently admitted suffering a heart attack, and the ‘Enquirer’ reports that he has flown to Switzerland for “life-saving treatment.” Which doesn’t quite explain why he has gone to a clinic known for its cosmetic surgery procedures.Ellen Degeneres told her TV talk show recently that she drank “two glasses of wine and fell into a door,” dislocating a finger - but that’s enough for the ‘Enquirer’ to brand it a “booze binge” and for the ‘Globe’ to report: “Wino Ellen Needs Rehab Right Now!” You have to look twice to notice the really small print just below the headline, adding the crucial words: “pals fear.” Because that’s what friends are for in Hollywood: telling the tabloids what nightmares could befall their celebrity BFFs.“Lady killer O.J. Simpson plans to hook up with monster mom Casey Anthony after he’s released from the slammer - because they’re perfect for each other!” reports the ‘Globe,’ in one of those why-didn’t-I-think-of-that ideas that springs up at editorial meetings and seems like a really good idea by the time you get to the bar after work, and doesn’t require a scintilla of evidence to support, because it’s such a great idea. The fact that they’ve never met or spoken is beside the point.The ‘Globe’ also devotes two pages to Princess Diana’s death, revealing: “Charles Murder Motive Exposed!” The report explains: “Diana had to die so British would accept his marriage to Hussy Camilla!” Because if they had simply divorced, the public would never have sanctioned Charles’ remarrying Camilla Parker-Bowles, it seems to argue. “Divorce wasn’t enough.” Facts? Who needs them? Not the ‘Globe,’ which repeats its old assertion that Diana survived her Paris car crash almost 20 years ago and was killed with a poison injection in the ambulance. It falls back on its well-worn unnamed “royal source.” My guess is it’s the Queen, accepting under-the-table payments of $25 for every story she gives them, since the tabloids reported last year that she was “broke."‘Us' magazine devotes its cover to Keeping Up With The Kardashians’ former bit-player and occasional basketball player Lamar Odom, admitting that everything he put ex-wife Khloé Kardashian through “was my fault.” And possibly the fault of the hookers. And the many other women he slept with. And the drugs. And booze. And his 12 strokes and two heart attacks. “Secrets I’ve never told,” proclaims the cover, though the world has long known all of this, without Odom ever having to say a word. You have to expect that, Lamar, if the ambulance picks you up at a brothel.At least it’s better than ‘People’ magazine’s feature on TV’s ‘Suits’ actress dating Prince Harry: “Meghan Markle’s Untold Story.” Which amounts to friends saying that “she’s incredibly cool and down-to-earth,” and “is a strong advocate for women and girls.” If that’s the “untold story” (which we’ve heard a dozen times before) please don’t tell us anything more about her.Fortunately we have ‘Us’ magazine’s intrepid investigative team to tell us that Chrissy Teigen wore it best, rapper Future never eats seafood because “I ain’t down with how it smells,” actress and Real Housewife of Beverly Hills Lisa Rinna carries Alka-Seltzer for the morning-after-the-night-before, Clorox wipes to clean germs from light switches, and a Kabbalah red string in her Gucci bag, and that the stars are just like us: they drink coffee, carry their luggage, bicycle, and walk their dogs. And the paparazzi are there to make sure we don’t miss a moment of it.The ‘National Examiner’ devotes two pages to a report that the mythical “Florida skunk ape” may be real, after recent video allegedly shows an unidentified animal lurking behind palmetto branches. It was probably a paparazzo, though the ‘Enquirer’ would be certain to identify this as a terrorist, and for the ‘Examiner’ it’s evidence of the “legendary figure who haunts the depths of the state’s perilous bogs and gives out a horrifying odor.”Hats off to the ‘Examiner’ for its full page under the headline: “Intuition: Do you have it?” If you didn’t see that coming, then you probably don’t.Onwards and downwards . . .

A massive fire in Northeast Atlanta this afternoon caused the busy I-85 freeway to collapse. The cause has been yet to be determined.CNN has a live video feed:

I don't think this video got nearly enough play time.

My friend John Edgar Park made a huge Arduino for demo purposes. He brought it to Maker Faire a few years ago and it was a big hit. He finally got around to writing a tutorial for building your own.

Over at The Nib, excellent historical cartoonist Andy Warner, author of the wonderful Brief Histories of Everyday Objects, tells the story of how the Unicode Consortium brings new emoji into our online lives. From The Nib:Read the full comic: "Want a New Emoji? Good Luck."

In the early 20th century, James "Smelly" Kelly used his legendary sense of smell and DIY inventions to find hazards, leaks, elephant poop, and eels that were causing problems in the New York City subway system. Atlas Obscura's Eric Grundhauser profiles the the man known as The Sniffer:

These folks (Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell) make the best explainer videos. This one, which explores GMOs and genetically engineering food, is no exception.

Thread count isn’t like one of those deceiving metrics like camera megapixels or Facebook friends—more threads are always better if you can afford them. If price was no object, we would all be snoozing soundly bundled up in 1.8 kilo-thread sheets every single night. Guess what? Price doesn't have to be an object with this Premium sheet set!These sheets have an absurdly high 1800 thread count to give you an incredibly soft sleeping surface. Their insides are made from bamboo rayon to keep you cool during hot and humid nights, and their 100% microfiber exterior ensure that they won’t wrinkle throughout their long lifetime.The set is available in King and Queen size and includes top and fitted sheets, as well as 4 pillowcases to make your bedroom feel like a royal chamber. Usually $299.99, you can grab this Premium Collection 1800 thread count sheet set for over 80% off—just $41.99.Explore other Best-Sellers in our store:

YouTuber Latheman fired up his lathe and made these tops with the weight at the top. It's remarkable how long they can spin on a surface like glass or tile. (more…)

Josh Begley doesn't give up easily. After 12 rejections, Apple finally allowed his app Metadata+ to be sold on iTunes. But what the App Store giveth, the App Store taketh away. (more…)

“A Serb makes a good wife: she can pull the cart out of mud.”That old Serbian proverb, its genius author has no name. It’s like the earthy quip from a hospital that I once heard in real life; after her severe car crash, the emergency doctor told her worried husband: Don’t you worry man, those Herzegovinian vipers are hard to kill!I’m personally half Serb and half Herzegovinian, so I take these attitudes to my heart, half proud and half offended. But my American friend said: what about the Serbian and Herzegovinian husbands? Are they pleased about their mud-carting vipers? Is that the kind of proper home-girl that a local guy just has to have?Good questions! If enough years go by, a man gets used to the woman of the house, muddy viper or not. But what about the opinions of the rest of the world?Our world is a big place, so maybe a Serbian Herzegovinian woman is considered just one regional sub-class of East European womanhood. I might be called Balkan, from that mountain region of many fractured grooves, or a historical, fossilized ex-Yugoslav. I was never “Warsaw Pact,” although that arrangement meant “Eastern Europe” in the eyes of the Cold War West. I’m from a shatter-belt, a corner cushion among conflicting empires, a little regional federation that has vanished like the Austro-Hungarians and often resembled the modern European Union. It broke up in blood, but that’s been the fate of most European alliances, eastern or western, northern or southern.These days, though, in the fractious nation of Italy, a minor scandal has broken out. A female TV talk-show host on the RAI national network suddenly recommended, more or less out of nowhere, that Italian men ought to marry “Eastern European women.” She offered six good reasons, or rather six sexist stereotyped points, about how these foreign easterners made much better wives than Italian women.They may be foreign, yes, but they stay in the kitchen and cook. They’re women who clean the house. They forgive adultery. They become mothers but don’t get fat. They always dress decently. They don’t whine, nag and complain. And they obey a husband’s commands. These six female virtues make them great wives.To tell the truth, I’ve been hearing these myths and traditions for decades now. I grew up in Italy and can pass for Italian, although when Italians hear that my name is Tesanovic, they often assume that I must be a Slav off the factory-line or collective farm. I was offended by that, but more as an East European than as a woman.It’s annoying to hear that we non-Unionized Europeans are supposed to be poor, desperate and therefore obediently at the feet of the West. After all, aren’t Italians aware that this same stupidity, ignorance and machoism is also applied to Italian emigrants? If anybody’s women have the reputation of scheming gold-diggers, it’s those seductive, Machiavellian Italian women, and not us meek and lowly Balkan creatures, so blandly pretty and matrimonially faithful. We’re wholesome. We’re naively honest. We’re tiresome and boring, we’re no trouble at all!However, the traditional Eastern European concept of us kerchief-headed creatures has clearly changed a lot since Yugoslavia split up, the Soviet Union fell and the EU fortress hastily erected its own walls in response. New prejudices always arise with new walls. Nowadays, instead of being a communal peasantry, we’re becoming world-class sultanas and empresses. Slovenian model Melania Knauss Trump is the First Lady of the USA!Most of the current American President’s harem women have a Balkan air about them, even American-born Ivanka, the daughter / heiress who seems to be managing the Washington palace while the current wife keeps her head down in her gilded skyscraper in New York. We’re witnessing a modern psychological drama that closely resembles the intrigues of Hurrem, the abducted Ukrainian concubine, who became the Ottoman Empress of Suleyman the Great. Why her, why Eastern European Hurrem? Because Hurrem was a viper, and she could pull that muddy cart, and also because Suleyman the so-called Great didn’t have any other real friends.Melanija Knauss is an ex-Yugoslav, just like me. She and I both sang patriotic hymns to Tito in our primary schools, with red kerchiefs around our necks. Nowadays those Communist adornments are more ragged and forlorn than Janis Joplin’s dirty red bandanna: freedom is just another word for losing your entire nation. We thought Marshall Tito was our family more than our leader. The school song was: Comrade Tito, we vow we will not go astray. Now far-straying Melania is decked out in Ottoman jewels as an offshored one-percenter bride of a mogul. Still, this is modernity, so, presumably, that fate had to happen to somebody.Hell has no fury like someone’s national womanhood scorned, so TV mayhem broke out over this Italian RAI TV talk show. The commentator got promptly fired from the focussed social-media rage of vengeful Italian netizens, and even her boss was purged and her show was cancelled. Italian women certainly don’t care for invidious comparisons. But there’s nothing new about people making them.Back in Italy in the 1970s, it was the Swedish girls who were cast as the ideal exotic brides. These Swedes were blonde and not dark, tall and statuesque and Nordic, un-Catholic and sexually emancipated, ready to hop fully-clothed right into the Trevi Fountain, dolce-vita style. But Italy survived that female threat somehow.Now the entire RAI programme has been blown off the air scorched-earth style, as if Italian bachelors were in desperately short supply and all the girls have to scrabble. Why are Italian women protesting about an Italian female talk-show? Wouldn’t it make more sense if the women directly confronted their men?And for that matter, why aren’t the Italian men complaining about their possible prospect of having to court and marry Poles, Ukrainians, Belarusians and whomever?Plus — what about the grievances of us East European women who happen to be in Italy? To think that we never complain and lament is absurd — we’ve got enough daily grievances to fill the Roman Colosseum. We’re the women of a soulful people with vast intellectual conceptual fields of grief, sorrow and historical disappointment, and the near-infinite spectrum of the sorrows of a Russian woman is, in fact, shockingly different from the handwringing of any Polish one. Right now the Ukrainian women are bitterly upset about Russia. What if you’re an Eastern European woman from one of those small and awful “frozen conflict” zones, where your ethnicity doesn’t even have any proper nation for foreigners to get stereotypical about?But, well, who cares about all that mess? RAI certainly doesn't. The network has only one concept for all of us splintered ethnics, mostly because their TV programs are never about the many sorrows of women of the world, they’re mostly about young, prancing, pretty Italian women who are half nude and seem available. Berlusconi used to be the master-of-ceremonies for that kind of regional showgirl parade, but it goes on with him or without him.Italian TV culture ranks with the most blissfully vulgar TV in the world, because it really knows what sells on a glass screen. RAI is second to none in kitsch, misogyny and casually racist sexism, but those values go unchallenged because Italian national TV is a closed moral universe. It’s by no means all about us East European women in Italy, we’re merely the occasional collateral damage off their NATO airwaves.Besides, there remains the primal source of the real anxiety in this little scandal, which is that foreign people really, truly are alluring. They’re hot. Nobody mentioned this prospect: but what about the Italian woman in bed with the Eastern European guy? How scary could that be, really? What if this intimate encounter with the Other turns out to be incredibly fun?You never know what the night may bring to a woman, as my Mom used to say. But you see, I really can pull a cart out of mud, I am a Serbian woman all right, for better or worse. Plus I am a feminist pacifist who is always, Always Disobedient!(Image: Cautious Matryoshka, Bradley Davis, CC-BY-ND)

The Do-It-Yourself Monster Make-Up Handbook is a 1965 classic: Famous Monsters of Filmland founder Forrest Ackerman tapped movie makeup legend Dick Smith to create guides for turning yourself into any of three Martians, two kinds of werewolf, a "weird-oh," a "derelict," a ghoul, a mummy, Frankenstein's monster, Quasimodo, Mr Hyde, "split face," and more. (more…)