growabrain

January 22, 2010

This is my last post on grow-a-brain.

Thanks for the nearly 20,000,000 visitors who checked in during the 7 years I blogged here.

I can be found at my new, personal site, Grow-a-baby, dedicated to Adora, the person above. You may contact me through the email there.

Hanan Levin

January 22, 2010 in A new Direction, Personal | Permalink | Comments (49) | TrackBack (0)

January 08, 2010

On Monday, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin announced that it had made available more than 1,300 boxes of papers, film, movie props and costumes donated by Robert De Niro to researchers and the public. The collection, which has been appraised at $5 million, covers Mr. De Niro’s career from the 1968 Brian De Palma feature “Greetings” through 2005’s “Hide and Seek,” and includes everything from the leopard-print boxing robe the actor wore in “Raging Bull” to the coats he donned as the Creature in “Frankenstein". (From NYT)

January 8, 2010 in Cinema - "The Godfather" | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

De Cabeza by Spanish photographer Jorge Miguel

- - - -

Leaf Lines, another flicker set

- - - -

Museum Goers Series by artist Karen Jurick. (Thanks, Dafna)

- - - -

2009 Evening Standard Billboards

- - - -

Sir Jefferey Hudson: A dwarf presented in a pie to King Charles I. 1619-1682

January 8, 2010 in Photography | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Books You Can Live Without

“…As an 81-year-old bookseller at one of the largest used bookstores in America, I am frequently asked about which books should be discarded from a personal library. In New York, where real estate is at a premium, space for personal libraries is limited so I encourage my customers to assess their collections periodically and weed out books…”

January 8, 2010 in Bookstores | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

What to do with your ‘third week of March’

When Pope John Paul died, Rogers Cadenhead quickly registered www.BenedictXVI.com thinking this might be the name chosen by the new pope. When Cardinal Ratzinger was elected Pope he did choose the name Pope Benedict XVI, causing many to question what the Vatican would do to get the rights to that domain name.

Cadenhead didn't ask the Vatican for money. Instead, in a humorous manner on his blog he suggested a few things he would trade for:

1. Three days, two nights at the Vatican hotel.

2. One of those hats (referring to the bishop's hat).

3. Complete absolution, no questions asked, for the third week of March 1987.

Wonder what Rogers did the third week of March in 1987? Me too. Most of us have at least a week we'd like total forgiveness for.

January 8, 2010 in Spirituality | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

A fascinating ‘Ask Me Anything’ thread on Reddit: I was once a homeless meth addict living on the streets for two full years and have since turned my life around.

Also, from homelessness to becoming a billionaire: The story of john Paul DeJoria

January 8, 2010 in Crime & Punishment | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Top 10 Biggest Food Network Foodgasms Of 2009

- - - -

Ghost signs of Chicago

- - - - - - -

Parisian murals by Street artist Gorellaume

- - - - - - -

Life in a Yurt, with a NYT article behind the slideshow

- - - -

Concrete mushrooms: A project about the 750,000 bunkers left over from the communist era of Albania

- - - -

The 56 Geeks Project, by Scott Johnson

- - - -

Street installations by Mark Jenkins

January 8, 2010 in Do Something with your Life | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

Selma Blair, photographed by Norman Jean Roy at the El Mirage Dry Lake Bed, North of here, in San Bernardino County

Actually, things are not looking that hot around here. More like This or like this

January 8, 2010 in Riverside & Corona - California | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Meet Michael Amyx. The Tennessee man, 28, was wearing a Nazi military uniform when he was arrested Saturday for public intoxication

- - - -

Alan Taylor about the year after he developed “The Big Picture” blog

- - - -

Lucite & glass rings, arranged by color swatches

- - - -

Why chicks cry –Images of women and girls crying, taken from DC romance comics 1957 to 1968

- - - -

A 100 trillion dollar note from Zimbabwe, the perfect holiday present

- - - -

Corporate takeover 9, at ‘Worth 1000’

January 8, 2010 in Crime & Punishment | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Portraits of the Hadza people by Martin Schoeller

- - - -

Inch by inch, Barack Obama is moving mountains, by Andrew Sullivan

- - - -

Colorful photos of slithering snakes

- - - -

Taboo Question for Israelis

January 8, 2010 in Middle East | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

In 1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono took time off to buy second-hand jeans at a flea market in Paris. Photographer Henry Pessar was there and shot over one hundred pictures. They're now part of an exhibition in Paris

- - - -

Lather was thirty years old today,
They took away all of his toys.
His mother sent newspaper clippings to him,
About his old friends who'd stopped being boys.
There was Harwitz E. Green, just turned thirty-three,
His leather chair waits at the bank.
And Sergeant Dow Jones, twenty-seven years old,
Commanding his very own tank.
But Lather still finds it a nice thing to do,
To lie about nude in the sand,
Drawing pictures of mountains that look like bumps,
And thrashing the air with his hands

- - - -

Chris Isaak sings ‘Blue moon’

- - - -

And on the eighth day of Chanukah my true love gave to me an official Richard Nixon showerhead

January 8, 2010 in Music - Beatles | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

January 01, 2010

Our Swedish hero

Make yourself or someone you know into a hero

January 1, 2010 in Heroes | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

40 years ago today, I stopped eating meat. Time surely flies fast when you're having fun.

(I only remember the date because this was when I left my parents' home & moved to Jerusalem, to become a poor beatnik/poet). Anyway, Happy New Year and Happier New Decade, everyone.

January 1, 2010 in Food - Meat & Vegetables | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

December 27, 2009

A guided tour in Yuri Arcurs' studio at Aarhus (Denmark). See how he works and organize his sets and get a unique look behind the scenes at one of the most successful and productive stock photography studios. (Watch in HD).

His other YouTube tutorials can be found on his blog. His current portfolio includes 26,047 files. He sells about 2,000 licenses a day.

(From Francis Vachon, who asks: You want to make a living shooting for microstock? Well, you are competing against guys like this. Are you up for the challenge?)

December 27, 2009 in Photography | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

In adult news, KY Brand has introduced their latest lubricant jelly— a “Cayenne Pepper” line —that has reportedly added “excruciating hotness” to the bedroom

- - - -

Also, "In one of the largest mass demonstrations in recent history, over one million women claiming to have had sexual liaisons with Tiger Woods marched on Washington today"

December 27, 2009 in Jokes | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now?"

- - - -

Bill Bradford’s wife passed away in June, and this is her purse collection

- - - -

Religious Artifacts Products for Churches

- - - -

Ukranian-English Beer Parlour Songs, and other drug-related LP covers

- - - -

Last meal delivery service provides clients with a replica of a the ‘last meal’ consumed by someone executed in The United States - $ 20

- - - -

She got blame, from ‘Overheard in New York”: Mommy, why is it cold out?

- - - -

Sorry the "Dogtivity" set will no longer be on display, so as not to “offend anyone”...

- - - -

Steve Martin rants at a car rental clerk in ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’ (NSFW but oh-so-true)

- - - -

A little library by Todd Pattison

- - - -

A Tauntaun Costume

- - - -

How to create a baconmat

- - - -

This portrait of Beethoven at the age of 13 is the earliest authenticated depiction of the composer

- - - -

Santa school, right here in Riverside, CA

- - - -

My favorite photograph (so far) of myself & Adora from my other, new blog, “Adorable”

December 27, 2009 in Food - Meat & Vegetables | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

December 24, 2009

Christmas Links

The Gingerbread White House

- - - - - - -

The Chemical Brothers’ “Response”, set to visuals from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” finale

- - - -

The Once & Future Queens – Older women posing as glamorous movie stars

- - - -

Teapot-blowing contest

- - - -

(Wow, I never knew that Cliff Richard is gay...)

- - - -

Doilies on Google Image

- - - -

What not to submit - The submission guidelines for Strange Horizons, an online speculative fiction magazine

- - - -

99 Most Beautiful Names of Allah

December 24, 2009 in Americana - Barack Obama | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

December 21, 2009

Netscapes: Tracing the Journey of a Single Bit

The Internet surrounds us like air, saturating our offices and our homes. But it’s not confined to the ether. You can touch it. You can map it. And you can photograph it. Here are five postcards from the journey of a single bit, as data flashes from sea to wired sea

December 21, 2009 in Information | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

December 19, 2009

Learn How To Play The Piano – 40 YouTube lessons

- - - - - - -

New York Subway Train Filled With Apples Is Emptied Onto Platform, Illustrates Food Waste

- - - - - - -

“Good Night”, the very first Simpson short that appeared on television, The Tracey Ullman Show, April 19, 1987

- - - - - - -

I didn’t kill myself

when things went wrong

I didn’t turn

to drugs or teaching

I tried to sleep

but when I couldn’t sleep

I learned to write

what might be read

on nights like this

by one like me...

- - - - - - -

Billboard advertising for ‘American Psycho’

- - - - - - -

Thanksgiving Timelapse (2009) by Jared Foster

- - - -

I had no idea so many people make a hobby of traveling beneath the sea in homemade junkers they call submarines. Here's a few of these DIY subs...

- - - -

Another Pi pie

- - - -

(Yes, I'm not here usually. I blog now at Grow-a-baby instead)

December 19, 2009 in First Ever | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

"An old shirt that is stained with blood and whiskey" (Re-post from December 7, 2007)

hey Charley I'm pregnant
and living on 9-th street
right above a dirty bookstore
off Euclid avenue
and I stopped taking dope
and I quit drinking whiskey
and my old man plays the trombone
and works out at the track.

and he says that he loves me
even though its not his baby
and he says that he'll raise him up
like he would his own son
and he gave me a ring
that was worn by his mother
and he takes me out dancin
every saturday nite.

and hey Charley I think about you
everytime I pass a fillin' station
on account of all the grease
you used to wear in your hair
and I still have that record
of little anthony & the imperials
but someone stole my record player
how do you like that?

hey Charley I almost went crazy
after mario got busted
so I went back to omaha to
live with my folks
but everyone I used to know
was either dead or in prison
so I came back in minneapolis
this time I think I'm gonna stay.

hey Charley I think I'm happy
for the first time since my accident
and I wish I had all the money
that we used to spend on dope
I'd buy me a used car lot
and I wouldn't sell any of em
I'd just drive a different car
every day dependin on how
I feel.

hey Charley
for chrissakes
do you want to know
the truth of it?
I don't have a husband
he don't play the trombone
and I need to borrow money
to pay this lawyer
and Charley, hey
I'll be eligible for parole

come valentine day

December 19, 2009 in Music - Tom Waits_ | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

December 13, 2009

Izzy the Iguana

- - - -

Hot Bikini Girls do The Big Lebowski, played by the able actresses of 'Bikini Cinema' ensemble

- - - -

Despair

and other down & out scenes

by “DC Vision”.

Also, Prostitutes at work on on Google Street View

- - - -

Paris 1962. Images from Paris cafés and nightlife in 1962, the same week Yves St. Laurent's runway show vaulted Dior to new heights. Many scenes around Les Halles

By Tom Palumbo

- - - -

Fish Eye Picasso

And many more photographs of Picasso by David Douglas Duncan

(From “Uncertain Times”)

- - - -

“Do you want a smacked bottom now or the other thing when we get home?”

- - - - - - -

“Patience Please” with Keith Richards, by Ethan Russell, 1972

- - - -

Obama quilts by Riché Richardson

and by other artists

- - - -

Correction: An obituary on Tuesday about Richard Wright, a founding member of the rock group Pink Floyd, referred incorrectly to a school he attended. The school, the Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School, is an independent day school founded by the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers, a guild; it is not a school for haberdashers.

- - - - - -

Unbelievable Satellite Images!

Recent images of Bondi Beach show a massive school of unidentified sharks cruising just meters from swimmers

- - - - - -

Does dog taste like dogs smell?

- - - - - - -

Six To Eight Black Men – Christmas tradition in Holland, by David Sedaris

- - - -

Drive-bys at Rajneeshpuram, the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh's farm in Oregon

- - - - - - -

A collection of oil cans on flickr

4,000,000,000’th photo on flickr

Also, The Wtf Sex Can, by Brock Davis

- - - - - - -

Photoshops from Sebastian Neidlich

- - - -

I should dress my nephew up as Alex DeLarge

- - - -

My Sweet Lord, played by George Harrison

Also, a music video by Bob Dylan, performing The Little drummer Boy from his Christmas album

Psycho Dylan

- - - - - - -

Most Interesting Man In The World

Also, Mexican Beauty

- - - -

Indiana antique radio collection

- - - - - - -

All 7 episodes of “Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis”, embarrassingly funny

- - - - - - -

365 stormtroopers

- - - -

Chinese Bluegrass performed by Mei Han's Red Chamber with John Reischman and The Jaybirds

- - - -

The 475 sockpuppet accounts of a Wikipedia Global Warming Denier

- - - - - - -

Labyrinth Aquarium, only $6,500

- - - - - - -

“…I just spent a few weeks in Iceland, and here's what I found interesting…”

- - - - - -

BBQ Joints Near Austin

- - - -

Now It All Makes Sense, from January 20, 2009

- - - -

Weird candy

- - - -

Villa Type – a blog about lettering found in the public domain

- - - - - - -

10 Best Places to Live for Escaping World Conflict

- - - - - -

Playing Hangman (PBF)

- - - - - -

Fart Proudly: Writings of Benjamin Franklin You Never Read in School

and other weird book titles at Abe Books

- - - -

4 Babies, the new movie

- - - -

Row Vs. Wade: Sarasota, FL

- - - -

The beach art of Andres Amador

- - - -

Sweaper clock by Maarten Baas

- - - -

Music for Nyunyu

- - - -

I am blogging now instead at the new Grow-a-baby

December 13, 2009 in Odds & Ends | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

November 28, 2009

Baby girl

Yes, I still post here a few links every once in a while, but I spend most of my blogging time now at the new Grow-a-baby website.

À tout à l'heure

November 28, 2009 in A new Direction | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)

The Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow

(From wood’s lot)

Also, Hanging with Frank - Portrait of a Glasgow prison's execution chamber and a man that worked there in the 50's

- - - -

Sheela na Gigs are figurative carvings of naked women displaying an exaggerated vulva. They are found on churches, castles and other buildings, particularly in Ireland and Britain, sometimes together with male figures

Also, Vagina Dentata Sculpture, Mature

- - - - - - -

Re-post: The Degree Confluence Project is an all-volunteer project which aims to have people visit each of the integer degree intersections of latitude and longitude on Earth, posting photographs and a narrative of each visit online. As of October 30, 2009, 35.19% of the world's primary confluences have been completed

- - - -

The mysterious 300 Diquis Spheres of Costa Rica

November 28, 2009 in Traveling Places | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Most recorded $1 bill at “Where’s George”, found to circulate 15 times -

- - - -

The world's largest collection of tongue twisters

- - - -

Re-post: People playing chess on roller coasters, inspired by a XKCD comic

- - - -

55 Useful Online Generators for Designers

November 28, 2009 in Money & Finances | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

eBay Find of the Day: George Barris Olds Toronado 70-X is wraparound luxury (with a slide show)

- - - -

The Family Truckster is a four passenger quadricycle that splits in two to create two back to back recumbent tandems

By the folks who brought you The Couch Bike

- - - -

Can't Park here

November 28, 2009 in Cars | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Amblin' (1968), the first completed film shot by Steven Spielberg on 35mm. The film is a short love story set during the hippie era of the late '60s, about a young couple making their way through the desert to a paradisiacal beach

- - - - - - -

In the early Nineties, a man called Alan Conway went about London telling people he was Stanley Kubrick

- - - -

The years are short

November 28, 2009 in Cinema - "Jaws" | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Frida Kahlo Uterus Plushie, complete with uni-brow and an unyielding creative presence. Only $55

- - - - - -

Not a very impressive sale

- - - - - - -

I’ll be gone, by Korb

- - - - - - -

Hyperrealistic Sculptures