Actor Brad Pitt shows his versatility with these artful black-and-white shots of his wife Angelina Jolie that he took at the request of W Magazine. Some photos are of Angelina alone, showcasing her renowned beauty, and some are intimate family shots of Angelina and her children. As with all black-and-white photographs, the distraction of color is stripped away, allowing for the essential shapes, textures, shadows and contours to stand out.

Jolie, known for speaking honestly and sometimes bluntly, gives high marks to her husband's photography. She told W, 

I love his photography. Some people have a hobby, and they find the quickest way to it and are very pleased with the outcome right away. But he’s someone who will really study the camera—he’ll get the most complicated one and really understand the science behind it. And he’s very critical of his own work. I’ll see a photograph and think it’s amazing, but he’ll see all the different reasons why it can be better, and he’ll work very, very hard to improve it.”

See the entire collection of Brad Pitt's photography of his wife and family for W Magazine here.

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Most Labrador retrievers will go to any length to get a ball that's thrown to them, even if one throws the ball all day long. Stella is no different. But this playful pup obviously loves the autumn twist of having the ball thrown into a big pile of leaves. If only dogs could rake and bag them as well as they scatter them! Via Laughing Squid

According to chef, author and television personality Anthony Bourdain, he has spent "about 250 days a year, for nearly the past decade" traveling. If you know much about Bourdain, you know that plenty of his destinations are not luxurious. The blunt, no-nonsense adventurer is familiar with travel that's rough around the edges, and he's developed certain procedures over the years. He shares some of these in the article linked below. For instance,

"In my carry-on, I'll have a notebook, yellow legal pads, good headphones. Imodium is important. The necessity for Imodium will probably present itself, and you don't want to be caught without it. I always carry a scrunchy lightweight down jacket; it can be a pillow if I need to sleep on a floor. And the iPad is essential. I load it up with books to be read, videos, films, games, apps, because I'm assuming there will be downtime. You can't count on good films on an airplane."

Read more about Bourdain's travel habits and necessities at Esquire.  

Image via Esquire 

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"She never mentioned anything... but I started to notice a pattern. Six runs a week. A long run every weekend... suddenly it just hit me: she was going to be the first person to run a marathon without telling anyone about it."

Her husband's mind was blown. How could it be possible for anyone to run a marathon without telling anyone? Watch this fascinating and inspiring footage to understand how this could ever happen. Via Laughing Squid

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In this, the latest episode of the animated series Blank on Blank, Bill Murray talks acting obnoxious and other feelimgs and impulses in this interview with journalist T.J. English. Via Laughing Squid

Gustaf III Airport, Saint Barthélemy | Image: Interesting Engineering

"They say" the odds of dying in a plane crash are minute. Usually a comparison is made to deaths in car accidents, which are much more likely. Supposedly the odds of dying in a plane crash are one in eleven million. That statistic should at least somewhat ease the nerves of anxious flyers. That is, unless they happen to be flying in or out of the airports shown here. Each of them are on a list of the top ten most dangerous airports, and simply seeing pictures of each explains most of the reasons why.

One example, pictured above, is the Gustaf III Airport, located on the French island of Saint Barthelemy in the Carribean. With an area of only 9.7 square miles, the entire surface of St. Bart leaves not much room for any type of mechanical error. Its airport, located mainly on the slope of a hill, allows only for small aircraft that carry up to 20 passengers. 

Follow this link to see photos of nine other airports considered by this article to be the world's most dangerous.

The $3,999 Kiss Casket | Image: Brand Memorials

What crazy item might you be willing to buy if it had your favorite band's name attached to it? Or are you a hardliner who would cross the band off of your favorites list for selling their name in exchange for cheesy merch money? There are a ton of Internet salespeople who hope you're not of the latter category. They're betting on the "fool and his money are soon parted" contingent.

Want to see more of the strange side of band merchandise? Check out the things for sale highlighted by this article. 


U2 "Achtung Baby" Condoms | Image: Ebay

Joan Crawford, 1928 | Image:  George Grantham Bain collection / Library of Congress

The last words of famous people are of great interest to the public, as well as often hotly debated. In some cases, published reports vary. The linked collection of celebrities' last words is no exception. There, John Lennon's reported last words differ from this account by Eddie Dezeen, the latter of which is likely more accurate, since it's based on words Lennon supposedly spoke to paramedics in the ambulance. The words ascribed to Walt Disney have also been a source of contention, a story on which this article elaborates.

Maybe in the end, the words uttered during the final firing of the brain's synapses before death are given more weight and meaning than they should. Even so, it's likely that people will always be curious. See the linked collection of last words, including Bob Marley, Joe DiMaggio, Malcolm X, James Dean, Joan Crawford and others at Vintage Everyday.

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At San Francisco's California Academy of Sciences, the biologists at Steinhart Aquarium say that the octopuses there are at a level of intelligence that requires their brains to get a workout in order for them to be happy and fulfilled. This footage shows the ways trainers keep the animals challenged, using food-based toys, puzzles and other stimuli. Via Gizmodo

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Romania's Enigma Café, with its impressive kinetic scuptures, is the design of The 6th Sense Interiors. Romanian designers Alexandru Tohotan and Zoltan Zelenyak, who also created The Submarine and Joben Bistro have, with this design, put forth something that's been creating worldwide buzz since pictures of it were first posted on Facebook.

The café features a giant moving clock, rotating wheels, metallic flowers opening up on the ceiling, a moving bird and a robot reminiscent of Giger.

Via Bored Panda | Images: The 6th Sense Interiors
 

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The Lincoln Park Zoo's first-ever red panda cubs, male and female Clark and Addison, have matured enough to be let loose in their outdoor exhibit and meet their adoring public. Born on June 26, the cubs have spent the last several months bonding with their mother Leafa. They have made lots of developmental progress, and the zoo staff reports that they are healthy, active and curious. 

Read more about the breed and see additional pictures of Addison and Clark at Zooborns. 

Jean Harlow | Image: Celebrities Stars

You Must Remember This is a podcast that features stories about old Hollywood. Each episode is being excerpted on Slate. The following is a portion of their story on the legendary blond bombshell Jean Harlow, whose star burned bright until she died at the young age of 26.

"'Jean Harlow' was Harlean Carpenter’s mother’s name. The first Jean Harlow had been a great beauty who dreamed of her own movie stardom. In September 1927, Harlean married Chuck McGrew, an orphan and heir to a small fortune, and shortly thereafter he turned 21 and received the first six-figure chunk of his trust fund. With no need to work, Harlean and her husband mostly just drank. They moved into a new house in Beverly Hills, where Harlean began hosting the luncheons and teas typical of her society set. A guest at one of these day parties was a would-be actress named Rosalie Roy. At the end of the afternoon, Rosalie announced she had to head out to an appointment on the Fox lot, and Harlean offered to give Rosalie a ride.

While her friend was in the meeting, Harlean stood by her car waiting, so that she could give Rosalie a ride home when she was done. Three Fox executives walking across the lot spotted this gorgeous blonde and started talking to her. When Harlean told these men that she wasn’t an actress, and in fact had never really even thought about acting, they thought she was playing hard to get—what gorgeous, glamorous girl hanging out on Hollywood studio lot in 1928 didn’t want to be a movie star? Harlean perhaps was playing hard to get in one sense: She told the people at Fox her name was Jean Harlow. When the phone rang a few days later with an offer for work for a “Miss Harlow,” Harlean first told the caller they had the wrong number—she forgot that “Miss Harlow” was her.

Harlean still had no real ambitions, but when her mother, the original Jean Harlow, got wind of what was going on, she stepped into action to manage “the Baby’s” career, transferring all of her own thwarted ambitions onto this new Jean. Fueled by her mother’s aggression, in just a couple of months Harlean signed a contract with producer Hal Roach, and soon she started appearing in Laurel and Hardy shorts. Within a few months, around her 18th birthday, Harlean asked to be released from her contract, because her husband didn’t want her to be an actress. But just two months later, Harlean left that husband, Chuck McGrew. Both of these things seem to have been done at the insistence of Mother Jean, who believed that you didn’t settle for the first opportunity, personal or professional, that came around. She believed her daughter needed to shake off what she already had in order to get more.

Without a rich husband, Harlean needed movie work in order to support herself. She struggled for months, until she was cast in a small part in the Clara Bow film The Saturday Night Kid. Clara Bow was Paramount’s reigning sex symbol of the 1920s, but she was having trouble transitioning to talkies. She was also getting older, and heavier, and when Harlean arrived on set in a black crochet dress which made it very apparent that she did not believe in underwear, Bow was candid about her insecurities, reportedly saying, “Who’s gonna see me nexta her?”

Continue reading the excerpt, see video clips and get a link to the podcast here.  

Seven-year-old Evan Leversage of St. George, Ontario has been courageously fighting brain cancer for the majority of his life. After five years of living with the disease, Evan's brain tumor has been recently determined to have increased in size. Medical professionals have told his parents that he could be gone by the year's end.

Once they received that heartbreaking prognosis, Evan's parents decided to gather their family and celebrate Christmas on October 24th. But the extended family did not stop there. They circulated flyers, created a Facebook event page and started a crowdfunding campaign to allow the entire town to celebrate Christmas early with Evan and his family. Thus far they've raised $21,000. Evan's mother told the CBC, 

"You look out our front window, the entire street is lit up. Everywhere you look it's Christmas. It's more than I could have imagined. When Evan looks out his window, the backyard is decorated and there's a sign saying 'Merry Christmas.'"

See additional pictures and read more on this touching story at the National Post.  

 Via My Modern Met | Images: Peter Power


 

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This sneaky Russian kitty was caught by his human on camera repeatedly attempting (and then finally succeeding in) stealing a stuffed animal tiger. Who can blame him? As it turned out, all he wanted was another cat friend with whom to wrestle. Awww! Via Tastefully Offensive

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Everyone has their own idea of what is scary when it comes to horror on film. Some people need to see violence, blood and guts to get their blood pumping. Others like a good psychological thriller. Some like realism; a tale of a murderous stalker, for instance, that could actually happen. Some like tales of the supernatural that require a fair amount of suspension of disbelief.

Whatever your likes and dislikes when it comes to scary movies, it's likely that you'll appreciate one or more of these horror shorts. Most are fairly new, having been made in the last couple of years. The oldest dates back to 2007. Each are watchable in under five minutes.

It's always interesting to ascertain how (or if) the filmmaker is able to grab the attention of (let alone, scare) the viewer in such a short time. What psychological "tricks" are employed? How are the shots accomplished in order to make the most of the film moment?

Watch all ten horror shorts here. (Some contain graphic violence and gore and use NSFW language.)