One amusing side effect of actors spending long hours together while waiting on sets in their down time is that they occasionally become familiar with each other's voice inflection and mannerisms. Being actors, with (hopefully) an existing flair for imitating fellow humans, many become adept at impersonating each other.
Some actors have more of a talent for it than others — for instance, Kevin Spacey is widely acknowledged to be great at practically flawless imitations. But who knew that Bradley Cooper could do a few pretty good ones? His Owen Wilson is good. His Walken isn't bad either. See all seventeen imitations by various actors at Esquire.
Lisa Marcus's Blog Posts
Marilyn Monroe in a still from The Misfits, 1960 | Image: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
In 1960, during the filming of Marilyn Monroe's last completed film, The Misfits, her life began to fall apart. Monroe's husband at the time, playwright Arthur Miller, had written the screenplay, which was about a troubled woman in love with an older man. By all accounts, the story was Miller's interpretation of his and Monroe's marriage.
The shoot, filmed in the Nevada desert at temperatures regularly over 100 degrees, was punishing. Monroe watched helplessly as Miller, on set, fell in love with photographer Inge Morath. Mercurial, alcoholic film director John Huston spent most of the time drunk. Clark Gable, Marilyn's costar, died of a heart attack only a week after filming ended. In this horrific set of circumstances, Monroe's remaining stability crumbled and she increasingly abused prescription drugs. In November of 1960, Arthur Miller filed for divorce.
By the beginning of 1961, a psychiatrist Monroe had seen committed her to Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic in New York. What Monroe believed would be a few days rest turned into being locked in a padded cell against her will. Until she was released against the staff's direction with the intervention of former husband Joe DiMaggio, the actress felt trapped and terrified. Read Monroe's six-page letter to another psychiatrist, penned during her psych ward stay, at Letters of Note. Via Open Culture
In this, the thirty-sixth episode of Anglophenia, host Kate Arnell presents some fascinating facts about Cockney rhyming slang. How did it come into existence?
"It’s not 100 percent known how cockney rhyming slang — the replacement of a common word with a rhyming phrase — came about, but it’s typically thought that the tricky word play was a type of code amongst groups of people in 19th century London who wanted to speak to each other without others being able to understand (for instance, street merchants who were haggling with customers). The “tricky” part is, in almost all cases, the omission of the secondary rhyming word, making the origin and meaning of the phrase unknown."
Tricky indeed! But very interesting in that it began as sort of a secret language or code, particularly given that some non-Brit English speakers claim to this day to have trouble deciphering it at times. Via Laughing Squid
The Zoological Center of Tel Aviv-Ramat Gan in Israel is home to the lovely and rare adult female sand cat shown above, named Rotem. After Rotem's partner Sela died approximately a year ago, a worldwide search was launched by zoo staff to find another mate for her. Rotem's match, three-year-old male Kalahari, was found in Sweden.
Despite the fact that, at first, male and female sand cats aren't typically left unsupervised in the same enclosure due to possible fighting, when a friendship looked likely between Kalahari and Rotem, the zoo staff decided to let them live together. It was a decision that proved fruitful for all.
Three weeks ago, the zookeepers arrived at the Safari to find three tiny kittens in a burrow in the enclosure. Rotem had already bonded with and was actively caring for her babies. Ever since they were born, the kittens have remained close to their mother. Until recently, Rotem had hidden them under her body; they are just now getting a peek at their new world.
Any sand cat births worldwide are cause for conservationists to celebrate, as the species is classified as “Near Threatened” on the IUCN Red List. Only 200 sand cats exist in European zoos, and constant attempts are made to increase their numbers.
Sand cats are native to the border between Israel and Jordan and the area further east. Additional subspecies can be found in North Africa and Saudi Arabia.
See more gorgeous pictures of Rotem and Kalahari's new family at Zooborns.
Images: Tibor Jager
Bluebottle Maggot
Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) allows for the photographing of objects the details of which can't be observed with the naked eye. The FEI corporation, among other things, manufactures electron microscopes and runs a competition each year to find the best SEM images.
This excellent grouping of 15 photos is a selection of SEM photographs of insects and arachnids. Visit the link to see more photos like the one above, which makes a maggot look like something out of a Tim Burton movie.
For more great SEM shots, the range of which extends far beyond the scope of insects, visit the FEI corporation's Flicker account.
A two-year-old black Labrador retriever named Bear is the hero technically responsible for the arrest of Subway spokesman Jared Fogle for possession of illegal pornography, according to NBC News.
The first search of Fogle's house turned up nothing, though a number of evidence trails led authorities to believe that he possessed illegal materials. At that time, the police brought Bear into the search. The lab, one of only five in the U.S. trained to do so, is able to sniff out electronic data devices. Bear found Fogle's hidden flash drive, and Fogle was subsequently arrested.
Bear's trainer Todd Jordan said,
"Much the way other dogs can pick up the scent of a fugitive or a cache of cocaine, Bear can smell the components of electronic media, even a micro-card as small as a fingernail that a suspect could easily hide. Labs are the best on this. They’ll do anything to please their owner.”
Read more on this story at NBC News.
Image: Burger King
Burger King is not messing around: they took out full-page ads in The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune this morning to publicly float an idea to McDonald’s. The proposal? Open a store at a halfway point between Burger King headquarters in Miami and McDonald's headquarters in Chicago (suggested location: Atlanta) to sell their hybrid hamburger concept “The McWhopper.”
Sales of this new burger — a combination of the Whopper and the Big Mac — would begin on September 21, the United Nations-designated "International Day of Peace." Burger King has proposed that all proceeds go to the nonprofit Peace One Day. Burger King launched McWhopper.com to further guilt-trip McDonald's into accepting, which states,
"Peace One Day is a non-profit organization campaigning to make Peace Day September 21st an annual day of global unity. They have a powerful rallying call ‘who would you make peace with?’ which inspired us to lead by example and extend an olive branch of our own. We’d like to propose a one-off collaboration between Burger King and McDonald’s to create something special – something that gets the world talking about Peace Day."
So far, McDonald’s has declined to comment. See a video Burger King created about the project below, and read more about the McWhopper proposal here.
Yindee, a baby elephant who lives at the Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai, Thailand, warmed up to a canine friend who was interested in romping around with him in the spirit of playtime. With his elders looking on, Yindee is able to safely experiment with leisure encounters of the canine kind, and the two oddly matched playmates seem to enjoy each other. Via Laughing Squid
This footage by Mediated Matter Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology illustrates their first transparent glass 3-D printer. Called G3DP (Glass 3D Printing), the printer has dual heated chambers. The upper chamber, a “Kiln Cartridge,” operates at 1900°F; the lower chamber heats then cools to soften the glass. Watching the process is both soothing and satisfying. Via Gizmodo
Image: Jorfer
With the recent New York Times article regarding Amazon's poor treatment of its employees, much talk about corporate workplace environments has taken place of late. Comparisons of policies are being made and former and current employees are telling horror stories. Certainly, Amazon isn't the company with the worst ever policies concerning employees; there are other corporations that are major offenders as well.
The article linked below lists ten companies that rival or even surpass Amazon in their bad treatment of the workforce they employ. One example the writer cites is Sears, backing up his claims with the following terrifying tale:
"In 2003, horrendous working conditions were discovered in a Samoan factory used for outsourcing by Sears and JC Penney. Workers (mostly from Vietnam and China) were taken to the factory at a cost that left them deeply in debt. They also had their pay cut on the slightest provocation and received about $500 for nine months’ work. Food was so scarce that 251 people had to subsist off a single 1-kilogram (2 lb) chicken at mealtimes. When workers complained, management shut off the electricity, making temperatures soar to dangerous levels.
Worst of all, the investigation found that torture had been used to keep workers in line. In November 2000, the factory owner authorized management to make an example of a Vietnamese seamstress. In front of her coworkers, she was dragged from her workstation and had her eye gouged out with a plastic pipe.
When the revelations broke, JC Penney announced that it would financially compensate those involved. Sears refused to give them a single penny."
Read more stories alleging awful corporate treatment of employees here.
Image: Mehgan Murphy, Smithsonian's National Zoo
The black-footed ferret litter shown above isn't just cute and cuddly; it also represents great strides in bringing the species back from extinction. Black-footed ferret populations drastically diminished in the 20th century due to the Great Plains being converted for agricultural purposes. At that time, prairie dogs – the ferrets’ primary food source – were eradicated.
Black-footed ferrets were considered extinct until a small population of nine was discovered in South Dakota in 1964. The last ferret in captivity died in 1979, and the species was again thought to be wiped out until a group of 18 black-footed ferrets was discovered living in Wyoming in 1981. At that point, the species was labeled "critically endangered." Since then, however, wildlife conservationists have increased the numbers of the species to more than 2,600 in the wild.
This summer, a breakthrough by the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute involving artificial insemination from cryopreserved samples further increased and will continue to grow the number of black-footed ferrets.
Don't miss the adorable video below, and see additional photos and read specifics about the process of artificial insemination to increase the numbers in the species at Zooborns.
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates | Image: Christophe Viseux
Destination weddings are rare celebrations compared with traditional weddings in that the couple to be married decides that the location is one of the most important elements of the ceremony. They must be satisfied with leaving to chance how many of their invited guests are able to travel to the event. But one thing is certain: an exotic destination wedding makes for some incredible wedding photos, as these shots attest.
The photographs shown here are a small sample of "The 2015 Best of the Best Destination Photography Collection," as selected by Junebug Weddings. If you're interested in destination weddings or are a travel enthusiast, checking out all 50 of these gorgeous captures is well worth a few minutes of your time. Via My Modern Met
Mission Beach, Australia | Image: Matthew Evans
Himalayas, Nepal | Image: Charleton Churchill
Dubai, United Arab Emirates | Image: Oscar Castro
Cameron's father's Ferrari in Ferris Bueller's Day Off | Image: Paramount Pictures
It's hard to believe that in 2016, the John Hughes classic Ferris Bueller's Day Off will be thirty years old! Now that I've hit you with that, I'll try to distract you from feeling ancient by presenting these fun facts about the film. For instance, it could have been quite the different animal if other actors reportedly considered for and/or offered roles in it had come to fruition:
"Molly Ringwald really wanted the role of Sloan, but Hughes didn’t think that the role was big enough for her. Anthony Michael Hall is convinced that Hughes wrote the part of Ferris for him and that a falling out between the two affected that, despite Hughes saying that Matthew Broderick was his first choice for the role from the beginning. Emilio Estevez also turned down the role of Cameron."
Read more Ferris Bueller's Day Off trivia here.
Nikai, a wolf pup at the Wolf Conservation Center in Salem, New York, is seen here in this footage being taught by Faye the Border Collie in the ways of playing tug of war with squeaky toys. Though it appears that Nikai is a bit stronger than Faye and has some pretty large paws to grow into, this video seems to capture the pair's common traits more than their differences. Via Viral Nova
Horror #1: Nap Rooms Often Occupied
At this point most of us have read articles concerning the incredble incentives that some large corporations (particularly those in the tech field) provide on site for their employees. If it's some fun way to waste time on break, chances are it can be found in the headquarters of such corporate environments.
This tongue-in-cheek series by The Cooper Review presents the terrifying downsides of such cushy perks. Think you have it bad at work? Just feast your eyes on some of these workplace dilemmas. Via Design Taxi
Horror #7: Lack of Variety in the Free Desserts Selection
Email This Post to a Friend