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Courtney Love Says Kurt Cobain Biopic To Go Into Production Within Next Year

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In an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Courtney Love said that the biopic focusing on her late husband and Nirvana frontman, Kurt Cobain, will go into production within the next year. Love told the outlet that she will be involved in the casting and production processes, as well as her daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, and Nirvana members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic. The role of Cobain has yet to be cast.

“CAA (Creative Artists Agency) directly sent me actors’ (demo) reels,” Love told Philippine Daily Inquirer. “That was really tough because these boys are so pretty, so cute. I won’t name names because I don’t want to jinx it for anyone but these are 25-year-olds who are blond, gorgeous and the new Brad Pitts. There’s a ton of those. Some are really good actors, not just pretty faces. I don’t want to be the person who makes that decision. Let’s leave that to the agents; I have great agents now. But I will have a say in it.”

In the past, actors like Ryan Gosling, Robert Pattinson, Ewan McGregor and Jared Leto have been mentioned as possible onscreen incarnations of Cobain. Love has also discussed a documentary about Cobain, which is attached to Brett Morgen, famous for "The Kid Stays in the Picture," as well as the possibility of a Cobain-inspired musical.

'Mad Max: Fury Road' Trailer Places Tom Hardy And Charlize Theron In The Beserk

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The trailer for "Mad Max: Fury Road" had all of Comic-Con buzzing, and now the three-minute clip has the Internet buzzing. It does not disappoint the hype.

Switching Tom Hardy in place of Mel Gibson, director George Miller brings a "new interpretation" to his own franchise reboot. "Fury Road" picks up after the initial series opener, and is described by Miller as "almost a continuous chase."

"Of course it's based on the same character that they'll play, the lone warrior in the wasteland disengaged from the rest of the world," Miller said in a press conference. "But naturally Tom brings his Tom Hardy-ness to it, and the story is different to some degree. The character is different to some degree."

Charlize Theron stars with Hardy in the film, along with Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Nathan Jones, Zoe Kravitz, Riley Keough, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. Watch the terrifying trailer above. The movie is scheduled to release on May 15, 2015.

Childish Gambino Calls Out Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Schoolboy Q During Freestyle

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During a performance in Sydney, Australia this past weekend, Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino, unleashed a fierce freestyle, calling out some of hip-hop's biggest names as he crowned himself "the best rapper."

“I’m the best rapper, definitely top five," Gambino rapped. "If these other rappers think they’re better, they’re fucking not alive. I cut their head off, that’s every rapper living. That’s Kendrick. That’s Drake. That’s Schoolboy. That’s everyone. I don’t give a fuck, I’ll kill n----s.”

However, Gambino had a little extra to say about Drake, rapping, “This n---- think he Drake. Nah I ain’t Drake. I sing better, I do better, my shit wetter.”

While there's no explanation as to why Gambino specifically called out Drake, Kendrick Lamar and Schoolboy Q, our guess would be it was all in good fun. Watch the fan-shot videos below.



10 Undiscovered Movies To Stream Right Now

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Here are 10 easy-to-miss movies from the last decade that happen to be available for instant streaming. Take a breather from excessively loud sequels and binge-watch these quieter alternatives accordingly. (Also, if you fall in love with Zoe Kazan in "The Pretty One" go see "What If." She's a gem.)

"Stand Clear of the Closing Doors" (2014)
Where To Watch: iTunes



"The Pretty One" (2013)
Where To Watch: Amazon



"In a World" (2013)
Where To Watch: Amazon



"Paradise" (2013)
Where To Watch: Netflix



"The Kings of Summer" (2013)
Where To Watch: Amazon



"The Motel Life" (2012)
Where To Watch: Vimeo



"Celeste & Jesse Forever" (2012)
Where To Watch: Amazon



"Hello I Must Be Going" (2012)
Where To Watch: iTunes



"Cairo Time" (2009)
Where To Watch: Netflix



"Ira & Abby' (2006)
Where To Watch: Netflix

A GoPro On A Spinning Car Wheel Makes For A Strangely Hypnotic Video

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Some day, they will say that GoPros are soooo 2014. Until then, we indulge in visions of the world through tiny cameras that can go nearly anywhere. Below, a steering wheel's point of view, courtesy Ryan Fox. The University of Wisconsin student attached a camera to his car wheel while driving in the city one night. He used only duct tape, and kept a pace of 45 mph. The kaleidoscopic results -- which carry a whiff of 1980s sci-fi special effects -- make for one of the simplest and best GoPro videos out there.

Sketch Three: Avant-Garde (R.P.M. 2) from Ryan Fox on Vimeo.

European Museums Straining Under Weight of Popularity

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PARIS — One cloudy afternoon this month, the line to enter the Louvre stretched around the entrance pyramid, across one long courtyard and into the next. Inside the museum, a crowd more than a dozen deep faced the “Mona Lisa,” most taking cellphone pictures and selfies. Near the “Winged Victory of Samothrace,” Jean-Michel Borda, visiting from Madrid, paused amid the crush. “It’s like the Métro early in the morning,” he said.

It is the height of summer, and millions of visitors are flocking to the Louvre — the busiest art museum in the world, with 9.3 million visitors last year — and to other great museums across Europe. Every year the numbers grow as new middle classes emerge, especially in Asia and Eastern Europe. Last summer the British Museum had record attendance, and for 2013 as a whole it had 6.7 million visitors , making it the second-most visited museum in the world. Attendance at the Uffizi in Florence for the first half of the year is up almost 5 percent over last year.

Martha Stewart Weighs In On Her Friendship With Blake Lively

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Blake Lively gushes about her "idol" Martha Stewart in the August issue of Vogue, saying, "I’ve only ever found her to be completely generous and kind. She’s one of those people who connect people with each other. She’s there for you.”

Like when Lively's wedding to Ryan Reynolds was turning into a disaster. The chef and businesswoman "sent her team down to save us," Lively explains, adding, "She called her friends who have a home in South Carolina and set us up at the most amazing getaway. This is the day of our wedding!”

So, how did Lively, 26, and Stewart, 72, become such close pals? "She moved into my neighborhood a couple of years ago with Ryan -- before they got married they bought a house right around the corner from my house. And they started to come over, not to borrow sugar, but just as friends," Stewart told HuffPost Entertainment during the Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival in New Jersey at Caesars Hotel and Casino on July 26. As the lifestyle icon explained, the couple eventually moved to "another place which is more private," but still nearby.

"They're very friendly, very nice people," she added. "In a way, kind of shy -- not shy on the screen, at all, if you've seen any of Blake's movies -- but very shy in person. But she's a baker and a homemaker and now she's starting her own blog [Preserve] ... I haven't seen it yet."

As for what Stewart thinks about Lively becoming "the next Martha Stewart," the mother-of-all-how-to's said, matter of factly, "Let her try."

"I don't mean that facetiously!" she continued, laughing off the comment. "I mean, it's stupid, she could be an actress! Why would you want to be me if you could be an actress? I just did a movie yesterday, though -- I can't even tell you about it -- but I want to be Blake Lively," she joked.

And just like Lively, Stewart has a thing for the one-and-only, Beyonce.

"Every day I get starstruck by somebody or something," she said. "It's fun to admire and to learn from people who are better at everything than you are, so I have many heroes I worship, like Derek Jeter -- I can't play baseball like Derek Jeter! And Beyonce -- I certainly can't dance and sing like Beyonce!"

'The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies' Teaser Trailer Has Arrived

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"The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" dominated a large portion of Warner Bros.' Saturday afternoon Comic-Con panel, but for those who weren't lucky enough to attend the presentation, there's this: a first teaser for "The Battle of the Five Armies," director Peter Jackson's final installment in his second Middle-earth trilogy. Watch the teaser trailer below; "The Battle of the Five Armies" is out on Dec. 17.


Patti Smith Brings An Artsy Bed To Rockaway Beach

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You know summer in New York has officially arrived when Klaus Biesenbach starts rolling out the Instagrams.



Sunday, July 27, the social media savvy MoMA curator led fellow art lovers on an InstaMeet through his MoMA PS1 exhibition at the Rockaway Artists Gallery in Fort Tilden, aptly titled "Rockaway!" Biesenbach curated the exhibition in collaboration with Rockaway resident and punk legend Patti Smith, who supplied work for the installation alongside artists incluing Adrian Villar Rojas and Janet Cardiff.

Smith's piece was the centerpiece of the show -- a luxurious bed amidst the remnants of a long forsaken building. As the MoMA project page describes: "Having witnessed personal belongings of Rockaway residents being destroyed and washed away during Sandy, Smith will install a gilded four-post bed with pure white linens in a long-abandoned building that lacks windows and parts of its roof. The bed will wear down physically, yet remain in place, a symbol of courage and resilience." Her photographs of artists' dearest objects like Robert Mapplethorpe’s slippers and Frida Kahlo's corset were also on view.

The exhibition is open to the public and runs until September 1, 2014. Many in attendance tagged their Instagram uploads #rockaway1. The mix of foggy beach, crumbling graffiti, diaphanous canopy beds and Klaus Biesenbach's selfie face is just too good. Take a look for yourself below and learn more about InstaMeets here.






























A Totally Definitive Ranking Of Fonts

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Readers live in a world of words, which we like to think of as a world of pure intellect and abstract thought. But books aren't just the concepts and stories that they contain -- they're carefully designed objects. Even ebooks and online articles contain elements of visual design that influence our reading experience. And the most important design element? The font.

Every typed word we read is packaged in a font. The font feels inseparable from the words we're reading but is the result of an entirely separate process of carefully perfected design. Without Helvetica, Times New Roman and Comic Sans, the reading experience wouldn't have subtle variations in visual aesthetic that allow both signboards and footnotes to be presented in a form that maximizes the ease and pleasure of reading.

As readers who are unthinkingly surrounded by fonts every day, we should take time to recognize and celebrate these marvels of design. And, more importantly, to rank them. Which is the best font? Which one makes us want to claw our eyes out as we read? Here, without further ado, is a highly subjective ranking of common and/or notorious fonts, listed from Most Outstanding to Most Undesirable:




2014-07-28-garamond.jpg

Garamond is so obviously the best font that it would be offensive to try to justify it. It's timeless, elegant, understated and has every detail just right. Long live Garamond, greatest of all the fonts!


2014-07-28-baskerville1.jpg

Possesses a modicum of Garamond’s class and refinement, plus high marks for the elegant capital Q. What a long tail it has!


2014-07-28-helvetica.jpg

We wouldn’t want to see Helvetica everywhere; a nice serif really does ease the process of reading through a chunk of text. That said, few fonts can make a sign or logo as cleanly bold as Helvetica.


2014-07-28-futura1.jpg

You may recognize this font from Wes Anderson films. If you like Wes Anderson films, you probably think this font is well-formed, slightly quirky, and a lovely addition to any film. If you don’t like Wes Anderson films, you probably think it’s twee and stupid. We like Wes Anderson films.


2014-07-28-timesnewroman.jpg

What would we do without the one font that high school teachers and college professors alike demand we use in all of our essay assignments? It’s unthinkable.


2014-07-28-georgia.jpg

Really just a not-as-good Garamond, but still pretty good.


2014-07-28-bauhaus93.jpg

Brash, bold, a little funky: Bauhaus is the statement piece of the font world.


2014-07-28-bigcaslon.jpg

A bit stodgy and old-fashioned -- this typeface family dates back to the 18th century, after all -- but with a hint of vintage charm.


2014-07-28-arial.jpg

It's not that there's anything wrong with Arial, per se, but there isn't much to it either. A solid middle-of-the-pack font.


2014-07-28-courier.jpg

Unless you're using a typewriter (while sipping a latté and adjusting your horn-rimmed vintage glasses), why would you want your text to have the ill-spaced, clunky aesthetic of a typewritten page?


2014-07-28-applechancery.jpg

It's trying to be graceful and dainty, but slips into cheesy and clunky.


2014-07-28-calibri.jpg

Every time we open Microsoft Word now, our eyes are assaulted by the sight of Calibri, which replaced Times New Roman as the default font in 2007. Why?? Why would they do that? Listen, Calibri, you’re all right, but you're not quite ready for prime time yet. Filling the shoes of a seasoned font like Times New Roman is no job for newbies.


2014-07-28-papyrus.jpg

If you’re in fifth grade and doing some sort of school project that involves staining paper with tea leaves to make it look like an ancient scroll, using Papyrus may be acceptable. Otherwise… no.


2014-07-28-wingdings.jpg

Why does Wingdings exist? Why does art exist? Wingdings, while almost never useful, salvage a few spots on the ranking through their sheer bravado and creative initiative.


2014-07-28-comicsans.jpg

Unlike Wingdings, Comic Sans contains traditional English language letters with which recognizable words can be formed. Also unlike Wingdings, there's never a good reason to use this font. Comic Sans strives for whimsy but fails utterly. The banal goofiness of Comic Sans is the scourge of homemade websites and interoffice emails announcing the yearly employee barbecue.


2014-07-28-curlzmt.jpg

An unlikely last-place finisher: Curlz MT beats out Comic Sans to be crowned the worst font of all. Despite Comic Sans’s time-honored position as the whipping boy of font design, there’s no getting around the fact that cheesy curlicues are the worst possible thing to have in a font.

LOOK: Man On Segway Walks Hipster On Leash

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It's like, art, you guys.

Over the weekend, two men were spotted strolling along the streets of Brooklyn, New York, one man riding a Segway scooter and walking a... uh, hipster, we guess.

A tipster alerted The Huffington Post -- and apparently Gawker, among others -- of the bizarre scene, saying simply:

"Disgusting, this whole hipster culture is just flagrant attention whoring," the e-mail read.

We aren't disagreeing.

The "art performance" was apparently the work of Chinese artist Guo O. Dong, who also has a pretty interesting website, and is hoping to tour more of the city with his "Hipster On a Leash" piece.

Look, we get it, haters gonna hate and all that. But we're totally cool with going back to flash mobs and the Harlem Shake if it means burying this in the ground for the rest of eternity.

ohok




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This All-Male A Cappella Group's Hips Don't Lie, And Shakira Loves Them For It

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Out Of The Blue, an all-male student a cappella group, chose to harmonize -- and swish their hips -- to a medley of Shakira songs for their latest video and charity single. Clad in Oxford University blue, their talent is on full display as they cycle through "Hips Don't Lie," "Whenever, Wherever," and "Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)."

Despite their "macho exterior," the guys confess on their website to having "a soft spot for giving [their] hips a little exercise." Members not-so-secretly harbor love for Zumba and belly dancing.

And, as luck would have it, their passion for physical and vocal performance paid off. Even Shakira's a fan.

"Hey @ootboxford, we LOVE your a capella Shak medley!" she tweeted Wednesday.
That's a pretty powerful commendation coming from the singer herself.

To top it all off, proceeds from the sale of the medley will benefit the Helen and Douglas House, an Oxford children's hospice currently undergoing a costly renovation.

Which means we get a guilt-free pass to humming this under our breath for the rest of the day.

Teens Are Totally Weirded Out By 'Weird Al' Yankovic

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If you've ever enjoyed a parody video on YouTube, you may owe 'Weird Al' Yankovic a thank you.

The musician was one of the first artists to ever make a career out of parodying other musicians' work. Years later, the trend of parody videos caught on thanks to YouTube and other video content channels, but 'Weird Al' deserves some credit for kicking things off.

In the most recent installment of The Fine Bros "teens react" series, a group of teenagers watched 'Weird Al' Yankovic videos, both old and new.

"Can we replace Iggy Azalea with 'Weird Al'?" One asked upon seeing Yankovic's parody of "Fancy."

But some kids were totally baffled by the star's take on today's pop hits.

"I have no idea who he is," one teen said.

Hilariously, the group was only reacting to some of 'Weird Al''s most recent work. You would probably be even more confused (and weirded out) if you came across some of his classic earlier videos, which you can check out here.

There Are Lap Dances At Gathering Of The Juggalos

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The days are long, the sun is scorching and that means ...

It's time for the Gathering of the Juggalos!

For some, that means hearing some of their favorite bands. For others, it's a quick and painless way to be labeled a gang member by the FBI for some reason. For this guy, it means getting a big ol' lap dance.

"THE IMAGE BELOW IS OF A CLOTHED LAP DANCE, CLICK TO REVEAL"




TMZ spotted this Instagram post from Three 6 Mafia's DJ Paul showing just one of the many noteworthy and thrilling things that takes place during this meeting of Insane Clown Posse fans.

For more on exactly what is going on here, let's go to the Riverfront Times:

The man's name is Big LA. He is here at the Gathering of the Juggalos with Mike Busey (and the "Busey Beauties"), an Orlando-based full-service party organization headed up by the nephew of celebrated actor and legendary madman Gary Busey. Together, Busey, Big LA and their beauties have been operating something of an outdoor strip club here on the grounds.


You get a free clothed lap dance with every T-shirt.

But, very importantly, these are not the only lap dances to go down at the G o' G's.

Last year, the Village Voice covered the story of a teen from the Make a Wish Foundation who got a lap dance at the Illinois festival.

Here's the whole clip from DJ Paul



Hat tip: Gawker

9 'Garden State' Charts That Remind You To Keep Exploring The Infinite Abyss

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"Garden State," that ode to feelings and ending adolescence, came out 10 years ago on July 28. In honor of this anniversary, here are some charts to help you remember just how life-changing this movie was. We suggest you look at them while screaming into an abyss -- or listening to the soundtrack, because it's still amazing even a decade later.










Turns Out Booking R. Kelly To Play Your Music Festival Is Bad For Business

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An Ohio music festival has found itself in a difficult position on the heels of its booking of controversial R&B singer R. Kelly as one of its headliners.

The Fashion Meets Music Festival, slated for Aug. 29-31 in Columbus, Ohio, has run into a number of troubles since they announced last month that Kelly would be playing their inaugural fest alongside jam band O.A.R. and Destiny's Child alum Michelle Williams, among others.

Since then, two Ohio-based bands -- Damn the Witch Siren and Saintseneca -- have dropped out of the lineup since Kelly's booking was made public and Sunday Columbus Alive reported that radio station WCBE 90.5 FM has withdrawn from sponsoring the festival, also due to Kelly's participation in the event.

As WBEZ's Jim DeRogatis notes, ticket sales for the "I Believe I Can Fly" singer's performance at the festival -- which start at $58.50 plus fees -- also appear to be selling very slowly.

The pushback stems from Kelly's past allegations of child pornography and sexual assault, a story DeRogatis helped break and Jessica Hopper detailed in a viral news story for the Village Voice in December 2013.

"We feel [R. Kelly's] selection as a performer ignores his very serious allegations of sexual violence and assault," Saintseneca said in a statement explaining their decision. "We feel it is an affront to all survivors, who are already often overlooked and forgotten in our society." The band plans to host an alternative concert benefiting victims of sexual assault.

In response to the criticism, Fashion Meets Music Festival co-founder Bret Adams defended the booking to Columbus Alive, noting that Kelly was acquitted of the allegations in 2008, saying, "we're not the morality police."

Kelly also headlined the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago last year, a booking DeRogatis lashed out against but which was not met by any bands or sponsors dropping out from the event. Kelly also played the Bonnaroo and Coachella festivals in 2013.

Couture Condom Dresses Teach Haute Lesson In Safe Sex

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Given the option to learn about sex ed from an anatomically correct diagram, or a sizzling dress, most would likely choose the latter –- which is why one Brazilian artist’s advocacy work is taking off.

Since the '90s, Adriana Bertini, of Sao Paulo, has been configuring defective condoms into art and designer threads in order to raise awareness for HIV and AIDS, and to promote safe sex. Her name is making waves again now since she had a hot yellow number on display at the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, which ended on Friday, BuzzFeed reported.

The conference -- which had such leaders as Bill Clinton and UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé in attendance –- presented new scientific knowledge and opportunities for dialogue throughout the six-day event.

While Bertini is constantly developing new ways to bring condoms into the limelight, her message has remained constant.

"By using the very material at the center of effort to prevent HIV/AIDS to create something new, she can inspire reflection, foster discussion and challenge taboos," Bertini's Facebook page reads.

adriana bertini
Brazilian artist Adriana Bertini puts the finishing touches to a dress she designed using an estimated 5,000 condoms in Barcelona, Monday July 8, 2002. Bertini is exhibiting her dresses made from condoms to coincide the the XIV International AIDS Conference in Barcelona. (AP Photo/Denis Doyle)

She hopes that when a woman dons a bikini made entirely out of condoms, or when a guest sees her host’s seat cushion is also made out of the same unexpected material, that such moments will inspire a deeper dialogue about AIDS awareness and having protected sex.

Bertini says that two questions define her mission: What is HIV/AIDS prevention in the first place? How can we create more effective safe-sex campaigns?




To help get more people involved in her project, Condom Couture, Bertini hosts workshops in which participants make their own condom art and talk about the roles they play in sex, according to Buzzfeed.

In addition to her workshops and designing couture items, the artvist (that’s what you get when you combine artist and activist), has also used condoms to pay homage to leaders who have made a lasting difference, including Bono and Nelson Mandela, and to honor those who have succumbed to the disease, according to her Facebook page.

adriana bertini

Her ultimate goal is offer up a "new form of thinking in the people in order that they become aware of the reality in situations of risk in the face of HIV," she wrote on her page. "How can we alert people against the danger of pleasure without advocating self-denial, which we know is impossible?"

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The Book We're Talking About: 'Lucky Us' By Amy Bloom

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Lucky Us
by Amy Bloom
Random House, $26.00
Publishes July 29, 2014

The Book We're Talking About is a weekly review combining plot description and analysis with fun tidbits about the book.

What we think:
Amy Bloom’s latest novel, which spans the years shortly before and after the U.S.'s involvement in World War II, begins brusquely: “My father’s wife died.” Rather than mourning the loss of her wealthy, previously unknown family member, bookish young Eva and her opportunistic mother seize the chance to see how the tragic situation might benefit them. They put on their best outfits, borrow their neighbor’s car, and make a long trek to Chicago, where Eva reconnects with her father and meets her half-sister, Iris.



Upon entering her father and Iris’s world of crystal vases, stockings and pineapple upside-down cake, Eva sheds her past life with relative ease, setting off the chain reaction of constant reinvention that will define her youth.

After her mother disappears and her father -- a failed academic who flaunts his “quoting voice” whenever pertinent -- is caught rummaging through Iris’s belongings on more than one occasion, the sisters flee to Hollywood, where glib, glittering Iris pursues a Hollywood career and Eva bums around reading and cooking cheap meals. There, they meet Francisco Diego, a makeup artist who “dresses up for no one.” The sisters immediately take a liking to his no-nonsense attitude and plain kindness. But as soon as Iris’s imminent success becomes apparent, a scandal involving her starlet lover gets her blacklisted from the industry. The girls are forced to rejoin their pocket-picking father and relocate to Brooklyn, but, thankfully for them, Francisco tags along.

In New York, the clan cons a well-off Italian family into allowing them to serve as their house staff, cleaning, babysitting and educating their children. Iris’s romantic pursuits get her into trouble once again, as she falls for the glamorous, married cook, Reenie, who pines for a child. Meanwhile, Eva distracts Reenie’s husband, Gus, with whom she forms a lasting connection in spite of being pulled apart by war-related travesties. Eva earns her keep by reading tarot cards to customers at Francisco’s sisters’ hair salon, demonstrating her keen awareness of the ambitions of others and her desire to please, to tell people what they want to hear.

Bloom smartly punctuates these scenes, narrated by Eva, with letters Iris sends her years after the fact, remembering and misremembering the duo’s adventures. It’s clear that the two have become estranged, that Eva has finally snuffed their tumultuous relationship. We’re given a glimpse of Iris’s unsent letters, too, revealing the dissonance between her private and public personas, her true self and her constructed self.

Through Eva, Iris, their father, and the clan of characters they encounter, Bloom tells the quintessential American story, a story that may no longer be a viable one if set in the present-day United States. Each individual, whether kidnapped from a run-down orphanage only to be met with more dire circumstances, or interned for false accusations of Nazi affiliations, manage to make the most of their unfortunate circumstances, albeit often by way of shadier methods, à la Gatsby. But unlike Fitzgerald, Bloom coats her metamorphosis-spurred-by-ambition narrative in a good ol’ fashioned sheen of American optimism.

Her characters may feel bogged down my memories -- a woeful Iris writes, “Someone once said: God gave us memory, so we could have roses in December. Someone did not add, So we could have blizzards in June and food poisoning when there was nothing to eat” -- but they’re not borne back ceaselessly into the past. They do, eventually, exhibit the tenacity needed to move successfully forward.

What other reviewers think:
Los Angeles Times: "This is not realism, exactly, but something just a bit more heightened, in which naturalism blurs into fable, and the boundaries between reality and dream fade away."

The New York Times: "Ms. Bloom does not write deep-dish, straightforward yarns for readers who enjoy conventional drama. She writes sharp, sparsely beautiful scenes that excitingly defy expectation, and part of the pleasure of reading her is simply keeping up with her."

The Washington Post: "If America has a Victor Hugo, it is Amy Bloom, whose picaresque novels roam the world, plumb the human heart and send characters into wild roulettes of kismet and calamity."

Who wrote it?
Lucky Us is Amy Bloom's second novel. She's also written three short story collections, and has been nominated for both a National Book Award and a National Book Critics Circle Award.

Who will read it?
Fans of historical fiction and those interested in life on the home front during World War II. Anyone who enjoys epistolary novels, as Bloom's is creatively arranged.

Opening lines:
"My father's wife died. My mother said we should drive down to his place and see what might be in it for us.
She tapped my nose with her grapefruit spoon. "It's like this," she said. "Your father loves us more, but he's got another family, a wife and a girl a little older than you. Her family had all the money. Wipe your face."

Notable passage:
"I walked past the orphanage every day. I kept my eyes open for the tall blond boy. These were my people: the abandoned, the unloved, the phenomenally unlucky. Plus, they were Jews, and my age, and their cousins were being slaughtered every day in Europe. Germans could even come and invade and slaughter them here in Brooklyn. They, like me, must be worrying all the time. Sometimes I liked thinking about how brave I would be if I were facing Germans. I knew that it was disgusting to contemplate my own bravery, and, even worse, I knew the brave one would be Iris, flirting with the Nazis, stuffing passports into her bra to save the old people and the Jewish babies. I'd be sitting on some staircase somewhere, with my nose in a book, squeezing against the banister when they came running past me."

Rating, out of ten:
7. Through carefully arranged letters and quietly evocative scenes, Bloom weaves together a fresh take on our modern conception of the American dream. Still, the unfailing optimism of both the author and her characters seems, at times, artificial.

These Girls In A Country Song Aren't Going To Wait Quietly In Your Pickup Truck

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"We used to get a little respect / Now we're lucky if we even get / To climb up in your truck, keep our mouth shut and ride along / And be the girl in a country song."

There are still wide-brimmed hats and pickup trucks aplenty, but the country music video landscape changed with the rise of "bro-country" -- which is exactly what it sounds like. Videos for the growing sub-genre feature two things in particular: beer, lots of it, and the ogling of women in cut-off shorts and bikini tops.



Newcomers to the scene Maddie Marlow and Tae Dye want you to know they aren't having any of it.

Their single "Girl In A Country Song" skillfully dismantles bro-country music video tropes as transparent as the wet t-shirts that populate them. The industry's treatment of women drives the pair "redneck crazy" -- but there's a catch.

The duo's song comes across as earnestly defiant, an authentic criticism of the industry from two of the people who love it most. And judging by the number of articles that have been written about it, their objections are resonating with a lot of people.



But as Jezebel points out, their rallying cry has been financed by the very same people who also have a hand in financing -- and profiting from -- bro-country. Maddie & Tae are signed to Dot Records, a label under the Big Machine Records umbrella that bro-country acts like Florida Georgia Line also fall under.

For the label execs, it might not matter that Maddie & Tae's girl power anthem is very anti-"shaking my moneymaker" -- as long as it makes money for them.

That isn't to say that "Girl In A Country Song" doesn't matter, because it does. It matters that girls who grow up surrounded by bro-country have an appropriately catchy response to sing back, and it matters that the execs are seeing that women whose last names aren't Swift or Lambert can make such a major splash with their debut. The conversation that Maddie & Tae are contributing to matters.

"The song is so topical and it's what's going on right now," Dye told Rolling Stone. And the million and half views (and counting) on their video would seem to agree.

Which One Of These Paintings Is Smaller Than A Poppy Seed?

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One of these images is smaller than a period at the end of a sentence; the other is a masterpiece by Claude Monet. You might be hard-pressed to spot the difference, because researchers at Singapore’s Institute of Materials Research and Engineering have developed a new technique to produce microscopic art that looks just like the real thing.

monet microprinting

The team of researchers created the microscopic replication (the image pictured on the right), using an ink-free printing technique that involves a nanostructure of aluminum pillars.

So where do the colors come from?

The researchers focused beams of electrons on top of the metal pillars, causing the aluminum to resonate at different frequencies and give out varying colors depending on the size of the pillar. The researchers were able to build a palette of 300 colors, broadening their options for artistic expression, by differing the distances between each pillar and then transferring the color pixels onto a silicon substrate, according to NanoWerk, a nanotechnology news site.

“Each color pixel on this image was mapped to the closest color from a palette that we created using arrays of metal nanodisks, and the code spits out a series of geometries corresponding to this color,” Joel K.W. Yang, an assistant professor at Singapore’s University of Technology and Design told Wired. "A single drop of dye from a typical printer would already be about the size of the entire print made with our technology.”

Art is just the first step. Eventually, Yang and his team -- who published their paper on aluminum nanostructure printing in the June 13 online edition of Nano Letters -- hope to apply the technology to security and counterfeiting applications and potentially even holography one day, according to NanoWerk.

To see more examples of nanotech art, check out "The Art of Nanotech" interactive slideshow on PBS.
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