When I was a little girl I had collection of books with fables and my favourite part was the illustrations. They were beautiful. That's how I remember of Jean de La Fontaine and Aesop. Now I'm trying to read them in the original, but it's being tough. There are two good things: the book that I bought has beautiful engravings, including works by Gustave Doré and I can also improve my French.

If French is not a problem to you, or you love illustrations, visit Jean de La Fontaine.net. The site has an impressive collection of illustrations by artists, postcards, his complete works to read on-line or send by email, a detailed biography and the cultural context, and many other cool stuff. Some of the fables have a link to Italian, English or Portuguese version and you can also sign to receive a fable per day by email.

Do you want to read the fables in English? This link to the Project Gutenberg shows all the La Fontaine's works available to read on-line or download. And since we are talking about fables, don't forget to check out the Wikipedia article about them (and the links to other articles there) and The Emperor's New Clothes article.

Posted by Bibi at 06:55 PM in Culture, Literature | Comments (4) ||

That's morbid: MyDeathSpace.com - They may be gone, but they'll never be forgotten.

Only three things are certain in life. MySpace, Taxes, and Death.
If you have a MySpace account and you die, this is where you will end up.
MyDeathSpace.com memorializes deceased MySpace users and picks up where a regular obituary leaves off.

I don't know what is the saddest part: check out how many people died in car accidents, how many young people dying for stupid reasons (murder, shots) or the aggressive comments there. (via MetaFilter)

Posted by Bibi at 04:15 PM in Internet, Weird, Weird | Comments (3) ||

Finally: The Style Contest for Movable Type, Typepad and LiveJournal! Cool! I'm not a webdesigner, so when I had some problems with the CSS of my old template, only in the dirty IE, I got crazy. Since I couldn't find a solution to it, I had to use one of the few options available as styles and making few changes. That's one the things that I admire so much in WordPress, there are a huge collection of Themes, besides, it's free and it's very easy to instal most of its plugins. I just don't use it on this blog because I'm habituated with the system and I hate the upload tools of WP.

Designers are the unsung heroes of the blogosphere. Their work allows users to express a character, theme and personality with their blogs.
The Style Contest was created to enable the design community to indulge and explore the contribution their expertise makes to the quality of blogging tools and the user experience.

They could also say that this is an smart way to promote them (MT, LiveJournal and Typepad). I just wanted to knowwhy they waited so much time to make this. Anyway, if you are a designer, that's a nice chance to show your work and maybe to win some of the prizes. The contest will be open until 15 May, and the winners will be announced on June 2. This means that until the end of this year I'm going to change the layout of this page again. (via Movalog)

Posted by Bibi at 03:55 PM in Design, Internet ||

Ok, fast: what is your favorite director? And his/her religion? I don't like films about religion, but I don't care about the religious affiliation of movie directors, if this doesn't influence the film in general. Does anyone care about it? Indeed, some people do, as the Guide to Religious Movies shows. They have lists of religious or spiritual films, like Top 50 Greatest Jewish Movies and The 50 Best Catholic Movies of All Time; lists of religious affiliation of Most Influential People in History of Movies, of Top 25 Greatest Directors of all Time, Famous Actors and Actresses and the directors of 100 Best Movies according to TIME magazine.

The site has many other lists, individual pages for directors, actors, producers, pages for individual films about specific religious groups (Amish, Buddhism, Wicca, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Tibetan Buddhism, Latter-day Saints, Quakers, Baptist, Pentecostal, Protestant and Evangelical) and more links to lists of religious films. To have an idea of the religions listed on the site go to the Religious Affiliation Chart. Unfortunately I didn't find a good list with atheism or agnosticism in films, but I found quiz (Agnostic and Atheistic Films).

Posted by Bibi at 08:19 PM in Cinema, Culture | Comments (4) ||

Christian Meteorologists Declare War on Rainbows.

A group of conservative Christian meteorologists today announced plans to eliminate rainbows from the earth’s atmosphere. At a press conference following a White House luncheon with President Bush, lead scientist Bret Banger told reporters that his organization, Climatologists For Christ, had declared open season on the multi-colored spectrums of light as part of their commitment to eradicating “the homosexual lifestyle and all weather patterns that reflect it.”

Really? No, that's just one funny part of Fake Gay News - Because real gay and lesbian news is too damn depressing. A hilarious blog. (via apophenia)

Posted by Bibi at 06:11 PM in Blogs, Culture, Fun, Fun, News ||

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. A photo gallery by Wired of the history of Apple computers through Heroes and Villains.The world's most lickable computer company has seen its share of good guys and bad guys during its 30-year history, and sometimes, the goodie is also the baddie. Plus: Steve Jobs' Best Quotes Ever, including:

The desktop computer industry is dead. Innovation has virtually ceased. Microsoft dominates with very little innovation. That's over. Apple lost. The desktop market has entered the dark ages, and it's going to be in the dark ages for the next 10 years, or certainly for the rest of this decade.

Jobs said that in February 1996. It's funny to see how the things changed.

Posted by Bibi at 05:56 PM in Geek, Technology ||

Astronomy lovers and curious people must read this New Scientist article: Best ever map of the early universe revealed.

On Thursday, the WMAP team revealed the best map ever drawn of microwaves from the early universe, showing variations in the brightness of radiation from primordial matter. The pattern of these variations fits the predictions of a physical theory called inflation, which suggests that during the first split second of existence the universe expanded incredibly fast.

Update: more about the map at Astronomy Picture of the Day - Inflating the Universe.

Posted by Bibi at 07:08 PM in Astronomy, Science, Science | Comments (5) ||

That is the best version of Windows that I ever saw! I bet it works much better than the "normal" version; if it doesn't work at leat you can eat it. There are more pictures of that Windows laptop bento here. The images are from Rico & Coco, a blog devoted to bento art. But if that's not enough, check out this other blog with a huge gallery of bento art pictures. Few examples of what you are going to find there below. (via The Raw Feed)

Related posts: with more funny things that you can do with food at Cute bento boxes, Funny sausages, Food to amuse and Bologna art.

Posted by Bibi at 06:33 PM in Art, Food, Food, Fun, Fun, Technology | Comments (4) ||

Do you remember the pictures of 250,000 multi-coloured 'superballs' bouncing down the streets of San Francisco for a Sony Bravia commercial, with the slogan "Colour like no other"? Well, I didn't have any news about the TV commercial, until this week. The commercial was released in the end of of last year, but since I live in Brazil I never watched it on TV here. It's beautiful: the music is great, the concept is genius and the result is damn cool. I wished to be there when they made it, it had to be super fun. I'm in love with those super coloured bouncing balls.

The Sony site for that commercial has other interesting things to check. A must see is the Behind the scenes page with the making of videos, specially this one, explaining how the video was made.

An entire block was closed off and special compressed-air cannons shot the balls into the air, while earth moving equipment poured thousands down the street. Not that you'd know it from the finished product, but these balls can do some damage, so all the cars were props and crew members went so far as to having protective shields and crash helmets.

Other page to visit there is the one about the lovely song, Heartbeats, composed by José González. It's all pretty and cool, but there is more. Someone made a parody of that ad, called Mine 2 Trailer - Bunny Hopping Like No Other. You can check it below too. (Thanks André!)

Posted by Bibi at 05:48 PM in Fun, Fun, Music, Video | Comments (5) | ||

A collection of links of vintage French design in postcards, posters and publications.

Affiche Francaise: French original vintage posters. Many beautiful images divided per categories: movies, drinks, food, products, entertainment, travels, cycles, cars, sport, airplanes and miscellaneous. (via Martin Klasch)

Affiches Publicitaires Anciennes: vintage French posters of ads. It doesn't have many options but the posters are pretty. Ads of motorcycles, cars, travel, fashion, food, drink, France, airplanes, cabaret and bicycles.

La bibliothèque électronique de Lisieux has a virtual session with some of the galleries of its archive of media. Lots of images: pictures, engravings, illustrations, drawings, postcards, images of portraits... amusing. (via BibliOdyssey)

Le petit journal supplément illustré , une collection originale. An excellent collection with more than 4000 images from Petit Journal Illustré, a journal from Paris that worked from 1863 until 1944. (via BibliOdyssey)

The Paris Exhibitions: vintage postcards of the Exposition Universelle de Paris, from 1867 until 1937. Few images and most of them are panoramas.

Topical Postcards: French, German and European vintage real photo postcards from the art nouveau period, 1900 - 1920. Well... not really French, but most of the postcards are in French. The postcards are divided in 20 topics. (via The Wandering Jew)

Posted by Bibi at 05:20 PM in Illustration, Posters, Vintage | Comments (2) ||

Galleria Carnivora: in homage of my new baby, Audrey Jr., a super cute Venus Flytrap. Galleria Carnivora is a museum dedicated to the fine art of carnivorous plant photography. There are so many beautiful species that made me wish to find a sister to my girl. (via Jaf Project)

I have one thing link in honour of my green baby: The Little Shop of Horrors, the great classic, cult, but a classic, directed by Roger Corman is public domain and available to download here.

Plus: more about carnivorous plants at wikipedia - a nice article; The Carnivorous Plant FAQ - a very helpful and funny faq (a must read if you planning to adopt one); Tales of caro's Venus Fly Trapz - a blog about a girl and her pretty dionaeas (I'm envious of her plants, I'd like my plants to grow as beautiful as hers).

Posted by Bibi at 03:49 PM in Cinema, Nature, Photography, Photography, Science, Science ||

When I go to movies I check first the name of the director, the actors and the stories. The reviews? I don't like to read them beforehand, because of the influence that they can have on my perspective of the film. Most of the time I have an idea of what I'm going to see: if the movie is bad, very obvious, just funny or good. But I have some not so nice surprises, specially when I am at a film festival, when I watch 60, 70 films in two weeks. The worst films that I watched were on TV, because I really didn't want to pay to watch them and for my surprise some of them can be funny.

A site called So Bad It's Good made me think about that. It doesn't have a huge list of bad films reviewed, but it's a nice way to appreciate a bad film. The reviews have ratings, from "So bad it's BAD" to "So bad it's good", with a graduation from 0 or 5, passing through "Indeed bad." and "Funny and enjoyable".

Another site that you must see to start to appreciated the bad films is the popular Bad Movies. Here is a safe place to indulge in your more unsavoury cinematic tastes. The site has many reviews, news, interviews, links, tips to find. a bad movie and much more fun stuff. It's a paradise for bad film lovers.

Following the links you are going to find some great sites, not all of them about bad films. Jabootu's Bad Movie Dimension is a nice place to stop and enjoy the reviews. Bad Movie Night is another good suggestion of a site to visit. It has many reviews and accepts contributions.

Bad Movie Planet - B-movies, cult films, crap cinema! is the main page of some bad movies sites, with a lot of cool stuff to see and read. My suggestions for you to visit: The Unknown Movies and 3B Theater - Curing Your B-Movie Hangovers! Bookmark them, because with so many neat stuff you are going to need of more time to see all.

And don't forget to visit Opposable Thumb Films, that has a podcast, The Bad Movie Report - Pop Culture Gone HORRIBLY wrong! and Bad Cinema Diary - A movie guide for those who believe lower budgets mean better films, with an impressive list of reviews and dedicated pages.

Sometimes it is not just a question of bad luck making a bad movie, sometimes it is the style of the director, as Ed Wood, Jr. could prove. But many other directors of B-films are also known because of their not so good films, because of their quality or screenplay (yes, even B-films have them!). Ed Wood is not the only one that has fans, and the Internet if full of pages in homage of those unknown directors, some not so unknown. William Girdler - Though largely ignored by mainstream film buffs, and sorely under-appreciated by trash genre devotees, William Girdler Sr. remains one of Hollywood history's most prolific directors. The homage site has posters, trailers, interviews, biography and more cool stuff to make it a good reason to visit it.

Not only the directors are famous, there are also produces, writers and actors. The producer and writer Herman Cohen is one more of those famous people that worked with B-films. He is most known for popularizing the teen-horror genre with "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, both from 1957. His homage site is great, with many posters, lobby cards, pictures of behind the scenes, movie stills, interviews,filmography, trailers, reviews and biography.

And of course, there are always many lists of bad films. You can use them to have fun of the reviews, to make sure that you are not going to see them or to watch them and check out if they are really bad. You can start with the IMDb Bottom 100 that has much more films with a big budget than B-films (what makes all the sense for me). After that you can check out the The 25 Worst Sequels Ever Made, not only with bad films, but with sequences that you wish that they never had done, and Top Ten Most Welcome Movie Deaths, when you wish that the character disappear as soon as possible of the film (for the self character or the actor acting).

You can't miss the lists of bad films of 2005, to be sure of the films that you didn't lose last year according to Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, Cinematical, The Movie Blog and Twitch. But you can be sure that you are not going to agree with all of them. I don't. And to make sure that you didn't miss anything of the bad side of cinema go to Stinkers Bad Movie Awards.

Wikipedia has a nice article about the Films considered the worst ever, showing that there are bad films in all genders: musicals, comedies, b-films, remakes, action and films starred by popular actors. Three of them are in public domain and available to download: Plan 9 from Outer Space, Robot Monster and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

BTW, not all the films known as bad films are really bad. There are many great B-films, many of them better than the kind of stuff that you can find in theaters nowadays. B-films have the excuse of the budget, but what about the big Hollywood films, what is their excuse? Stupid ideas just to sell a film to a bunch of teenagers (of all ages) that just want to have some easy (and very idiot) fun?

Related post: The 100 Worst Films of the 20th Century.

Posted by Bibi at 02:06 PM in Cinema, Posters, Video, Weird, Weird ||

Ok... I had a problem with MT yesterday, in the internal pages, those one that I use to publish. So, before that another bad thing happen here let's post something. The very short video above makes a joke about two new users, a bunny and a Guinea pig, trying to connect to the Internet. I think that is a TV commercial, but since I didn't find a complete version I just can guess. If you prefer, the same video is also available at YouTube and Google Video. Something cute to start the day. (Thanks Martin Klasch!)

Posted by Bibi at 12:31 PM in Animals, Internet, Video ||

A short note, just in case someone is still there: I'm not dead, and I didn't give up this blog, nor am I planning to delete everything or move country and start a new blog. I just needed a time. I wasn't "in the mood" to post anything. I'm blogging for free, for fun and because I enjoy doing this, but I wasn't happy with many many many things and I couldn't find motivation for this blog stuff. Plus: I had to study for a French test and I was also reactivating my blog about cinema, which kept me busy for a few days.

I'm coming back to the blogosphere later, after my class. Until then, go visit This Is Broken A project to make businesses more aware of their
customer experience, and how to fix it. It's a curious blog of broken things, it's very cool and I couldn't resist to the sign below:

Posted by Bibi at 03:59 PM in Blogging, Blogs | Comments (5) ||

Michelle, from Tiny Bubbles, passed a meme to me a week ago. Before I procrastinate even more, here are my answers.

What were you doing ten years ago?

Hum... let me think... I was studying (fazendo cursinho) to get in a public university (USP - University of São Paulo) for cinema - which didn't happen. I was feeling like the least person in the world, because I hadn't passed the first time, and I didn't that year either. I was thinking that my high school sucked and that I had lost three years for nothing - well, at least I made great friends there. And that year I made my tattoo.

What were you doing one year ago?

The same thing that I'm doing now: blogging! The good news? I now have more readers then I had then, my English is better, I'm learning French and I write reviews to another site, but for free. No big changes... I am still needing a real job.

Five snacks you enjoy?

Difficult question... I think we have a different definition of a snack over here, but someone explained to me what snacks are in the US. So, according to that definition five snacks that I like are: popcorn, chocolate biscuits, Danette (of chocolate), pão de queijo and gominha (= bala de goma = jujuba = similar to the fruit gums of Haribo). Can I put salad as a snack?

Five songs you know all the lyrics to?

Just five? I know many! "Cotidiano" - Chico Buarque; "Yesterday" - Beatles; "I left my own devices" - Pet Shop Boys; "Never Tear us Apart" - INXS; "Faroeste Caboclo" - Legião Urbana.

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire?

First build myself a super powerful computer with a huge LCD and terabytes of space. Buy an apartment, a big apartment near the metro. Make a cinema graduate course in Paris. Travel to many countries (i have a list of places whose museums I would like to visit). Donate on-line: to blogs, organizations that treat animals, sites of artists, and other organizations.

Five things you like doing?

Watching films in the theater. Blogging (or you would think I'm a masochist, since I am not doing this for the money). Eating: at home, at restaurants, at friends' homes... just don't ask me to wash the dishes or cook. Visiting exhibitions of art, photography or history. Buy books: I'm compulsive... or I was... I'm trying to control myself.

Five things you would never wear again?

A tiny bikini (and I think that I just wore one when I was a little girl). A skirt called "balonê". The "boca-de-sino" trousers (those models used in the 70's), but I never used them. Clothes with big dots. Any clothes that makes me look fat or fatter.

Five favorite toys?

My palm, the computer, the plush alligator, the photo camera. I would like to put a LEGO and iPod in the list but I don't have them.

And five blogs to pass this:

Gloomy Sunday, Miguel's Weblog : 3.0, scribblingwoman, Martin Klasch and The Cartoonist. I don't know if they are going to do it or not, and that's why I didn't pass to other blogs, but feel free to decline my invitation.

Posted by Bibi at 11:50 PM in About me, Memes | Comments (10) | ||

Norman Rockwell's The Saturday Evening Post: America's best loved Art and Illustration... An amazing collection of original covers of The Saturday Evening Post including Top 25 Norman Rockwell and the Rockwell Cover Art Gallery.

Founded in 1728, The Saturday Evening Post is America's oldest magazine. Purchased in 1897 by Cyrus H. Curtis, The Saturday Evening Post rose to the coveted status of "America's Magazine" by showcasing the best American writers, artists and illustrators of the Twentieth Century. Curtis paid $1,000 for the magazine, which had origins back to 1728 and Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette. Starting with a handful of worn type, some paper, and a modest circulation of 2,000, he published the first issue under the imprint of Curtis Publishing and brought the magazine's circulation to more than a million by 1908.

Everybody knows that Rockwell's works are awesome, but give a chance to the other artists that made an excellent work in the covers, since the beginning. (via IWR)

PS.: two notes - the first gallery, with the Rockwell's covers of 1916 - 1919, it wasn't available. Second note: cats lovers must see cat theme gallery.

Posted by Bibi at 02:09 PM in Illustration, Vintage | Comments (2) ||

Le Tumulte Noir: Paul Colin's Jazz Age Portfolio.

In 1925, Josephine Baker (1906-1975) and the musicians and performers of her troupe, La Revue Nègre, exploded on the stage at Paris' Théâtre des Champs-Élysées with a wild new dance called the Charleston. The Jazz Age was at its height, and Baker was destined to become its high priestess.
Four years later, French poster artist Paul Colin (1892-1985), Baker's one-time lover and life-long friend, published a portfolio of vividly colored lithographs titled "Le Tumulte Noir" ("The Black Craze") which captured the exuberant jazz music and dance that dazzled Paris.

This year we celebrate her 100th anniversary. More about the fantastic Josephine at The Official Josephine Baker Website and Josephine Baker picture gallery. Note: some of her pictures are NSFW.

Upadate: Today I saw that PCL LinkDump posted about it too, few days ago. He also points to two links with works of Paul Colin (but the links aren't available now).

Posted by Bibi at 07:44 AM in Art, Culture, People, People, Vintage | Comments (3) ||

Whoops! The Grocery Bag & Panties Series. The set of pictures by dklo is a homage to the cheesecake illustrations of Art Frahm. It's a cool work. To be more perfect the panties had to be pink, the food packages had to be celery, well, some of them have, and the models had to be dressed as classic pin-ups. Ok, I'm fussy, I prefer the classic pin-up style. Check out the pictures, they are very good. (via sexblo.gs)

Posted by Bibi at 02:18 AM in Photography, Photography, Pin-ups | Comments (2) ||

A must see site: Winners Gallery 2006 of World Press Photo of the Year. The gallery presents 65 incredible images of photojournalism. The winner of World Press Photo of the Year 2005 was the Canadian photographer Finbarr O'Reilly, taken in Tahoua, northwestern Niger. The picture shows the emaciated fingers of a one-year-old child pressed against the lips of his mother at an emergency feeding clinic in Niger. A devastating swarm of locusts and the worst drought in decades left millions of people short of food in the African state.

Posted by Bibi at 01:31 AM in Photography, Photography ||

Little Cartoons: illustrations by Brandon Ragnar Johnson. The talented artist is a writer and illustrator of books, but his works also include art direction of animation, design of toys and fonts and other activities. His pin-ups illustrations titled H.O.S. (House of Secrets) and Halloween are very nice. It's a pity that his site only has few images.

Posted by Bibi at 12:51 AM in Illustration, Pin-ups ||