Cappelletti, cappellacci, tortelli, lasagna, dischi volanti, alfabeto... Inspired by the 1,200 named pasta shapes, designer Caz Hildebrand and chef Jacob Kenedy created a stylish new cookbook that pairs minimalist black-and-white drawings with recipes from London's Bocca di Lupo. The book hopes to give non-Italians a proficiency in the skill of pairing pasta shape and sauces. When you pick it up in paper, The Geometry of Pasta book jacket doubles as a striking fold-out poster. And its website has recipes and an equally impressive guide to pasta shapes.

Click the image below to go through to the interactive version.

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He even makes bunny rabbits weep.

“Fuckin’ Quintana … that creep can roll, man.”

Filmed at a whopping 2000 frames per second. Skip the first bit, nothing happens. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P4LkyWyHfM]

Hadn't read anything by Octavio Paz before, then stumbled across him earlier. He was a Mexican writer, poet, and diplomat, and the winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature. This is from his obituary: On November 11, 1997 and international news agency reported Octavio Paz's death, sparking a darkly humorous phone call from the author, bedridden with bone cancer, to a local television station. He said, "the art of dying is the art of playing hide and seek, but you have to know how to play this art, which is the most delicate of all... and difficult."

This poem is called No More Clichés:

Beautiful face That like a daisy opens its petals to the sun So do you Open your face to me as I turn the page.

Enchanting smile Any man would be under your spell, Oh, beauty of a magazine.

How many poems have been written to you? How many Dantes have written to you, Beatrice? To your obsessive illusion To you manufacture fantasy.

But today I won't make one more cliché And write this poem to you. No, no more clichés.

This poem is dedicated to those women Whose beauty is in their charm, In their intelligence, In their character, Not on their fabricated looks.

This poem is to you women, That like a Shahrazade wake up Everyday with a new story to tell, A story that sings for change That hopes for battles: Battles for the love of the united flesh Battles for passions aroused by a new day Battle for the neglected rights Or just battles to survive one more night.

Yes, to you women in a world of pain To you, bright star in this ever-spending universe To you, fighter of a thousand-and-one fights To you, friend of my heart.

From now on, my head won't look down to a magazine Rather, it will contemplate the night And its bright stars, And so, no more clichés.

Octavio Paz

Heard the story of Laocoön (pronounced lah-ock-o'-own)? You'll probably recognise the sculpture. He was a priest of Neptune/Poseidon in the city of Troy. When the Greeks (or well-greaved Achaeans or whatever you want to call them) left the wooden horse outside the city gates, it was Laocoön who said they should burn it where it stood. In the Aeneid, Virgil has him say: "Do not trust the horse, Trojans / Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks, even [those] bearing gifts". When he said this, Athena (who was on the Greek side) was furious, so she silenced him by sending a mini earthquake and, not content with that, struck him blind. The Trojans duly wheeled the horse in. Laocoön though did not give up. He flung his spear at the horse and Hera (also on the Greek's team) send two deadly sea serpents to strangle him and his two sons, Antiphantes and Thymbraeus.

With both his hands he labors at the knots; His holy fillets the blue venom blots; His roaring fills the flitting air around. Thus, when an ox receives a glancing wound, He breaks his bands, the fatal altar flies, And with loud bellowings breaks the yielding skies.

So Virgil says he's roaring and shouting, but look closely at the sculpture. Is he really screaming and bellowing as he desperately tries to save himself and his sons? William Schupbach writing for The Wellcome Trust's exhibition on pain collected these differing ideas:

Winckelmann: 'Nobility' In the eighteenth century, Laocoon and the sculpture were studied in detail by the historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) and the philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781). Both scholars agreed that the sculptor did not show Laocoon bellowing in the manner described by Virgil, but each invoked a different reason for his view.

Winckelmann, writing in 1755 as a critic and historian of art, identified the essence of ancient Greek sculpture - the sculptors of the Laocoon were Greeks - as 'noble simplicity and quiet grandeur' ('eine edle Einfalt und eine stille Grösse') which, in the case of the Laocoon sculpture, would incite us to noble thoughts and actions by showing, pace Virgil, Laocoon's heroic, dignified and silent struggle to resist the serpent.

Lessing: 'groaning' Lessing, in his essay Laokoon (1766), treated the sculpture from the point of view of a philosopher of aesthetics. He was concerned to use the sculpture as a case study in defining the difference between visual arts and literature: literature was absorbed in time, and through conventional signs (e.g. letters and words) which in themselves meant nothing. In the visual arts, on the other hand, the dimension of time hardly existed, and the means of representation were similar to the things which they represented.

Thus literature could describe horrible things without using horrible words, while the representational arts could only represent the horrible by showing us the horrible. As that would produce not a noble work of art but one which would put us in much the same distress as Laocoon, producers of visual representations tend to tone down the unpleasant features, and that is why, according to Lessing, Laocoon is not roaring like bull: his jaw is tightly constricted in a position that would enable him to utter only a low groan. Lessing's difference of opinion from Winckelmann arises from the former's different background as an aesthetic philosopher.

Bell: 'Silence' That however does not exhaust the diversity of backgrounds from which a view of the Laocoon group can be proposed. Another worthwhile critic of the sculpture was the anatomist Sir Charles Bell (1774-1842). Bell's career include the care of the wounded from the battle of Waterloo, and the depiction of those suffering soldiers in a series of watercolours (now in the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine): valuable experience for a writer on the expression of physical pain.

In his book The anatomy and philosophy of expression as connected with the fine arts, Bell argued that Laocoon as he is portrayed in the sculpture could not have roared like a wounded bull, not for the reasons proposed by Winckelmann or by Lessing but for anatomical reasons. The muscles needed to roar are those of the chest. But the chest is also the place where the muscles which have insertions in the arms, and which provide strength to the arms, have their fixed origin. When the arms are strenuously engaged, as Laocoon's certainly are, the ability of the chest to produce a roar, or any violent expiration, is compromised by the work which the chest is already doing for the arms. Hence, says Bell:

that most terrible silence in human conflict, when the outcry of terror or pain is stifled in exertion; for during the struggle with the arms, the chest must be expanded or in the act of rising; and therefore the voice, which consists of the expulsion of the breath by the falling or compression of the chest, is suppressed. The first sound of fear is in drawing, not expelling, the breath.

Therefore, Bell concludes, "Laocoon suffers in silence", not because to portray him otherwise would have robbed him of dignity, nor because what is permissible in a verbal representation was impermissible in a visual one, but because the sculptor's design was "to represent corporeal exertion, the attitude and struggles of the body and of the arms", an act which would have permitted nothing more than "a low or hollow groan".

Taken from SUSANNAH CAHALAN's review of "The Science of Kissing: What Our Lips are Telling Us" by Sheril Kirshenbaum (Grand Central Publishing). Read the whole thing here.

The history of the kiss

The first written kiss was documented in 1500 BC — when there wasn’t even a word for a mouth-to-mouth exchange. The earliest mention comes from India’s Vedic Sanskrit texts, which talked about “smelling with the mouth” and reads “young lord of the house repeatedly licks the young woman.”

By the 3rd century AD, the most important sex-text to hit the world, the Kama Sutra, laid out the guidelines for a good kiss, devoting an entire chapter to the act. It told readers where to kiss the body: “The forehead, the eyes, the cheeks, the throat, the bosom, the breasts, the lips and the interior of the mouth.” And it laid out three types of kisses: “the nominal kiss, throbbing kiss, touching kiss.”

In the Middle Ages, kissing again underwent a makeover, where it was employed as a legal way to seal a document. Men were often illiterate, so instead of writing their names, they would draw an X and kiss it to make it legal (and that’s where we get x as the symbol for kiss).

Kissing lost its allure during the 17th century, when the Great Plague was at its height in London, as people opted to tip their hat, wave or bow to avoid making physical contact. It recouped its vogue in Hollywood, around the time that “French Kiss” entered English vocabulary; now heroes and heroines were often waiting for a kiss to complete the narrative.

It may feel like the most natural thing in the world, but kissing is far from easy. To undertake the task, six major muscles around the mouth help to pucker up the upper lips, pull up the corners of the mouth, and pull down the lower lips. And don’t forget the effort it takes to cross your fingers that it’s worth it.

It’s not just the mouth; the whole body is involved in the act of kissing. When lips hit lips, five of the 12 pairs of cranial nerves, responsible for smell, taste, vision and facial expressions, are excited. Blood vessels expand, cheeks flush, pupils dilate, and the heart pumps a higher level of oxygen to the brain.

Meanwhile, the tongue, with its nearly 10,000 taste buds, is taking in the other person, while the lips, jam-packed with nerve endings, send messages to the limbic system of the brain, responsible for love, passion and lust.

All the while, neurotransmitters and hormones — like dopamine (brings us feelings of pleasure), oxytocin (fosters feelings of attachment), serotonin (also regulates emotion like dopamine) and adrenaline (which boosts heart rate and prepares body for sex) are coursing through our systems. These things are responsible for the butterfly, roller-coaster-ride effect that some kisses have.

About two-thirds of people tilt their heads to the right. Although scientists don’t know for sure why, some speculate that it is something we adopt in utero and others believe that the behavior stems from which side our mothers nursed.

It’s not easy, causes stress on the body, and there’s always the problem of spreading germs, so why do we do it?

One theory is that the act of pursing lips reminds us of the calmness, comfort and attachment of nursing, a Freudian thought that might actually have some validity, Kirshenbaum says. Another theory along the same lines says that kissing reminds us of an old habit of “premastication” wherein a mother chews the food and then feeds her baby via the mouth.

But, really, the most important and obvious reason why we kiss is that it facilitates reproduction. Women, who according to studies place more emphasis and importance on a kiss, use the mouth-to-mouth moment as a way to judge the taste of the tongue, lips and saliva to see if she is with an adequate mate.

Sense of smell doesn’t just provide a window into hygiene habits, it also gives women access to the unseen DNA of their chosen mate. According to recent studies, women can smell when a man’s group of genes that manage the immune system, called MHC, are matched well to her own. Scientists theorize that kissing may be so ubiquitous because it gives women an instant check on if there is chemistry, literally (or less poetic terms, if they would make good children together).

When journalists get lazy (or have fun)...

From 1877. Very pretty. More here.

Group Home "Supa Star", 1993  

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WBQk83ApsU]

Action Bronson is pretty good too, with "Get off my PP"

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7_04nNpvbQ]

Takes me right back.

From Shitmydadsays: "Stop trying so hard. He doesn't like you. Jesus, don't kiss an ass if it's in the process of shitting on you."

"It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you." (The Witches)

"A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely."

"Mr. Wonka: "Don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he wanted." Charlie Bucket: "What happened?" Mr. Wonka: "He lived happily ever after."

"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."

"The life of a writer is absolute hell compared to the life of a businessman. The writer has to force himself to work He has to make his own hours and if he doesn't go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him...A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it"

"I understand what you're saying, and your comments are valuable, but I'm gonna ignore your advice." (Fantastic Mister Fox)

"Fiona has the same glacial beauty of an iceburg, but unlike the iceburg she has absolutely nothing below the surface." (Matilda)

"You seemed so far away," Miss Honey whispered, awestruck. Oh, I was. I was flying past the stars on silver wings," Matilda said. "It was wonderful." (Matilda)

"I was already beginning to realize that the only way to conduct oneself in a situation where bombs rained down and bullets whizzed past, was to accept the dangers and all the consequences as calmly as possible. Fretting and sweating about it all was not going to help." (Going Solo)

And this one, which is beautiful:

+

[[ps - please check out some of my other quote collections here - The Guy Quote]]

Brown Paper Bag says: "Joris Goulenok’s lat­est works involve a lot of shapes. They also depict scuf­fles, body builders, and the neigh­bor­hood. I find his work really funny. "Joris pairs shapes, but not in such a way that they cor­re­spond to each other or feel too har­mo­nious. There is the right amount of visual con­flict and ten­sion to keep me inter­ested and look­ing for much longer than a pass­ing glance."

See more at his Flickr.

Quite simply a ROCKING piece of stop motion by Ninja Moped (they used to call themselves Rymdreglage but for some reason decided it was too difficult to pronounce). Some of it almost looks fake. It's not. Keep watching to the end of the vid and they'll tell you how they did it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFz_IuNTjts]

In another thing they're working on, the Piano Project, they plan to build a giant crossbow and use it to shoot pianos into buildings, cars and trees and then film it at super HD. Sounds awesome.

They also do amazing stuff with Lego. Checkit.

Huse Monfaradi has uploaded the pics from his rocking exhibition, "Fuck Off I Love You". He took photos of people swearing and the results are hilarious. I imagine that being put in front of a camera and just being told to let loose would have most people at least smiling. Dint go to the party, but the pics of people standing in front of their portraits are great. Check it all out here, or forever hold your peas.

The site just rocks. That is all. For example:

"I have a ritual called "terminator". I crouch in the shower in the "naked terminator" pose. With eyes closed I crouch for a minute and visualize either Arnie or the guy from the 2nd movie. I then start to hum the T2 theme. Slowly I rise to a standing position and open my eyes. It helps me get through my day. The only problem is if the shower curtain sticks to my terminator leg. It sorta ruins the fantasy."

and

Beautiful. And all the better for not being in some dingy estate but oot and aboot. Aye. A bonny wee bit o' bikin'. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj6ho1-G6tw]

[audio http://dysonology.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/viva-nigeria.mp3]