This kind of asylum wasn’t that rare in the past. Many facilities took a more relaxed approach to dealing with their patients, providing everyone with responsibilities that helped sustain life at the hospital. If you factor in the likelihood that an asylum for the ‘colored insane’ would have less funding, the familial…

De Atramentis Charles Dickens ink

When this happened to me, I found out that it was an unfamiliar-to-me attempt to be helpful by correcting my pronunciation. If I tried to imitate them instead of just repeating myself badly, things went much better.

There's a slight difference between, "Who are you wearing?" and "Lift your skirt." In the quote we see, Julianne Moore didn't say it was a chore to talk fashion, she said that she was being asked to do things that she felt weren't dignified at her age. The public is hell on famous women's looks already and it's worse…

Now that I am not in a meeting... YouTube (part one) and BBC iPlayer

There is a good documentary about this on the BBC's iPlayer called "Reinventing the Royals". It might also be on YouTube. Anyway, they each have their own staff to manage their press and photo ops, which occasionally leads to conflict when there are competing agendas.

BBC Radio 4 is currently airing a 5-part podcast of Patti reading from Just Kids as their Book of the Week.

Neon orange liquid the color of Tang is some sort of sinus infection. I'd thought I'd had some kind of brain hemorrhage / excessive nose bleed until I looked at the kleenex. I didn't even know that color was possible.

If your very existence as a person seems devalued because you're not young enough, thin enough, pretty enough, perfect enough, something like this can feel medically necessary for your mental health. Being gorgeous probably requires even more work because you're under increased scrutiny; people ruthlessly seek out any…

I use Bookpedia because it has a companion iPhone app (Pocketpedia). That way, I always have my catalog on hand. It keeps me from accidentally re-buying books, but also I can track borrowers and maintain a wish list. It taught me that I don't need fewer books, I need more shelves.

It's been remarked on in interviews with show creators that HBO makes a definite push for having a lot of sex in a show, whether or not it makes sense. Neil Marshall, talking about Game of Thrones in a podcast: "This particular exec took me to one side and said, "Look, I represent the pervert side of the audience,…

I had to get a book catalog app to stop me from doing this all the time, but it works well. Did you get the Amazon warning before or after purchase?

I had to get a book catalog app to stop me from doing this all the time, but it works well. Did you get the Amazon…

Ellen herself was more disguised than just having her arm in a sling, so I think the actress could pull it off.

I only knew her from the Anne Rice "Feast of All Saints" miniseries.

Nicole Lyn? She is a multiracial actress of African ancestry who could 'pass'. (Her mother is African-Jamaican and her father is Chinese-Jamaican, which might let her count as black enough for those who police that sort of thing.)

When I wanted to know what the inside of an exsanguinated human body looked like, I called our local medical examiner's office. First question after my greeting was, "Do you have a minute to help an author's research assistant? If not, is there anyone handy?" If you say you are an author or that you work for one,…

Deckard's Apt (YouTube), another Deckard's Apt (on ambient-mixer), and Coffitivity.

There are other good options for ambient noise that are less likely to steal your focus. There's a site called Coffeetivity that generates different coffee shop atmospheres, someone on YouTube makes videos with science fiction background sound (the hum of spaceship engine noise, Deckard's apartment from Blade Runner,…

I'm a compulsive researcher. At first, I was just archiving links for myself, for later reading. Then I saw your post and thought, "Hey! I can help!" It's a blessing and a curse...

I wish I'd seen your post before I made my own, so that I could have simply agreed with you...