April 9, 2013
Building Stories is a 2012 graphic novel by American cartoonist Chris Ware. The unconventional work is made up of fourteen printed works—cloth-bound books, newspapers, broadsheets and flip books—packaged in a boxed set.
The work took a decade to complete, and was published by Pantheon Books. The intricate, multilayered stories pivot around an unnamed female protagonist with a missing leg. It mainly focuses on her time in a three-story brownstone apartment building in Chicago, but follows her later in her life as a mother. The parts of the work can be read in any order.
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April 9, 2013
Franklin Christenson Ware (b. 1967), known professionally as Chris Ware, is an American comic book artist and cartoonist, notable for his ‘Acme Novelty Library’ series and the graphic novels ‘Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth,’ and ‘Building Stories.’ His works explore themes of social isolation, emotional torment and depression.
His works tend to use a vivid color palette and are full of realistic, meticulous detail. His lettering and images are often elaborate and sometimes evoke the ragtime era or another early 20th-century American design style. Ware often refers to himself in the publicity for his work in self-effacing, even withering tones. He is considered by some critics and fellow notable illustrators and writers, such as Dave Eggers, to be among the best currently working in the medium.
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April 9, 2013
In psychology-related slang, control freak is a derogatory term for a person who attempts to dictate how everything around them is done. The phrase was first used in the late 1960s — an era when great stress was laid on the principle of ‘doing one’s own thing’ and letting others do the same.
Control freaks are often perfectionists defending themselves against their own inner vulnerabilities in the belief that if they are not in total control they risk exposing themselves once more to childhood angst. Such persons manipulate and pressure others to change so as to avoid having to change themselves, and use power over others to escape an inner emptiness. When a control freak’s pattern is broken, ‘the Controller is left with a terrible feeling of powerlessness … But feeling their pain and fear brings them back to themselves.’
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April 9, 2013
Culinary name is the name of an ingredient when used in the kitchen for preparing food, as opposed to their names in agriculture or in scientific nomenclature. Some are used because they sounds more attractive than the real name, or because a cheaper ingredient can be linked with a more expensive one. The culinary name may also refer to a way of cooking or to a region, or using a particular ingredient.
Additionally, name given on a menu may be different from the culinary name. For example, from the 19th until the mid-20th century, many restaurant menus were written in French and not in the local language. Examples include veal (calf), calamari (squid), scampi (Italian-American name for shrimp), and sweetbreads (pancreas or thymus gland). Culinary names are especially common for fish and seafood, where multiple species are marketed under a single familiar name.
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April 9, 2013
‘Tastes like chicken‘ is a common declaration used when trying to describe the flavor of a food. The expression has been used so often that it has become somewhat of a cliché. As a result, the phrase also sometimes gets used for incongruous humor by being deployed for foods or situations to which it has no real relevance. As an explanation of why unusual meats would taste more like chicken than common alternatives such as beef or pork, different possibilities have been offered.
One idea is that chicken has a bland taste because fat contributes more flavor than muscle (especially in the case of a lean cut such as a skinless chicken breast), making it a generic choice for comparison. Also, chicken reportedly has lower levels of glutamates that contribute to the ‘savory’ aspect of taste known as umami; processing or tenderizing other meats also lowers glutamate levels and makes them taste more like chicken.
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April 9, 2013
Earth sheltering is the architectural practice of using earth against building walls for external thermal mass, to reduce heat loss, and to easily maintain a steady indoor air temperature. Earth sheltering is popular in modern times among advocates of passive solar and sustainable architecture, but has been around for nearly as long as humans have been constructing their own shelter.
The expression ‘earth-sheltering’ is a generic term, with the general meaning: building design in which soil plays an integral part. More specifically, a building can be described as earth-sheltered if its external envelope is in contact with a thermally significant volume of soil or substrate (where ‘thermally significant’ means making a functional contribution to the thermal effectiveness of the building in question).
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April 9, 2013
B-O-B is a ‘wildly successful’ series of sex education videos covering the practice of a woman penetrating a man’s anus with a strap-on dildo (known as ‘pegging’). The first of the two videos, which was released in 1998, became the best selling video to date for ‘Good Vibrations,’ a sex-toy company. The videos star sexologist Carol Queen, who discusses pegging and also demonstrates the practice with her lover.
The videos also contain footage of other couples engaging in the practice. The porn star Chloe appears in the second video; as she is best known as an anal queen, her use of a strap-on dildo is a ‘role reversal.’ Sex columnist Dan Savage, who popularized the term ‘pegging,’ originally offered ‘bob’ (short for ‘Bend over Boyfriend’) as one of two alternatives for the term.
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