advertising | puppet wrangling

Thursday various

This story of Prussian Blue, five years later, makes me happy: you can teach hate, but you can’t necessarily make it stick. [via]
The Incredible Magdeburg Water Bridge in Germany [via]
10 Buildings Shaped Like What They Sell [via]
Along similiar lines, Product Packaging #2:

Surely there must be a name, in advertising parlance, for the figure of the anthropomorphized food item that happily consumes a non-anthropomorphized version of itself? [via]
And finally, Le Flaneur: Time Lapse Video of Paris Without the People [via]

Le FlÃ¢neur (music by The XX) from Luke Shepard on Vimeo.

YA Comes of Age:

The young adult market these days is a bit like a nephew you havenâ€™t seen in years: transformed from a little darling into a hulking almost-grownup who is maybe even a little scary. Teen titles dominate publishersâ€™ fall lists, and those books overwhelmingly feature menacing creatures, forbidden romances, and apocalyptic versions of this and future Earth. â€œBloodâ€ is a common word in titles, as is â€œdark,â€ â€œdeath,â€ â€œdeadly,â€ and even â€œdarker still.â€

Wait, that is an actual title. Darker Still by Leanna Renee Hieber (Sourcebooks, Nov.) [via]
I find it very strange that they’re remaking Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
What Does the Silence Need With a Spacesuit? (And Other Narrative Failures of â€œThe Wedding of River Songâ€). While I genuinely enjoyed the episode — and the season of Doctor Who — I can’t shake the feeling that most of his larger complaints are entirely valid.
Jazzsoda remembers Don Lapre
And finally, Cthulhu Mythos, As Imagined By Kids [via]

Indian entrepreneur turns pachyderm poop into paper. Yeah, I think I’ll probably stick to my Moleskines. [via]
Gosh, Mark Twain really didn’t like Ambrose Bierce’s Nuggets and Dust Panned Out in California:

…for every laugh that is in his book there are five blushes, ten shudders and a vomit. The laugh is too expensive.

Call me crazy, though, but now I sort of want to read it.
Why is Warren Beatty so determined to hold on to the rights to Dick Tracy, even if he’s never going to do anything with them?
Blue eyes are not actually blue? A little weirded out by the idea what I actually have are transparent eyes. [via]
And finally, Ray Bradbury: prune salesman. No, seriously [via]:

Oh sure, when you pee on a colleague’s office door it’s a crime. When you pee on another author’s grave, however, it’s an artistic act. [via]
Could we really have two suns and no night by 2012? Get ready for a Mayan apocalypse/sparkly vampire crossover! [via]
We all work for Facebook now. [via]
A Guide to Lunchtime Social Groups, Through Life [via]
And finally, Bing caught cheating off of Google, totally has to go to the principal’s office afterward. [via]

Roger Ebert: No Longer an Eater, Still a Cook
I’ve been told that the best thing to do when you get an earworm is to sing or hum “The Girl from Ipanema.” Of course, then you get that stuck in your head. Unhear It seems to work along similar reasoning. [via]
Worried about full-body scans at the airport? Okay, now imagine that technology deployed in street-roving vans. [via]
Mysterious full-size Dalek replica left anonymously at English school.
And finally, herding cats in IKEA [via]: