livelymorgue:

Jan. 20, 1994: “Time Out From a Higher Calling,” read a title on this photograph alongside a story about a group of East Harlem nuns originally from France. Sister Marie Chantal, leaping, and Sister Marie Francesca worked out at the Tae Kwon Do Academy at 828 Ninth Avenue. “The fact that we know tae kwon do doesn’t change anything,” Mother Marie Martha, the group’s mother superior told David Gonzalez, the reporter. “It’s just a sport.” Photo: Jack Manning/The New York Times Photo: Jack Manning/The New York Times

Best. Martial Arts Pic. Ever.

thedailywhat:

George Lucas Strikes Back of the Day: Star Wars creator George Lucas has been trying for years to convert a large parcel of land in Marin County, California into a 300,000 square foot movie studio, with amenities including a day care center, restaurants, a gym and a parking garage, only to be shot down by his wealthy neighbors.

Because the local homeowners’ association has refused to let Lucas move forward with the studio, he’s decided to put the land to good use by transforming it into low-income housing, simultaneously doing a good deed and trolling his fellow landowners.

“If everyone feels that housing is less impactful on the land, then we are hoping that people who need it the most will benefit,” Lucas snarked.

He’s even donating the various studies and surveys he paid for while working on the movie studio project, to help the new housing development get underway more quickly.

That might be almost enough to outweigh creating Jar Jar Binks.

[movies.]

In 1975, Norman Maclean’s book, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, was rejected by publishers Alfred A. Knopf after initially being green-lit — thankfully, it was eventually released by University of Chicago Press, to much acclaim. Some years after the rejection, in 1981, an editor at Knopf named Charles Elliott wrote to Maclean and expressed an early interest in his next book.

The following letter was written by Maclean, to Elliott, soon after. Maclean later called it, “one of the best things I ever wrote […] I really told those bastards off. What a pleasure! What a pleasure! Right into my hands! Probably the only dream I ever had in life that came completely true.”

(Source: Francis Burr, via Al Pinetree; Image: Norman Maclean in 1970 by Leslie Strauss Travis, via.)

Dear Mr. Elliott:

I have discovered that I have been writing you under false pretenses, although stealing from myself more than from you. I have stolen from myself the opportunity of seeing the dream of every rejected author come true.

The dream of every rejected author must be to see, like sugar plums dancing in his head, please-can’t-we-see-your-next-manuscript letters standing in piles on his desk, all coming from publishing companies that rejected his previous manuscript, especially from the more pompous of the fatted cows grazing contentedly in the publishing field. I am sure that, under the influence of those dreams, some of the finest fuck-you prose in the English language has been composed but, alas, never published. And to think that the rare moment in history came to me when I could in actuality have written the prose masterpiece for all rejected authors – and I didn’t even see that history had swung wide its doors to me.

You must have known that Alfred A. Knopf turned down my first collection of stories after playing games with it, or at least the game of cat’s-paw, now rolling it over and saying they were going to publish it and then rolling it on its back when the president of the company announced it wouldn’t sell. So I can’t understand how you could ask if I’d submit my second manuscript to Alfred A. Knopf, unless you don’t know my race of people. And I can’t understand how it didn’t register on me – ‘Alfred A. Knopf’ is clear enough on your stationery.

But, although I let the big moment elude me, it has given rise to little pleasures. For instance, whenever I receive a statement of the sales of ‘A River Runs Through It’ from the University of Chicago Press, I see that someone has written across the bottom of it, ‘Hurrah for Alfred A. Knopf.’ However, having let the great moment slip by unrecognized and unadorned, I can now only weakly say this: if the situation ever arose when Alfred A. Knopf was the only publishing house remaining in the world and I was the sole remaining author, that would mark the end of the world of books.

Very sincerely,

Norman Maclean

Letters of Note » The end of the world of books

Jim Henson’s original pitch reel for The Muppet Show, starring Leo from Henson’s strange series of corporate training videos, The Muppet Meeting Films.

Key selling points:

“Small children will love the cute cuddly characters. Young people will love the fresh innovative comedy. College kids and intellectual eggheads will love the underlying symbolism of everything. Freaky long hair, dirty, cynical hippies will love our freaky long hair, dirty, cynical Muppets.”

It’s inspirational, celebrational, muppetational!

[laughingsquid.]

[The Daily What]

Quant’erano avanti, ragazzi.

A man arrested for intoxication by the RCMP in Edson, Alberta, Canada took the opportunity to sing the entire 6-plus minutes of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” during his ride in the squad car, and the entire impromptu performance was captured by an onboard security camera.

Although the RCMP officers were polite enough not to interrupt his heartfelt rendition of the rock opera — even when he changed the lyrics to “nothing really matters … even the RCMP” — they did not let him go (let him go!).

[nationalpost.]

[The Daily What]

thedailywhat:

Upgraded Childhood of the Day: When Redditor kelseypolo’s friend and her husband were building their new home, they found they had some extra space adjacent to their daughter’s bedroom, and decided to transform it into a real-life Narnia.

[reddit.]