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upontheshelfreviews

There’s a hidden level of brilliance in this moment:

Chef Boyardee is known today for his cheap out-of-the-can pasta, but in his native Italy he was a renowned expert chef. He was reduced to the face of microwaveable eateries after his death.

Sound like anyone else from this movie?

ketchuprocket

Chef Ettore Boiardi, known today as Chef Hector Boyardee, was a key player in keeping poverty struck families fed for a low price, before he ever came out with the canned pasta line. He would jar his sauce in milk bottles and provide bags of dry noodles for families in Cleveland, Ohio’s Little Italy sector. It was during the Depression, and pasta could be made in large portions at a low cost. This was the start of his venture.

After years of success, he eventually opened his canning facility, opened his restaurant “Il Giardino d’Italia” in New York, and helped feed the Allies during the war. Everyone always glazes over this part of his life, especially the Cleveland part. He lived here. He DIED here. He’s BURIED HERE. My mother took care of him at the nursing home she worked for in her early 20′s when he was ailing and spoke of nothing but the kindness he and his family radiated when they were there. Chef Boiardi was an immigrant with a dream and was always there to help those in need, because he knew what it was like to be in that position. Never let that go.

jabberwockypie

I had thought he was a fictionalized mascot, like Aunt Jemima or Betty Crocker, but this is really interesting.

“Proud of his Italian heritage, Boiardi sold his products under the brand name Chef Boy-Ar-Dee so that his American customers could pronounce his name properly.“

And if you have a name that isn’t “standard” in America, that is a Mood.

hometoursandotherstuff

In 2002, a flood in Prague caused some streets to collapse into a series of unknown underground tunnels. And just like that, a legit 16th cent. alchemist laboratory was discovered.

10 years of discovery, repair, and restoration later, it’s now open for tours.

On the outside, only a house was visible and it was used as a pharmacy in its time. Alchemists were notoriously secretive, so none but those on the inside knew about the tunnel system below where potions were made.

A room dedicated to herb storage. Many of the herbs in the potions came from China and India. The house was conveniently located by major trade routes.

Notice an alligator (or croc/caiman) above the left side. There were lots of stuffed animals, bottles, and books. Since few people in Europe had ever seen alligators/crocodiles, they were said to be the bodies of dragons, and were thought to guard the alchemists.

The alchemists were so secretive, they did everything themselves, down to making the glassware for their elixirs.

A stone in the wall that covered a hidden vault in the underground tunnels. Historians uncovered that it held a single bottle of ‘The Elixir of Life’ and the recipes for it, and the elixirs of love and memory.

This bookcase is an exact replica of the original, which was too damaged to restore. A statue on the right side (in the dark area on the third shelf from the top) is the door knob/switch to a secret sliding door.

Monks now recreate the elixirs exactly as detailed in the instructions and each of the elixirs (and blends!) are for sale in their shop. The only change is that the Elixir of Life does not contain opium as is instructed, since it’s now illegal.

http://asthecroweflies.co/

dejlah

This is fascinating!

olderthannetfic

That bookcase! I have such interior decorating lust looking at these pictures!

cop-disliker69

Gov. Mike Parson, who announced Huhn’s selection as director in December, signed the Republican-backed measure into law in June.

A felony.

anarchblr

your government actively hates you

beltainefaerie

Just as a point of interest, breaking and entering in Missouri is only a misdemeanor. I wonder if they realize that, as long as you commit no other crime inside, it is now a lesser crime to break in somewhere (as long as it is not a state building) to sleep than it is to sleep under an overpass.

bisforbutch

I want to preface this by saying this is not victim blaming. This not calling people online lazy or grifting or whatever.

But an underlooked proponent on why some people are nearing homeless and crowdfunding heavily rn is bc society has failed you by making it as inconvenient as possible to learn about social systems and programs that already exist to help your situation as well as not having enough programs and aid.

Lemme give some examples. I have been unemployed for 10 months. My mom told me about a paying job training program a month ago after I already decided to mive in with her to find work, because nothing was coming up in my own city. My best friend didn’t know about affordable housing assistance in my state until she talked to my dad about it on a chance encounter. Some people on here have to see posts about much cheaper alternatives to their current prescriptions or medical plans because its not in the interest of their doctors paychecks to tell them about it. I would have waited to get vaccinated and not have crowdfunded for Uber money if I had known they were going to give free vaccine rides the next month. But I wouldn’t have really known this until I opened the app once that program started, because it is in their interest to keep taking my money until its their desired time for me to reap their “generous” services.

What I’m trying to say is that this is an under discussed aspect of how capitalism fails people. When you are forced to make your life and work and finances so singular and self interested, you are cut off from community and equivalent social services to proper government assistance. You literally don’t know that there is help somewhere out there for you unless you’re told.

memesnotwelcome

I believe a professor I had called this “cultural wisdom” but I haven’t been able to find the social science articles that expanded on this. It’s a practical knowledge of local systems that allows someone to function and thrive in that system. The example she used was having an understanding that banks can hold your money, but the practical aspect of accessing your money (in a convenient and easy manor) was knowing about ATMs and how to use them. But unless you have an account or someone ready to inform you, there’s no dedicated time or milestone where someone learns this.

And that’s just with a machine designed to give you YOUR money, let alone complex social service programs.

addamatic

I want everyone who crowdfunds for hospital bills to know they probably don’t have to oay them at all. Just find the financial aid office of the hospital. It’s on the website BY LAW. Find the form. Fill it out. Get the bills canceled or lowered! You don’t need crowd money, you need the government’s money that’s already set aside for your medical care.

euphoniousraconteur

GO TO, MESSAGE, OR CALL YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY. Libraries are focusing more and more on community resources, support, and outreach. If you genuinely don’t know something or feel uncertain or are in a new situation, a reference librarian will not only help you sort your thoughts through their reference interview but then help you arm yourself with knowledge from reliable and often local sources. It doesn’t even have to be a question to Ask A Librarian. You can simply say “I’m in this situation now. I don’t know what to do next./I’m not confident I know everything I should or want to know.”

dancinbutterfly

If you are in America - 211 is your friend. It’s the United Way’s database of social assistance resources. When I was doing resource development for my masters in social work 211 was my holy grail. And there’s things that only workers know about that just calling and asking can reach cuz it sets off the social service phone tree. I will say YOU have to be persistent of you want to access these resources. Most of the ngo agencies are most interested in helping the pro-active clients in my experience. But do use the resources. They’re golden.

lakemichiganbaby-moved-deactiva

foodstamps r easier to get on than you think - here in wi if you make around less than $2000 - i don’t remember the exact number - a month you qualify for foodstamps, where you get money (we get $180 i think?) every month for whatever food you want and it rolls over to next month, never expires. at least in wi, it Will ask you about your entire household income but if you dont share food with your roommates (they have no hoops you jump through to verify this, they take you at your word) their income is not counted. this is all wi-specific but just an example of how easy food assistance can b when i feel like its often seen as this last-ditch thing few qualify for

marinella-ela

juliathefacesofevil

there must be a better place you could be doing that

tomboyfemboy

his only cutting board is nailed to the floor in the turtle room

ruinedchildhood

“Birds are fed by their parents in their infancy. When the time comes to feed themselves, there can be some confusion when the food does not go into their mouth by itself.”

aspiringwarriorlibrarian

I’ve seen the Ursula K LeGuin quote about capitalism going around, but to really appreciate it you have to know the context.

The year is 2014. She has been given a lifetime achievement award from the National Book Awards. Neil Gaiman puts it on her neck in front of a crowd of booksellers who bankrolled the event, and it’s time to make a standard “thank you for this award, insert story here, something about diversity, blah blah blah” speech. She starts off doing just that, thanking her friends and fellow authors. All is well.

Then this old lady from Oregon looks her audience of executives dead in the eye, and says “Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximize corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.”

She rails against the reduction of her art to a commodity produced only for profit. She denounces publishers who overcharge libraries for their products and censor writers in favor of something “more profitable”. She specifically denounces Amazon and its business practices, knowing full well that her audience is filled with Amazon employees. And to cap it off, she warns them: “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.”

Ursula K LeGuin got up in front of an audience of some of the most powerful people in publishing, was expected to give a trite and politically safe argument about literature, and instead told them directly “Your empire will fall. And I will help it along.”

woolandcoffee

We stan an icon.

atlinmerrick

I never knew the whole quote or its circumstances. Lord she was amazing.

“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.” – Ursula K LeGuin

einarshadow

@deadcatwithaflamethrower

dduane

That right up there is the essential style of the woman who radicalized me. :) It was a privilege to share the planet with her, though (to my great regret) we never met.

neil-gaiman

I wasn’t surprised. She’d sent me an email the week before, where she said

Dear Neil

Heroism isn’t exactly my thing, so please just look at me as your fellow writer, OK? Two grunts in the great war of Art against Insentience, or something.

Anyhow, yes, I did have a question:

I’m told I have 3 to 5 minutes to say thanks. Having sat through 5-minute thankyou speeches that seemed to last 3 hours, I thought I’d enliven the gratitude with some very brief remarks about (for one thing) the big publishers’ practice of grossly overcharging public libraries for ebooks, limiting access, etc. I know you’re a true library lion. So I wanted to check if you’d welcome this, & if so we could maybe kind of strike the same note – or at least tell you, so that if I do say some things that our publishers will perceive as ungrateful, subversive, unladylike, etc., it won’t take you by surprise.

very best wishes

Ursula

(And because I suppose some people might want to know what I replied, I said,

Dear Ursula,

I’m very happy to be a fellow grunt in the war.

I think that anything you want to say is going to be good, because you mean it. I don’t think chiding publishers etc is out of place from a public platform - it may even change things - and the world of five (or is it four?) monstrous huge international publishers us not the one either of us grew up with. (I’m with one giant in the UK, another in the US, in each case because they engulfed and devoured my original publisher.)

And we neither of us got where we are, or indeed, anywhere, by toeing any party line.

Love

Neil)

unamusedsloth

Nude Portraits series by photographer Trevor Christensen

julianlovesdogs

This is my new favorite thing

whetstonefires

‘portraits of people reacting to nudity’ fresh, inspired, art sfkas;lk

headspace-hotel

according to the notes, yes, the subjects do know ahead of time that he will be nude, so yes, this is very funny and cool

utopians

the great british bake off mexican food ep should be classified as found footage horror

vykodlak

the bad news is that my mom was sad that her eggplants haven’t been growing; however, it turns out that the reason her eggplants haven’t been growing is because her eggplants were actually spinach. The good news is that her spinach is growing very well. She was also sad that her peppers haven’t been growing either, but it turns out that the peppers were actually eggplant. And I’m happy to report that the eggplant is also growing very well.

what-even-is-thiss

I never used to understand what “making connections” looked like but it turns out it’s standing at a party and saying “I’ve been thinking about getting into the film industry” and someone saying “Oh, Sarah works in the film industry” and Sarah yelling from accross the room “Did someone say my name?!?!?!”

what-even-is-thiss

You casually mention that you’ve been thinking about such and such and your professor overhears and is like “oh I know someone who works there. Do you want me to email them for you?” And you go “Sure.”

what-even-is-thiss

It’s the six layers of separation thing. Everyone is only so many layers away from everyone else. So if you stand in the correct rooms and say the correct things out loud once in a while eventually someone will say “Oh, I know a guy.”

what-even-is-thiss

And then eventually you turn into the guy that someone knows. I think. It’s hard to tell.