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DarkForest and gerryblog have mentioned the main ones. The only one I can think of besides those is Jailbird.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 6:10 AM on December 11, 2010

In a recent blogpost on DC's official blog "batmen" is used (also "bat-men" but that seems to be to emphasize the plural).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 3:49 PM on December 9, 2010

The movies I thought of have been suggested, but here's my wildcard: Young Indiana Jones. It's a series of tv movies from the 90s, but it does take place in the early 20th Century. I'm quite fond of that series.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 6:01 AM on December 9, 2010

I'm more of a literary writer (though one whose novel was called "chick-lit in reverse" once, but I think it was praise) but let me throw my thoughts in there.

Personally I'm not a big believer in 'getting inside a character's head.' I don't think an intuitive sense of character is necessarily that important. My method is to develop characters by figuring out what's unique about the way they speak and/or write. For example, I started another novel last month… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 3:03 PM on December 8, 2010 marked best answer

Two things I thought of as I was falling asleep.

Find a way to visualize your plot. When I was writing my first novel I came up with a metaphor for the plot as threads that weave together into a knot which then unweaves into separate threads. The threads were the individual character stories and the knot was when everything went to shit. The unweaving was the aftermath. It really helped in the editing process. I had a clear idea what to keep and what to delete, and which… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 7:15 PM on December 8, 2010 marked best answer

I came in here to suggest A Thousand and One Nights and Oliver Sacks, but I was beaten to it. So consider these seconded. However, no one suggested Calvino. He's got a reputation as a literary maestro, but he's very readable and his fictions are easily broken down into chunks. Invisible Cities are a great place to start.

Oh, and yeah, Bryson is great, just avoid his books on English language (which I've read and have had, subsequently, to unlearn with great effort). I'm… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:41 PM on December 8, 2010

"My three year old could have painted that."
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:54 AM on December 8, 2010

The sewer system. Incredible work goes into keeping sewage systems working properly, but people never think about it.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:09 AM on December 8, 2010

Amusingly enough, I was listening to an interview with a symphony's music director and he complained that people didn't realize how little work went into playing a symphony.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 10:18 AM on December 8, 2010

Not a traditional holiday song, but Claude François' Cette année-là is something of a New Year's classic.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 8:38 AM on December 8, 2010

This CD has what you're looking for, I think (check a few samples to be sure), which you can also get through iTunes.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 10:15 AM on December 8, 2010

I've worked as a cook a few times in the past, where I learned a lot, but I may have learned even more by watching dozens upon dozens of Alton Brown's Good Eats. It teaches the fundamentals of cooking/baking/etc. better than any cooking show I've ever seen. It's on a different level (the sainted Julia Child excepted).

Also, a really good mixer can make a lot of difference.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:23 AM on December 8, 2010

Oh, restaurant supply stores are the bomb. If there's one near you go there. Actually holding kitchen supplies is important. Buying knives, pans and such online risks disappointment.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 7:37 AM on December 8, 2010

Probably the best place to start would be a rhyme dictionary. Thinking of rhymes is a skill that needs to be trained, and a rhyming dictionary is the best tool. I would couple that with Merriam-Webster, which has the clearest definitions of any online dictionary (in my opinion) and also has a great thesaurus, which is another great learning tool. It's great to have a killer rhyme, but it's better that it means what you think it means :)

Reading lyrics of favorite songs… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 8:06 AM on December 7, 2010 marked best answer

Yeah, I agree with Laura in Canada, your best bet is probably to call up bookstores in Montreal. Most bookstores happily ship products. Here's a few more:

Librairie Monet, Débédé and Millenium Comics (that last one has an online store). I recommend calling because the staff might let you know about something that would fit your interests but you wouldn't otherwise hear of and most often bookstore staff are happy to chat about books in general (it beats realphabetizing).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 6:34 AM on December 7, 2010

I don't know about the overcooked turkey or the rock-hard liquorice (you should buy some proper liquorice sometime and try it out... it tastes nothing like Twizzlers and anything of that horrible ilk) but the appreciation of battered and beaten up leather could be construed as sabi, which is a Japanese aesthetic term for the appreciation of that which has gotten worn with age, or has aged visibly in some other way.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:46 PM on December 5, 2010

Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea books are great. Classic fantasy with a strong moral message that she probably won't even notice she's learning, it's so skillfully woven into the books. A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore are the three classics, written in the early 70s. You can get them all together in one volume (used). LeGuin has returned to the series a few times in later years, writing Tehanu, Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:16 PM on December 4, 2010

padraigin: I hosted a French teenager this summer and am now Facebook friends with her, and she and her friends write absolutely incomprehensibly in some kind of French/punctuation/dingbats kind of speak

That's interesting. Could you quote an example or link somewhere where this is in evidence?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 11:02 AM on December 3, 2010

Giant Sand - Thank You, Dreaded Black Ice, Thank You
The Black Halos - Homeless for Christmas
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - There's No Lights On The Christmas Tree Mother, They're Burning Big Louie Tonight
The Legendary Tiger Man - Fuck Christmas, I've Got the Blues
Jay Brannan - Christmas Really Sucks
John Denver - Please, Daddy (Don't Get Drunk This Christmas)
Harvey Danger - Sometimes You Have to Work on… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 12:56 PM on November 18, 2010

Great post on just this subject by My Aimz Is True
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:31 PM on December 2, 2010

Make a molasses-colored jello and put little people inside.

Then write in tiny text on a tiny piece of paper a little meditation on the agonies of suffocating in molasses.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:24 AM on December 2, 2010

There was no prohibition on alcohol in the 19th Century in Iceland. The toddy explanation is plausible, but I didn't think of it because of the wine. Now that I've googled it, there is a tradition of red wine toddies in Denmark. I suppose "Rhine wine" just refers to German wine, but not specifically rieslings. I'm guessing this is a red wine toddy recipe. Why it gets called "whiskey" I'll probably never know.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:31 PM on December 1, 2010

daniel_charms: when punch first reached Iceland

There's a separate recipe for punch in the recipe book and also, now that I've checked, recipes for egg toddies, as well as a general toddy recipe that can be adapted for rum, madeira, port, red wine, mulberrywine and cognac. And there's also a champagne punch, which, though mostly champagne-based, also includes "Rhine wine" which has to be a white wine (you wouldn't put red wine in a champagne… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:40 PM on December 1, 2010

functionequalsform: "No, no. The old folks' 'whiskey' is different."

Huh. I've never heard of it. I'll have to ask around. Good thing I'm in Iceland right now. Next time I'm over at my grandparents I'll have to quiz the family. Too bad the 85th birthday party I went to was pre-this-question.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 7:54 PM on December 1, 2010

One version I've seen demonstrated had a bar with an S-shaped kink in it inserted into the back, allowing the ring to go around the "floating" board, without actually passing through the bar.

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posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 7:39 AM on November 27, 2010

Or what phunniemee said.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 7:39 AM on November 27, 2010

Giant Sand - Thank You, Dreaded Black Sand, Thank You
Belle & Sebastian - O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
The Flaming Lips - Christmas at the Zoo
Eels - Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas
Eels - Christmas Is Going to the Dogs
Nellie McKay - Christmas Dirge
The Canon Logic - Kiss Me on Christmas
First Aid Christmas - Blue Christmas
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 7:31 PM on November 26, 2010

Hungarian mythology is interesting and so is Finnish paganism.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:13 PM on November 24, 2010

Ages ago I made a formula for just such a purpose:


x+p+n+(a+b)+(a+b)+p+y+c+q

where

x is a username

p is ','

n is the pronoun 'you'

a is any of these insult prefixes: fuck-, ass-, shit-, republi-, douche-, micro-, dick-.

b is any of these insult suffixes, -fuck, -ass, -assed, -head, -headed, -can, -bag, -douche,… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:44 PM on November 16, 2010

In Iceland we have Með allt á hreinu (which would translate, roughly, to Everything Under Control), which most Icelanders know by heart, both the one-liners and the songs (here's one song). The songs are generally quite witty, funny enough to make you smile, but not so aggressively humorous as to wear on the psyche with repetition. There's also Sódóma Reykjavík, which, for some reason, was released with the English title Remote Control, which has similarly gifted Icelandic culture with some… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 3:11 PM on November 15, 2010

In fact, 101 Reykjavík has a memorable quotes page on IMDB.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 8:31 AM on November 16, 2010

Tibullus wrote about Delia, who was supposedly a real woman named Plania.

Catullus wrote not only to Lesbia (real name Clodia) but also to Juventius.

Bob Dylan and his first wife Sara.

Elizabeth Barret Browning wrote Sonnets from the Portuguese to Robert Browning (I can't remember any poems from Browning to his wife, but surely there were some).

Verlaine and Rimbaud wrote poems about and to each other and Verlaine wrote poems about and to his wife.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 7:25 AM on November 16, 2010

If you take a right onto Sabin leaving the convention center and cross I-95 you'll be either on Broadway or Atwells (Sabin forks), both of which have many great restaurants. On Broadway I'd recommend Julian's, and on Atwells it's hard to go wrong (Venda Ravioli is very good, for instance). Casserta's and the aforementioned Bob and Timmy's, which is on the corner of Spruce and Dean, one block away from Atwells, are both superb pizzerias, even by Providence's high standards).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 12:47 PM on November 14, 2010

If you're dealing with Lovecraft and Puritanism, you have to at least glance at Roger Williams, the dissenting Puritan who founded Rhode Island. I don't know about any recent biographies, but Ola Elizabeth Winslow wrote one, Master Roger Williams. You should also check out the other Puritan founders of Rhode Island. For a short, very readable introduction, there's Sarah Vowell's Wordy Shipmates (completely non-scholarly... but is that a bad thing?).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:03 AM on November 5, 2010

Yeah, I was also going to say that the old tradition of interactive fiction is very game-focused, rather than fiction focused. Of the old games, you should seek out Amnesia (the text was largely written by Thomas Disch), Mindwheel, which had Robert Pinsky as a co-author, and the aforementioned A Mind Forever Voyaging. Of newer games, I can't but recommend Choice Of Games which are very much in the vein of an interactive, branching story. The old Lone Wolf books have been ported to the PC, and… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 10:04 AM on November 4, 2010

That's a good point. I don't really know how many Republican House candidates have strong Tea Party ties.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 10:05 AM on November 3, 2010

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa published his only novel, The Leopard, posthumously. Machiavelli's The Prince was similarly posthumous, as were Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy, the essays of Montaigne, though all were known in certain circles, but not for their writings.

A whole bunch of poets were not recognized during their lifetime, there are the original poètes maudits, Villon, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Corbière, Desbordes-Valmore and Villiers de… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 8:20 PM on October 28, 2010

Thanks, everyone!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:42 AM on October 26, 2010

I would agree on 2666 (though a lot of the other books mentioned have a good claim too) but for the love of everything don't just jump into it without first reading some other Bolaño. 2666 is a monster and you have to trust the author while reading it. I started with his short story collection Last Evenings on Earth, and then read The Savage Detectives. By Night in Chile is another good starting point. I made a post collecting 7 short stories a while ago, if you want to check him out before… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:32 PM on October 11, 2010

Not to quibble, johnasdf, because I generally agree with your point, but Junot Díaz is Dominican.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:17 AM on October 12, 2010

Hah! It's the very reverse for me, natasha_k :)
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 8:44 PM on October 19, 2010

MonsieurBon: I don't know if it's there any more, but there was an AMAZING vegetarian restaurant on Klapparstigur, on the west side of the street, just south of Laugavegur.

That's Á næstu grösum. It's still there and it's still amazing.

I don't know if good coffee is important to you or not, but the best places or coffee are Kaffismiðjan, on the corner of Frakkastígur and Kárastígur, and Kaffi Haítí on Tryggvagata, just before… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 12:50 PM on October 19, 2010 marked best answer

Probably my favorite animé series is Kare Kano, or His and Her Circumstances. It's a series set in a contemporary high school. Nothing magic or high-tech or anything. It's just about a relationship between a high school couple. It's extremely well done and I think of it often (note: I feel obliged to mention that this series is in no way creepy at all, unlike the often quite excellent Azumanga Daioh, which suffers from a creepiness factor). It's made by Gainax, best known for Neon Genesis… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 10:02 PM on October 5, 2010

I'm not sure, but The Broken God popped into my head, but I read it in the mid-90s, so I've forgotten almost all of it. Maybe the Wikipedia synopsis rings a bell.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 8:44 PM on September 29, 2010

Can you carve out any writing-time out of the day? I wrote a novel by always stopping in cafés on my way home from work and writing for an hour or two before getting home. Having a routine like that does wonders.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:49 PM on September 18, 2010

My favorite guitar solo is from Paradísarfuglinn by Megas & Spilverk þjóðanna (1:30-50). It fits your criteria. Incidentally, my favorite organ solo comes from the same album, Við sem heima sitjum #45 (1:50-2:25, though the argument could be made that the keyboard player, Karl J. Sighvatsson, is soloing throughout the whole song).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 10:02 AM on September 18, 2010

Hitler had the normal number of testicles. Mussolini didn't make the trains run on time.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 10:21 PM on September 15, 2010

Ah crud, I linked to the wrong thing. I meant to link to this story in Slate.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 10:40 PM on September 15, 2010

I can't recommend The Bugle [iTunes link] highly enough. It's John Oliver of The Daily Show and his friend and fellow comic Andy Zaltzman. It has brought me nothing but joy over the last 3 years.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 11:53 PM on September 14, 2010

Well, it's working properly now. As I mentioned, it would work sometimes and not work at other times. If it goes kerplunk again, I'll pop back into the thread.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:36 PM on September 14, 2010