February 2017 – Page 14

February 21, 2017

These Clever Literary-Themed Teas Come in Book-Shaped Tins

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These Clever Literary-Themed Teas Come in Book-Shaped Tins

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Amazon

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Books

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These Clever Literary-Themed Teas Come in Book-Shaped Tins

February 21, 2017

Newsletter Item for (91931): Why Do I Have to Put My Phone in Airplane Mode?

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Why Do I Have to Put My Phone in Airplane Mode?

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Today’s Big Question: Why do I have to put my phone in airplane mode?

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Big Question

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Why Do I Have to Put My Phone in Airplane Mode?

February 21, 2017

Newsletter Item for (92357): How Swedish Students Let Off Steam—By Screaming in Public

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Swedish Students Let Off Steam by Screaming in Public

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Need to scream? Head to Sweden. Since the ’80s, Swedish students have been letting off steam with a tradition called the “Flogsta Scream,” in which a bunch of people lean out of their windows at the same time each night and scream. (No, you don’t have to be a student to participate.)

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Weird

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How Swedish Students Let Off Steam—By Screaming in Public

February 21, 2017

Newsletter Item for (92388): 5 Research-Backed Tips for Successful Negotiations

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5 Research-Backed Tips for Successful Negotiations

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Most of us think of negotiating as a battle that only one side can win. But research shows we might be going about it all wrong. Try these five research-backed negotiating tactics to ease the process.

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Live Smarter

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5 Research-Backed Tips for Successful Negotiations

February 21, 2017

Newsletter Item for (91287): How a Robotic Exoskeleton Is Helping a Paralyzed Acrobat Walk Again

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How a Robotic Exoskeleton Is Helping a Paralyzed Acrobat Walk Again

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With the assistance of a robotic exoskeleton, former circus performer Silke Pan began doing something she never thought would be possible again: walk.

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Technology

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How a Robotic Exoskeleton Is Helping a Paralyzed Acrobat Walk Again

February 21, 2017

Newsletter Item for (92389): Inside Canada’s Annual International Hair Freezing Contest

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Inside Canada’s Annual International Hair Freezing Contest

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This Friday at the Sourdough Rendezvous festival in Canada, participants will take turns hopping into hot springs, then molding and freezing their hair into a frosted coiffure and taking a photo. Take a peek inside the annual International Hair Freezing Contest.

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Fun

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Inside Canada's Annual International Hair Freezing Contest

February 21, 2017

The Story Behind the Poem on the Statue of Liberty

Mark Mancini

filed under: History, poetry

Image credit:

iStock

Today, the lines engraved in bronze on the base of the Statue of Liberty are almost as well-known as the statue itself. But the young woman who wrote “The New Colossus” and its famous verses—“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”—isn’t a household name, and not many know that the poem wasn’t originally destined for the statue itself.

“A POET OF RARE ORIGINAL POWER”

The New York Historical Society via Wikimedia // Public Domain

Born on July 22, 1849 to Esther and Moses Lazarus, Emma was the middle child in a group of seven. Her father—a rich sugar refiner who ranked among the founders of New York City’s Knickerbocker Club, an elite social group to which multiple Vanderbilts and Franklin Roosevelt would also later belong—was descended from some of the first Sephardic Jewish immigrants to land in the New World. (One of Emma’s great-great-uncles, Moses Seixas, is known for his powerful correspondence with George Washington on the topic of religious liberty.)

It was during her childhood in New York and Rhode Island that Lazarus fell in love with poetry, and in 1866, when she was 17, her father paid to have a collection of her original poems—plus some German language pieces that she’d translated into English—privately printed. The next year, the book was commercially published as Poems and Translations by Emma Lazarus Written Between the Ages of Fourteen and Seventeen.

In 1868, Lazarus met—and impressed—one of her literary heroes, Ralph Waldo Emerson (then the most significant voice in America’s transcendentalism movement). The pair began corresponding, and Lazarus would come to regard Emerson as a good friend and mentor. “Mr. Emerson,” she once observed, “treats me with an almost fatherly affection.” In 1871, Lazarus published her second book, Admetus and Other Poems; she dedicated the titular poem “To My Friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson.”

By that point, Lazarus’s work was starting to garner international acclaim. In its review of Admetus and Other Poems, the Illustrated London News raved that “Miss Lazarus … must be hailed by impartial literary criticism as a poet of rare original power.” Similar praise was showered upon later works, including the 1874 novel Alide: An Episode of Goethe’s Life and poems published in various periodicals. By decade’s end, Lazarus had emerged as a well-known and highly respected writer on both sides of the Atlantic. Before long, she’d use her newfound fame to champion the cause of the tired, poor, and “huddled masses” who desperately needed sanctuary.

RIOTS IN RUSSIA

On March 13, 1881, Czar Alexander II was assassinated in the streets of St. Petersburg when a team of revolutionaries calling themselves the Narodnaya Volya (“People’s Will”) tossed a bomb at him. Since the Narodnaya Volya included at least one Jewish member, the czar’s death launched an epidemic of violent anti-Semitism throughout Russia and modern Ukraine. The situation got even worse in 1882, when Czar Alexander III canceled a huge number of land deeds held by Jews and forced half a million of them to relocate; he also forbade Jewish businessmen from trading on Sundays or Christian holidays, an edict that had immense financial consequences.

These measures and others like them kicked off a mass exodus of Russian Jews, with the vast majority heading to the United States. By 1914, around 1.5 million of these refugees had arrived in the U.S. [PDF].

Lazarus was extremely moved by their plight. “[Until] this cloud passes,” the poet said, “I have no thought, no passion, no desire, save for my own people.” In the 1880s, she dedicated a number of published essays and poems to Russia’s Jews and Jewish immigrants. When she wasn’t supporting them with her pen, she personally assisted any refugees she could find. At a Manhattan branch of the philanthropic Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society, Lazarus gave free English lessons to newly arrived families. Elsewhere, she’d visit those whom immigration officials had quartered in overstuffed—and highly unsanitary—barracks on Ward’s Island.

While the poet was keeping herself busy in New York, a gift for the United States was being constructed more than 3600 miles away.

“THE GODDESS OF LIBERTY STANDING ON HER PEDESTAL”

The New York Public Library Digital Collections // Public Domain

In the 1860s, France had decided to celebrate her long and (mostly) peaceful relationship with the U.S. by sending an impressive new statue to the American people. Designed by sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, the tribute was to take the form of a giant, crowned woman clad in robes and hoisting a torch. Both nations agreed that the French would finance the statue itself while America secured the funding for its base, which would be built on Bedloe’s Island (now known as Liberty Island).

Part of the money the U.S. required was raised during a raffle at the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund Art Loan Exhibition. Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, and other legendary artists donated works. Lazarus, too, was asked if she’d create something for the fundraiser. At first, she declined. “[I] could not possibly write verses to order,” she explained. However, a chairwoman by the name of Constance Cary Harrison convinced Lazarus to change her mind.

“Think of the goddess of liberty,” Harrison wrote in a letter to Lazarus, “standing on her pedestal yonder in the bay and holding the torch out to those refugees you are so fond of visiting at Ward’s Island.” The plea worked: Lazarus agreed to put a poem together. Two days later, she submitted a 105-word sonnet called “The New Colossus.”

When auction day came, Lazarus’s poem sold for $1500 (about $37,000 today). After that, it was published as part of a souvenir literary portfolio that Harrison distributed. It had a number of fans, including poet James Russell Lowell, who told Lazarus “I liked your sonnet about the statue much better than I like the statue itself … your sonnet gives its subject its raison d’être which it wanted before quite as much as it wanted a pedestal.” But due to the sonnet’s very limited release, “The New Colossus” didn’t attract a mainstream audience—at least, not at first. Unfortunately, Lazarus wouldn’t live to see her poem get its due.

REDISCOVERING A MASTERPIECE

melanzane1013 via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0

The Statue of Liberty herself finally arrived in New York Harbor on June 17, 1885. At the dedication ceremony over a year later, “The New Colossus” was not recited; in fact, the immigration issue was barely mentioned in any of the addresses given that day. At the time, the statue was seen more squarely as a symbol of the friendship between France and America, particularly as allies in the American Revolution; it was also seen as an affirmation of republican ideals and a celebration of the end of slavery. The explicit connection to immigrants, in the minds of the general public, came only later—in large part thanks to Lazarus’s words.

Lazarus had spent that fall in Paris, and by the time she returned to New York the next year, she’d contracted what eventually became a terminal illness—suspected to be lymphoma. She died on November 19, 1887, at just 38. When she died, it looked like her poem might be little remembered. In its obituary for Lazarus, The New York Times neglected to reference or acknowledge the now-famous sonnet.

With Lazarus’s death, it seemed that “The New Colossus” would fade into obscurity. But it didn’t, thanks to the efforts of philanthropist and art aficionado Georgina Schuyler—one of Lazarus’s closest friends, and, as it happened, a direct descendant of Alexander Hamilton. In 1901, Schuyler started lobbying to have “The New Colossus” engraved onto a bronze plaque and affixed to Lady Liberty’s base as a tribute to her friend. Two years later, she got her wish. The sonnet was subsequently rediscovered during the 1930s by those pushing for the U.S. to welcome Jewish refugees then trying to flee Hitler.

As “The New Colossus” rose in popularity, so too did the woman who had penned it. In 1944, an organization called the Emma Lazarus Federation of Jewish Women’s Clubs was established. A progressive, social justice-oriented coalition, its activist members took to celebrating the poet’s birthday every year on Liberty Island. Since then, Lazarus has been inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and her best-known poem has been frequently cited in American debates over immigration.

Today, Lady Liberty and “The New Colossus” are joined at the hip, and we’re more likely to remember the statue as a welcome to immigrants than as a tribute to the French-American relationship. To quote biographer Esther Schor, “You can’t think of the statue without hearing the words Emma Lazarus gave her.”

February 21, 2017 – 11:00am

February 21, 2017

Hurry to Check Out Today’s Best Amazon Deals

Smart Shopping Team

filed under: shopping

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amazon / istock

As a recurring feature, our team combs the Web and shares some amazing Amazon deals we’ve turned up. Here’s what caught our eye today, February 21.

Mental Floss has affiliate relationships with certain retailers, including Amazon, and may receive a small percentage of any sale. But we only get commission on items you buy and don’t return, so we’re only happy if you’re happy. Good luck deal hunting!

February 21, 2017 – 12:41pm

February 21, 2017

10 Surprising Facts About Alan Rickman

Jennifer M Wood

filed under: Lists, Movies, Pop Culture

Image credit:

Jemal Countess/Getty Images

On January 14, 2016, the world lost one of its most enigmatic actors when Alan Rickman passed away following a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. On what would have been his 71st birthday, we’re looking back at 10 surprising facts about the beloved actor.

1. HIS FIRST CAREER WAS IN GRAPHIC DESIGN.

Though he dabbled in drama as a teenager, Alan Rickman’s first career was as an artist. After studying graphic design at Chelsea College of Art and Design, followed by graduate classes at the Royal College of Art, he and a few friends launched their own graphic design business, Graphitti. “It all seems like a 1970s fantasy now,” Rickman told Design Observer when asked about his first career. “A top floor studio in Berwick Street, shared with a photographer, whitewashed brick walls and a vaulted glass ceiling … My job also included hiking around a huge and heavy portfolio to all the art directors. Again, this was BC: Before Computers. We worked on magazine layouts and illustrations, book jackets, album sleeves, and advertising. And learned quickly that we had to pay our bills immediately, but that the same rule did not apply to our clients. A constant financial tightrope. It came to a natural finish when I started to work in fringe theater and then went to RADA, and the others merged with Alan Aldridge at Ink Studios. Happy endings.”

2. HE CAME TO ACTING LATER IN LIFE.

VINCE BUCCI/AFP/Getty Images

Though he found success in the graphic design world, Rickman admitted that, “theater was always lurking in the background.” So, while still working as a graphic designer, he sent a letter to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art to request an audition. “I was getting older and I thought if you really want to do this you’ve got to get on with it,” he told GQ. He was 26 years old when he auditioned with a speech from Richard III and was awarded a scholarship to the prestigious acting academy. “My body finally sighed with relief at being in the right place,” he said. “I had really come home at last.”

3. HE AUDITIONED FOR RETURN OF THE JEDI.

In The Making of Return of the Jedi, author J.W. Rinzler revealed that Rickman auditioned for the role of Admiral Moff Jerjerrod, who oversaw the construction of the second Death Star. The role ultimately went to Michael Pennington.

4. HE ROSE TO FAME IN AMERICA ON THE STAGE.

Rickman’s big break didn’t come in the movies, but on the stage, where he played Vicomte de Valmont in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses in 1985. When the play made the move to Broadway in 1987, Rickman came with it and received both Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations for the role.

5. DIE HARD MARKED HIS FEATURE FILM DEBUT.

Rickman owed a debt of gratitude to Sam Neill, who was approached to play Hans Gruber in Die Hard but turned the role down. Then, in the spring of 1987, the film’s casting director saw Rickman playing the dastardly Valmont on Broadway and immediately wanted him for Hans. Though Rickman may have played the part as cool as the other side of the pillow, it was actually his first role in a feature film.

6. HE ALMOST TURNED DOWN THE ROLE OF HANS GRUBER.

Though Die Hard turned Rickman into a hot commodity in Hollywood, he later admitted that he almost turned down the role. “I didn’t know anything about L.A. I didn’t know anything about the film business … I’d never made a film before, but I was extremely cheap,” Rickman said of the casting process for Die Hard—and when he read the script he thought, “What the hell is this? I’m not doing an action movie.” Fortunately, upon closer consideration, he realized that the film was “quite revolutionary, and quietly so.”

7. HE WAS SUPPOSED TO STAR IN FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL.

If Rickman has Sam Neill to thank for his Hollywood stardom, Hugh Grant should be thanking Alan Rickman. Grant was not the first choice to play Charles in his breakthrough film, Four Weddings and a Funeral; screenwriter Richard Curtis thought Grant was “too handsome” for the part. At one point, it was supposed to star Alan Rickman and Marisa Tomei. Fortunately for Grant, that changed.

8. ACCORDING TO SCIENCE, RICKMAN HAS A “PERFECT” MALE VOICE.

In 2008, a pair of researchers—linguist Andrew Linn and sound engineer Shannon Harris—were tasked with analyzing voice samples from more than 50 people to determine what makes the perfect human voice. For men, it turns out that it’s a combination of Rickman and Jeremy Irons.

“As humans we instinctively know which voices send shivers down our spine and which make us shudder with disgust,” Linn explained. “The emotional responses panelists had to the voices were surprising and go some way to explaining how voiceover artists or radio DJs are selected, or why particular celebrity voices appeal.”

Helen Mirren seemed to confirm this when she spoke about Rickman following his death, saying: “Alan was a towering person, physically, mentally and as an artist. He was utterly distinctive, with a voice that could suggest honey or a hidden stiletto blade, and the profile of a Roman Emperor.”

9. J.K. ROWLING GAVE HIM SOME CONFIDENTIAL HARRY POTTER INTEL.

Moviegoers of a specific generation know Rickman best for his role as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series. When the actor took on the role, the book series was only four installments in, so there was still much to learn about what made Snape tick. In order to help Rickman play the character all the way through to the end, the author shared some information about Snape that wouldn’t be revealed until much later.

According to Rickman, it was “one tiny, little, left of field piece of information,” but it “helped me think that he was more complicated and that the story was not going to be as straight down the line as everybody thought. If you remember when I did the first film she’d only written three or four books, so nobody knew where it was really going except her. And it was important for her that I know something, but she only gave me a tiny piece of information which helped me think it was a more ambiguous route.”

10. HE MET HIS LONGTIME PARTNER WHEN HE WAS JUST A TEENAGER.

Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Qatar Goodwood Festival

In 1965, while a student at Chelsea College of Art and Design, Rickman—then 19 years old—met his first love, 18-year-old Rima Horton, who served as a Labour Party councilor on the Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council from 1986 to 2006. She has also worked as an economics lecturer at Kingston University. Though it would take until 2012 for the couple to tie the knot in a private ceremony in New York, they remained a devoted couple for more than 50 years, until his passing. “She’s tolerant,” Rickman once said of Horton. “She’s incredibly tolerant. Possibly a candidate for sainthood.”

February 21, 2017 – 10:00am

February 21, 2017

7 Trés Interesting Facts about Canadian French

Arika Okrent

filed under: language, Lists

Image credit:

iStock

Most Americans don’t need to fly across an ocean to immerse themselves in the French language. There are millions of French speakers just to our north in Canada.

1. CANADA IS OFFICIALLY BILINGUAL (AND THE ONLY NAFTA COUNTRY WITH ANY OFFICIAL LANGUAGE AT ALL).

Not every country in North America has an official language, but Canada has two. The U.S. and Mexico don’t have official languages, meaning that while everyone realizes that English and Spanish, respectively, are the de facto languages of the countries, there are no government edicts declaring any particular language official. Canada has declared both English and French official, which does not mean that all citizens must speak English and French, but official government documents and services must be available in both English and French.

2. CANADIAN OFFICIAL BILINGUALISM IS WHY COMPUTER TRANSLATION OF FRENCH IS SO GOOD.

Automatic translation tools like Google Translate perform much better on some pairs of languages than others. For example, translations between Chinese and Spanish are less smooth and accurate than those between French and English. Part of the reason for this is that the algorithms that support automatic translation are created by training on large collections of already translated texts. One of the biggest such collections is the Hansard French/English Corpus. It contains over 1 million matched French/English pairs of text passages from Canadian parliament records.

3. THE WORST POSSIBLE SWEARS IN CANADIAN FRENCH ARE INNOCENT-SEEMING RELIGIOUS WORDS.

The most offensive swear words in languages are usually drawn from the domains of sex and bodily excretions. Swears from the domain of religion, like hell and damn, once had stronger force, but are now considered pretty mild. Not so in Canadian French, where the most offensively profane words are tabarnack (tabernacle), calvaire (Calvary), and calisse (chalice). Use with caution.

4. THERE ARE TWO DIFFERENT MAIN DIALECTS OF CANADIAN FRENCH.

When you think of French in Canada you probably think of Quebec, and most of the French speakers in Canada do live there and speak what is known as Quebecois. But there is another dialect, Acadian French, which is largely spoken in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The two varieties differ in accent and certain words and phrases. Acadian French uses more terms derived from seafaring, and a number of old words now obsolete in France. The two varieties developed differently as the languages of separate 17th century French colonies (Canada and Acadia) with separate administrations.

5. CANADIAN FRENCH IS LESS ACCEPTING OF ENGLISH BORROWING THAN FRANCE FRENCH.

Both France and Quebec have institutions dedicated to encouraging the use of French words instead of borrowed English expressions. For example, instead of du snowboard, the Académie Française recommends de la planche de neige. Instead of le binge drinking, the Office Quebecois de la Langue Française recommends l’hyperalcoolisation rapide. According to a study by Olivia Walsh, the French versions are much more likely to be actually adopted by French speakers in Quebec than they are in France. Language purism is stronger in Quebec than it is in France—so much so that, while in France stop signs say STOP, in much of Quebec they say ARRÊT.

6. THERE ARE STRONG PROTECTIONS FOR FRENCH IN QUEBEC THAT SOMETIMES GO OVERBOARD.

While all federal proceedings are mandated to be bilingual in Canada, provinces can set their own language rules. The official language of Quebec is French, and the Office Quebecois de la Langue Française can enforce the use of French in public institutions and businesses. In 2013, the OQLF warned an Italian restaurant in Montréal that their menu contained too many non-French words, such as … pasta. The restaurant owner posted the warning letter on social media, initiating a backlash of eye rolling, joking, and genuine frustration at overzealous language policing. The president of the OQLF was forced to resign, and pasta stayed on the menu.

7. FRENCH SPEAKERS IN NEW BRUNSWICK ARE CREATING A NEW FRENCH/ENGLISH HYBRID.

While there is a lot of English resistance in Quebec, some of the Acadian French speakers of New Brunswick mix English words into French syntax in a dialect known as Chiac. The dialect is looked down upon as bad French, but younger generations have begun to take pride in it, claiming it as a mark of a unique Acadian identity. See some of the musicians and artists working with dialect in their expression of this identity in this piece from Public Radio International.

February 21, 2017 – 8:00am

“A POET OF RARE ORIGINAL POWER”

RIOTS IN RUSSIA

“THE GODDESS OF LIBERTY STANDING ON HER PEDESTAL”

REDISCOVERING A MASTERPIECE

GADGETS, TOYS, AND MEDIA

KITCHEN

HOME

HEALTH AND BEAUTY

OFFICE, SCHOOL, AND CRAFTS

OUTDOORS, GARDEN, AND SPORTS

ELECTRONICS

TOOLS

1. HIS FIRST CAREER WAS IN GRAPHIC DESIGN.

2. HE CAME TO ACTING LATER IN LIFE.

3. HE AUDITIONED FOR RETURN OF THE JEDI.

4. HE ROSE TO FAME IN AMERICA ON THE STAGE.

5. DIE HARD MARKED HIS FEATURE FILM DEBUT.

6. HE ALMOST TURNED DOWN THE ROLE OF HANS GRUBER.

7. HE WAS SUPPOSED TO STAR IN FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL.

8. ACCORDING TO SCIENCE, RICKMAN HAS A “PERFECT” MALE VOICE.

9. J.K. ROWLING GAVE HIM SOME CONFIDENTIAL HARRY POTTER INTEL.

10. HE MET HIS LONGTIME PARTNER WHEN HE WAS JUST A TEENAGER.

1. CANADA IS OFFICIALLY BILINGUAL (AND THE ONLY NAFTA COUNTRY WITH ANY OFFICIAL LANGUAGE AT ALL).

2. CANADIAN OFFICIAL BILINGUALISM IS WHY COMPUTER TRANSLATION OF FRENCH IS SO GOOD.

3. THE WORST POSSIBLE SWEARS IN CANADIAN FRENCH ARE INNOCENT-SEEMING RELIGIOUS WORDS.

4. THERE ARE TWO DIFFERENT MAIN DIALECTS OF CANADIAN FRENCH.

5. CANADIAN FRENCH IS LESS ACCEPTING OF ENGLISH BORROWING THAN FRANCE FRENCH.

6. THERE ARE STRONG PROTECTIONS FOR FRENCH IN QUEBEC THAT SOMETIMES GO OVERBOARD.

7. FRENCH SPEAKERS IN NEW BRUNSWICK ARE CREATING A NEW FRENCH/ENGLISH HYBRID.