Are you worried about the Mysterious Structures in the Chinese Desert?

Fear no more, there is a simple explanation.

Do you need writing motivation? Do you like Kittens?

Here it is – Written?Kitten!

On of the essential techniques of art is to be able to reduce complex reality to its bare essential truth. Minimalism.

A master of this is the artist Gregoire Guillemin. I really love some of his work.

Take a look at this – famous people reduced to their bare minimum. How many can you identify? The groups are especially fun.

Here’s some more, divided up, some identified. I wish I could do that.

Why Does McDonald’s Keep Bringing McRib Back?

I have never ordered or eaten a McRib in my life. I don’t think this article is going to change my mind. I especially like this paragraph:

McDonald’s relationship with the pork industry goes back to the McRib’s conception. In 1972, Roger Mandingo, a University of Nebraska professor, received a grant from the National Pork Producer’s council to develop a technology that bound small “umarketable parts of the animal” into a formation that looked more appetizing. In other words, he figured out how to mold tripe, heart or stomach bits into something that looked like a choice cut of meat. Let’s say, the ribs.

MMMM, sounds like some gosh darn good eatin’

What’s the McRib made of, anyway?

The 10 Types of Writers’ Block (and How to Overcome Them)

1. You can’t come up with an idea.
2. You have a ton of ideas but can’t commit to any of them, and they all peter out.
3. You have an outline but you can’t get through this one part of it.
4. You’re stuck in the middle and have no idea what happens next.
5. You have a terrible feeling your story took a wrong turn a hundred pages back, and you only just hit a dead end.
6. You’re bored with all these characters, they won’t do anything.
7. You keep imagining all the reasons people are going to say your story sucks, and it paralyzes you.
8. You can’t think of the right words for what you’re trying to convey in this one paragraph.
9. You had this incredibly cool story in your head, and now you’re turning it into words on a screen and it’s suddenly dumb.
10. You’re revising your work, and you can’t see your way past all those blocks of text you already wrote.

I think the blonde dancer is Terri Garr.