Welcome to this week's selection of Picks, where we start with a tip: "Negotiate eyeball to eyeball with a quarrelsome alligator, don't grovel." Besides the fact that it's fairly bad advice, what's so special about the sentence? Well, most of the words in it--negotiate, eyeball, quarrelsome, alligator, and grovel--were originally penned by Shakespeare. This according to Coined by Shakespeare, an effort that looks at "words and meanings first used by The Bard." The site accompanies a book in progress on the subject. Read an introduction, follow a chronology of Shakespeare's plays, or peruse the Shakespearian words (and their origins) currently on the site. Zany, huh? "Zany." That's another one.
Speaking of words, are you ever struck by the notion that when people talk they really mean something else? Then take the idea a step further at Reverse Speech, which offers RealAudio soundbites of famous people speaking, and what their words reveal when played backwards. Hear reversals of President Clinton, John Lennon, Neil Armstrong, Led Zeppelin, and the parents of JonBenet Ramsey. Now, it's true the reversals are subject to, shall we say, "creative interpretation." However, we tried the process ourselves and found that during our annual meeting with our supervisor, the phrase "We feel we've recently increased production 100%" when played backwards came out as "Why take our stapler? Must hide." We're still looking into this.
In other news, the folks at the Scottish Culture & Arts Foundation (located in San Francisco, California) are well aware of the paradox of online publishing: more writing than ever before, packaged in smaller and smaller bits. Lucky for us, these kilt-culture connoisseurs are not afraid of the contradiction, and they've launched Razor's Edge, an online literary review "on the edge of cultural abandon." The inaugural issue has a quartet of short stories from writers Aidan McManus, Allen Aitken, John Mulligan, and the Booker-Prize-winning James Kelman. So, whether you're in the market for compelling online prose or just a big fan of Trainspotting, you'll want to take a cut at some of the pieces in Razor's Edge.
Planning a family vacation to Washington, D.C. anytime soon? We heartily advise you to eschew usual sights like the Monument, the Mall, and the Lincoln Memorial, and instead take a tour of the seamier side of Pennsylvania Avenue, with Destination: Scandal as your guide. This special section of Washingtonpost.com presents the addresses and anecdotes behind some of the Capital's most infamous moments. They've even included the original news articles that broke the shocking stories. Some of the "uncomfortable situations" you'll read about: Watergate, Iran-Contra, the Fanne Foxe Affair, the Mayor Barry Bust, and more. Thank heavens politics is a spectator sport!
Of course, some of the best D.C. destinations are available to armchair travelers anytime of the day or night, no tourmobile needed. Such is the case with the Library of Congress's American Memory collection. This amazing repository of archival text, photographs, maps, and moving images has been available online for a while, but it's breadth and depth both continue to grow. One of our favorite collections is American Life Histories from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-40. Over 2,900 documents are reproduced here, representing life in more than 20 states. Most of the manuscripts are narratives based on interviews with average people around the country, sort of a 1936 equivalent of a personal homepage. Start with an introduction to the Writers' Project and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and then dive into the thousands of stories. With so many texts availabe, it's a great collection to get lost in.
For more of the same--only, in another hemisphere--see Time Traveller, a journey through the exotic history of the South African port city of Durban. A chronological collage of sorts, this well designed site spans the life of the city from the 1850s to 1996. You can read a firsthand account of a shipwreck, see wacky Victorian fashion, and learn about Gandhi's early days, among other things.
Ever get stressed out, anxious, panicky? Perhaps your life lacks balance. We recommend a trip to Feng Shui Made Easy. In Chinese, the words Feng Shui mean wind and water, and today, Feng Shui has "evolved into a refined art used to enhance luck and well-being through the modifications of layout and orientation of work-places and homes." The aim of Feng Shui is to become harmonious with the natural order of things. Learn about the Yin and Yang, the Five Elements, and Ch'i, or energy force. Also discover the most cosmically appropriate layout of your living room, toilet, walls, and bedroom. Regarding this last, positioning your bed to face the door or lie beneath an exposed beam is not harmonious. Similarly, putting your refrigerator in the bathroom will create bad vibes with the Health Department. Onwards.
Finally, maybe it's just a sign of the times, but lately we've been dabbling in the zodiac. We've been using Your Yastrologer to check in on our celestial signposts, if you will. More than just Net horoscopes, the folks at Yahoo! Internet Life have created a Yastrologer that also delivers a daily smattering of sites related to your birthdate and personality traits, et al. Perhaps we're just being Capricornesque about it, but we like the "Who You Are" page, which lists places, people and "stuff" related to your sign. The Leo in us wants to throw a party about the whole thing, while our Libra-ocity suggests that "everyone just keep a level head." Of course, as is always the case, our inner Taurus wins the day, with a choice piece of wisdom. We're sure we've heard it somewhere before: Take your pick(s).
(Congratulations! You've just reached the bonus round of Yahoo!'s Picks of the Week! Our warmest greetings to all who made it this far! Alrighty then! This week's bonus round site! Wait for it! Drum roll, please! International Belt Sander Drag Racing! See you next week!)
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