16 states!

Illinois Signs Gay Marriage Into Law

Hat tip to fenchurch for this, the truly Life-Changing Loaf of Bread:

Please note: while I am an enthusiastic cook, I (thoroughly and unequivocally) DESPISE baking for its precision. I (tend to, valiantly and sadly) AVOID modern wheat-based bread for its eczema blues. I was almost ready to chuck my toaster oven for lack of use.

But now, now -- I can't stop making this easy-peasy, delicious bread.

PS: I use flax meal to make it more bread-like and mix and bake in a pyrex loaf pan; as such, rather than unmolding halfway through I let it bake the whole while (about 40-45 minutes) and cool in-pan, and it's totally fine. Just be sure to let it sit for at least 4 hours before baking.

BREAD!

I am truly fascinated by slash and shippers, but also how media with this kind of fan base (Supernatural and the Twilight franchise come immediately to mind) capitalize on this phenomenon, and the resulting weirdo impact on the real lives of people who play these characters.

So, yeah...

Why is the Chinese Internet Obsessed With Writing Gay Sherlock Fanfiction?

I know there is some hardcore, super cray going on out there as far as Sherlock slash shippers are concerned, but after reading this PG take, a better question is: what makes Asia, and Asian languages, so conducive to teh adorables?

The 37-year-old [Benedict] Cumberbatch, whom the Chinese call Curly Fu, "is the reason a new wave of Chinese viewers have turned to British television." (‘Curly' describes the star's hairstyle, while 'Fu' is a shortened Chinese transliteration of 'Holmes.')

CURLY. FU.

Also: no worries about the impending Chinese takeover of the United States; we will simply harness the power of gaijin catmen.

One journalist with the Beijing-based newspaper Jinghua Times surveying viewers of the 2013 blockbuster sci-fi movie Star Trek Into Darkness found that most had gone to see Curly Fu, a villain they declared "impossible to hate" because they had "never seen a bad guy so handsome before."

As not only a fan of the Batch but a lifelong Star Trek and Khan fan, this line of reasoning is really hard to disagree with. Oh handsome brutality!

Anyway *fans self* what was I saying? Oh yeah, full circle...

Some fans cataloguing [Cumberbatch's] good traits also listed his "cute wife" Watson, whom they call ‘Peanut,' because the Chinese phoneticization of Watson, huasheng, is a homonym for the legume.

Speechless.

promotional photo from the third series of Sherlock

Oh Curly Fu and Peanut, I wish you good luck.

(original article from Foreign Policy, here.)

James Turrell: A Retrospective at the LACMA this last weekend was simply magnificent.

Afrum (White), 1966

Turrell's ganzfelds

At times both meditative and mind-blowing, this was well worth the $25 total cost of admission, museum admission included.

And what a museum it was! I never knew the LACMA had such a fantastic collection. I was shocked to see one of my favorite paintings, as well as so so much of my other preciouses: Bauhausian, abstract expressionism, and pop art.

I mean, I looked at this Paul Klee!

The Fruit, 1932

And this fantastic Christo!

Portrait of Ray, 1969

Also of note: I'm not a fan of Picasso, but while they had many of his works sprinkled about the galleries, they also had a Picasso room.

Everything was so well-curated and flowed so well, and the vibe was super chill and encouraging of exploration. Love my deYoung, but damn, they certainly could learn a lot from the LACMA about how to make a museum more viewer-friendly all-around.

James Turrell: A Retrospective runs through April 6, 2014. Advance tickets are strongly recommended.

Not a fan of the mannequin, but this '90s Gaultier and pearl and gold choker from Chanel's summer 2014 collection: dang!

I really do love everything about the BBC's Sherlock -- even its implausible British fight sequences -- but there is one itty bitty thing about it that helps it along a bit more than others.

*swoon*

(can't help it, I'm a red-blooded straight woman. sorry lads.)

(photo by Ian Derry for Entertainment Weekly)

Remember remember the fifth of November...