Tuesday News: library aromas, Beauty and the Beast, Rebel Girls, and Google Play coupon
What’s That Smell? Rare Books and Artifacts From a 1906 Library – How am I not doing this for my life’s work? Columbia University professor Jorge Otero-Pailos has been working with his graduate students to collect smells at the Manhattan Morgan Library & Museum that might eventually be part of an olfactory tour or display. They’ve set up a glass sampling device in the library captures the scent of each object on which it is placed.
Carlos Benaim, a master perfumer with the company who has been involved in the Morgan project, said that the thousands of molecules that were trapped in the glass-bell sampler would be categorized to determine which of them constitutes the smell profile of objects and surfaces from the Morgan.
“It’s a lengthy process that will take several months of in-depth work, especially for this many objects,” Mr. Benaim said.
Besides books like a 16th-century calfskin-bound volume of Jacobus de Voragine’s “The Golden Legend,” what does a shelf of Circassian walnut that Morgan undoubtedly drew volumes from smell like? Or a box of his cigars, Havanas by Pedro Murias, circa 1910? Or a 1905 Otis elevator? – New York Times
People have a problem with gay Beauty and the Beast storyline but not human-buffalo romance – So you’ve likely heard that Disney’s first openly gay character in Beauty and the Beast has caused a bit of controversy, including an Alabama drive-in theater owner banning the film in favor of more “family-oriented” fare (I’d love to know what films do make the “Christian” cut). That Disney is finally catching up to the second half of the 20th century is sadly late but still necessary. Not that there isn’t a ton of stuff to unpack in this story, but that people are protesting this particular version, for this particular reason, is, as the Independent put it, an act of “glorious hypocrisy:”
One thing that seems to have been overlooked by critics of the film’s gay sub-plot, however, is the films main storyline that sees Belle, the protagonist, fall in love with a buffalo. – Independent
The anti-princess book teaching girls to rebel – Why this has to be pitched as an “anti-princess” book, I don’t know, because the title is fantastic all on its own: Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls. It’s frustrating that girls and women still have to resist, reject, and rebel against gender norms and the concept of this book is pretty great – 100 inspirational women profiled, from Simone Biles to Manal al-Sharif, by Italian authors Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo. Trying to change the children’s book tradition in which so many of the female characters are princesses, Favilli and Cavallo raised about a million dollars in crowdfunding for the US version (it looks like Penguin is publishing the UK version):
. . . Elena and Francesca believe that their emphasis on real-life rebellious women who challenged social norms gives an important message to children who frequently only read about fictional girls.
“Historically women’s achievements have been diminished,” says Elena. “Rebels have negative connotations in all cultures – it is usually considered bad for a woman. Our message is that it is OK and even a good thing for women to break rules.” – BBC
[Deal Alert] Get $5 off on any book over $5 on Google Play – For the store’s five-year anniversary, they are offering a $5 credit, usable through the end of March:
To use this discount, open the Play Store app, switch to the books tab, and tap the ‘Celebrate Play’s 5th Birthday’ banner. Then hit ‘Continue’ on the above popup, and you’re good to go. You don’t have to buy any books right now – you can wait until March 31, 2017 to redeem it. – Android Police
On the Google Play credit, you have to click on the offer by 3/9 and the credit expires 3/24, not 3/31 as noted above. At least that is what it said when I did it.
Thanks for mentioning the Google Play credit, and everything else. Off to spend the credit before it disappears.
Somebody somewhere on the internet pointed out that LeFou was always implicitly gay. You knew by the winks and nods and double-entendres that most likely flew right over kids’ heads. Now he’s just explicitly gay, and I seriously doubt they’re expressing that in anything more blunt, and it will still fly right over kids’ heads.