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verstegan has a great answer for divabat's question Why do magic wands look the way they do?

Figure of the Past by george.bremer (cc by-nc-nd)

egeanin on Ask Metafilter: I'm looking for first-person accounts (or long-reads) about the experience of being forced to abandon a town in a valley that's scheduled to be flooded as part of a dam/hydroelectric plant project.

Verstegan has posted about the shock discovery of what appears to be John Milton's personal annotated copy of Shakespeare's First Folio

Danger by Whistling in the Dark (cc by-sa)

This is how Michael Jackson (not that one) and James Blunt (that one) helped prevent a war.

Metafilter's own garius comments with interesting details in the thread about his article Pristina: An Airport Too Far, revealing a 1999 incident in Kosovo that almost brought NATO into open conflict with Russia.

Books About Town, Book Benches, Samuel Pepy's Diary by Martin Pettitt (cc by)

I was just curious if anyone else is recognized as having had a similar place, in terms of chronicling a particular place in history and daily life as it happened to them?

Alensin asks, I've begun reading the Diary of Samuel Pepys, and was curious if similar sources exist for other historical periods?

A Woman in Winter Clothing, 1644 by London Metropolitan Archives

In a question about mask-wearing in Restoration-era England, verstegan answers with fascinating details and sources.

Cooking authentic Pad Thai in Bangkok by ToastyKen (cc by)

People think they want authentic Thai food until they're eating unrefrigerated squirrel gristle salad made with partially rotted paddy crabs and fermented fish sauce. All of a sudden the gentrified stuff seems pretty appetizing. Eat what you enjoy!

Fascinating insights from telf on Thai nationalism, Pad Thai, the question of authenticity and "the concept of Thainess" in smoke's interesting post about the history of Pad Thai.

'Luna' (1997) by Quint Buchholz by Plum leaves (cc by)

For the bookishly inclined ...

From Mefi: Sue Halpern writes In Praise of Public Libraries for The New York Review of Books | Extraordinary 500-year-old library catalogue discovered | When Zora and Langston Took a Road Trip | Lost-children stories and Australia's uneasy mythology

On Fanfare: Hugo Nominated Short Stories, and 2019 Hugo Nominee for Best Graphic Story, On a Sunbeam, (more Hugo awards discussion here)

Popular on Ask Me: Looking for mystery and crime fiction that feature an Asian protagonist or a predominantly Asian cast of characters | Looking for post-post-collapse fiction | What to read after The Goblin Emperor? | What's next after Middlemarch? | Where to start with Lois McMaster Bujold?

The Library of Congress - Reading Room by Glyn Lowe Photoworks (cc by)

Right now I am reading about how to make Mrs. Harriet Hubbard's Recamier Moth and Freckle Lotion. — jessamyn

A vast black hole of text waiting to suck you in, never to be seen again. Bye! — njohnson23

If you haven't explored it yet, don't miss A Random Walk Through The Library of Congress: LOC Serendipity, a fun discovery project by Mefi's own metasunday.

Filthy light thief made a great post about Denise Murrell's student thesis that became "a groundbreaking show about how black people have been pictured across art history," and which is now an exhibit at Musée d'Orsay in Paris, where French masterpieces are renamed after black subjects.

WindowFrog 002 by cygnus921 (cc by)

Verstegan has a great answer for nebulawindphone's question about how biblical Egypt's plague of frogs came to be imagined by many as a "rain" of frogs.

e-werk_1996-09 by saintsebastion (cc by)

... Unlike the stereotype, we were all straight-edge kids. No drugs. No alcohol, even. We just showed up at the club before 9pm for free entry, drank water all night, and then drove home. The only money out of pockets might be a slice of greasy pizza at 3am. It was a fantastic way to be young for a while. — bl1nk

Mefites reminisce in the Rave Flyer Archive thread.

politician. by boulanger.IE (cc by)

A great thread on Alberta and it's apparent singular lack of rats, plus everything you didn't know that you really, really wanted to know about Warfarin.

Robots at the Science Museum by p_a_h (cc by)

Robot History; Cannibal Robots; Wakey-wakey, Roverbot; Robot Taxi; Robot Fears; Injury Bot; Roboraptor vs Puppies; shittyrobots tag; Bite my shiny metal asp; Space Robots for everyone; Robot playlist for kiddo.