It's that time again! Here's what we're grateful for this week:


Adorable kids taste ice cream for the first time

A library in Tokyo constructed as one giant bookshelf [via Book Riot]

Amy Poehler's hilarious guide to dealing with anxiety

This Atlanta, Georgia-based bike shop rewards kids who perform community service with a new bike [via GOOD]

Men! What are they thinking? We can't always answer that, but we'll be posting our favorite glimpses into their world in this space every Thursday.



* Meyers Leonard had an emotional reaction when his brother, U.S. Marine Bailey Leonard, surprised him before a basketball game. After you watch this video, he won't be the only one. (YouTube via Andrew Sullivan)

* Here's a review of the fall collection by The Hill-Side, a men's accessories line, written in GIFs. (Well Spent)

* "Luca Pacioli was a monk, a mathemetician, a magician and possibly, the boyfriend of Leonardo da Vinci." Learn more about him from Planet Money. (NPR)

Illustration: Ping Zhu

“This act [of blowing out birthday candles]...is a vile one.... from now on supply yourself with a snuffer.” —Manners for Millions, 1950

“It is good to cast colde water in the face of him that hath the hiccups.” —Regiment of Lyfe, 1553

“Spend no time in reading, much less Writing.” —Advice to a Son, 1656

“Excitement of the sexual system is a necessary consequence of the...glances lovers bestow upon each other [and is] injurious to the nervous system if [it occurs] frequently.” —The Mother’s Guide and Daughter’s Friend, 1890

“Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit in your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say goodnight. Shake hands with them in the morning.” —Psychological Care of Infant and Child, 1928

“Almost anything you like can be rolled in bacon, oven- or pan-broiled, and served on picks.” —500 Tasty Snacks: Ideas for Entertaining, 1949

 “Duck and cover.”—1950s safety  strategy for nuclear attack

“Don’t appear to...surpass your husband in intelligence....keep him in the dominant position to help him feel needed and adequate as the leader.” —Fascinating Womanhood, 1963

“Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” —Love Story, 1970

“The solution to substandard performance is always to excoriate, punish, and shame the child.” —Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, 2011

Photo: John Amis/The New York Times/Redux

The recently  named U.S. poet  laureate discusses fears,  cheers, and what  keeps her focused.

Self-reflection  is a virtue.
Whenever  I misbehaved as a girl, my mother would make me go think about what I'd done. Considering one's actions is essential. I love Yeats's idea: "We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry."

It's okay to lose yourself.
Sometimes I become so focused on my work, I go hours without a break until I realize the shadows are coming in at the windows.

If I could, I'd take the train everywhere.
I'm not as terrified of flying as I once was, but I do frequently dream about planes doing things they should not do.

I will read War and Peace!
I hate confessing this, but I've never gotten through it—though I own two copies, and am named for one of the main characters.

I've got spirit—yes, I do.
I was head cheerleader  in college, and when I watch cheerleading on TV I feel compelled to comment on their form. It's a part of my past I have yet to let go of.

Photo: Willard Wigan

A friend was recently raving about an exhibit she'd seen of invisible artwork. Well, okay, not completely invisible. You could see it under a microscope, and indeed throughout the gallery were microscopes through which visitors viewed the art. My friend (a poet, you know how they are), said she saw an owl perched on an eyelash and mused, "Wonder what's living on my eyelashes?"

It is, indeed, artwork that makes you wonder such strange things: Birds, fairies, storybook characters, flowers, all manners of figures and shapes, perched in the eye of a needle, or on the tip of a pin, or even on the end of an eyelash. Carved out of, sometimes, a single grain of sand. Created by -- get this -- a regular-sized human.

Willard Wigan's artwork is impossible. I know. I don't believe it either. How? And why? Well, I thought I was going to write here about patience, about how Wigan taught himself to concentrate hard enough to create these astoundingly tiny works. And yes, he spoke at TED about how he has to slow down his nervous system to do his work. He works in between his heart beats, in the middle of the night. He has to hold his breath so that he doesn't inhale the sculptures. (Doesn't just hearing that make you squirm?) Sometimes, as he explains, working on this molecular level means your materials (spider webs, fly hairs, plastic fibers, glass shards) get finicky. Learning his Lilliputian craft -- each eensy sculpture takes up to 7 weeks to create -- has surely been a Brobdingnagian process.

And yet, this very TED talk made me realize that Wigan's story isn't just one of patience and concentration: it's a story of transcendent failure. Wigan is dyslexic, and was routinely humiliated at school. He talks about being 5 years old and smarting from the cruel teacher who labeled him a failure. He would hide away in a shed, where he noticed some ants who, in his magical world, indicated to him that they needed a home. Wigan constructed them a tiny apartment out of wood splinters, and an artistic quest was begun. He found the thing he was good at, the thing no one else could own, the world that was his, and he worked it; as his mother told him, “The smaller your work, the bigger your name." He's since been called (unofficially) the 8th Wonder of the World, so there you go.

You must listen to his TED talk -- he's surprisingly funny, mysteriously inspiring, and his message is an important one for anyone who's ever needed to find their own little corner of the world.

Read More:
Trading Art for Health Care
Learning to Play Viola at 52