POSTED // Oct 12,2012 - “Hello Dear Sir: I would like to place a large order for yellow chicken curry, cherry cream-cheese cupcakes, and sour, malty Belgian golden ale. It’s for my birthday party this Saturday, and will need to serve exactly 152 people.

POSTED // Oct 5,2012 - While doing research in South America four decades ago, anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss found an indigenous tribe whose people claimed they could see the planet Venus in the daytime.

POSTED // Sep 28,2012 - The German poet and philosopher Friedrich von Schiller liked to have rotting apples in his desk drawer as he worked; the scent inspired him.

POSTED // Sep 21,2012 - VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Want to submit a letter to the editor of a major newspaper? The odds of you getting published in the influential Washington Post are almost three times as great as in the super-influential New York Times.

POSTED // Sep 14,2012 - Arthur Turner, a Virgo reader from Austin, is upset with my recent horoscopes. In his email, he wrote the following: “You’re making me mad with your predictions of nonstop positivity, Brezsny.

POSTED // Sep 7,2012 - VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) I’ll bet that a-ha! experiences will arrive at a faster rate than you’ve seen in a long time. Breakthroughs and brainstorms will be your specialty. Surprises and serendipitous adventures should be your delight. The only factor that might possibly obstruct the flow would be if you clung too tightly to your expectations or believed too fiercely in your old theories about how the world works. I’ve got an idea about how to ensure the best possible outcome. Several times every day, say something like the following: “I love to get my curiosity spiked, my hair mussed, my awe struck, my goose bumps roused, my dogmas exploded, and my mind blown.”

POSTED // Aug 31,2012 - Today the name Makemake also belongs to a dwarf planet that was discovered beyond the orbit of Neptune in 2005.

POSTED // Aug 24,2012 - A guy I know was invited to hang one of his paintings in a New York gallery—on one condition. It had to be a piece he created on the spot, in the gallery, on the day the show opened.

POSTED // Aug 17,2012 - One of history’s most notorious trials took place in Athens, Greece in 399 BC. A majority of 501 jurors convicted the philosopher Socrates of impiety and of being a bad influence on young people.

POSTED // Aug 10,2012 - When Tchaikovsky wrote the musical score for his famous 1812 Overture, it included 16 cannon shots. Literally. These blasts weren’t supposed to be made by, say, a sledgehammer pounded against a wooden mallet,