Sarah “Saartjie” Baartman was the most famous of at least two[2] Khoikhoi women who were exhibited as freak show attractions in 19th-century Europe.

Sathya Sai Baba was an Indian guru, spiritual figure, mystic, philanthropist and educator.He claimed to be the reincarnation of Sai Baba of Shirdi, considered a spiritual saint and a reputed miracle worker, who died in 1918 and whose teachings were an eclectic blend of Hindu and Muslim beliefs. The materializations of vibhuti (holy ash) and other small objects such as rings, necklaces and watches by Sathya Sai Baba were a source of both fame and controversy; devotees considered them signs of divinity, while skeptics viewed them as simple conjuring tricks. Photos of him are displayed in millions of homes and on the dashboards of cars, and lockets bearing his photo are worn by many as a symbol of good fortune.

The Bagger 288 (Excavator 288) is a bucket-wheel excavator, the largest in the world.

Japanese photography from the Bakumatsu-Meiji Period

Bald Ego, either the world’s most visual literary magazine or the world’s most literary visual magazine, continues its pursuit of syncretic splendor with a lustrous lineup for issue three. Jack Spade transformed the cover into a readymade. Inside, Elias Khoury, Philip Taaffe, John Lurie, Gary Indiana, Sam Matamoros, Mcdermott & McGough, Sante d’Orazio, Tom Sachs, Keith Sonnier, Elizabeth Peyton, Jack Pierson, Richard Prince, Fred Tomaselli, James Salter and many more.

The vision in Balenciaga’s menswear spring 2011 is nothing short of visionary.

Baobabs

Barolo. Made from Nebbiolo grapes, grown near the town of Alba in Italy’s Piedmont.

Luis Barragán is considered the most important Mexican architect of the 20th century. A unique feature, as can be seen in many of his residential interiors and fountain features, is the typical tall coloured walls, which he borrowed and modified from traditional Mexican buildings. He situated many of his designs amidst natural backdrops, such as lava rock outcrops and groves of trees.

Giorgio Barrera. Love his series ‘through the window’.

Robert Barry.

The Radiant Child. New documentary about Jean-Michel Basquiat. Perhaps the best artist of the 80s.

Interview. YouTube.

The bat-eared fox is a canid of the African savanna, named for its large ears. Fossil records show this canid to first appear during the middle Pleistocene, about 800,000 years ago.

Bataan Death March was the forcible transfer, by the Imperial Japanese Army, of 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war after the three-month Battle of Bataan in the Philippines during World War II, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of prisoners. The 60 mi (97 km) march was characterized by wide-ranging physical abuse and murder, and resulted in very high fatalities inflicted upon prisoners and civilians alike by the Japanese Army.

The same quality as a Dutch still life.

The Bay Cat is a small feline endemic to the island of Borneo. Nearly everything that is known about this cat is based on just twelve specimens, the first of which was collected by Alfred Russel Wallace in 1855 in Sarawak. A total of seven further skins surfaced over the following decades, but it was not until 1992 that a living specimen was obtained, and there were no photographs of the animal until a second living specimen was captured in 1998. [via Featured Creature]

One of the 9 muses.

Andrei Bely was a Russian novelist, poet, theorist, and literary critic. His novel Petersburg was regarded by Vladimir Nabokov as one of the four greatest novels of the twentieth century.

“The Ecology of Images” is the first, ambitious, intense publishing project from communication agency 1861 United: 445 images with the unmistakable signature of artist and photographer Jacopo Benassi from La Spezia. Ecological images: not retouched, not post-produced, not glossy, not manipulated, not artificial; capturing us with the pure enchantment of naked truth.

Metaphysics of Youth is maybe the best written essay of all time.

Brian Berg. World record holder in building card houses.

Great man, respect.

Thomas Bernhard‘s work is most influenced by the feeling of being abandoned (in his childhood and youth) and by his incurable illness, which caused him to see death as the ultimate essence of existence. His work typically features loners’ monologues explaining, to a rather silent listener, his views on the state of the world, often with reference to a concrete situation. This is true for his plays as well as for his prose, where the monologues are then reported second hand by the listener. His main protagonists, often scholars or, as he calls them, Geistesmenschen, denounce everything that matters to the Austrian in tirades against the “stupid populace” that are full of contumely. He also attacks the state (often called “Catholic-National-Socialist”), generally respected institutions such as Vienna’s Burgtheater, and much-loved artists. His work also continually deals with the isolation and self-destruction of people striving for an unreachable perfection, since this same perfection would mean stagnancy and therefore death.

Giasco Bertoli – 15 Love. With Oliver Zahm, Mark Bothwick, Anders Edstrom, etc.

Abebe Bikila won the 1960 Summer Olympics marathon, in record time, running barefoot.

Bruno Bischofberger ads on the backcover of Artforum. Totally sublime.

The rarely visited islands off the coast of Guinea-Bissau in Western Africa.

The Black Sox Scandal refers to an incident that took place around and during the play of the 1919 World Series. The name “Black Sox” also refers to the Chicago White Sox team from that era. Eight members of the major league franchise were banned for life from baseball for throwing (intentionally losing) games, and essentially giving the series to the Cincinnati Reds. The conspiracy was the brainchild of White Sox first baseman Arnold “Chick” Gandil, who had longstanding ties to petty underworld figures.

Maria Blaisse‘s rubber hats for Issey Miyake.

BLESS. Celebrating Ten Years of Themelessness: N° 00 – N° 29.

Out of print – if anyone sells, I will buy. Besides, Sternberg Press has the best book covers ever, and ranges in publications from Bernhard Wilhelm to Adorno.

Blind Willie McTell was a twelve-string finger picking Piedmont blues guitarist who recorded 149 songs between 1927 and 1956.

aka Calliophis bivirgatus

The Boboli Gardens is home to a distinguished collection of sculptures dating from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, with some Roman antiquities.

The man behind the incredible Isle of the Dead

The Boeing 2707 was developed as the first American supersonic transport. Rising costs and the lack of a clear market led to its cancellation in 1971 before two prototypes had been completed.

Peter Bogdanovich’s classic film Targets.

Kay Bojesen

I usually don’t care much for experimental poetry but this guy is alien. 1 in a million type soul.

Legendary Italian publisher.

Borgund Stave Church is a stave church located in Norway. It is classified as a triple nave stave church of the so-called Sogn-type. This is also the best preserved of Norway’s 28 extant stave churches.The churches dragon heads a lot like gargoyles that are found on cathedrals, are used as drainage systems for the church.

One of the most famous parquet floors is the one used by the Boston Celtics of the NBA. The original floor, which was installed at the Celtics’ original home of Boston Arena in 1946, was moved intact to Boston Garden in 1952 and used there until the team moved to what was then known as FleetCenter in 1995, now known as TD Garden. The floor remained intact and in use until it was cut up and sold as souvenirs in 1999, after the 1998 demolition of Boston Garden. The Celtics today play on a parquet floor inside TD Garden that combines old and new sections

Alain de Botton. A living proof that philosophy doesn’t have to make you a psychotic hermit.

Great photographer.

Boy Scout Utility Modern. Ed Ruscha’s own typeface.

In 1998, Boyd published Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928-1960, which presents the paintings and tragic biography of a supposed New York-based 1950s Abstract Expressionist painter named Nat Tate, who actually never existed and was, along with his paintings, a creation of Boyd’s. When the book was initially published, it was not revealed that it was a work of fiction, and a number of prominent art critics were duped by the hoax; it was launched at a lavish party, with excerpts read by David Bowie (who was in on the joke), and a number of prominent members of the art world claimed to remember the artist. It caused quite a stir once the truth was revealed.

La Muse, 1912

Breezy is a teen-aged hippy with a big heart. After taking a a ride with a man who only wants her for sex, Breezy manages to escape. She runs to hide on a secluded property where stands the home of a middle-aged divorced man, Frank Harmon. Frank reluctantly takes Breezy in only to fall unexpectedly in love with her. Directed by Clint Eastwood.

A brinicle (a portmanteau of “brine” and “icicle”) is the hydrospheric equivalent of an atmospheric icicle. Unlike an icicle, which is formed by the accumulation of layers of ice from a slow flow of water, a brinicle is formed beneath sea ice when a flow of extremely cold, saline water is introduced to an area of ocean water.

Thomas Browne was an English author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including medicine, religion, science and the esoteric.

William Buckland is famous for two things: he was the first man to write a full account of a fossil, and he was incredibly eccentric when it came to animals and food. Buckland’s love of natural history resulted in his house being something akin to a zoo. He filled it with animals of every kind and he then proceeded to eat them all (and serve them to guests). He claimed to have eaten his way through every animal. The creatures that he said tasted worst were bluebottle flies, and mole. Various guests to dinner describe being served panther, crocodile, and mouse.

Hear Basil Bunting read his poem ‘Briggflatts‘ – nobody does tongue rolls like this guy.

For nineteenth-century Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt, the Italian Renaissance was nothing less than the beginning of the modern world – a world in which flourishing individualism and the competition for fame radically transformed science, the arts, and politics. In this landmark work he depicts the Italian city-states of Florence, Venice and Rome as providing the seeds of a new form of society, and traces the rise of the creative individual, from Dante to Michelangelo. A fascinating description of an era of cultural transition, this nineteenth-century masterpiece was to become the most influential interpretation of the Italian Renaissance, and anticipated ideas such as Nietzsche’s concept of the ‘Ubermensch’ in its portrayal of an age of genius.

Hubert Burda is a German art historian and publisher. A kind of German Franco Maria Ricci, although not as cool.

This site is greatly indebted to this philosopher of the sublime. Here’s his essay, On the Sublime and Beautiful

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Burning Deck. Small press publisher.

In August 2006 Burr became the perfume critic of The New York Times. His column, Scent Notes, appears in T, The New York Times’ style magazine.

Anthony Burrill.

Albanian sworn virgins (burrnesha) are women who take a vow of chastity and wear male clothing in order to be viewed as men in the highly patriarchal Northern Albanian society.

Kate Bush is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom’s most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.

More at Selectism.

Red, yellow, blue – and of course black – are the colours that Oliver Byrne employs for the figures and diagrams in his most unusual 1847 edition of Euclid, published by William Pickering and printed by Chiswick Press, and which prompt the surprised reader to think of Mondrian.