Aristarkh Lentulov (1882-1943) is yet another artist whose work is fascinating and influential, yet about whom very little information is available. His work, however, is too amazing to go without mention in “Feel Art Again,” so I’ve scrounged up what information I can about Lentulov and his 1913 painting “Vasily the Blessed Cathedral.”

1. Although Aristarkh Lentulov was not born into a rich or artistic family, he was still able to receive 8 years of art schooling, after which he studied in the private studio of Dmitry Kardovsky in St. Petersburg. He became very active in the art scene, co-founding the Jack of Diamonds group, a group of exhibiting avant-garde artists, and serving as chairman of the Society of Moscow Artists. Among those he influenced were Vassily Kandinsky and Kazimir Malevich, whose fame seems to have surpassed Lentulov’s.

2. While studying in Paris from 1911 to 1912, Lentulov hung out with the Cubo-Futurists, who referred to him as a “futurist à la russe.”

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Yes, today’s Brain Game is easy to figure out if you find a list of state capitals. But try it without it first. Or maybe try it with a state map that shows the states but not the capitals. You can figure it out from there. You know all 50, right?

The names of what two
PAIRS of U.S. state capitals
end in the same seven letters?

Click here for the answer.

We’re back with another 5-day trivia hunt!

To remind you of the rules: Every day this week, I’ll be presenting a specific challenge. Your job: come up with the answers and hold onto them! Why? Because on Friday, you’ll need them to solve a short puzzle. The first person to email in the correct answers and successfully show how you arrived at them (thus the title: How Did You Know?) wins a choice of any t-shirt and book from our store.

We’re also adding some special prizes this time around for those who come really close, but don’t get all the answers in time. And last month, we awarded some shirts and books to a couple contestants who impressed us with charts, diagrams, and other complex methods of recording and organizing the clues/answers. So we’ll be on the lookout for the creative among you, as well. This is all to say: it pays to play whether you nab the grand prize or not.

As with previous How Did You Know? posts, comments have been turned off, but I definitely encourage you to work in teams. April’s winner was the team of Bill Pearson and Adam Constable, who I know benefitted greatly from e-mailing each other throughout the week. So write your friends, send around each daily challenge, conspire, work together, whatever it takes to make sure you’re armed with the right answers going into Friday’s puzzle.

If you missed Day 1′s challenge, it can be found right over here, while Day 2 is right here and Day 3, here.

Today we’re playing Name That Country, camouflage-style. There are five countries hiding in the puzzle on the next page. Each row contains the name of one country, the letters of which are in order from left to right. All you have to do is remove the wrong letters to reveal the correct ones. Be sure to hit that last page for a clue that will help you tomorrow.

Once you have all five, start reviewing your answers from the week. Tomorrow final puzzle goes up at 2p.m. ET. (11am PT) Good luck to all!

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A surfing trip deep in the Amazon resulted in surprisingly large waves and some phenomenal photographs.
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According to Gizmodo, Bill and Melinda Gates just might save the world.
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Queen Elizabeth knighted Salman Rushdie on the same day she stripped Robert Mugabe of his honorary knighthood.
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Who said you need a paintbrush to create great art? Try a steamroller instead.
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Stained glass billboards + a Gregorian chant cover of Green Day = brilliance.
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Characters from Mario, Donkey Kong, and Street Fighter are taking over the real world.
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Sandy + Kara’s 5 Questions should be part of everyone’s morning routine.
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The people who are noticed the least can wind up being the most remarkable.

UPDATE: We’ll extend this through the weekend and name a winner on Monday. If you’ve got Pittsburgh trivia and want those tickets, leave a comment.

Our friends at American Eagle have given us two tickets to the New American Music Union Summer Festival in Pittsburgh, August 8-9. Here’s who’s scheduled to perform:

• Bob Dylan And His Band
• The Raconteurs
• The Black Keys
• <=== Gnarls Barkley
• The Roots
• Spoon
• Black Mountain
• The Duke Spirit
• NASA
• Tiny Masters of Today
• A free second stage featuring some of the country’s best college bands

The Summer Festival will be held at Pittsburgh’s historic SouthSide Works, which was home to glass factories, steel and iron mills in the 1800s. Today, the area features an eclectic mix of residential neighborhoods, restaurants, shops and businesses, including the headquarters of American Eagle Outfitters, Inc.

If you live in Pittsburgh or are willing to travel to the Steel City in August, here’s how you can win two (2) tickets to the show:

Leave a comment with your most fascinating Pittsburgh trivia tidbit. Notable events, famous residents, Steelers history, Pittsburgh-based movies, what have you. The person who submits the most interesting fact wins the tickets. We’ll announce a winner on Thursday, June 26.

If you’re not one for contests but still want to attend, you can always just buy tickets. And just so we’re clear, this is a contest for tickets only. Chauffeur, lodging and Primanti Brothers sandwiches not included.

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The battle actually lasted overnight, but today is the day of Custer’s Last Stand. So, here’s a little trivia for you about some of the men who made history.

10 Facts About the Men of the Battle of the Little Bighorn

1. George Armstrong Custer had almost as many nicknames as George W. Bush. When he was young, his family called him Armstrong and Autie, which came about when a young Custer tried to pronounce his middle name. Later in life, his troops called him Curley and Jack. Jack was actually because of his initials, G.A.C., which were emblazoned on his satchel. Finally, the Plains Indians called him Yellow Hair and Son of the Morning Star. I bet they had some other choice nicknames for him as well.

2. Somewhat bizarrely, Crazy Horse’s nickname was Curly, too. He was born with the name “In the Wilderness” or “Among the Trees” but eventually took on his father’s name, Crazy Horse. People called him Curly because he had his mother’s (Rattling Blanket Woman) light, curly hair.

3. Custer liked to wear cinnamon-scented oil in his hair.

4. Custer may have had a son with Mo-nah-se-tah, the daughter of Cheyenne chief Little Rock. She had her first child in January 1869, a couple of months after Custer’s 7th Cavalry killed her father in battle and took 53 Cheyenne women and children captive. She had her second child late in 1869 – this is the child speculated to be Custer’s.
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The Onion. No, not that Onion. Rather, the delectable vegetable that adds a great deal of flavor to your meal and aroma to your kitchen. At the workhouse, Oliver Twist was lucky to get “Three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week, and half a roll on Saturdays.” I can’t imagine eating an onion plain, but perhaps some of you have. For now, shake or stir your Gibson cocktail (garnished with an onion, of course), and learn more about this fantastic foodstuff.

• According to the Cambridge World History of Food, “The onion may have originated in Persia (Iran) and Beluchistan (eastern Iran and southwestern Pakistan), but it is also possible that onions were indigenous from Palestine to India [...] the consumption of onions is depicted in the decoration of Egyptian tombs dating from the Early Dynasty Period, c. 2925–c. 2575 B.C. Onions were used as religious offerings, put on altars and, as is known from mummified remains,were employed in preparing the dead for burial (placed about the thorax and eyes, flattened against the ears, and placed along the legs and feet and near the pelves). The Greek historian Herodotus reported that onions, along with radishes and garlic, were a part of the staple diet of the laborers who built the Great Pyramid at Giza (2700–2200 B.C.)”
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Remember that old paper-tape calculator your folks used to do their taxes? Or the crazy beige 70′s calculator your high school math teacher insisted on using? Well, those look positively modern compared to what you’ll find at The Old Calculator Web Museum, an extensive collection of vintage math machines.

The calculators in this online collection range from simply antiquated to utterly bizarre. Others look like they’re taken from early NASA programs (surprise — the Wang LOCI-2 was indeed used to test space suits at NASA). Some of the calculators have cool styling, like the Facit 1111, which shows its numbers in a hip, tilted typeface.

The museum also features an Advertising and Documentation Archive, which is a hoot. The ad for a Mathatronics Mathatron 8-48 calculator read thus (emphasis added):

“They laughed when I sat down to play the Mathatron.”

“Little did they realize then that this was no ordinary $5,000 Mathatron. All they could see was the simple algebraic keyboard, and the paper tape readout.

“But underneath the Mathatron, cleverly disguised in the table, was capacity bringing the totals to 48 individually addressable storage registers, 480 steps of program memory, 18 prewired programs of 48 steps each, increased speed, and added program control!

“By my right hand, unknown to those snickering on my left, close by the candelabra, was an additional control box which told me, by blinking lights, which of the 10 loops I was addressing. And there were other buttons there, too.

“When I finished my evaluation of the formula involving trigonometric, logarithmic and other functions, matrix manipulations, triangulation and the solution of polynomials, they applauded generously.” Send for complete details.

Other notable calculators: Hewlett Packard HP-01 Calculator Wristwatch (the gold version went for $795), Wang Model 360SE Calculator System (which featured high-end math functions at a low price — as well as awesome Nixie Tube displays), and Toshiba BC-1211S Electronic Calculator (which omitted the division function to save money).

Check out the museum to satisfy your retro calculator fetish.

There is no denying that the American wedding is a formidable beast, boasting a bevy of quirky traditions that practically defy explanation. (Though you can watch us try by reading Monday’s post about the bizarre origins of eight wedding customs.) But we’d be remiss to let you think that Anglo-Saxons have the monopoly on wacky wedding rituals. Thus, we present to you here a quick round up of matrimonial mores from cultures around the world.

Iran, Syria, Turkey and India

During a traditional wedding ceremony in these countries, the bride and groom jostle for a chance to step on each other’s toes. The first to get off a solid stomp on their beloved’s foot will supposedly be the “boss” in the marriage. Note to all Iranian, Syrian, Turkish and Indian grooms: Let the lady have this one. Gender subtext aside, there is a far more important issue at stake here—never mess with a woman’s wedding shoes. One thoughtless smudge could mean the difference between lifelong happiness and a never-ending world of pain. Think before you step.
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Subliminal: from the Latin for “beneath the threshold.” First described by psychologists around the turn of the last century and coming into widespread use in the late 50s (a theater operator falsely claimed that brief flashes of “Hungry? Eat popcorn!” drove concessions sales through the roof), subliminal messages were outlawed after they appeared in a 1973 commercial for a Danish memory game called HÅ«sker DÅ«? (“do you remember?”). Flashes of the message “Get it!” prompted complaints from viewers, and the FCC responded by saying that subliminal ads were “contrary to the public interest” and “intended to be deceptive.”

Five years later, the FCC specifically okayed one instance of subliminal “advertising,” in a Wichita, Kansas TV news report about the BTK killer’s 1978 killing of Nancy Fox, whose glasses were found lying near her body. The message included the text “Now call the chief” and a drawing of a pair of glasses, which the police apparently hoped would stir up some remorseful emotion in the killer, were he watching. Certainly the only known instance of police trying to subliminally hypnotize a killer into turning himself in — and it didn’t work. (more…)