The best book I've read recently is Steve Martin's memoir "Born Standing Up." In this excerpt from the book published in Smithsonian Magazine, Martin discusses his approach to comedy and his appearances on the Tonight Show. The article also includes a great story about Elvis Presley. You can watch Martin's breakthrough Tonight Show performance by following the link at the top of the article. It's worth watching, particularly because it begins with Johnny Carson wearing an amazing suit.

This New York Times article explains the origin of the fortune cookie.

"Some 3 billion fortune cookies are made each year, almost all in the United States. But the crisp cookies wrapped around enigmatic sayings have spread around the world. They are served in Chinese restaurants in Britain, Mexico, Italy, France and elsewhere. In India, they taste more like butter cookies. A surprisingly high number of winning tickets in Brazil's national lottery in 2004 were traced to lucky numbers from fortune cookies distributed by a Chinese restaurant chain called Chinatown.

But there is one place where fortune cookies are conspicuously absent: China.

Now a researcher in Japan believes she can explain the disconnect, which has long perplexed American tourists in China. Fortune cookies, Yasuko Nakamachi says, are almost certainly originally from Japan."

The world's flags given letter grades

For the sixth straight year, Fimoculous has compiled his list of Best of the Year Lists.

Stephen Colbert voted Celebrity of the Year by the Associated Press.

Kermit the Frog covers the Talking Heads song Once in a Lifetime in this YouTube video.

The writers of The Daily Show have made a special writer's strike version of The Daily Show at a New York City picket line.

Malcolm Gladwell argues that criminal profiling is a hoax in this New Yorker article.

Follow this link to watch the first high definition television video of the moon taken by the Japanese lunar explorer KAGUYA.

As this Wall Street Journal article explains, with the increased popularity of genealogical research, the demand for the work done by historical photo detectives has increased.

"Maureen Taylor has dated a photograph to 1913 by studying the size and shape of a Lion touring car's headlamps. Armed with her collection of 19th-century fashion magazines, she can pinpoint the brief period when Victorian women wore their bangs in tight curls rather than swept back. Using a technique borrowed from the CIA, she identified a photo of Jesse James by examining the shape of his right ear."

"How the Edwardians Spoke" is a BBC documentary on how British accents have changed over the last 100 years. You can watch the hour-long program here on Google Video.

According to this article from The Hill, Democrats are optimistic about their chances in the 2008 Minnesota congressional elections.

"The entry of a trio of top Democratic candidates into races in the state’s three GOP-held House districts in the past 10 days has spurred talk of turning Minnesota into the Massachusetts of the Midwest, electing a congressional delegation that could mirror the all-Democratic slate representing arguably the most liberal state in the Union.

Whether or not the Democrats can achieve such a tall order, the state has quickly turned into a battleground, with as many as half its congressional seats up for grabs in 2008."

Does exercise make you thinner? According to this New York Magazine article, "despite half a century of efforts to prove otherwise, scientists still can’t say that exercise will help keep off the pounds."

Simon Schama discusses the life and work of the painter J. M. W. Turner in this New Yorker article.

As this Times Online article explains, after "25 years, five working prints and three quite different cinema releases," Ridley Scott is finally happy with the latest version of his film Blade Runner.

The characters from The Office discuss what they did this summer in this YouTube clip.

William Gibson discusses "growing up in Virginia, becoming renowned as a science-fiction seer, and the process of writing his latest novel, Spook Country," in this Onion A.V. Club interview.

Eight Foods You Should Eat Every Day

Beloit College has created its Mindset List for the incoming college class of 2011. The list is an effort "to identify a worldview of 18 year-olds in the fall of 2007." Some examples:

10. Pete Rose has never played baseball.

39. Fox has always been a major network.

55. MTV has never featured music videos.

61. They never saw Johnny Carson live on television.

Adam Gopnik examines the life and novels of Phillip K. Dick in this New Yorker article.