Call Me Friday Links

Not much laugh-out-loud funny to be had this week, but plenty in the way of fascinating stories.

• Fortune Cookies' origins have been traced to Japan. (New York Times)


• Moby Dick's narrator tries his hand at stand-up comedy. (McSweeney's)


• The Library of Congress has just joined flickr. And it's pretty much the awesomest thing ever. A big chunk of what they've put up here is from their FSA/OWI collection, most of it from the 40s, most of it in glorious stylized 40s color. I could waste hours here. (And actually have done.)


• Speaking of the Library of Congress: A set of photo negatives labeled by the LOC as being pictures of Grant's inauguration turn out to be from Lincoln's. (LA Times via A. Lincoln Blog.)


• Again tangentially related to the Library of Congress: Historian Joe Manning has undertaken the project of finding out what happened to many of the children in Lewis Hine's famous photographs of child laborers.


• Vladimir Nabokov wanted his last unpublished manuscript destroyed after his death. It's currently sitting in a bank vault. Should his son respect Nabokov's wishes or those of his readers/scholars/fans/admirers? (Slate)