A recent study has found that keeping an active mind with activities like crosswords can prevent dementia. My grandma will be thrilled! • A group of brides are super pissed at a shop owner who went out of business and never supplied them with their dresses or a refund. • Venus Williams is set to write an inspirational book for HarperCollins about memorable advice her coach once gave her. Wasn't her father her coach? And wasn't he kind of an asshole? • A 33-year-old man in Michigan was caught trying to meet with a 14-year-old girl for sex wearing a "World's Greatest Dad" t-shirt. Irony or social statement? • Authorities have found thousands of marijuana plants being grown in a remote part of a Girl Scout camp in Indiana. Thousands of "badge for pot farming" jokes coming to a blog near you!

Tasha Tudor was one of the last true eccentrics, someone whose peculiarity owed nothing to image (although she was happy to capitalize on it) and everything to individual proclivity. That the larger world found this so appealing is testament not just to the hackneyed yearning for "a simpler time" but, I think, for this kind of rugged individualism. And was she weird! Says the Times, "Ms. Tudor frequently said that she was the reincarnation of a sea captain’s wife who lived from 1800 to 1840 or 1842, and that it was this earlier life she was replicating by living so ardently in the past."

Although her lifestyle was picturesque, Tasha Tudor was not cuddly. She was prickly and hard-nosed, unsentimental about her art and ready to build a thriving cottage industry off of it. And, obviously, she owned a gun.

It's not surprising that she should have appealed to an eccentric child; as the Times (and a 1950s autobiography I cherished) tells us, as a child "she developed a love of times past and things rural, going to auctions to buy antique clothing before she was 10. At 15 she used money she had made teaching nursery school to buy her first cow." So much niftier than sticker books (the fad of the year) and The Little Mermaid! Also appealing to me, she was one of the most prominent unsentimental adult doll-lovers, writing some of the best doll fiction (The Doll's Christmas, Corgiville Fair), owner to a magnificent (1830s style) dollhouse, and host to an elaborate doll wedding covered by Life magazine.

Tasha Tudor lived a long and reportedly very healthy life - and no one can say that she didn't live it exactly as she wanted to. It's hard to really be sad when such a life ends - but a part of me still is. While I don't know that burgeoning eccentricity should always be encouraged (I had to wrest myself forcibly into a semblance of normalcy as a teen for the good of my social skills, and it was a painful process), it was tremendously heartening to me as a child to know that in this day and age someone had that much agency in her own destiny, could be that peculiar and still thrive. When I received a hand-written note from Tasha Tudor many months after sending my letter, it was one of the happiest moments of my life, and I still cherish it. That my best friend found and mocked it mattered not one whit - Tasha had taught me that. Enjoy the 1830s farm in the sky, my friend.

Tasha Tudor, Children's Book Illustrator, Dies at 92 [New York Times]

Earlier: Coming Out of the Dollhouse Closet

I mean, lots of little girls play with dolls. In my case, the doll family was a motley crew acquired at various tag sales and thrift stores. The main players were Lime, Rainbow and Orange - triplets in striped jump suits from the stationery store - and a six-inch femme fatale named Vagina. There was also a grubby used Barbie of uncertain vintage (usually cast as the burlesque dancer) and a lone boy baby doll, Big Leon, who, when submerged in water, could pee out of a tiny penis, and was the de facto groom in all weddings.

I wasn't very maternal, but I loved playing God with my dolls' lives, which were heavily influenced by Greek mythology and Singin' in the Rain. I had several friends whom I stayed in abusive relationships with because they had such good dolls: the neighbor with the extensive Barbie wardrobe, or the classmate with three American Girl dolls that I was not allowed to touch. (The one time I persuaded her to let us take the Kirsten doll outside -I mean, she was a pioneer- we lost the wooden spoon on the doll's belt and I had to take the rap.)

As other girls outgrew dolls, though, my obsession only evolved. I took it underground. I concealed my subscription to the Doll Reader and made excuses in other cities when I slipped off to doll museums. I started experimenting with making my own, with frightening results. I was ashamed: not only was this possibly the uncoolest thing in the world - think QVC - but what was wrong with me that tiny fake people and their paraphernalia hadn't ceased to enthrall? I've tried to analyze what it is about miniature things that fascinates me and I can't tell whether it's the manageable nature of their scale (so much less overwhelming than real life) or the fact that, with old ones, they're like living witnesses to history. (Okay, that does sound kind of creepy.) Or, you know, just how cool it is that people can make things so tiny. A long time ago I started taking note of other adult women who retained a doll fetish - Tasha Tudor, Queen Mary, a weirdo named Joe Carstairs who carried this doll familiar named Lord Tod Wadley with her everywhere - and they're uniformly bizarre.

Nevertheless, I think it's time I threw off the shackles of my secret life and admit the truth: I am a doll-loving American. I read about them in lame hobby magazines, I buy them on eBay, I look at them in museums, I hang with Irving Chase at the New York Doll Hospital. Even the cheapest, crummiest doll holds a certain fascination for me. And I am no longer ashamed. I recently ran into a hipster acquaintance while I was holding a vintage doll I'd just gotten at a stoop sale - and you know what? I held my head high. Thank you for your support.

Viktor & Rolf: So Good They Did It Twice [Telegraph]

Mattel is doing everything in its power to fight Barbie's increasing obsolescence. The Wall Street Journal reports that, in order to combat its "rare quarterly loss" — unlike last year, sales of Barbie flattened both inside and outside of the United States — Mattel is ramping up web-related offerings and is going to start charging a small subscription fee for its Barbie Girl website, which offers games, videos, chats and "digital extras". It's also experimenting with more interactive products — which aren't guaranteed successes. According to the Journal, "The recent Magic of the Rainbow, a fantasy doll marketed under the Barbie brand, doubled as a remote control, came with a CD-ROM game and featured wings that fluttered at the push of a button. 'Girls asked — is this a doll?' said [Chuck] Scothon [senior vice president of Mattel's girls division]. 'We put too much in.'"

[Image via Wilde Designs Etsy Shop]

Earlier: New Game Encourages Young Girls To Embrace Their Inner "Bimbo"

We weren't really into dolls when we were young, and should we ever get pregnant and then lose the baby at a late stage, or have a stillbirth or a cot death, we're pretty sure we still wouldn't be into dolls.

But if we were to change our mind, it's comforting to know that Footprints Reborn Nursery will make an exact replica doll of our dead baby that we can carry around with us. To, ah, aid the healing process, and doubtless speed up our divorce/confinement to a mental asylum.

"It may be a few months or it may be many years since you lost your precious angel. Here at Footprints Nursery we truly understand your pain as we also have been there.

...At Footprints Nursey we have on offer a very special product, We will custom make you a memorial baby to your needs, Whether it is from your precious angels photo or in the case of a miscarriage then it would be to what you dreamed your special little one would have looked like."

Dead baby dolls are available from $125 and upwards. And they say you can't put a price on happiness.

it's a funny old world [Footprints Nursery]