Sharon Howard will host History Carnival #9 here at Cliopatria on Wednesday 1 June. Please send your nominations of posts that have gone up since 15 May to her at sharon*AT*earlymodernweb.org.uk. This could be the mother of all History Carnivals because – well, because she's its mother.

And now it's come down to this: In"A History of Anything," Sepoy at Chapati Mystery gave us a compendium of the fashionable micro-histories of everything from soup to nuts in 240 pp. each. Janet Maslin's"The Happy Hour: Changing the Course of History," New York Times reviews Tom Standage's A History of the World in Six Glasses. World History, according to Standage, is divided into the Ages of Beer, Wine, Spirits, Coffee, Tea, and Coca-Cola. I am thinking about Atlanta's beverage being the culmination of all human experience.

Frangipani Gallery has an extra-ordinary exhibit of 128 Japanese manhole covers. They need not be utilitarian and dull. They can be utilitarian and beautiful or interesting. Thanks to BoingBoing for the tip.

Evan at The Scope passes along a line from Marge on The Simpsons:"Don't make fun of grad students. They just made a horrible life choice."

Would someone get Mike Piazza a brain transplant? Out of the starting line-up for the New York Mets game with the Atlanta Braves last week, he spent his time getting Rush Limbaugh to autograph a baseball for him."It was like meeting George Washington," Piazza said. Thanks to Dewar MacLeod at Superannuated Pedagogue for the tip.