Tiny Talents

The New York Times has a nice article about some “how-to” sites:

On the Web’s amazing how-to sites, I am studying bar tricks. I should be learning, once and for all, how to do CPR, but all I really want to know is how to mix a Singapore Sling, palm a card and tongue-knot the stem of a maraschino cherry.

The best thing about how-to sites like Howcast, eHow, WonderHowTo, Instructables, SuTree, VideoJug and ExpertVillage — huge collections of videos that offer instruction in Chinese dining etiquette and surviving zombie attacks, plating fettuccine Alfredo and linking spins in freestyle kayaking — is that they revive a lost era of two-bit skills, when Cross pens whirled around thumbs, Zippos burst in and out of flames and someone was forever trying to show you how.

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