March 29, 2016
The Mastermind
"My immediate reaction upon discovering this connection was a sudden and irrational fear: Le Roux was something new, a self-made cartel boss whose origins were not in family connections but in code. Not just any code, but encryption software that would play a role in world events a dozen years after he created it.
I stared at the address on the screen, a post-office box in Manila, left now with a still larger mystery: What had turned the earnest, brilliant programmer into an international criminal, with a trail of bodies in his wake?" [more inside]
Extinct Siberian unicorn: not quite as magical as you might hope
While it's quite exciting to hear that the extinct 'Siberian unicorn' may have lived alongside humans, except it's more exciting to see Elasmotherium sibiricum as depicted by Heinrich Harder, which is more like the elusive tiny unicorn pony that lead police on a chase (thanks Horse Channel!) than a large, hairy relative of the rhinoceros that was neither particularly horse-like nor mythological.
The Quinoa-Free, Gluten-Sized, Up-Calorie New Organick Style Compendium
Sacred Birds: Jesus Was a Cockatoo
Artist and painting instructor Kelley Vandiver has reinvented cardinals, hummingbirds, blackbirds, bluebirds, chickens, and lots of parrots as religious figures in iconic paintings. [more inside]
Your speakers are going to E*X*P*L*O*D*E
Capsule’s Pride (Bikes) is a new mixtape of Akira-themed remixes from Toronto, CANADAAAAA!-based producer Bwana that has just been released by Glasgow-based LuckyMe Records. If you don’t want to stream it on Youtube while watching minimal music videos derived from the manga’s art, why not download it here (scroll down) and listen while browsing through the Otomblr.
A fine day
The New York Public Library has digitized the diary of one Elizabeth De Hart Bleecker as part of their Early American Manuscripts Project. Bleecker wrote about her life in New York City for seven years, beginning in 1799 when she was eighteen years old and ending in 1806.
The day the music died
What if we could broaden it to think that there's multiple virginities
'Girls & Sex' And The Importance Of Talking To Young Women About Pleasure One of the things that was really great was in talking to a gay girl I asked her, "When did you think that you had lost your virginity?" And she said, "Well, you know, I really have thought a lot about that, and I'm not really sure." She gave a few different answers and then she said...
Miracles From Hollywood - Faith-Based Films Get Big
"Faith-based dramas" (i.e., Christian wish-fulfillment stories) are making their way to multiplexes and attracting a lot of eyeballs and dollars. From the 2008 surprise indie hit Fireproof (starring Kirk Cameron as a porn-addicted firefighter who reconnects with his wife thanks to God) to this month's Miracles From Heaven (starring tabloid A-lister Jennifer Garner as a mother whose child is miraculously cured of a debilitating disease), the overtly evangelistic genre is increasingly mainstream. The AV Club takes a look at whether the new wave of faith-based filmmaking can transcend propaganda. [more inside]
The Emergency Egress
Balcony Seats to the City: "Officially of course, the urban fire escape is primarily an emergency exit, but in New York, this prosaic adornment of countless five- and six-story apartment houses has assumed myriad other functions: faux backyards, platforms for criminal getaways, oases for marginalized smokers and makeshift bedrooms popular during an age before air-conditioning." [more inside]
Luckiest Girl Alive
I know that I made the mistake of thinking that living well is the best revenge ... If I were a victim of the other horrific crime in my book, I would talk about it openly. I wouldn't pretend like it hadn't happened to me, like I don't still hurt about it, like I don't still cry about it. Why should this be any different? What I know, an essay by Jessica Knoll.
Also, in the NYT, Jessica Knoll Reveals the Rape Behind Her Novel, ‘Luckiest Girl Alive’.
(There are not enough trigger warnings in the world for this difficult, brave essay and the article about it.)
3d printed magnetic fields!
3d printed magnetic fields! "Think of Polymagnets as programmable magnets. By combining many magnetic fields, CMR’s technology transforms ordinary magnets into precision-tailored magnetic systems we call Polymagnets."
RIP Patty Duke
Patty Duke, star of both stage and screen of The Miracle Worker, well known for her dual roles in The Patty Duke Show, and spokesperson for people with bipolar disorder (discussed in her excellent autobiography Call Me Anna), has died at age 69.
“You cannot have both . . . Joke and Art,”
Terry Southern, The Art of Screenwriting No. 3 Interviewed by Maggie Paley [The Paris Review] [more inside]
Man In Tree charged; $50,000 bail
Cody Lee Miller, a possibly homeless individual who became famous for sitting in a tree in downtown Seattle for a little over 24 hours, inspiring the #ManInTree hashtag, was charged yesterday with third-degree assault and first-degree malicious mischief, after an initial promise that he would not be charged by SPD spokesperson Patrick Michaud. (While in the tree, he threw pinecones and an apple at approaching officers and stripped some branches of the tree by hand.) His bail has been set at $50,000 and he remains in King County Jail. [more inside]
Before the internet, these “wishful Amish” wrote to newspaper editors
Can an Outsider Become Amish?
Up until that summer, ... Alex’s knowledge of the Amish was derived solely, like any ‘90s child, from the Weird Al Yankovic song “Amish Paradise,” and from the few times his family drove by them while on their way to drop him off at summer camp in Northern Pennsylvania when he was a kid. But he entered his senior year of high school ... with the Plain people in his mind. He bought Twenty Most Asked Questions About the Amish and Mennonites and “hauled it around with [him] everywhere;” he’d occasionally wear button-down shirts and slacks to school and when other students would ask him if he had some sort of presentation that day, he’d cheerfully respond, “Nope, I’m just dressing Mennonite!”
White Folks Who Teach in the Hood
Dr. Christopher Emdin talks to PBS Newshour about what he calls a pervasive narrative in urban education: a savior complex that gives mostly white teachers in minority and urban communities a false sense of saving kids. Also linked in the article is this one on the same topic from another perspective.
RIP Myngheer and Demoitie
After the terrible events of March 22nd, the survival of the Belgian Classics season was a relief to many sports fans. Unfortunately, it has been a terrible week for the sport, as two Belgian cyclists have now died in separate incidents. [more inside]
Yo, Is This Ageist?
“Our society is so ageist that younger people don’t want to sit next to older people because they think they’re boring, and older people might think they have nothing to say to younger people." So says Ashton Applewhite, a blogger that has just published a book about ageism.
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