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Derek Chauvin is found guilty on all charges. [NYT] Chauvin, a white former Minneapolis police officer, was convicted of killing George Floyd, a Black man, by kneeling on Floyd’s neck. [more inside]
posted by NotLost at 10:19 PM PST - 200 comments

Jim Steinman has died at the age of 73. He's best known for writing and producing a string of hits for artists including Meatloaf (Albums "Bat Out of Hell" and "Bat Out of Hell II"), Bonnie Tyler ("Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Holding Out for a Hero"), Air Supply (Making Love out of Nothing at All), among many others. [more inside]
posted by rmd1023 at 4:38 PM PST - 84 comments

The time for Hollywood’s "White Male Genius" is over. "Well, ma’am, I wanted to say, he’s a grown-ass man in his 40s who puts more salad on the floor than in his mouth. And me, a woman half his age, getting paid less hourly than what she made as an intern out of college, shouldn’t have to be living proof of how society silently bends around white men with no protest."
posted by kitten kaboodle at 3:00 PM PST - 68 comments

Stephen Curry, point guard for the Golden State Warriors, along with his wife Ayesha, have helped serve 16,000,000 meals to Oakland kids this year. In November he bought a new food truck for Homies Empowerment, after theirs was stolen and trashed. In early April, he worked with the Bruce Lee Foundation to raise money to show solidarity with the Asian community. He's also found time to set the record for the most 3 point buckets in any 11 game stretch in NBA history for players 33 and older. [more inside]
posted by oneirodynia at 2:18 PM PST - 32 comments

That anxiety you're feeling, it's a habit you can unlearn. An interview with researcher/psychiatrist Jud Brewer on anxiety as an addiction. Transcript. "...we like to think that our thinking mind is in control. But if you look at how behavior is driven, thinking really doesn’t hold a candle to the feeling body. The feeling body — those urges are much stronger. And in the same way we can’t stop our thoughts. I often get people coming to me in a seminar or if I’m teaching a class where they say, oh, how do I just turn off my mind? How do I just stop my thoughts?" [more inside]
posted by storybored at 2:07 PM PST - 33 comments

Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield. And it might be the dominant emotion of 2021. (SLNYT)
posted by treepour at 11:46 AM PST - 25 comments

"It’s hard for people who have never experienced it to truly grasp what it means to lack proper documents." --From On Being an Outsider: Words by Charles Simic, Photos by Romeo Alaeff [excerpted by LitHub from the book In Der Fremde]
posted by chavenet at 10:15 AM PST - 4 comments

Night in Paradise is recent to Netflix, and if you like your revenge flicks served in the Korean style this one is pretty great. I am definitely in the shallow end of the pool when it comes to Korean cinema, but so much of what I have seen has been so great.. "Space Sweepers" would have been a groaner if produced in Hollywood, but somehow it was just darn entertaining.. and put Kang-Ho Song in any film and it cannot be a bad film.. Exhibit A: The Drug King. I imagine some of you have additional recommendations? Please share. And no, I am not a Netflix shill but what is up with their Korean content? I am not complaining!
posted by elkevelvet at 8:57 AM PST - 31 comments

Scientists Create Simple Synthetic Cell That Grows and Divides Normally - "New findings shed light on mechanisms controlling the most basic processes of life."[1] [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 5:43 AM PST - 36 comments

"To me, honestly, genre is just a vehicle I use to cross the story terrain. So depending on what story I want to tell, I use the appropriate genre." Author Nicola Griffith, author of scifi, historical fiction, detective fiction, nonfiction, and more, discusses her books and writing journey in an interview from late 2020. She learned more about how her own fiction works while writing a PhD thesis a few years ago. Griffith's blog has tons of interesting musings, on topics including the phenomenon of marginalized readers feeling "momentarily flummoxed by fiction that doesn't push us down" and identity and science fiction. "Reading SF, the over-riding value of which is the new, keeps our reticular activating systems primed: we expect everything and anything."
posted by brainwane at 4:30 AM PST - 4 comments