April 7
SLYT Cigarbox Oud blues number
Thirty-eight minutes in for the impatient. yet another best kind of fusion.
When things break
As art, as practical application, as metaphor, the delicate and profound craft of beautifully repairing beloved items resonates both aesthetically and emotionally. In a different sort of celebration and honoring of the broken thing, artist Helena Hafemann captures the moment of its would-be demise and spins it into a moment of beauty. [more inside]
Mary Poppins had more magic than you know
The folks at Corridor Crew recently reached back sixty years to recreate a truly wonderous piece of special effects technology that was thought to be long lost.
The comics legend lurking in a Sunderland basement
The BBC profiles comic artist and writer Bryan Talbot, following the recent announcement that he will be inducted into the Eisner Hall of Fame. [more inside]
Excitement as rare marsupial mole sighted in Australian desert region
Excitement as rare, golden-furred, marsupial mole sighted in Australian desert region rich with wildlife. The animals — known locally as kakarratul — are only seen about five to ten times in a decade, due to their tendency to burrow underground and the minimal human presence in their desert habitat. The moles are small and covered in silky golden hair. They do not have eyes, but boast large, strong forearms and claws that allow them to quickly dive under the sand and "swim" deep into the sand dunes.
When will society expect me to adhere to the laws of grammar?
Some realize it’s time to turn on auto-capitalization when they begin texting with bosses and colleagues for work, given lowercase letters can be susceptible to misinterpretation. This is especially the case when communicating with older generations who didn’t grow up DMing their BFFs. But shunning the Shift key helps others cling to their youth. To them, a lowercase letter isn’t just a lowercase letter. Instead, it’s a way to forever remain cool and casual in texts. Even some CEOs do it. from time to start typing like a grownup [WSJ; ungated]
The Art of the Benshi: "Full-fledged artists in their own right"
The Art of the Benshi: World Tour trailer. Tour dates (Brooklyn, this afternoon; DC, Apr. 12-14; Chicago, Apr. 16-17--sold out?; LA, Apr. 19 and 20-21; Tokyo, Apr. 26): "During the silent film era in Japan ... film screenings were accompanied by live narrators, called benshi ... [who] enlivened the cinema experience." Films include The Dull Sword (1917; animated); Jiraiya the Hero (1921; see fights at 3:48, 11:37 to see frog magic, and 14:09 for frog vs. snake); A Page of Madness (1926; one of "The 100 Best Horror Movies"; helpful screenplay [PDF] co-authored by Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata); and The Golden Flower (1929; animated). Previously. See also Jess Nevins's 2020 Twitter thread on Japanese horror movies, 1898-1949.
April 6
Seven agonizing nights aboard the Icon of the Seas
Gary Shteyngart on assignment from The Atlantic engages in a supposedly fun thing that he'll never do again, cruising from Florida to St. Kitts and CocoCay on board Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas. [more inside]
How are crayons made?
Cassowaries under threat from feral pigs
Australia has a feral pig problem and it is affecting the habitat of the cassowary (three minute video from BBC Earth.) There are only 2000 cassowaries left in Australia. There are 24 million feral pigs in Australia - for context, Australia only has 27.1 million people. Feral pigs compete with cassowaries for food. Feral pigs also eat cassowary eggs and cassowary chicks. Over 100 plant species depend on the cassowary to spread their seeds - if cassowaries disappear, it is disastrous for the rainforest and the other animals who rely on the rainforest.
Literally 30 years ago, Dionne Farris did the thing
Dionne Farris recorded an album released in 1994 that, if you're grooving on Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter album, might feel like it's a similar vibe. Wild Seed – Wild Flower [YT Playlist] comes from the vocalist of the band Arrested Development's song Tennessee, and Beyoncé's new album had been giving me whiplash in a lot of ways. Maybe, if you like Bey's new album, you'll like this older example of the same musical genre. Previously.
What did you think all them saddles and boots was about?
Orville Peck & Willie Nelson - Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other (slyt) [more inside]
"No meaning, no magic, just the work of it: the work of art"
Adam Moss (Vulture, 04/04/2024), "How'd You Make That? Three masterpieces from glimmer through struggle to breakthrough": "So I began talking to creators ... here are three of those conversations with the artists Cheryl Pope and Kara Walker and the poet Louise Glück." Of related interest: Dungeons & Dragons (early draft; see the upcoming book). A first draft of Finnegans Wake. The first page of 1984. Story Synopsis and Rough Draft [PDF] for Star Wars. The Creative Process: A Symposium. For checkout, The Making of The Pré. Plus "Work in Progress: Notes, Drafts, Revision, Publication," "... Check Out These Drafts From Famous Authors," "Surprising secrets of writers' first book drafts," and "First drafts of famous novels."
Gonna get downright MetaFiltered tonight
The English language is famous for its large number of drunkonyms, i.e. words that can be used to refer to the state of drunkenness – from blind and hammered to pissed, smashed and wasted. Various lists of words have been compiled in the past (e.g. Levine 1981). However, most of the terms seem to be relatively infrequent, and they also appear to fall out of use relatively quickly. In view of Michael McIntyre’s (2009) claim that it is possible to use any word to mean ‘drunk’ in English, this contribution therefore approaches the issue from a constructionist perspective. In a corpus-based study, we tested whether it is possible to model the expression of drunkenness in English as a more or less schematic (set of) construction(s). Our study shows that while corpus evidence for truly creative uses is scarce, we can nonetheless identify constructional and collostructional properties shared by certain patterns that are used to express drunkenness in English. For instance, the pattern be/get + ADV + drunkonym is strongly associated with premodifying (and often strongly intensifying) adverbs such as completely, totally and absolutely. A manual analysis of a large wordlist of English drunkonyms reveals further interesting patterns that can be modelled constructionally.“I’m gonna get totally and utterly X-ed.” Constructing drunkenness, a spirited academic paper from the Yearbook of the GCLA [more inside]
ὀφειλήματα are not “transgressions” but “debts”
One does not need to be a scholar of late antiquity to notice how often Jesus speaks of trials, of officers dragging the insolvent to jail. The Lord's Prayer, quite explicitly, requests — in order — adequate nourishment, debt relief, avoidance of arraignment before the courts, and rescue from the depredations of powerful but unprincipled men. [Note: The first 3 paragraphs are rather opaque and ornate but from the 4th paragraph, which begins "Christians are quite accustomed to thinking of Christianity as a fairly commonsensical creed," biblical scholar David Bentley Hart really starts cooking, albeit with academic vocabulary.] [more inside]
Flat oysters growing in Botany Bay again after more than 100 years
Flat oysters growing in Botany Bay after more than a century of local extinction.
Australian flat oysters went extinct in Botany Bay during the late 1800s. A conservation project has been working to bring them back.
Hierarchies of Fountain Pen Friendly Paper
“So as a baseline, what needs to happen before I will publicly recommend something as “fountain pen friendly paper”? My standard is fairly simple: No bleed-through or feathering with any fountain pen nib that can be reasonably used for everyday writing. (Because I mainly use my paper for drafting and notetaking, as opposed to drawing, wet ink samples, or flex-nib calligraphy, my standards may be more lenient than some.)” [more inside]
Many young people today see the game as the preserve of older people
Previously played by children, Japan’s adult population first went ballistic for pachinko after the Second World War, when the first commercial pachinko parlor opened in Nagoya. Popularity peaked during the 1990s, with an estimated 30 million people in approximately 18,244 pachinko parlors across the country. Today, however, according to the National Police Agency, the number of pachinko parlors has fallen to 7,655 — a 9.3% decline from the previous year. from Is Japan’s Pachinko Industry in Decline? [Tokyo Weekender] [more inside]
April 5
New Prince Song Dropped April 5 2024
Well, this is fun. Prince - United States Of Division (Official Audio) is a 6m20s funk jam with New Power Generation. Not quite sure WHEN this was recorded, but it feels appropriate to release right now. [more inside]
Native fish spotted swimming across desert highway after flooding rains
Native fish spotted swimming across remote desert highway after flooding rains. An Alice Springs photographer thought moving objects on a flooded outback highway were frogs, until he captured a spectacular video of fish crossing the road. [more inside]
What is a secret?
In the fall of 2004, Frank came up with an idea for a project. After he finished delivering documents for the day, he’d drive through the darkened streets of Washington, D.C., with stacks of self-addressed postcards—three thousand in total. At metro stops, he’d approach strangers. “Hi,” he’d say. “I’m Frank. And I collect secrets.” Some people shrugged him off, or told him they didn’t have any secrets. Surely, Frank thought, those people had the best ones. Others were amused, or intrigued. They took cards and, following instructions he’d left next to the address, decorated them, wrote down secrets they’d never told anyone before, and mailed them back to Frank. All the secrets were anonymous. Initially, Frank received about one hundred postcards back. They told stories of infidelity, longing, abuse. Some were erotic. Some were funny. He displayed them at a local art exhibition and included an anonymous secret of his own. After the exhibition ended, though, the postcards kept coming. By 2024, Frank would have more than a million.Dark Matter: For twenty years, PostSecret has broadcast suburban America’s hidden truths—and revealed the limits of limitless disclosure. [more inside]
"High school isn't a very important place."
For the 50th anniversary of Stephen King's debut novel Carrie (original review), the New York Times Book Review offers: an appreciation by Margaret Atwood; an essay by Amanda Jayatissa; a collection of reflections from various luminaries; a King reading guide; and a podcast with Grady Hendrix and Damon Lindelof about King's works and influence (NYT gift links throughout).
Not 2S3XY
After an announcement at the Tesla January earnings call introducing the Model 2 as an upcoming mass market priced model (that would require workers to sleep at the factory), reports are that the new model is being cancelled in light of increasing competition in the Chinese EV market. [more inside]
Freak Earthquake Shakes the East Coast
4.8 Shaker Strikes Whitehouse Station, NJ. Tri-State residents were surprised this morning by a rare earthquake. Although earthquakes are rare in the North East, they are not unheard of. The Ramapo Fault may be the culprit here. [more inside]
When quaint becomes cult
Jared Shurin on Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs, a "heart-warming/breaking portrayal of lost-and-found geeks captured the zeitgeist of a new [tech] subculture," from casual coding to its Silicon Valley extremes:
Looking back. . . we can see the first seeds of a spin-off culture, one that is not only aware of its incompatibility with the rest of society, but also revels in it. . . thirty years on, it now feels a lot less quaint, and a lot more frightening.
We Need To Talk About Trader Joe's
"According to these sources, Trader Joe’s commonly solicits product samples and even asks for potential recipe adjustments—a revealing and time-consuming exercise for bootstrapped founders—before inexplicably abandoning the negotiations and releasing its own private-label versions of similar products at lower prices." How Trader Joe's engages in shady tactics to copy products from independent, minority-owned brands.
Restoring an ugly hill into an ecosystem
They pooled their money to buy an ugly hill. Twenty years later, they're calling it paradise. A group of friends, dismayed about climate change, bought the most degraded piece of farmland they could find. Not to live on, or to make money from, but to transform into the bushland it once was. [more inside]
Well, I for one, really really wanna go
I used to want to be a part of the media party circuit so bad. As a young person aspiring to be a writer, I would zoom into certain Instagram Stories of interest, wondering how everyone there got to go. Now, as a person attending them, I am pissed off! I was lied to. Bamboozled. Swindled. Hoodwinked
I feared that being near all of this would mean the end of my career
“This was a catch-and-kill,” I told Alpert. “What’s a catch-and-kill?” he asked.
I went on to explain the tabloid practice of buying stories to bury them. Alpert already had the outline of the story, I learned, and I filled him in on more: how Howard had flown out to Los Angeles that summer to buy McDougal’s story for $150,000, with the direction from Pecker to kill it to protect Trump. I stressed to him the importance of the term “catch and kill” and told him that if The Journal included it, it would give me some breathing room. I went back to my office and closed the door. My heart was racing, and I was sweating. from What I Saw Working at The National Enquirer During Donald Trump’s Rise by Lachlan Cartwright [NY Times; ungated] [CW: Trumpland]
April 4
The Cast Rolls Merrily Along Discussing Their Cast Album
So this is unexpectedly delightful! Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff, Lindsey Mendez, Katie Rose Clark, Krystal Joy Brown, and Reg Rogers sit down with Seth Rudetsky to discuss the release of the Broadway Cast Album for Merrily We Roll Along [YT Playlist] in SiriusXM Cast Album Town Hall | Merrily We Roll Along on Broadway [52m]. Campy, joyous and full of laughter and some delightful theater stories! Merrily We Roll Along previously.
Bubba Copeland
[CW: transphobia, suicide] Bubba Copeland was the heart and soul of his community—mayor, businessman. When a website exposed his deepest secrets, his life wasn’t the only thing that was destroyed. [Esquire]
Marine scientists are bringing a once-lost habitat back to life
In this picturesque Tasmanian bay, marine scientists are bringing a once-lost habitat back to life. Tucked away in a picturesque bay on the Tasman Peninsula is a precious underwater field of giant kelp that's thriving thanks to a team of determined scientists.
Nashville Casualty and Life
Will clouds eclipse your view of the eclipse?
What’s the Cloud Forecast for Eclipse Day? (New York Times gift link) "If you have an eclipse viewing destination in mind, enter it in the box below to see the latest cloud cover forecast. We expect the forecast to become more accurate closer to the day of the eclipse, and The Times will update this map as fresh forecasts become available."
There's Trouble in River City.
The airplane equivelant of the front fell off.
Kyra Dempsey (Admiral Cloudberg) looks at plane crashes, recent and historical, and presents their analysis on their blog in a format that contains enough to be interesting while still being accessible to the layperson. Recent posts include The ditching of ALM Antillean Airlines flight 980 one of the few commercial airlines to ditch into the sea, the absolutely insane series of events that lead to The crash of Pakistan International Airlines flight 8303, and the series of oversights, missed warning and that lead to The 2019 Alaska mid-air collision. [more inside]
Like "The Net", But For Real
A high ranking Iowa hospital systems administrator has plead guilty to identity theft after stealing his former coworker's identity - for thirty years. (SLArs Technica) [more inside]
Making sense of climate denial tactics
Fake experts, Logical fallacies, Impossible expectations, Cherry picking, and Conspiracy theories (FLICC) and a Denial101 video trilogy (Part 1, 2, 3). From climate science communication researcher John Cook of Skeptical Science (with old school website layout!). See also the Cranky Uncle game based on the theory of inoculation: There may be no way to cure existing zombies, but we can reduce the number of people who are infectable by zombies. [more inside]
“assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon (bees)”
The Bees of Wrath by James D. Walsh is the story of Rorie Woods, who released a hive of bees onto sheriff’s deputies who had arrived to evict a 79-year-old friend of hers. When informed that several deputies might be allergic, she allegedly replied: “Oh you’re allergic, good”.
Getting the Most Out of Yer Humans
The fine art of human prompt engineering: How to talk to a person like ChatGPT. "To maximize the value of interactions with human language models, much like optimizing prompts for AI (prompt engineering), consciously crafting prompts to fit a particular HLM can be crucial. Here are several prompting strategies that we have found useful when interacting with humans." [more inside]
Phone to Smartphone and Back Again
A recently added setting on iPhones and iPads makes the devices less complicated. When activated, it switches to a bare-bones home screen that shows one or more apps as larger-than-usual icons. It makes smartphones and tablets easier to navigate by minimizing the number of options and adding more visual-based controls. WaPost gift link to article
The second the puck hit the ice, absolute mayhem broke loose.
Last night at Madison Square Green: The Rangers and Devils started an all-out line brawl the second the puck dropped, resulting in 8 ejections. The fight has roots in violent encounters last month when Rangers’ Rempe concussed Devils player Siegenthaler. Trigger warning for self-harm and sexual assault. [more inside]
World-first cassowary bridge in Far North Queensland
Differing opinions over whether a world-first cassowary bridge in Far North Queensland may be too steep for the endangered birds to use. [more inside]
How A Sleepy Pennsylvania Town Grew Into America's Mushroom Capital
The beds are covered with a mass of pure white, like bubbling foam: thousands of white button mushrooms. These are the mushrooms — along with other strains of this same species, the brown and portobello mushrooms — that account for the vast majority of all mushrooms that Americans eat.
‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza
1974 Super Outbreak
On April 3 and 4, 1974, thunderstorms spawned more
than 100 tornadoes, killing
more than 300 and injuring another 6000. Most fatalities occurred in
small towns from Guin
and Tanner, Alabama to Monticello,
Indiana and the
small city of Xenia,
Ohio. The Super
Outbreak became the impetus for improved
weather forecasting, improved
emergency notification, and comprehensive
federal response. [more inside]
It’s Coming From Inside the House: Queer Horror in 2023
"What does a queer family look like? How do you define one without capitulating to heteronormative ideas of the 'nuclear family'? And how do those dynamics play out with families in the horror genre?" Laura Riordan on queer family in recent horror films.
Beefy McCheese appears to be a mensch
“Whatever it was, we would put a price on it and sell it”
Cat bonds investors are gambling on nature. If a disaster they’ve bet on occurs, their money is used to settle insurance claims. If it doesn’t, they get handsome returns. For decades, the instruments were a last resort reserved for super-rare events, such as a cataclysmic storm on the scale of Hurricane Katrina. But multibillion-dollar calamities have become alarmingly frequent on a warmer planet. “The insurance market is on edge,” says Seo. “It’s freaked out about risk and wants as little as possible.” from How a Physics Whiz Made a Killing Betting on Nature’s Catastrophes [Bloomberg; ungated]
April 3
Discovering Australia's remarkable rodents
Happy World Rat Day! 🐀
Australia’s native rodent species are incredibly diverse - from the Rakali, an otter-like rodent with webbed feet, to tiny desert-dwelling Hopping Mice that weigh no more than a golf ball.
Discovering Australia's remarkable rodents [more inside]
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