December 12
Pre-internet this was the only way people could get cute cat videos
Mining Accident Theater is a sequence of fan-made tributes to Mystery Science Theater 3000, all available on Youtube. Bogdan, Catherine and Tom are stuck down in a mine, waiting for rescue, and in the meantime they watch old film reels they find in the mine and comment on them. Most are between 8 and 30 minutes. The newest one is the delightful What Is A Cat? (15m). A few others (there are currently 12 in all) are the one full-length movie so far, Italian sci-fi film War of the Robots (1h42m), for the holiday season the sloooow-paced, but short, Legend of Mary (9m), a kinescope of the early anthology series Lights Out entitled The Angry Birds (25m), and Leonard Nimoy Presents Magnavision (13m). [more inside]
Joey sightings a welcome sign for this endangered WA marsupial
Joey sightings a welcome sign for this endangered WA marsupial. Conservation scientists credit the curbing of introduced predators with a rebound in the population of endangered iconic numbats in Western Australia. (Joeys are baby marsupials, in this case, baby numbats.)
Remember when you wanted to?
There is nothing so niche, so unimaginable, so good or bad that you can’t do it on Beyoncé’s country internet in 2024. But the most enduring thing you can be on the internet—the thing that has withstood every technological advancement, every new wave of virality—is annoying. With each new year and each new online platform, we stray further from the light of the simpler, more anonymous internet we once knew: eBaum’s World, Club Penguin, Facebook before your aunt got on it, Old Gregg. Now, as technological advancement pushes the internet to grow and morph into something ever more Byzantine, there are so many more opportunities to be annoying. from The New Commandments of the Modern Internet [The Ringer]
"This was a country ... where 'daily life was a fire hazard'"
Daniel Immerwahr (03/2024), "All That Is Solid Bursts into Flame: Capitalism and Fire in the Nineteenth-Century United States": "The hot capitalism story is one of speculation, calamities, collapses, deadbeats, dubious currencies, get-rich-quick schemes, manias, frauds and panics ... In the combustible United States, fire was a conspicuous sign of economic volatility." Related: "The American Museum in Ruins" by P.T. Barnum. "An oral history of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871." Steam fire engines (1893). Chicago's Awful Theater Horror (1904). Recollections of a Fire Insurance Man (1909). And a history of the National Board of Fire Underwriters (1916). Previouslies: Sanborn Maps. Disaster Capitalism. And Immerwahr. Tangents: Black firefighters. "The Great Chelsea Fire of 1973," in which two fires are explained in economic and 19th C. history terms. And "A Political Economy of Wildfire in the Western United States" [PDF].
I wouldn't start here
There's an (apparently) Irish joke that goes something like this: a tourist asks a local for directions to Dublin. The Irishman replies: ‘Well sir, if I were you, I wouldn’t start from here’.
In this conversation, hosted by Alex Forrester, Bayo Akomolafe and Paul Hawken explore climate change as a dialogue between ways of seeing and thinking about it - western and non-western. [more inside]
How do we appeal to Taiwanese tastes, and how do we make Italians angry?
Riot-hit Liverpool library is back - and it's better than ever!
"We will NOT let hate win" (SLYouTube). Four months ago, Spellow library was wrecked by a bunch of idiot racist thugs. The community there responded magnificently.
BIOTA
How To Sound Design Ecosystems [YouTube, 31 minutes] - Biota is a completely synthesized, procedural / generative alien soundscape that I sound designed in Ableton Live. In this video I'll break down how I created various geophysical and wildlife sounds generatively, and discuss other factors that go into creating a soundscape.
Trainspoffing
Overall rail operators do not deliver satisfactory services. But differences between them show that strong improvements are possible. The sector has not managed to sort things out on its own, which is why policy change is urgently needed. from Mind the gap! Europe’s Rail Operators: a Comparative Ranking [Transport & Environment]
Kafka's Screwball Tragedy
Investigations of a Philosophical Dog. "Investigations of a Dog" is a funny and deeply philosophical tale of a lone, maladjusted dog who defies scientific dogma and pioneers an original research program in pursuit of the mysteries of his self and his world. (by Aaron Schuster, adapted from his book How to Research Like a Dog)
ancient roos
one painting of a kangaroo is securely dated to between 17,500 and 17,100 years on the basis of the ages of three overlying and three underlying wasp nests. This is the oldest radiometrically dated in situ rock painting so far reported in Australia [nature, via artark] [more inside]
December 11
Fossilised faeces hold clues to how dinosaurs ruled the planet
Fossilised faeces hold clues to how dinosaurs ruled the planet. Using hundreds of samples of fossilised faeces, vomit and intestinal contents, alongside bones and footprints, researchers traced the rise of the dinosaurs over millions of years.
Rugby League Diplomacy
From 2028, there will be a Papua New Guinea team in the National Rugby League (NRL). Introduced by Australian soldiers in the 1940s, rugby league is the national sport in the country. It also has diplomatic ramifications, since a clause in the agreement Australia has negotiated ensures PNG will not sign new security agreements with China.
Suddenly, a character says out of nowhere: “What the fuck is going on?"
Fun with Flags, Land of Lincoln Edition
The Illinois Flag Commission has released the 10 finalists [PDF] for the new state flag design contest. Voting for the new flag design will begin in January 2025.
🤘🏽 The Twelfth Hour is at Hand 🤘🏽
For our one-dozenth outing, feast your ears on this absolute gem of French female-fronted metalcore: NOVELISTS - Coda. [more inside]
One of the largest contributors to the overall aesthetic
Inspired heavily by the concepts behind American pop art and the styles of British pop artists such as David Hockney, Nagai focused on imaginations of a 1950s Americana landscape. Adapting the deep blue skies, relaxed ocean side settings and sleepy nighttime cityscapes from previous pop artists, Nagai developed his own style throughout the late 1970s. His work finally began to gain traction in Japan around the turn of the 1980’s and this coincided fortuitously with the rise of City Pop. from Hiroshi Nagai: Japan’s Sun-drenched Americana [Tokyo Cowboy]
please take me home with you and brush my tear away
"Once upon a time in the whimsical world of toys, Hasbro introduced an unconventional doll named Little Miss No Name in 1965. This eerie creation, inspired by the paintings of Margaret Keane and designed by Deet D’Andrade, was intended to be the antithesis of the glamorous Barbie, embodying a stark departure from the glitz and fashion. With its haunting features, Little Miss No Name quickly became a toy anomaly of the 1960s." She doesn’t have a pretty dress. She doesn’t have any shoes. She doesn’t even have a home. All she has is love. [more inside]
The Greatest Showman: Richard Feynman
Physicist Angela Collier has a new video the sham legacy of Richard Feynman. After reading every book on Feynman, she covers the cottage industry of Feynman media, the Feynman bros in this cult of personality, how he did not write "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" or any other book, and how the stories that Feynman tells about himself are almost certainly made up. [more inside]
Home Alone for the holidays
Patrick Explains HOME ALONE (And Why It's Great). Single link YouTube by Patrick Willems (previously) that's pretty great about a pretty great movie.
You're gonna get what you deserve. Ho ho ho!
Nine Inch Noels, a medley of Christmas(?) songs with lyrics from Trent Reznor's thing, from Lore Sjöberg. (NSFW lyrics) [more inside]
The Hawk Tuah Memecoin Rug Pull is the Apotheosis of Bag Culture
Stoner Cats
Stoner Cats Stoner Cats (2021) is a cartoon that stars Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher and Chris Rock as cats that use medical marijuana. (on youtube) [more inside]
In the rasp of today
Hence, we end up with a deadly conflict born of misinterpretations/colliding realities, and of course power imbalances, and so much history one poem or answer to a question can’t answer. I appreciate Adeena’s scholarly, poly-lingual investigation of a subject, and her exploratory and exploded use of language. As much as This Page reveals empathy for the complex realities and narratives of both sides, in the end, this poem is not neutral. It comes down against occupation and the horrors of a grossly lopsided war. from A New Visualized Poem Covers ‘Occupied Territory’ [Print]
December 10
“obedézcase, pero no se cumpla.”/obeyed, but not fulfilled
[Mexico] city’s metro hosts—and authorities unofficially sanction—a queer institution unlike any other.
“There are more intensities on the margins than in the center, where everyone is homogenized.” And the train connects these marginal intensities.[Introduction probably NSFW] [more inside]
[00:01] or gtfo
Get surreal, man, with Goethepunk
Get surreal, man, with Goethepunk
Scroll down endlessly, pick a favorite, come back and share [more inside]
Scroll down endlessly, pick a favorite, come back and share [more inside]
Thylacoleo replica skeleton posed pouncing on tourists
Model of what may have been a real-life drop bear now on display in South Australia. A complete replica skeleton of Australia's largest mammalian predator [the marsupial lion, Thylacoleo, which went extinct around around 40,000 years ago] can now be seen pouncing at tourists visiting South Australia's World Heritage-listed Naracoorte Caves.
The Waiting
The Waiting : "Karen Lips is researcher and lives for several years in a tiny little shack in Costa Rica to observe frogs. When she leaves the cloud forest for a short time and returns, the frogs are gone. All of them. Karen sets out to find them – and encounters a horrible truth. Mysterious deaths occur all over the planet and have a similar pattern. Why have so many species vanished? And what does it all have to do with us? "
These are gorgeous machines
"Dumas began his Dr. Death radio show on KLSU in December of 1983"
"A small but influential independent record label ... C'est la Mort specialized in ethereal, ambient, dream pop, & darkwave bands." Ca. 1990, an interest in 4AD groups like His Name is Alive (2024 boxset; eponym for a quiescent MeFite) may have led you to early work by The Magnetic Fields (2024 Tiny Desk previously) on "Doctor Death's" compilations from C'est La Mort, also introducing artists like Area, The Millions, Orange, Collection d'Arnell-Andréa, Ivory Library, and The Arms of Someone New. A mainstay of the series was "a somewhat obscure post-punk band from San Francisco ... Often paired [live] with ... bands like Necropolis of Love." Contributing songs like "Market," "Rousseau's Rainbow," "Dilemma," etc., M-1 Alternative also had albums less available now, but their early work is available on Bandcamp. And KLSU is still going.
Eat What You Kill
ProPublica, in conjunction with the Montana Free Press, has published a detailed expose into Helena oncologist Dr. Tom Weiner - detailing a history of questionable diagnoses and patient harm. [more inside]
Ghost Rivers
Baltimore Buried These Streams. Now an Artist Is Bringing One Back.
The new “Ghost Rivers” installation is a reminder of Baltimore’s hidden streams — and the visible costs of trying to control our urban waterways. Also: Daylighting: A Case Study of the Jones Falls River and How ‘Daylighting’ Buried Waterways Is Revitalizing Cities Across America.
It's maptacular!
The fire insurance maps produced by the Sanborn Map Company beginning in the 1860s are a rich and exceptionally detailed resource about American urban history. But they're also a beautiful collection of design and typography of the period. A new site brings together collections of digitized Sanborn Maps from libraries around the country to highlight the effusive design of the cover pages for each city. (via Kottke.)
"The United States’ wealthiest citizens...do not appear in the document"
As it was previously noted by people on Metafilter, the Pandora Papers and the Panama Papers had a strange lack of dirt on US oligarchs. Ever wonder why? [more inside]
Are the fires of Hell a-glowing?
More than two decades after the original film popularized the "fast zombie" craze, we finally have our first look at Danny Boyle's long-awaited return to horror, and one of the best trailers in years: 28 YEARS LATER. Though the trailer's terrifying, cultlike atmosphere and snatches of atavistic violence are intriguing, the real star is the soundtrack: a tinny, 110-year-old poetry reading whose hypnotically repetitive words tromp relentlessly from prim recitation to jangling nerves to a hysterical, nightmarish climax.
The poem, Rudyard Kipling's "Boots", was originally written to memorialize (and echo) the wretched forced marches of the Second Boer War (as former Navy SEAL Jocko Willink recites/explains), its grim refrain a verse from Ecclesiastes on the inevitability of death.
The howling rendition from the trailer, made by early film star Taylor Holmes in 1915, has long been used by elite SERE training schools to psychologically break recruits.
2spooky4u? There are plenty of alternatives:
pioneering composer Kay Swift at age 14 (1911) -
the sonorous Peter Dawson (1930) -
the melodramatic Eric Woodburn (1935) -
the operatic Leonard Warren (1951) -
folksy anarchist Leslie Fish (1991) -
or cleanse the palette with the goofy Red Skelton parody, "Frogs."
World's most expensive dinosaur fossil goes on display at New York
The most expensive dinosaur fossil ever discovered will be on display in New York at the American Museum of Natural History. The giant stegosaurus fossil, dubbed "Apex", is 3.3 metres tall and 8.2 metres nose to tail and is one of the most complete fossils of this type of dinosaur in existence.
Diaspora dishes are strange in how they take on an identity of their own
The hankering for mulukhiyah is a unique hunger. When I lived in Europe for graduate school, it was the first meal I’d eat on my short visits home, texting my request before my plane even landed. It’s the food I crave when I haven’t been to my parents’ for supper in a while. I can call its garlicky taste to my mouth as readily as I can trick my ears into filling with the timbre of my dad’s voice when I’m miles away from him, traveling restlessly as we both love to do. Though my mom excels at every dish in her repertoire, the exhilaration of the roughly monthly cycle culminating in mulukhiyah makes me clap my palms and cheer like I’m 4. from The Kitchen with Two Doors
by Kristina Kasparian [Longreads]
December 9
A Good Cry
Call for end to draconian police cautions for sex workers
Call for end to draconian police cautions for sex workers that last until age of 100.
Police in England and Wales should be banned from issuing a draconian caution that exclusively targets sex workers, both politicians and campaigners have said. A "prostitute’s caution," unlike other police cautions, does not require a person to admit to an offence or agree to accept it. Police can issue them to anyone they have "reasonable cause" to believe has broken prostitution laws, meaning little evidence is required. [more inside]
“I could promise it is indeed possible to slip on a banana peel…”
The History of Slipping on Banana Peels is a half hour documentary video essay by Jon Bois about the non-metaphorical act of slipping on a banana peel, as recorded throughout history by American newspapers.
Inescapable around the world
‘Last Christmas’ was not about flash and musicianship, more framing the vocal sentiment of George Michael’s heartbreak and yearning. It’s a prime example of the HappySad nature of the best pop – sounding jolly and at odds to the mourning of a buggered-up relationship. He’s telling himself the series of lies that often accompany dealing with betrayal – does he want them back? Can he muster a full on ‘fuck you’? There’s more than a touch of obsessive behaviour about it. The “this year to save me from tears, I’ll give it to someone special”, is utter shade, and yet sung like he’s gently stroking your hair. from Transcendental Cheap Magic: Wham!’s ‘Last Christmas’ At 40 [The Quietus]
The 2024 Best-Ofs! - LP edition
Following are the "Best Albums of 2024" picks from a variety of media outlets. In most cases, these were a rank-ordered "Best 25" or "Best 50," although a few outlets simply did a best-of with no "winner" at no.1. I extracted the top 10 from those longer than 10 out of space considerations and listed them nos. 10 to 1, top to bottom. In a few cases, however, the albums were unranked and just over 10 in number, so I included all of them. Many of the following plus others are listed at AlbumOfTheYear.org.
One thing I learned in compiling this: Boy, do media outlets hate consistency in capitalization (see: Billie Eilish/Beyoncé/Charli xcx LPs).
And, so, in no particular order: [more inside]
Don't Take Your Golden Guns to Clown College
"People who need access most are those who are most marginalized."
Censorship Trends for 2025, Part I Kelly Jensen for BookRiot, on Moms for Liberty's book-rating site, book-banning apps, LGBTQ book bans, Bible study in public schools, and Mike Huckabee's ties to new Texas curricula.
Are birds real? New evidence will shock you
RAVEN is a new bird-inspired robot drone with impressive VTOL capabilities, and more importantly a very cute hopping ability.
Funny Book: Sunshine Nails
"But beneath the dust jacket's bright yellows, purples and pinks is a novel of character studies that simmers with questions about work, class, generational divides and the expectations facing refugees making new homes in their asylums." [NPR] [more inside]
Ignore the Great White Right North influencers at your peril
Of course, opinions about Canada’s demise will vary, but for some influencers — Canadian and American — it seems to go beyond making an argument. In some cases, Canada seems to function as a concept, a cautionary tale, a funhouse mirror for an American-leaning audience; it’s a useful target for taking aim at all the perceived ills of left-wing politics. [more inside]
reinscription
i apologize. crochet erasure was never my intention. there are just some things i’ve tried & realized i’m not good at, emphatically: 2 pins are not better than 1! erasure is significant, please forgive me [medium]. my penance; your #freethread. are there apologies you wish you could make? things you've learned? or write about whatever (if you'd rather, feel free to just rock out to erasure) [more inside]
Poetry presents οια αν γενοιτο, things that might be
Good reading implies, and good writing demands of its readers, that the emotion should depend not on the name alone, but on the name understood. The name, indeed, rouses emotion, but rouses it through the memory of the thing; that is, through knowledge. And we have seen that no degree of unrealism in the imagination impairs this principle a whit. from CS Lewis: An unseen essay on truth and fiction [Grauniad [from 2013]; ungated]