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I'm Marie Fucking Kondo and You Can Keep All Your Fucking Books, You Ingrates
posted by Artw at 11:22 PM - 4 comments

Office Space - the oral history.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:17 PM - 13 comments

In 1933, Florence Price became the first African-American woman to have her music performed by a major orchestra. Price died in 1953, and while much of her work was lost over the years, her legacy was not forgotten. Good fortune struck in 2009, when nearly 30 boxes of her manuscripts and papers--including dozens of scores thought to be long gone--were found, as The New Yorker reports. NPR's All Things Considered explores Price's music, which is described as a blend of African-American and European styles, including musical allusions to Dvořák, African folk traditions, and spirituals. Composer Jordan Randall Smith offers an excellent roundup, and cautions against the use of the term "rediscovered." (Previously on Metafilter: Violin videos: Women playing music written by women)
posted by duffell at 7:44 PM - 2 comments

Historian Kevin M. Kruse recommends: If you’re looking for something to watch on MLK today, check out the fantastic “King in the Wilderness” documentary. Amazing footage, much of it not seen before, about the last, often overlooked chapters of King’s story.

KITW is a 2018 HBO documentary directed by Peter Kunhardt covering the last 18 months of Dr. King’s life. (Some reviews from the LA Times, THR, RogerEbert.com.) It has been uploading to YouTube by the Kunhardt Film Foundation, along with the clips and full interviews edited into the film.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:33 PM - 1 comment

I Needed A Hysterectomy At Age 31. Doctors Fought Me Every Step Of The Way. Ace Ratcliff describes six years of unnecessary pain, suffering and medical bills in pursuit of a hysterectomy. "I ran into roadblocks from the start. Doctors refused to take me seriously when I requested a surgical hysterectomy... And nothing I said could change my doctors’ minds, not the stories about my frequently dislocating hips, my mom’s complicated pregnancies or the increased rate of miscarriage and preterm labor for EDS patients." [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 4:01 PM - 15 comments

A Student Ate 5 Day Old Pasta For Lunch. This Is How His Liver Shut Down.
posted by srboisvert at 2:43 PM - 87 comments

"I was having a hard time not staring at the tube of flesh wrapped so tightly and held so firmly against his left thigh, as it lay against his firm hairy pelvis and angled up and to the left." [more inside]
posted by jojo and the benjamins at 1:50 PM - 38 comments

Robert Caro on doing history. Archives, friends, patience, moving house, family, not embarrassing Lady Bird Johnson, the joy of documents, and the power of SU. (SLNewYorker) (Previously on MetaFilter)
posted by doctornemo at 12:38 PM - 5 comments

38-year-old comedian, podcaster, and erstwhile variety show host Chris Gethard on why he competes in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
posted by cichlid ceilidh at 12:29 PM - 6 comments

Two Hamsters Run a Very Clever Maze Created by Their Human With Five Different Levels To Conquer Five different stackable mazes for hamsters to go through. Adorable edible trophies at the end. [more inside]
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:08 PM - 6 comments

‘Heroin for middle-class nerds’: how Warhammer conquered gaming How has Games Workshop, a fantasy war games company founded in a London shop 40 years ago, become worth more than £1bn? By ruthlessly recruiting followers, and creating vast, fascinating worlds that diehard players never want to leave
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:41 AM - 41 comments

The federal goverment shutdown continues. The Trump Shutdown Is an Environmental Crisis, overflowing trash cans are the least of the problems. (New Republic) ’Barely above water': US shutdown hits black federal workers hardest (Guardian) “MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle reported a story Thursday of a pawned wedding ring as part of the #GoodNewsRUHLES segment she ends the show with: “Yesterday, my friend and colleague Hans Nichols, he brought us this story of one furloughed worker who was so in need of cash she pawned her wedding ring. But we have an amazing update to share: When that woman’s family learned that she sold her ring, on their own they contacted the pawn shop owner, Angela Huffman, and they bought the ring back for her. That is who we are as a nation.” There are no “feel-good” government shutdown stories (Vox) Shutdown Stories: How The Government’s Fight Affects Americans (Huff Post) “The following is an open letter from two employees of the federal government. Due to a fear of losing their jobs, they have chosen to remain anonymous.” We Work For The Federal Goverment And It’s Time To Strike (Splinter)
posted by The Whelk at 9:24 AM - 55 comments

After taking the reins at Michigan State University in the wake of the decades-long Nassar sexual abuse scandal, former Governor of Michigan and MSU alumnus John Engler said, "We have an extreme organizational challenge that must be addressed," and praised the courage of the survivors. Less than a year later, as the climate at MSU didn't seem to be getting any better, Engler told a newspaper editorial board that some of the survivors were "enjoying the spotlight". The Board of Trustees had scheduled a meeting to discuss the matter (and likely terminate Engler's interim presidency) when Engler pulled the classic You can't fire me, I quit! maneuver. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 8:37 AM - 17 comments

Norway town ready to battle Canadian city for world's tallest moose statue [more inside]
posted by poffin boffin at 7:19 AM - 36 comments

In a few hours, Theresa May is due to give a statement to Parliament about her Brexit Plan B, after a week of even more floundering about than we've come to expect. Gina Miller writes about the need for MPs to use the parliamentary sovereignty that she fought for. David Lammy MP argues that even a Norway outcome would be lose-lose. A backbench effort to rule out a no-deal Brexit is supposedly supported in private by much of the government, who don't want to do it themselves for fear of splitting their party. But might explicitly ruling out No Deal mean that May's deal ends up getting through? [more inside]
posted by rory at 4:03 AM - 102 comments

The Largest Vocabulary In Hip Hop (Updated): Some of the newer artists wield a smaller vocabulary comparatively, but this is not because hip hop has “dumbed down.” The genre has evolved; it has moved away from complex lyricism toward elements traditionally associated with pop music: repetitive song structure and singing. [Previously]
posted by chavenet at 3:57 AM - 29 comments

People who eat higher levels of dietary fibre and whole grains have lower rates of non-communicable diseases compared with people who eat lesser amounts, while links for low glycaemic load and low glycaemic index diets are less clear. Observational studies and clinical trials conducted over nearly 40 years reveal the health benefits of eating at least 25g to 29g or more of dietary fibre a day, according to a series of systematic reviews and meta-analyses published in The Lancet. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 2:41 AM - 34 comments

"Aren't you worried that you're gonna miss out on certain important life experiences from being homeschooled?" "Umm, that did cross my mind, but you know, VR is a way to escape, you know? Like, like, like I can be a frog... You know, I can make friends in VR, and they might treat me a bit differently based on my voice, but they won't treat me differently based on my height, or based on the way I look. It's really, I'd say, I think it's the closest form of anonymity that isn't anonymous you could get." Dawabvle talks to Syrmor in VRchat about living with ADHD, bullying in school, and Kermit the Frog. [more inside]
posted by J.K. Seazer at 12:57 AM - 4 comments

David Dorr, who in 1853 became the first African American to visit the Holy Land, couldn’t pass up the trip – he was a slave, forced to travel with his owner Cornelius Fellowes. Dorr later wrote about his three-year journey through Europe and the Middle East in a unique travel book, A Colored Man Round the World, which provided white readers with a rare look, before the Civil War, at an educated Black perspective. Slaves back then were erased from history, but Dorr, turning the tables, wrote as if he was traveling alone, and barely mentioned Fellowes except to mock him as clumsy or awkward. [more inside]
posted by LeLiLo at 12:45 AM - 6 comments

"I do not hate my body, because such a thing would be pointless, shortsighted. You cannot hate an animal for what she is, especially one who bears your ungrateful mind through this terrible world. And anyway, how do you hate something who marks her territory so dramatically, with such violence and panache? Who reminds you, with each step, I am here, I am here, I am here?" Carmen Maria Machado on her unruly body. [more inside]
posted by Grandysaur at 11:40 PM - 7 comments

US-based socialist magazine Jacobin's recent Childhood issue featured a novel insert: Jacobin's first children's book, More Bats, written by Jacob Kramer and illustrated by Malina Omut. Kramer says, "More Bats is a playful reimagining of what might happen if our society prioritized maximizing bat populations, instead of our current model, which allocates most resources to the military industrial complex." He has since collaborated with illustrator K-Fai Steele on Noodlephant, a kids' book about elephants, kangaroos, rebellion, power, and community action. Book trailer here.
posted by duffell at 7:41 PM - 12 comments

The clampdown on opioid prescriptions is hurting pain patients. "A report released last month by Human Rights Watch paints a cautionary and at times harrowing picture of what pain patients are experiencing today. Because of well-intended efforts to address the overdose crisis, many doctors are severely limiting opioid prescriptions. Patients who rely on opioid analgesics are being forcibly weaned off the medication or seeing their prescriptions significantly reduced. Other patients are unable to find doctors willing to treat them at all." [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 2:32 PM - 82 comments

You may know True Stories as a 1986 movie by Talking Heads with an accompanying album. What isn't widely known is there is a second album, released on vinyl and cassette only -- Sounds From True Stories: Music For Activities Freaks, a score album from the movie [41m]. It's worth a listen! Side A: Cocktail Desperado (Terry Allen And The Panhandle Mystery Band), Road Song (Meredith Monk), Freeway Son (David Byrne), Brownie's Theme (David Byrne), Mall Muzak: Building A Highway / Puppy Polka / Party Girls (Carl Finch), Dinner Music (Kronos Quartet) [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 2:15 PM - 23 comments

Which way do you draw an X? Colored line being the first stroke. [Twitter]
posted by Fizz at 2:03 PM - 151 comments

With a win at the PGA Green Book is now the lead contender for 2019's Academy Award for Best Picture. Oh dear.
posted by Artw at 1:53 PM - 38 comments

The Fable Cottage - classic fairytales retold in modern English, French, Spanish, Italian and German, with native-speaker audio and other nice features for language learners. [more inside]
posted by Wolfdog at 12:33 PM - 3 comments

"The Plot Against George Soros." Hannes Grassegger (Twitter) describes how two American political consultants launched an anti-Soros campaign, and how it then went viral. (SLBuzzfeed; originally appeared in German and with some differences)
posted by doctornemo at 12:26 PM - 18 comments

Cloughmills Crochet Club has been astounded by the attention their wool creation has attracted. Members of the close knit County Antrim group have been interviewed by national and local media and now their story has reached American online magazine, Atlas Obscura, based in New York. [more inside]
posted by cynical pinnacle at 11:41 AM - 17 comments

This Science Fiction Novelist Created a Feminist Language from Scratch - "Can a language be designed specifically to express the thoughts and feelings of women? In 1984, the linguist Suzette Haden Elgin wrote a science fiction novel to test this question. The result was Native Tongue, a dystopian tale of a future America that has been widely compared to The Handmaid's Tale. It was a pioneering feminist experiment, sold as a paperback original with a big green alien on the cover." (via; previously)
posted by kliuless at 11:11 AM - 21 comments

Shoshana Zuboff has a new book published which welcomes us to the age of surveillance capitalism. (LA Times)
The Guardian's tech editor John Naughton has a 10 question and answer session with her.
Once we thought of digital services as free, but now surveillance capitalists think of us as free.
posted by adamvasco at 11:06 AM - 11 comments

if you only look at one picture of a duck today, let it be this one [twitter] [threadreader] [more inside]
posted by moonmilk at 8:16 AM - 39 comments

“I remember one day, my son, who was 7 or 8, had drawn me a picture of a hybrid robotic football-player-slash-cowboy. He was really sold: ‘You should do this! It would be so cool!’" The secret history of Cleatus, Fox Sports’s bizarre football robot.
posted by How the runs scored at 4:28 AM - 25 comments

Eels eat pizza
posted by not_the_water at 12:51 AM - 69 comments

In the modern pop-culture tradition, being a musician has often come with a series of default lifestyle expectations, ones of indulgence and recklessness, larger-than-life living, and a diligent pursuit of altered forms of consciousness. Some see these expectations as having played a part in what happened to them, though most ultimately see their decisions and actions as also—if not mainly—a matter of their own psychology and personality and predisposition...What they have in common is that they are all, by their own account, for now, living sober. [more inside]
posted by Grandysaur at 11:35 PM - 69 comments

What if the Grand Canyon were inverted?
posted by Chrysostom at 8:44 PM - 29 comments

In the internet age, we are all cat photographers. One study found that in Britain alone, more than 3.8 million photos and clips of cats are shared each day — twice the number of selfies shared (we love our cats more than we love ourselves) and more than twice the number of dog photos shared. Once upon a time, though, there was but One Cat Photographer to Rule Them All. His name was Walter Chandoha. (Hyperallergic)

By the time he died, on Jan. 11, Mr. Chandoha had taken some 90,000 cat photos, nearly all before cats had become viral darlings of social media. He was 98. (NYTimes) (Non-Times link, leaves out some adorable pics) [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:29 PM - 12 comments

Phil Dürr, best known as the guitarist for '90s Detroit funk/riff rock band Big Chief and later for blues singer Thornetta Davis, died at 53 on January 11th. This obituary sums up his life and work in loving detail. [more inside]
posted by outfielder at 7:58 PM - 4 comments

Few agree when precisely "old Seattle" died, but wherever you place the period, The Dog House was in many ways emblematic of the old days. It stood for 60 years as a working-class gathering space, offering cheap food and beer in its smoke-filled booths, and camaraderie in nightly singalongs around the organ. Knute Berger recalls how The Dog House "challenged the myth of Seattle nice." Jean Godden and J.A. Jance reminisced during the Dog House's final months in 1993, and Dog House regular Floyd Waterson remembers its last day in 1994. But the soul of the place was really in its people: longtime owner Laurie Gulbransen was remembered in an obituary in 2000; organist Dick Dickerson died in 2006. The corner of 7th & Bell hosted a 24-hour restaurant for nearly a century, with the Dog House's tenure bookended by the Bohemian Continental before it and the Hurricane Cafe after. The Hurricane closed at the end of 2014 and that old building was razed. The site is now known as Amazon Block 21.
posted by duffell at 7:40 PM - 29 comments

After Mermaids, a UK charity that provides services to young transgender and gender variant people and their families was awarded a £500,000 grant from the Big Lottery Fund, some people complained and the Fund delayed the grant to review the charity. Now a UK gamer and YouTuber is playing through the entire game Donkey Kong 64 on Twitch to raise money for the charity. [more inside]
posted by Is It Over Yet? at 4:25 PM - 87 comments

I believe our best chance at preserving the integrity and dignity of our tradition is to return to our Pythagorean roots. We should become a cult.
SLMcSweeneys
posted by thatwhichfalls at 3:59 PM - 21 comments

Hiroaki Sato (LitHub, 11/5/2018), "Haiku: The Evolution of a Strict Poetic Game": "In simplest terms, haikai meant rejection of poetic diction and adoption of language in daily use. Orthodox court poetry did not tolerate references to quotidian, down-to-earth things like shiru, 'soup,' and namasu, 'fish salad,' so incorporating daily elements was haikai. As Bashō himself explained, harusame no yanagi, 'willow in spring rain,' represented the world of court poetry, but tanishi toru karasu, 'a crow picking pond snails,' was haikai, according to Bashō's disciple Hattori Tohō." [more inside]
posted by Wobbuffet at 3:42 PM - 25 comments

March 2019 will mark 100 years since the founding of The Bauhaus. Centenary festivities include the opening of the Bauhaus Museum Dessau in September of this year, and a tour by the Bauhaus bus, modelled on Walter Gropius' historic Bauhaus building. The tour began in Dessau at the beginning of January, and the bus will travel to Berlin, Kinshasa, and Hong Kong. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:56 PM - 4 comments

Entire Machinima YouTube Channel Set To Private [Kotaku] “With no public announcement or advanced warning to many creators, the entire Machinima Youtube channel was effectively wiped from the internet recently. All videos on the channel are now private, making them unable to view. [...] News of the videos began to spread yesterday, but it’s unclear when the switch to private happened. Many creators seemed not to have been aware that their videos would be set to private. “Otter Media really just went and deleted Machinima, Happy Hour, Respawn, Realm, Prime, Inside Gaming, ETC, everything.” Jeremy Azevedo, a former creator and employee of Machinima tweeted after learning about the news. Other former creators were shocked to find years of videos now gone.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 2:00 PM - 17 comments

Deconstructing Mindfulness: Embracing a Complex Simplicity. "There’s been a marked increase in studies of mindfulness and meditation in recent years. I’m worried that many of today’s researchers may think they know what they’re doing. ... [I]t makes all the sense in the world that we deconstruct mindfulness, by which I mean that we understand it to have a history, a 'side view.' It’s not a given or an absolute. It comes from somewhere. Mindfulness has been constructed." [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 11:20 AM - 21 comments

In 2018, three up and coming singer-songwriters, Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus joined forces to form the supergroup boygenius. Last summer, they recorded a six song EP with a cover evoking a certain other supergroup. In November, Pitchfork filmed a thrilling set of theirs performing at Brooklyn Steel. [more inside]
posted by octothorpe at 7:28 AM - 13 comments

In 1966, David Attenborough, the controller of the recently launched BBC2, asked historian Kenneth Clark to host a show, which would become Civilisation (Wikipedia), which inspired audiences in the UK and US to go to head to art museums after each of the 13 episodes originally aired, in 1969 and 1970, respectively, as noted in The Seductive Enthusiasm of Kenneth Clark’s “Civilisation” by Morgan Meis for the New Yorker. Almost 50 years later, BBC returned to the theme, now titled Civilisations (Wikipedia), with three presenters, Mary Beard, David Olusoga and Simon Schama, who looked beyond the Great Men of Europe (BBC). And it's all online ... [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:00 PM - 25 comments

History of the word for 茶 (tea). Silk road land based trade led to the spread of 'cha' based words, but 'te' based words come from the sea based trade.
posted by freethefeet at 9:42 PM - 27 comments

The Grolier Club, the nation’s oldest society of bibliophiles, just celebrated the centennial of its grand Manhattan home. Yes, there’s a secret staircase hidden in a bookshelf. No, do not use gloves in its library.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:39 PM - 11 comments

In which the Boozy Barrister / Boozy Badger (previously) and his online presence lured a hooman into attending a furry convention, and he delivers his subsequent report: How I Realized that Furries are Better than Me (…and just how low of a bar that was) [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 8:38 PM - 6 comments

Most right-thinking people agree that dogs are better than cats. Some people—those who have been infected with toxoplasmosis, probably—believe cats are better than dogs. Regardless, they can be taught to get along (the animals, that is).
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:47 PM - 55 comments