January 12, 2015
Velvet Batcave
Tomaž Šalamun is a sphere rushing through the air.*
Late in 2014, master avant garde Slovenian poet Tomaž Šalamun passed away at his home in Ljubljana. During his life, he published 30 books of poetry, and was honored with the Prešeren Fund Prize, the Jenko Prize (twice), a Pushcart Prize, a visiting Fulbright to Columbia University, and a fellowship to the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. [more inside]
The Rise and Fall of the US Government - John J. Dilulio, Jr.
"...in examining [Francis] Fukuyama’s theories, [John] Dilulio’s essay also is a compelling and thoughtful analysis of the state of American liberal democracy, the current dysfunction of its government and what could be done to repair the damage wrought by greed, interference and ineptitude."
SE BUSCA, WANTED: For causing generations in Mexico to read and think
The Mexican political activist and critic Carlos Monsiváis once said that cartoonist Eduardo Del Rio, a.k.a Rius, was more important than the Ministry of Education in getting Mexicans to read.
Rius' work forms the basis for a wide-ranging new exhibition at Mexico City's Museo Del Estanquillo, along with the lesser-known output of his spiritual predecessor, Andrés Audiffred. [more inside]
Additive-noise methods
How to tell correlation from causation - "The basic intuition behind the method demonstrated by Prof. Joris Mooij of the University of Amsterdam and his co-authors is surprisingly simple: if one event influences another, then the random noise in the causing event will be reflected in the affected event."
Design off the beaten path
Trail Type is a site showcasing loads of examples of type found out on the trail. You probably thought there were only a couple standard fonts used by Forest Service and National Park organizations, but it turns out there are loads of different examples of handmade, routered-into-wood, and quickly made letterforms, and they're all beautiful.
Entomologist-Eye View of a Botfly
We all know what happens if you search "botfly" on YouTube. This, however, is a much more rounded and interesting video about the botfly life cycle from Piotr Naskrecki, an entomologist who, having been infected serendipitously, decided to allow the parasite to complete the stage he was hosting, in the interests of scientific filmmaking. [more inside]
That's how you do it.
Master Technician Service Conference Films - Chrysler's Training for Mechanics.
These materials were sent to each MoPar (Chrysler Products) dealer's repair department every month from 1948 through at least the late 1970's. They covered a different topic each month, and they were written to educate the simplest of minds. Now they are an invaluable resource for people wanting to maintain their classic Chrysler car. [more inside]
Inside Woodstock with organizer Michael Lang
It's in Coke Zero and Diet Coke, too.
Non-alcoholic beverages, unknown influence on cell proliferation – an in vitro study. If the results are correct and true, an ingredient in Coca Cola (and to a lesser extent, Pepsi) from the USA (less so from Egypt and Canada, and not from Poland or Mexico) dramatically increases cell proliferation when given to cells growing in a plate. [more inside]
Snake & Bacon take on the Grey Lady... and get slaughtered
New York Times n'est pas Charlie? In which Michael Kupperman (previously here) relates his own "freedom of speech" experience when he and David Rees (previously here) were hired to create editorial comics for the Week in Review section of The New York Times.
A fox guarding the hen house.
Ted Cruz, Senator from Texas, global warming denier, and (attempted) NASA funding slasher, has been appointed to chair the Senate subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness. In other words, he will be overseeing NASA. [more inside]
"...but I figured she had earned it."
The Tragedy at Kufra
A grim and forbidding land, devoid of human habitation, intolerant of the inexperienced, and merciless when it judges the foolhardy. On May 4, 1942, twelve men of the South African Air Force boarded three Bristol Blenheim Mark IVs and took off from the oasis of Kufra in the Libyan Desert. Only one made it back alive. [more inside]
But will it support the "Pile of Poo"?
Google Chrome for Mac OS X will soon be supporting emoji natively, as reported by Slashdot. As of yet, there's no word of support for emojis on Chrome running on non-Apple operating systems. [more inside]
The care of ~11 million people in America has fallen to emergency rooms.
It's easy to break a patient like Rogelio—Mexican and poor and chronically ill—down to his potassium level and to make medical decisions according to a number. But that's only part of the story of how the undocumented ill are cared for here in Houston. Within this city's history—a history that includes segregation during the 1960s, a large immigrant population, strong economic growth over the past half century, not to mention the world's largest medical center—is the story of how Houston sought local solutions to provide compassionate care to its indigent and undocumented, the latter of which, some might say, have helped the city grow.Dr. Ricardo Nuila reports from the emergency room at Houston's Ben Taub Hospital, where Harris County's undocumented ill can avail themselves of some of the country's best health care: Taking Care of Our Own. [more inside]
E. Alex Jung Essays
"I was born at a very early age."
Gerard Hoffnung was best known for his artwork. Or was it his interviews? Maybe it was his public speaking, or perhaps the Hoffnung Music Festivals? He also played the tuba! [more inside]
It's Never Too Late To Change... Into A Truck
Animator Trevor Van Meter has been adding cool little face animations and drawings to his Instagram regularly for the past few months. Some are political, some nerdy, some historical, some philosophical, some inspirational, all adorable, even Sad Palpatine.
"You guys must have to relearn tons of shit, huh?"
Sleater-Kinney's new album No Cities To Love is streaming at both NPR and the CBC. While you listen, read some of the justifiably hagiographic praise of the band within. (Or just rock out?) [more inside]
"It’s hard to stay away from religion when you mess with acid."
Robert Stone, Novelist of the Vietnam Era and Beyond, Dies at 77 [New York Times]
"Robert Stone, who wrote ambitious, award-winning novels about errant Americans in dangerous circumstances or on existential quests — or both — as commentary on an unruly, wayward nation in the Vietnam era and beyond, died on Saturday at his home in Key West, Fla. He was 77.[more inside]
Consider the chicken
The future was then
HAL, Mother, and Father Watching the sixties and seventies through 2001 and Alien.
"T.S. Eliot, the stink-bombing Nobel prizewinner"
[T.S. Eliot] both recognised and skewered in Four Quartets the routines of "eminent men of letters" who became "chairmen of many committees". As a banker, then as a publisher, he worked at jobs where committees were de rigueur and he accomplished his work with aplomb. Yet part of him always sought an escape hatch, a way to elude his official self. His nephew Graham Bruce Fletcher remembers Uncle Tom taking him as a boy to a London joke shop in the 1960s. They bought stink bombs and let them off at the entrance of the Bedford Hotel, not far from Eliot's workplace in Bloomsbury's Russell Square. With a fit of giggles, Eliot put on a marked turn of speed as, Macavity-like, he and his nephew sped from the scene of the crime, Eliot twirling his walking stick "in the manner of Charlie Chaplin".—TS Eliot: the poet who conquered the world, 50 years on by Robert Crawford, poet and biographer of Eliot. You can listen to a lecture by him entitled T. S. Eliot's daughter on the poem Marina. You can hear it, and other poems, read in between classical music as part of an episode of Words and Music. And if you want to get to know the poet, the T. S. Eliot Society keeps tabs on what works are freely available online.
NO NO NO NO NO! AAAAAAHHHHHH!
YouTube user Mario Wienerroither (previously) has turned his attention away from music videos to something new to remove music from: The opening credits of "Macgyver".
Traditional Japanese Wood Construction and Framing Techniques
Some short videos from a Japanese construction shop that practices traditional joinery techniques. The tools are modern, but the components and joinery techniques are traditional. For instance, joining two beams end-to-end. [more inside]
You aint tht good luv
"For many men, beauty, coolness, [and] desirability are gifts they alone can bestow upon women. They get baffled, even aggressive when you show you've known you possess those things all along." (BuzzFeed, trigger warning for hate speech) [more inside]
gotham from above
Imagine leaning out of an open door of a helicopter 7,500 feet over New York City on a very dark and chilly night... (making of)
The failure of My Husband's Not Gay is one of style, not substance.
"...remember, you're not in Lahore, you're in Birmingham."
From Guardian Docs: Muslim Drag Queens
who's stealing time from whom?
It turns out that slacking off is serious business: “ ‘Doing nothing’ while at work can be a very demanding activity requiring planning, collaboration, risk calculation, and ethical consideration,” Paulsen observes. Some subjects turned shirking into a game they found more meaningful than their actual jobs.So it turns out a lot of people rather shop or watch porn than actually work at work. And why not?
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