January 12, 2020

New, diverse faces of professional bull riding

When you think of professional bull riding, you probably think of young, white men on furiously bucking bulls, but the best-paying pro bull riding organization, Professional Bull Riders, boasts of international membership (Wikipedia). Look at the list of past champions (Wikipedia), and you'll see it's guys from the U.S., and Brazil who reach the top. Brazil's impact and dominance in professional bull riding (The Culture Trip) has been noted before, as seen in Men's Journal back in 2013. But now Vogue invites you to meet Meet Najiah Knight, the 13-Year-Old Girl Upending the World of Professional Bull Riding. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:01 PM PST - 5 comments

Hooked on Folk Art: Las Rancheritas, a Fiber Arts Cooperative

Want to see some beautiful folk art from the central Mexican highlands? Meet Las Rancheritas, a small-scale women's cooperative from the farming village of Agustín González. Its members re-create scenes from the world around them in handmade rugs, purses, and pillows; the project has provided a sustainable stream of income and a creative outlet for these self-taught fiber artists for over a decade. Here's a video of a Las Rancheritas Rug Show in 2008 (YT; display of rugs begins just after the one-minute mark). Sister hookers in the U.S. send regular shipments of wool, and guilds in the U.S. have included rugs from Las Rancheritas in their shows and sales. The cooperative also has its own store, built loop by loop. Enjoy.
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:40 PM PST - 3 comments

A Leitmotif for Oma Tres

May the Score Be With You: How John Williams Defined the Sound of ‘Star Wars’ (Ben Lindbergh, The Ringer) "The legendary composer was the most consistent part of the franchise. What will happen now that he’s stepped down?" [more inside]
posted by ZeusHumms at 2:46 PM PST - 16 comments

"An extraordinary moment"

Remember two-year-old Parker Curry, who was entranced by Michelle Obama's official portrait? She and her Mom wrote a book about it. (Official Site)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:01 PM PST - 11 comments

No orange skulls, only red.

The divide between Marvel and DC over politics [Polygon] “In the final issue of Frank Miller and John Romita Jr.’s 2019 DC Black Label miniseries Superman: Year One, there’s a framed newspaper on the wall of the Daily Planet offices. Squint and you notice the headline: “MAN BITES DOG: MSM BLAMES TRUMP.” This didn’t come out of nowhere. Over the last 30-odd years, Miller took a public turn from the beloved Mickey Spillane of comics, with The Dark Knight Returns and Sin City, to the right-wing crank who once described Occupy Wall Street as “a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists.” (He walked the statement back in a 2018 interview).” See also 2011’s Holy Terror, initially pitched as a Batman project, and dubbed Islamophobic by critics upon publish. The past year has shown a pattern of writers giving overt voice to their political opinions through superhero comics, or for controversies where they were prevented from doing so. Marvel and DC, the most visible publishers, are at the center of the ideological debate. Based on the decision-making, the two companies appear to have distinct approaches to talking politics in their paperbacks.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 11:44 AM PST - 54 comments

The Most Important Scientist You’ve Never Heard Of

In 1948, Clair Patterson was trying to determine the age of the Earth by measuring the decay of uranium into lead. In doing so, he stumbled on a problem: all of his samples and equipment were contaminated—lead was everywhere that he looked. Patterson spent decades uncovering the extent of lead pollution, collecting samples from the wilderness of Yosemite, the mountains of Japan, thousand-year-old ice below Antarctica, and the tops of volcanoes across the world. He would go on to devote his life to fighting against the oil industry to end epidemic lead poisoning. (Mental Floss, 2017)
posted by Mr. Pokeylope at 10:09 AM PST - 32 comments

I think we can all agree what the Hay Wain needs is a flood rescue team.

This week, my firstborn asked me to teach him photoshop, which means we now have a lot of famous paintings with search and rescue vehicles added to them. [Twitter thread]
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 6:50 AM PST - 19 comments

"How sometimes, we lose: profoundly and without recourse."

In August Stefani Echeverría-Fenn started a homeless encampment called 37MLK [Facebook link] in her neighborhood in Oakland, California. As an article by Vivian Ho in The Guardian recounts, it has been such a success that Oakland city council members have looked to it as a model for temporary housing. Echeverría-Fenn is a classicist who gained prominence after co-founding The Sportula: Micro-grants for Classics Students, which has brought her both positive and negative attention. This fall she was kicked out of her UC Berkeley PhD program. She tells the story of that shock in a powerful personal essay called On Classics, Madness, and Losing Everything. Excerpt: [more inside]
posted by Kattullus at 4:47 AM PST - 32 comments

Why Scarcity Sucks

When we experience emotional deprivation in childhood, this feeling of not being important or lovable enough can persist into adulthood as a “deprivation mindset.” We may never feel as if we have enough of the things we need. This sense of insecurity can harm our close relationships. We may expect our loved ones to let us down, never express our needs directly, or choose romantic partners who are avoidant of intimacy. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 3:16 AM PST - 20 comments

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