June 8, 2018
Everybody Wanted a Sinful Canoe
Before the youth of America fooled around at drive-ins and necked on Lover’s Lane, they coupled in canoes. It didn't last very long, because automobiles started showing up everywhere, but while the craze was on, it was cra-a-a-zy.
Curriculum for sale to the highest bidder?
The Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation has been desperately trying to get an Australian university to accept part of a $3 billion
bequest that entails the creation of a degree in Western Civilisation. [more inside]
Let's Cook History -- in five parts
I found this 5-part series Let's Cook History, which is just short of an hour each episode exploring cooking in different eras. You might start with the first episode (perhaps misnamed for $REASONS) The Roman Banquet. [more inside]
"it had a sensibility that seemed soothing and warm"
Starting out singing Misfits covers in a local punk band, then moving onto producing her own electronic tracks and making a name for herself in Cairo’s underground scene, Nadah El Shazly’s backstory is not that unusual. Her debut album on the other hand, is an entirely unexpected story.
The album's final track, "Mahmiya (Protectorate)," now has a mind-bending video by the cover artist, Marwan El-Gamal. [more inside]
The album's final track, "Mahmiya (Protectorate)," now has a mind-bending video by the cover artist, Marwan El-Gamal. [more inside]
Whichever I choose, it amounts to the same
"For someone who once sang “It doesn’t matter if we all die”, Robert Smith has an endearing relish for the bathetic comedy of life."
🥊
Kangaroo: A Love-Hate Story [YouTube][Documentary][Trailer] “Are kangaroos a great icon for Australia? Or a natural resource? Or, perhaps, even a pest? A new documentary explores this complicated relationship, and exposes some shocking secrets.” [via: Geographical Magazine] [Note: NSFW scenes of animal violence, severed limbs]
The Week in Wildlife
For some time now, the Guardian has been publishing a Week in Wildlife series, collating terrific wildlife photography from all over the world. Every week there are some absolutely fantastic photos.
In Academia, Professors Coming On to You Is on the Syllabus
In a longform piece for Splinter, Dan Solomon and Jessica Luther discuss sexual harassment in academia, and how #MeToo has begun to shift things, if slowly - and how much more work is to be done. (SLSplinter)
High-speed data security
Freddish
Mr. Rogers’s placidity belied the intense care he took in shaping each episode of his program. He insisted that every word, whether spoken by a person or a puppet, be scrutinized closely, because he knew that children—the preschool-age boys and girls who made up the core of his audience—tend to hear things literally. Maxwell King, former director of the Fred Rogers center, describes the late great Mr. Rogers's approach to writing the show. (SLttAtlantic) [more inside]
Workers at Google just scored an impressive victory
Happy (almost) Birthday, Donald
Donald Fauntleroy Duck, lifelong second banana to Mickey Mouse, star of the Academy Award-winning Der Fuehrer's Face, and wearer of many hats (not just his signature sailor cap), turns 84 years old on June 9. [more inside]
If you try to take on the adventure, good luck
Raccoons are cute, but raising one up can be more work and worry than you might think. Here's one man's blunt assessment of his first year of fostering Tito: https://youtu.be/JQ66M5houqw [SLYT] Includes ear bites, sewer rescues, and selfie-stick video. [more inside]
The lost lingo of those bright boys behind the marble counters
In the 1930s and 1940s, one of the most coveted jobs in bustling diners and drugstores where one might find a soda fountain was that of the soda jerk, or jerker, master of displays and puns (the title of the position itself a play on "soda clerk"). But with increased corporate control, the linguistic concoctions of the soda jerker (paywalled scholarly article, first page preview) largely fizzled up, but Gastro Obscura rounded up some prime slang in The Lost Lingo of New York City’s Soda Jerks. Just don't be a George Eddy, tip the jerk!
After you die....surprise!
Friday Flash Fiction: "Sum" by David Eagleman. "In the afterlife you relive all your experiences, but this time with the events reshuffled into a new order: all the moments that share a quality are grouped together.
You spend two months driving the street in front of your house, seven months having sex. You sleep for thirty years without opening your eyes. For five months straight you flip through magazines while sitting on a toilet. You take all your pain at once, all twenty-seven intense hours of it. Bones break, cars crash, skin is cut, babies are born. Once you make it through,..." [more inside]
How queer comics are making their mark in America
Today’s generation of queer comics, having stormed through the doors left ajar by DeLaria and company, are no longer the butt of the joke. And standup comedy, for so long the preserve of straight white men, is being refashioned in their image.
“My generation is the first that’s able to talk about our lives in a way that’s normative but also accessible,” says Cameron Esposito, a standup whose first special, Rape Jokes, debuts later this month. “Ten years ago when I was starting I was always able to be out, but only because a bunch of folks did it before I got there.” [more inside]
Anthony Bourdain has died.
Millennial discovers Rage Against the Machine
What happens when a millennial hears Rage Against the Machine for the first time. I am such a sucker for reaction videos, especially when kids or millennials discover something that I love. But this takes the cake; a millennial hip hop fan listens to the very first Rage Against the Machine Album. In hindsight, I wish my first Rage Experience were "Evil Empire." I need more of this in my life today.
Moonset
Faux festival
David Farrier, journalist and film maker (Tickled), investigates a mysterious film festival. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
pls no derailling the thread
Mike Sweatman writes in the Guardian about ten historically important derailleurs in the development of modern cycling.
Magic Advice in D&D 5E for Players and DMs
For you D&D 5th edition fanatics out there, Youtube animator Zee Bashew makes a series of short cartoons illustrating different aspects of and ideas for the game (especially magic) called the Animated Spellbook. Spellbooks - Save Spells vs. Attack Roll Spells - Spell Levels and Cantrips - Casting Times and Rituals - Weak Characters are Better - Prestigitation - Sleep - Feather Fall - Goodberry - The Deadliest Thing in D&D - Detect Magic
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