MetaFilter

From the origins of Jake Jortles to the mystery of Chidi's American accent, Mike Schur answers every lingering question about season 2 of “The Good Place.” (Spoilers, yes.) [more inside]
posted by rewil at 9:32 PM PST - 39 comments

On August 26, 2017, Victor Solf performed without his musical partner and the other half of Her, Simon Carpentier, at the Rock En Seine festival. Simon had tragically lost his battle with cancer a few weeks before. He was 27. “Simon told me I needed to perform at this festival and talk about Her,” remembers Solf. “Play the songs and sing the lyrics.” Their sound is a mash up of old and new, analogue and digital, classic and contemporary -- in 2015, they cite the soulful sounds of Ray Charles and BB king, the quick song-writing of Otis Reading and The Doors, alongside modern artists such as James Blake and Frank Ocean. Knowing their time was limited, they mapped out how they wanted their debut album to sound, and how the entire project would be presented to the world. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:26 PM PST - 1 comments

When the chalk outline on the floor is around a woman, the heart of the crime is usually love. - Chelsea G. Summers explores love, trust, murder, survival and rehearsal, and the appeal of True Crime podcasts.
posted by Artw at 6:07 PM PST - 29 comments

"Was Kidd one of Joyce’s prophesied professors, made so busy by the puzzles and enigmas that he was driven to literal madness? It seemed impossible to say, because not long after that newspaper article was published, Kidd simply vanished. Over the last 10 years, I would occasionally pick up the telephone, trying to scratch out some other ending to the story. I harbored this idea, a fantasy really, that John Kidd had abandoned the perfect “Ulysses” to become the perfect Joycean — so consumed by the infinite interpretations of the book that he departed this grid of understanding."
posted by Stanczyk at 4:43 PM PST - 20 comments

Field recordings from around Indonesia accompanied by text and pictures that mostly follows the format of: sound samples (sometimes with a video); some background and history of the instruments, music, people; and then context (the story of how the field recording/s were obtained [quite entertaining in and of themselves]). [AMA]
posted by unliteral at 4:35 PM PST - 4 comments

The Mexican general election will be held on July 1. The likely winner of the presidency is Andrés Manuel López Obrador (aka AMLO), a left-wing populist representing the Juntos Haremos Historia coalition (“Together We’ll Make History”). The election has already been marred by significant violence, with at least 112 politicians killed and 80 withdrawing since the start of election season in late 2017. [more inside]
posted by chappell, ambrose at 4:31 PM PST - 14 comments

2018 E3 Recap. All the major announcements made at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in one convenient place. Trailers, announcements, etc.
posted by Fizz at 4:12 PM PST - 83 comments

The DOJ has lost its suit to block the merger of AT&T and Time Warner. The $85.4 billion purchase was cleared with no conditions. United States District Judge Richard Leon's 172-page opinion here.
posted by hypersloth at 3:53 PM PST - 38 comments

Can't Keep My Paws to Myself
posted by y2karl at 3:42 PM PST - 14 comments

A raccoon has decided to climb to the 22nd floor of the UBS tower in downtown St. Paul. It's currently taking a nap, but Minnesotans are still watching and tweeting about it at #mprraccoon
posted by dinty_moore at 2:11 PM PST - 110 comments

The Guardian (through their expert's network) has provided a beginners guide to World Cup 2018, a team-by-team guide to all 32 teams, a preview from a fan of each team, a guide to all the venues in Russia, and a comprehensive guide to all 736 players.
World Cup 2018 team previews: What you need to know about all 32 teams. Copa del Mundo 2018: Todo lo que debes saber sobre los 32 equipos. Guia da Copa do Mundo 2018: tudo o que você precisa saber sobre as 32 seleções [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:07 PM PST - 102 comments

I’m queer, which is why I always thought I’d be dead by now. I grew up standing just inside the open door of the closet, like a cat looking out the window at a bird and thinking she’s outside. The door was open — my queerness wasn’t a secret, that’s what I told myself. The door was open, but I was tucked between the coats, breathing shallow and hoping no one asked any questions. Sometimes people knew and sometimes people didn’t and often people forgot, forgot for years at a time, forgot even though we were coworkers, parishioners, friends, best friends, relatives, married.

Between the Coats: A Sensitivity Read Changed my Life – an Essay by Sarah Gailey [more inside]
posted by Lexica at 11:38 AM PST - 40 comments

Is This the World’s Most Bizarre Scholarly Meeting? What would Noam Chomsky, Deepak Chopra, a very friendly robot, plus a bevy of scientists, mystics, and wannabe scholars do at a fancy resort in Arizona? Perhaps real harm to the field of consciousness studies, for one thing. (SL Chronicle of Higher Education)
posted by crazy with stars at 11:32 AM PST - 62 comments

Like the Taj Mahal, Don Justo’s cathedral was born out of unwavering devotion to someone, and both of these magnificent specimens of religious architecture rose up from ordinary farmland. Unlike the Taj Mahal, though, the ex-monk Don Justo has built his masterpiece from donated materials and to no plan. And now it's under threat of demolition.
posted by MovableBookLady at 8:11 AM PST - 11 comments

8 year old Yoyoka Soma's entry for the Hit Like A Girl Contest: Good Times, Bad Times. [more inside]
posted by Lutoslawski at 4:32 AM PST - 37 comments

Here's what it says: Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un signed a document Tuesday asserting that the U.S. president would provide unspecified “security guarantees” to Kim in exchange for the North Korean leader’s “unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.” [more inside]
posted by oheso at 4:24 AM PST - 253 comments

The last bat: the mystery of Britain’s most solitary animal We cannot speak of its loneliness, but it must be Britain’s most solitary animal. For the last 16 years, every winter, a male greater mouse-eared bat has taken up residence 300 metres inside a disused and exceedingly damp railway tunnel in West Sussex. The greater mouse-eared bat has been all but extinct in this country for decades. [SLGuardian]
posted by halcyonday at 1:12 AM PST - 20 comments