November 21, 2021
The Last Supper
Julie Green (NYT obituary) spent the last two decades working on a monumental art project, The Last Supper, which chronicles the last meals of people about to be executed by the state in the USA. Each installment is a plate painted with an image of the last meal in cobalt blue glaze. She planned to stop the project when the death penalty was outlawed or she finished the thousandth plate, whichever came first.
She finished the thousandth plate in September and ended her own life via physician-assisted suicide a few weeks later, on October 12th. Her plates are currently on display at the Bellevue Art Museum in Bellevue, WA.
China watch
Is China's catch-up growth over? "All things come to an end. Every other spurt of rapid development has eventually slowed to the stately pace of a mature economy. There are basically two reasons this happens. First, as you build more physical capital — more buildings, roads, railways, machine tools, vehicles — the added output of each new piece of capital goes down, while the upkeep costs just keep rising. This is the basis of the famous Solow growth model, and we’ve seen this happen again and again to fast-developing countries. The second reason rapid growth peters out is that it’s easier to copy existing technologies from other countries than to invent new ones yourself." By Noah Smith. [more inside]
The Faddan More Psalter
In 2006, the remains of an early medieval illuminated manuscript were discovered in a peat bog at Faddan More, Co. Tipperary, Ireland. At YouTube there are short videos about the discovery and conservation of the psalter (psalm-book); and about its significance. For The Guardian, Lisa O'Carroll writes about the manuscript, and the 'terrifying' work led by manuscript conservationist John Gillis, to preserve it.
Top Two-Player Games and More
At BGG (11/17/2021), W. Eric Martin's "2021 BGG Holiday Gift Guide: Top Two-Player Games" expands on the "2021 BoardGameGeek Holiday Gift Guide" and offers "a quick take on our six suggested games for couples, which range widely in complexity and style of play." Other videos in the series cover Heavy Games, Party Games, and Family Games. If you have difficulty finding these, BGG's advanced search also yields 2021 releases ordered by rank overall, by 'subdomain' (abstract, customizable, family, party, strategy, thematic, and war), and--with small differences--by category (e.g. abstract, wargames, fantasy, science fiction, word games, dexterity games, trivia, 2-player only, etc.). Of related interest: The Dice Tower's 10 recent gift suggestion videos with 12 games per category.
The Unfixable Thing
Talking to Your Kids About Grief Is Painful. And You Have to Do It. "It’s OK, as the adult, to shed tears through these conversations. It can help to spell out that sadness is universal and survivable: “It might seem scary or strange to see me cry. But everyone cries sometimes, and crying can even help us feel better. I promise I won’t cry all day. A cookie and a hug from Papa will help.”"
(archive link) [more inside]
A Deaf Football Team Takes California by Storm
Underdogs no more. No one is disparaging the Cubs anymore. This season, they are undefeated — the highest-ranked team in their Southern California division. Through 11 games, they have not so much beaten their opponents as flattened them. [more inside]
Asteroid Close Calls
Under the right circumstances, asteroids just 20 meters wide can destroy a city. So far, humans have discovered 266 asteroids with possible diameters of this size that have passed or will pass closer to Earth than the Moon. This chart shows each flyby at its relative distance from Earth.
You Best Bet Marc Cohn's Gonna Sue
"with a red pen, she writes in the margins all the names she can recall"
In a short-story excerpt from his novel The Overstory, Richard Powers describes a scientist, her forestry research, and her vindication: "The Woman Redeemed by Trees". (Suzanne Simard, the real-life inspiration for the fictional character here, got a Ted Lasso shout-out.) For a fantastical tale about a woman battling conventional wisdom, "Makeisha in Time" by Rachael K. Jones (also available in Spanish) travels through time: "Each time she returns from the past, she carries another lifetime nestled within her like the shell of a matryoshka doll."
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