MetaFilter

"And so Collin, with his cigarettes and typewriter and goofy smile, continues to share poems on Instagram (at least when you were with me, you were an artist/now you’re just someone’s girlfriend/I’m not sure who that hurt more, goes a recent poem). 'It shouldn’t matter if your ‘poetry’ sucks,” he said. “You wrote it. You created something, you molded words together and it means something personal to you… to me, poetry is simply being pure and honest with yourself.'" A conversation with the most hated poet in Portland.
posted by Grandysaur at 11:46 PM PST - 69 comments

At 102 years old, Florence Wheeler never expected to share her life story with a 16-year-old stranger, but it turned out to be an experience they will both cherish. As part of a program run by Allity Aged Care at her nursing home in Walkerville in Adelaide's inner south-east, Mrs Wheeler sat down with year 10 student Nathan McCarthy once a week for 10 weeks to co-write her memoirs. (video)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:38 PM PST - 6 comments

The SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket is set to finally launch on its maiden flight early in the new year all going well. Elon Musk had told us to expect the first cargo to be something silly. Today he announced just what it would be.
posted by Long Way To Go at 9:18 PM PST - 73 comments

Day 316: former National Security Advisor to Trump, Michael Flynn, has pled guilty to lying to the FBI, widely believed to be a sign that Flynn has rolled on either senior administration officials or Trump family members. In particular, CNN is reporting that Flynn's plea bargain implicates Jared Kushner, and Buzzfeed suggests that he was working for both Russia and Turkey. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are coming to the end of their shambolic process to put together a tax bill, and are preparing to vote. [This is a US politics catch-all thread: please read these important rules about how they work. Also, enjoy refreshing MetaFilter chat for your hot takes and instant reactions.] [more inside]
posted by Merus at 7:29 PM PST - 2511 comments

First Look At The Batman Ninja Anime [Kotaku] “When the Batman Ninja anime was first announced this October, a short clip was shown at New York Comic Con. Now, the animated feature’s first footage has been uploaded online, and it’s glorious. Story writer Kazuki Nakashima (Kill La Kill) and character designer Takashi Okazaki (Afro Samurai) have created a Batman unlike any we’ve seen previously. There are two teasers—one with English subtitles and one without. Batman Ninja will be released on DVD and Blu-ray next year.”
posted by Fizz at 2:37 PM PST - 39 comments

Sound Designer Jeans rose to prominence with his "uncomfortably meaty" rendition of Mr. Sandman. Since then he has gone on to destroy Mr. Sandman in just about enough ways to make a whole album, including an unsettling one, one that bridges the divide between cute and horrifying, an even more unsettling one, a wavy one, an existentialist hellscape, and the version that you hear on a slow train through the afterlife when you die in your sleep. If you're not into increasingly disturbing renditions of Mr. Sandman, let Jeans take you uptown. Or to the town of Ween. Or to Flavortown.
posted by Jeanne at 2:00 PM PST - 23 comments

It's December 1st! Whamageddon has begun. [more inside]
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 12:14 PM PST - 211 comments

The groups for the 2018 FIFA World in Russia were drawn. [more inside]
posted by lmfsilva at 11:56 AM PST - 55 comments

"I have a lot of aunts. Eleven on my dad’s side and six on my mom’s. I also have a lot of cousins and, now that my cousins are all having babies, a lot of second-cousins — a hundred, or four hundred, or four million, something like that. I attended a cousin’s bridal shower recently where she stood up during speech time and told a funny story about how when she was young she didn’t understand that in other families moms had friends who weren’t their sisters, and kids had friends who weren’t their cousins." In praise of aunties.
posted by ChuraChura at 10:47 AM PST - 20 comments

Elizebeth Friedman was even more important to cryptanalysis and history than we knew (previously), and some serious FOIA research by Jason Fagone went into a new biography of her, The Woman Who Smashed Codes. [more inside]
posted by clew at 10:41 AM PST - 13 comments

Chapelier Fou (fr.wiki; Mad Hatter via auto-translation) is the stage name of Louis Warynski, a multi-instrumentalist who composes complex pieces on violin, mandolin, harp and various electronic pieces and synthesizers, as you can see in this live clip of "Darling, Darling, Darling" as a solo piece in 2009, and for some proper madness, an augmented live video, featuring more artists accompanying Warynski and delightfully weird, surreal animations. You can find more videos from his YouTube channel, and most of his discography (Discogs) on Bandcamp.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:24 AM PST - 5 comments

After 30+ years fighting the US military and American settlers, Chiricahua Apache medicine man Geronimo surrendered to the US government in 1886. Geronimo and 341 other Chiricahua then became permanent prisoners of war at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where their children were sent to schools designed to strip them of their language and cultural identity. Journalist Anna Badkhen recently traveled to a small town in the Sierra Madre Occidental of northern Mexico, where Geronimo's descendants performed the Ceremonia del Perdón — a Ceremony of Forgiveness, celebrated their lineage and honored their roots in the very mountains where their ancestors denounced and hid theirs to survive. As the Apache try to forgive, Badkhen tries, in her words, “to learn what forgiveness is and whether it is possible.” (Via: 1 and 2)
posted by zarq at 8:24 AM PST - 4 comments

"I have a mind to bury them whole,” Mavis Staples sings on her new album, If All I Was Was Black (YT playlist). It is not a very Mavis-like thing to hear the perpetually upbeat gospel legend sing. But after a lifetime devoted to fighting injustice through her music, such is the singer’s recent mood toward a renewed wave of bigotry and racial violence. Mavis Staples has had it. [more inside]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:38 AM PST - 21 comments

This Korean Grandpa Learned To Draw Again For His Grandchildren "He has made hundreds of drawings and hasn't stopped."
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 2:22 AM PST - 17 comments

'A tale of decay': the Houses of Parliament are falling down As politicians dither over repairs, the risk of fire, flood or a deluge of sewage only increases. But fixing the Palace of Westminster might change British politics for good – which is the last thing many of its residents want. Behind the scenes in Britain's crumbling Houses of Parliament – in pictures
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:16 AM PST - 103 comments

Tom Scott explains the strange case of Yale having a 367 year old bond originally issued by a Dutch waterschap in its archives, that's still paying interest. (slyt)
posted by MartinWisse at 2:01 AM PST - 14 comments

Titus Jones' Mashup Power Hour 206 songs. 159 artists. 60 mashups. 60 minutes. 60 shots. Because everybody could use some disturbingly good-but-how-did-you-think-to-try-this micromixes to start their Friday off right.
posted by CrystalDave at 1:19 AM PST - 13 comments