July 22, 2019

En primer lugar, se inteligente desde el principio.

¡Me Llamo Alma! is a series of practical Spanish lessons, beginning with How To Dispose Of A Body. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:09 PM PST - 24 comments

Uninterrupted time of most mothers lasted no more than 10 minutes

"Women’s time has been interrupted and fragmented throughout history, the rhythms of their days circumscribed by the sisyphean tasks of housework, childcare and kin work – keeping family and community ties strong. If what it takes to create are long stretches of uninterrupted, concentrated time, time you can choose to do with as you will, time that you can control, that’s something women have never had the luxury to expect"
posted by Lycaste at 7:24 PM PST - 50 comments

"Do You Consider Yourself A Hero?"

Go get your kleenex and take your first look at Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers, in the first full trailer for A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood. [more inside]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:14 PM PST - 79 comments

RIP Art Neville

Please take a moment to pay respects to the patriarch of New Orleans's first family of funk, Poppa Funk, Art Neville, who passed away today. [more inside]
posted by fingers_of_fire at 4:17 PM PST - 32 comments

"It was not easy to be the target of so many people"

"It’s the story of a half-black, half-Jewish heroine’s search for her father; a postmodern dismantling of the Greek myth of Theseus; a send-up of American myths of racial purity and authenticity; a tall tale featuring a teenage heroine who one-ups Pam Grier in badassery, Albert Einstein in brilliance, and Cary Grant in nonchalance; and an exuberant and acrobatic experiment with language itself." --Scott Saul on Oreo by Fran Ross, in a wide-ranging essay on the author. [LARB] [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 2:42 PM PST - 6 comments

50 states, 50 dishes

Reddit thread: I’m cooking one meal from every state in the USA, what meal best represents your state?
posted by growabrain at 2:41 PM PST - 117 comments

Dutch humor is seriously underrated

Yesterday the New York Times published a fascinating article on the “peculiarly Dutch summer rite” of "dropping", ie. driving your kids to the woods at night and leaving them alone to find their way back home, a "beloved scouting tradition". But the best part is reading the responses on Twitter... [more inside]
posted by bitteschoen at 1:44 PM PST - 49 comments

Printed illuminations

Printed borders inside books predate moveable type, and briefly flourished alongside it. This is a short and sweet article about metalcut borders, a technology that was invented to be robust enough to use (and reuse, and reuse, and reuse) as part of a moveable-type setup. [more inside]
posted by janell at 1:09 PM PST - 4 comments

Paul Krassner, RIP

Radical, author and humorist Paul Krassner dead at 87 [more inside]
posted by Ideefixe at 12:56 PM PST - 30 comments

The Report

Access this episode on Lawfare’s blog page and also wherever you receive podcasts. 1st podcast episode of an in-depth explanation of the Mueller Report. More to come weekly.
posted by surely at 12:04 PM PST - 1 comments

The Case of Al Franken

Jane Mayer, one of the leading scribes of the #MeToo movement (despite not getting her share of the credit), turns her attention to the scandal and resignation of Al Franken with "A close look at the accusations against the former senator".
posted by Etrigan at 11:48 AM PST - 121 comments

The Secret Sources of Populism

The West’s understanding of globalization and interdependence is increasingly outdated. It imagines a global system in which Western countries radiate their influence all over the world but influence is never reflected back at them. Yet the rebalance of economic and political power has made that idea obsolete. And the phenomenon of populism in Europe and the United States is showing why.
posted by Mrs Potato at 9:39 AM PST - 21 comments

Do More Than Vote

Shit’s Totally Fucked: A Mutual Aid Explainer (7:45) How to help in the current crisis beyond voting or calling your representatives via community bail funds, immigration support networks, labor donation, and more.
posted by The Whelk at 9:08 AM PST - 15 comments

these aren’t things you can see on a poverty tour

The Last Days of the Appalachian Poverty Tour: When I first meet Jack, he tells me he stopped giving poverty tours years ago and has generally stopped talking to the media about them. He says that if we take this tour together, he won’t stop at anyone’s home; he doesn’t want to expose anyone like that again. He tells me he’s agreeing to do this one last tour only because of who I am: a single, disabled mother with my own lived experiences of poverty. For Topic magazine, writer Alison Stine gives a history of the Appalachian poverty tour.
posted by Stacey at 8:34 AM PST - 15 comments

Devotion to the "public interest"

China forced one horror game publisher to close, but the whole region felt it (Rock Paper Shotgun). Devotion, a highly-rated Taiwanese horror game launched in February was discovered to contain off-handed derisive references to China’s President, Xi Jinping. A firestorm of criticism ensued, and its effects are still smouldering...
posted by adrianhon at 7:47 AM PST - 4 comments

"My relationship with the stone is not physical, but magical."

According to [José Manuel Castro López], stone and its properties are often mythologized in Galician culture. Inspired by this, he finds that his work is more impacted by magic than technique: “It is not the sculptor who acts, but the wizard, the druid,” he tells The Creators Project, “My relationship with the stone is not physical, but magical. It recognizes me, it obeys me…we understand each other. My stones are not lifeless. They manifest themselves.” (Vice) Stones Carved to Appear Like Wrinkled Fabrics by José Manuel Castro López (This Is Colossal). See also: Imgur gallery.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:13 AM PST - 8 comments

And what rough beast, its hour come at last...

... slouches towards Westminster to be born? Well, probably Boris Johnson. He'll find plenty on his plate when he arrives, so let's have a new Brexit thread up and running in time to greet him. [more inside]
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 6:04 AM PST - 98 comments

The Crane Wife

"Surely, I will cancel this trip, I thought, as I shopped for nylon hiking pants that zipped off at the knee. Surely, a person who calls off a wedding is meant to be sitting sadly at home, reflecting on the enormity of what has transpired and not doing whatever it is I am about to be doing that requires a pair of plastic clogs with drainage holes."
posted by Catseye at 4:23 AM PST - 75 comments

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