September 13, 2020
Three Brides For Seven Brothers
“Through The Lens: The Acorn Woodpecker” from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (2011)
“Acorn Woodpecker: The Fascinating Life of the Master Hoarder” in the Nature Conservancy’s blog (2017)
“You’d Never Guess What An Acorn Woodpecker Eats” from Deep Look (2018)
“In This Woodpecker Kingdom, War Is a Spectator Sport” in The New York Times (2020)
“Acorn Woodpecker: The Fascinating Life of the Master Hoarder” in the Nature Conservancy’s blog (2017)
“You’d Never Guess What An Acorn Woodpecker Eats” from Deep Look (2018)
“In This Woodpecker Kingdom, War Is a Spectator Sport” in The New York Times (2020)
DOOM speaks for itself
I now know that you don't necessarily need to play DOOM to have played DOOM. You don't need to have played any DOOM at all to have played all of DOOM. Yet, I only know this because I've studied DOOM's individual level designs so intently that I can retroactively see the flags DOOM planted on the mountain tops of future game genres. DOOM is not a videogame; DOOM is the vortex nexus nucleus at the center of the idea of videogames themselves.Tim Rogers reviews DOOM.
Challenges tangential to COVID-19
Aside from the major ravages this year continues to bring there are many other crises that don't directly involve illness or politics or the economy. These are just a few more often-controversial problems facing the US in its current juncture, inspired by the 11 students dismissed from Northeastern for hanging out together. [more inside]
MRR: What We Do Is Not Secret (celebrating BIPOC punk)
Last year, Maximum Rocknroll stopped printing their fanzine (previously). Recently, MRR announced its efforts in a public, transparent commitment to change: "Over the years, and despite efforts to fight back against the white supremacy that permeates punk, Maximum Rocknroll has been guilty of reproducing those very same dynamics within our pages and our ranks. It is absolutely essential that this next iteration of Maximum be leveraged to amplify BIPOC punk voices." [more inside]
"both the problem and the solution go into my retablos"
"Traditionally retablos would feature religious scenes and saints. I decided to make retablos about the history of Peru and our violent past. This is my life: the sounds of crying, the helplessness. I want to make retablos that hold truth in them, even when it is dark and hard to believe." The term retablo broadly refers to painted or sculpted religious images created around much of Latin America which Spanish colonizers brought to South America. In Peru these often take the form of three-dimensional depictions of complex scenes of everyday life, often secular. (examples by Claudio Jimenez Quispe - see more of this work in this YT video) [more inside]
How a French movie became part of America’s culture war
A movie critiquing the sexualization of young girls is accused of doing the thing it criticizes. Here’s how the controversy started — and why it matters. (Vox) [more inside]
Butts LOL
The shape of the human butt, and how it might have gotten that way. Part of massivesci’s themed butt month.
Under The Rainbow
Millions of books, monkeys and an orchestra — the story of EW Cole and his Book Arcade.
Those who can make you believe absurdities...
QAnon is just a remix of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion "A secret cabal is taking over the world. They kidnap children, slaughter, and eat them to gain power from their blood. They control high positions in government, banks, international finance, the news media, and the church. They want to disarm the police. They promote homosexuality and pedophilia. They plan to mongrelize the white race so it will lose its essential power. Does this conspiracy theory sound familiar?" [more inside]
In this official history, Britain always gives, never takes
Frank Trentmann on the glaring inaccuracies and whitewashing of history in the official Life in the United Kingdom handbook, required reading for the citizenship test. The latest version of its history states there was an “orderly transition from Empire to Commonwealth”, the slave trade was not “evil” but “booming”, and Britain alone invented or discovered insulin, DNA, MRI, and the Web. [more inside]
Discovering—and Preserving—the Earliest Known Stereo Recordings
In 1901, German anthropologist Berthold Laufer used two wax cylinder recorders simultaneously to record Shanghai musicians, unintentionally creating the earliest-known stereo recordings. ProSoundNews.com gives an overview of Indiana University's recent work in digitizing and restoring anthropological recordings made in the very early 20th century for the American Museum of Natural History.
Much greater context and detail - along with some examples of the newly restored material - are available at IU restoration specialist Patrick Feaster's blog.
Stories of transness, a proposal, family, aliens, religion, & tamales
Four fantasy or scifi stories (funny, heartwarming, searching) about trans experiences. The funniest of them: “Further Arguments in Support of Yudah Cohen’s Proposal to Bluma Zilberman” by Rebecca Fraimow. "Now perhaps you’re thinking to yourself, 'What kind of a man is this Yudah Cohen after all, to boast of his ability to lie? Certainly he won’t make any kind of rabbi!'" [more inside]
Aigagalefili ‘Fili’ Fepulea’i-Tapua’i
If education is key, why do our locks keep changing? If knowledge is power, why does it come at a price we cant afford?Aigagalefili ‘Fili’ Fepulea’i-Tapua’i
The Stand
« Previous day | Next day »