September 24, 2020
Not helpful, but not not helpful
A little Thursday evening light Muppet/LOTR crossover content
Okay, you remake the Lord of the Rings with Muppets. Obviously, Kermit - Bilbo, And his nephew Robin is Frodo. What other Muppet gets cast as which LOTR character? Please use hashtag #MuppetLOTR A fun twitter participation thread from @GailSimone.
Dean Jones 1961–2020
"the Bay Area as a multitude of fairytales"
Like most amusement parks, Oakland's Children's Fairyland is experiencing financial difficulties caused by the COVID-19 shutdown. On Saturday, September 26, Fairyland will debut “Celebrity Storytime,” a digital series of fairytales read by well-known Oaklanders. Although the tales are being made available to the public free of charge, Fairyland is also using the launch as a fundraiser and asking for donations. Oakland-born artists Rafael Casal and Daveed Diggs will co-host and emcee the evening of readings by celebrities and teachers from diverse communities in Oakland and the Bay Area. [more inside]
Also features explosions
The necessity of self-defense is not a theoretical principle
The Case for Black American Self-Defense. "Pacifist injunctions obliterate the history of, and need for, armed protection. The Black tradition of organized, armed self-defense should be regarded as one of the many tools in the repertoire of modern protest movements." [more inside]
Mark in the Middle
“One of the things that we talk about a little bit less inside the company is that ... the community we serve tends to be, on average, ideologically a little bit more conservative than our employee base,” Zuckerberg said. “Maybe ‘a little’ is an understatement. … If we want to actually do a good job of serving people, [we have to take] into account that there are different views on different things, and that if someone disagrees with a view, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re hateful or have bad intent.” [SLTheVerge]
That's a Groove, You Know?
In the end, Sign O' The Times was a Frankenstein's monster, stitched together from the remains of three completed, but discarded albums: Dream Factory, Camille and the triple-disc Crystal Ball set. Now, 33 years on, Prince's estate is releasing an expanded version of Sign O' The Times which includes 45 unreleased tracks from the recording sessions. To get a better understanding of how it came together, here's a history of the record and its subsequent tour, featuring new and archive interviews from the musicians who were there, and some of Prince's most famous fans. Prince's Sign O' The Times: An oral history [BBC] [more inside]
“Is that, like, six months? When you've had dinner?”
Where Matt Hancock, the UK minister for health, struggles to clarify one of the latest guidelines/rules for Covid-19, namely that you can only have sex with someone who lives outside of your household in England if you are in an established relationship, but what is an established relationship? How does this differ from casual bonking? Local variation exist: in Manchester, non-established couples cannot have sex at home but can in a hotel. For safety, the THT cautions against 'blow jobs and rimming' but for 'masturbation, using sex toys and phone or cam sex', but to limit your number/rota of partners. It is unclear how the new laws affect the Dogging or Swinging communities. Previously: “Coronavirus is making everyone polyamorous, in a sense.”
Where’s all the good writing about games?
Critical Distance supports conversations about games criticism through weekly roundups, critical compilations (Breath of the Wild, Dishonored, Kentucky Route Zero, Metroid’s Samus Aran) and its podcast. [more inside]
[Raises incredibly large onion to camera]
King Of The Vegetable Realm: Giri Nathan (previously) talks to Medwyn Williams, competitive gardener and winner of 12 consecutive Gold Medals at the Chelsea Flower Show (canceled this year due to the pandemic).
a story about agri-bots, machine life, and emergent intelligence
"Tierra y libertad" by Madeline Ashby is a short scifi story about "a robot rebellion in the pistachio fields." Published in MIT Technology Review in 2018. “I have protocols for that.” Dash made for the door. She flashed her watch. “I’m the analyst in charge. The mind in that vault is my op.”
Everybody's Coming to Your House
David Byrne's "American Utopia" is coming to HBO. Based on the Broadway show (previously), which had roots in the album of the same name, which was in turn a component of Byrne's "Reasons to Be Cheerful" project (previously), the film was directed by monumental filmmaker Spike Lee, who joined Byrne for a interview with American Songwriter, whereas songwriter Byrne flew solo in speaking to Hollywood Reporter when the film opened the Toronto film festival.
A Virginia City's Playbook for Urban Renewal: Move Out the Poor
How Norfolk, Virginia Is Using Tax Breaks to Demolish Black Neighborhoods - "Paul Riddick, the only member of Norfolk's eight-member city council to repeatedly vote against aspects of the redevelopment effort, has a different take. 'Because of institutional and systemic racism, the African-American community is going to be pushed out again', he says. 'This is nothing but gentrification'. Riddick, whose ward includes St. Paul's, figures that if the plan goes through, the share of Norfolk's population that is Black will dwindle from more than 40% now into the mid-30% over the next 10 years." [more inside]
Remembering Cat Bordhi
"Knitting has the most marvelous ability to free up the knitter as a human being, while masquerading as innocent knitting": Clara Parkes and Sarah White write about the knitting designer Cat Bordhi, who died this month.
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