September 5, 2020
What is it like to be a middle-aged woman?
South Korean cartoonist Yeong-Shin Ma lived with his mother until he was 30. When he moved out, he discovered that living on your own isn't easy. To try to understand his mother better, he gave her a blank notebook, and asked her to fill it with her truths. [more inside]
One puppy, one little kid...
It’s a three-five, Mario!
This week, Nintendo celebrated Mario’s 35th anniversary with the announcement of a 35-player Super Mario Bros. Battle Royale game, a brand new Game & Watch handheld system, and Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit, a combination remote control car and multiplayer augmented reality game.
"Talitha is smiling at her, tentative, luminous."
"'It's like mathematics,' Cat says. 'Once it’s written, it can't not be true. See?' She takes the swan back and adds a descending stroke to the character on the neck. It takes flight and flutters around Toby’s head." "Flightcraft" is a short fantasy story which author Iona Datt Sharma describes: "A romance in its beginning, an ancient craft, and an aeroplane named for a traitor."
Photorealistic Roman Emperors
Using Artbreeder, Photoshop, and historical references to generate photorealistic images of Roman Emperors. Toronto artist Daniel Voshart used statues, coins, Photoshop, historical descriptions, and some sort of AI/machine-learning-type software called Artbreeder to generate photorealistic images of the Roman Emperors of the "Principate" (Augustus through Numerian). There's a poster, and some individual portraits are available. The project is in its second edition.... [more inside]
"I wish people would be able to see these borders as ficticious things."
The country-counting community--people who try to visit every country in the world--are a small, tight-knit bunch. They are also overwhelmingly White. Jessica Nabongo talks about becoming the first Black woman to visit every country in the world, a trip she detailed on her blog (and Instagram).
"Lee was insistent he wore the baggiest pair of trousers we could find"
40 Years of Baggy Trousers. Though I'm not sure you need another oral history, here's one on the making of the song and video "Baggy Trousers" by Madness, a weird bit of early-80s ska that was a surprise hit (in the UK) with its novelty chorus and flying saxophonist.
Roll roti roll
Now Wait for This Week
Wait, it was because of the time I went to Devon's birthday party and saw Phyllida talking and laughing gaily with the man, even though I knew she knew. Maybe they had only interacted for a few seconds, maybe Phyllida needed a professional favor. Maybe, caught off guard, she'd been accidentally polite to him. It happened. But this incident sure did make me not want to tell anyone else about it, because if I saw them being friendly with him later, I would have to slink off like a dog giving birth under a house and tend my grievous wounds alone. I knew that now. [more inside]
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