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Life Lessons From a Ten-Year-Old Cigarette Vendor
The act of trying to keep things the way they are is insanity. It’s an illusion.
Trying something new means touching the unknown. It can be frightening and cause you to either fight or flee, rather than say yes.
It takes courage to change. Then again, why change when you don’t have to?
But when you don’t change, everything appears to stay the same. And this is the antithesis of life.
Life is change.
Life is always changing.
Please don't bring live snakes to hospital
Venomous snake brought into hospital in lunchbox prompts plea from doctors — "please don't do this." Hospital staff came face-to-face with one of the world's most deadly snakes after a patient brought it to the emergency department in a snap-lock lunch container. Snake catcher Jonas Murphy has relocated several snakes brought into the Bundaberg Hospital.
Mr Murphy said the snakes were in plastic containers or bags and posed a big danger if they had escaped.
"You are risking a follow-up bite and you're putting everyone around you in danger as well," Mr Murphy said. "Snakes are one of those things that scare a lot of people, we definitely don't want them in the hospital."
Experts left scratching their heads as wombat wanders into ocean
Experts left scratching their heads as wombat wanders into ocean. A couple holidaying in Tasmania's remote north-west have captured a wombat foraging in the ocean. The footage has surprised wombat experts, who say the behaviour is highly unusual.
“I will not speak with her.”
Ophelia’s life, as much as we see of it within the boundaries of five acts, has been one of enforced silence, climaxing in a desperate call—answered too late by Gertrude—for a chance to unpack her heart with words. She comes in a full and terrible circle from her playful rebuke to Laertes for pontificating about how women should behave, but she never saw what was coming. “Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be.” Only in her madness, when language tumbles out uninhibitedly, does Ophelia make a direct and profound charge about masculinist privilege and culpability. “Young men will do’t if they come to’t, / By Cock, they are to blame.” Unlike Hamlet with his words, words, words, Ophelia never speaks of taking her own life. And then she does. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune strike more than one target in this play. Among its many wonders, Hamlet depicts a young woman set on a lonely path, leading to an abyss, in a lethal world of male verbal license. from The Silencing of Ophelia by Robert Crossley [Hudson Review]
“members of the Voyager flight team celebrate”
NASA’s Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth
reports NASA. After pinpointing the issue with the space probe, the mission team have devised a workaround. Previously, previouslier, many more previouslies.
Movie: Hiroshima Mon Amour
A French actress filming an anti-war film in Hiroshima has an affair with a married Japanese architect as they share their differing perspectives on war.
Unwanted Sound
Implicit in the art of noise is a promise of resistance. For millennia, music has been a medium of control; noise, it follows, is a liberation. from What is Noise? by Alex Ross [The New Yorker; ungated]
In the future these will be funny stories
It’s 2008. Though a San Francisco resident, I crave “Girl in New York” stories. Felicity Porter, Lena Dunham, Eileen Myles—in books and TV shows, I’ve watched them come of age in their frothy version of Brooklyn. As a black man, I have to tell myself this fascination isn’t me idolizing whiteness. No, this must be, like Venus Xtravanganza before me, a rational envy for those society deems valuable. A desire to chase my dreams through a maze of hangovers and strange lovers and suffer mere embarrassment for my mistakes. It seems I’ve found another such fantasy in this Reagan-era relic about itinerant artists—provided I steal it. Bohemian behavior for a bohemian book. So, Slaves in hand, I keep walking. from The Time I Stole Tama Janowitz’s Slaves of New York and Couldn’t Stop Reading It by Elwin Cotman
Movie: Taxi
A yellow cab is driving through the vibrant and colourful streets of Tehran. Very diverse passengers enter the taxi, each candidly expressing their views while being interviewed by the driver who is no one else but the director Jafar Panahi himself. His camera placed on the dashboard of his mobile film studio captures the spirit of Iranian society through this comedic and dramatic drive
and we'll all go together
Jacob Collier, Laufey and dodie perform a stunning rendition of the Scottish/Irish folk song "Wild Mountain Thyme" together with the National Symphony Orchestra and some delightful audience participation, for the series Next at the Kennedy Center, in an episode presented by Ben Folds.
Tom Francis makes an entrance at the Olivier Awards show
Great video of Tom Francis singing "Sunset Boulevard" as he makes
his way into the Royal Albert Hall for the 2024 Olivier Awards show.
NPR Is a Mess. But “Wokeness” Isn’t the Problem.
NPR, the great bastion of old-school audio journalism, is a mess. But as someone who loves NPR, built my career there, and once aspired to stay forever, I say with sadness that it has been for a long time.Alicia Montgomery talks about the history of NPR and how things came here, especially regarding her former NPR colleague Uri Berliner's commentary blaming 'wokeness' and Democratic partisanship for the apparent loss of confidence in the once-unimpeachable institution and similar conversations around this issue.
And that story is that NPR has been both a beacon of thoughtful, engaging, and fair journalism for decades, and a rickety organizational shit show for almost as long. If former CEO John Lansing—the big bad of Uri’s piece—failed to fix it, or somehow made it worse, that’s a failure he shared with almost every NPR leader before him. But if, as Uri charges (albeit in a negative way), Lansing genuinely managed to break the network loose from the grasp of self-righteous white liberal identity politics, even in an imperfect way, that would surprise the hell out of me. Especially given the well-reported exodus of top journalists of color, and the loss of a diverse group of journalists during last year’s podcast layoffs.
“Anything about us, without us, is against us.”
There are clear continuities between the two German genocides. Many of the key elements of the Nazi system – the systematic extermination of peoples seen as racially inferior, racial laws, the concept of Lebensraum, the transportation of people in cattle trucks for forced labour in concentration camps – had been employed half a century earlier in South-West Africa. Heinrich Göring, the colonial governor of South-West Africa who tried to negotiate with Hendrik Witbooi, was Hermann Göring’s father.–From the essay Three Genocides by forensic architect Eyal Weizman.
Here I am
The Etak Navigator
"Today, I’d like to tell you about the Etak Navigator, a truly revolutionary product and the world’s first practical vehicle navigation system."[via]
Seven layers of vermillion crustaceans, topped with a claw to the sky
“The toughest reservation in France, it turns out, is not at a Michelin-starred destination like Mirazur or Septime.
It’s at an all-you-can-eat buffet situated in a municipal rec center in the smallish city of Narbonne.” Not exclusive, but exclusively serving French cuisine, it served 380,000 people last year for €52.90 each (plus drinks, sold at retail price), but there are 9 types of foie gras, a pâté en croûte made with 7 different meats, and a record breaking 111 varieties of cheese on the cheeseboard. The place settings and silverware and gilt and chandeliers deserve to be seen – they are not of your ordinary buffet restaurant.
(New Yorker, archive)
“I don’t fear your wings, man.”
Conan O’Brien Needs a Doctor While Eating Spicy Wings
is the season 23 finale of Hot Ones [previously], where Sean Evans asks Conan O’Brien questions while they eat chicken wings with increasingly spicy hot sauce. It goes off the rails pretty quickly.
^•ﻌ•^ฅ oh, hello ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ...
meow.camera
lets you watch live feeds from hundreds (thousands?) of cozy and custom-decorated cat feeders set up throughout various cities in China.
We had the Sex Pistols play here and you’re worse!
“I was 25,” she says. “I’d go for my mouth and nothing would come out. It started when I was pregnant with my eldest daughter, and I just put it down to the pregnancy, but it wasn’t a happy time in my life. I think my then-husband wasn’t that keen on having a baby, blah blah blah, it was a difficult time, which we got through, but I think it impacted on me a bit.”Folk legend Linda Thompson has been suffering from dysphonia since the early seventies, making it harder and harder for her to record new albums. For her latest, she got other people to sing her songs, called it Proxy Music and recreated the album cover from Roxy Music's eponymous debut. Alexis Petridis interviews her for The Guardian on the album and her personal history in folk.
Bulldog Utterly Bowled Over
Videos from The Dodo are usually a bit sappy but always heartwarming. However, Bulldog Obsessed With Bowls Gets A Special Delivery [3m20s] is full of exactly the kind of WTF that leads me to post it here.
“The reading public is best served by diversity”
A detailed, yet accessible, take on the history of book distribution (mainly but not wholly by small presses), written by Julie Schaper in 2022.
NYC Chicken Shop Replaces Cashier With Woman in Philippines On Zoom
The cashier at Sansan Chicken East Village in NYC is a woman from the Philippines who logs on via Zoom. A photo of this odd arrangement went viral on Twitter this weekend via a post by Brett Goldstein.
“Why do tragedies give pleasure?”
That well is classical Greek tragedy, understood as a dramatic portrayal of a character who, while navigating the inevitable contingencies of an embodied, time-bound life, is suddenly brought low by extreme suffering unrelieved by God, the gods, or any other transcendent source of meaning. The key to tragedy is the degree to which that character bears the torment without succumbing to despair. From that crucible emerges the steel of virtue. from The Character of Tragedy by [Hedgehog Review]
For Linguistics Influencer Adam Aleksic, Language is Political
One of the Internet’s first and only “linguistics influencers,” Adam Aleksic, who works under the handle @etymologynerd, [Instagram / TikTok / YouTube] spends his time post-graduation traveling the world and creating videos about etymology for an audience of over 1.3 million across TikTok and Instagram.
Excitement as rare marsupial mole sighted in Australian desert region
Excitement as rare, golden-furred, marsupial mole sighted in Australian desert region rich with wildlife. The animals — known locally as kakarratul — are only seen about five to ten times in a decade, due to their tendency to burrow underground and the minimal human presence in their desert habitat. The moles are small and covered in silky golden hair. They do not have eyes, but boast large, strong forearms and claws that allow them to quickly dive under the sand and "swim" deep into the sand dunes.
"No meaning, no magic, just the work of it: the work of art"
Adam Moss (Vulture, 04/04/2024), "How'd You Make That? Three masterpieces from glimmer through struggle to breakthrough": "So I began talking to creators ... here are three of those conversations with the artists Cheryl Pope and Kara Walker and the poet Louise Glück." Of related interest: Dungeons & Dragons (early draft; see the upcoming book). A first draft of Finnegans Wake. The first page of 1984. Story Synopsis and Rough Draft [PDF] for Star Wars. The Creative Process: A Symposium. For checkout, The Making of The Pré. Plus "Work in Progress: Notes, Drafts, Revision, Publication," "... Check Out These Drafts From Famous Authors," "Surprising secrets of writers' first book drafts," and "First drafts of famous novels."
Hierarchies of Fountain Pen Friendly Paper
“So as a baseline, what needs to happen before I will publicly recommend something as “fountain pen friendly paper”? My standard is fairly simple: No bleed-through or feathering with any fountain pen nib that can be reasonably used for everyday writing. (Because I mainly use my paper for drafting and notetaking, as opposed to drawing, wet ink samples, or flex-nib calligraphy, my standards may be more lenient than some.)”
Restoring an ugly hill into an ecosystem
They pooled their money to buy an ugly hill. Twenty years later, they're calling it paradise. A group of friends, dismayed about climate change, bought the most degraded piece of farmland they could find. Not to live on, or to make money from, but to transform into the bushland it once was.
Will clouds eclipse your view of the eclipse?
What’s the Cloud Forecast for Eclipse Day? (New York Times gift link)
"If you have an eclipse viewing destination in mind, enter it in the box below to see the latest cloud cover forecast. We expect the forecast to become more accurate closer to the day of the eclipse, and The Times will update this map as fresh forecasts become available."
“assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon (bees)”
The Bees of Wrath
by James D. Walsh is the story of Rorie Woods, who released a hive of bees onto sheriff’s deputies who had arrived to evict a 79-year-old friend of hers. When informed that several deputies might be allergic, she allegedly replied: “Oh you’re allergic, good”.
It’s Coming From Inside the House: Queer Horror in 2023
"What does a queer family look like? How do you define one without capitulating to heteronormative ideas of the 'nuclear family'? And how do those dynamics play out with families in the horror genre?" Laura Riordan on queer family in recent horror films.
Hatstorian
The Hat Historian provides short histories of various hats in English (et en français,) from the Top Hat (le Haut-de-Forme) to the Bowler (le chapeau melon,) from the Tricorn (le Tricorne) to the Picklehaube (le Casque à pointe,) from the Custodian Helmet (le Casque de Bobby) to the Hard Hat (le Casque de Chantier,) and, of course, the Beret (le béret.)
The End of the Road: John Barth dies at 93
John Barth, author of books like Sot-Weed Factor, Lost in the Funhouse, Letters and Tidewater Tales, has died in a Florida hospice facility. He was 93.
Liberation from fear is possible through the cognition of reality
"Epicurus, who taught philosophy in Athens in a large backyard garden purchased around 306 BC, like other philosophers at the end of the Classical era and the beginning of Hellenistic times, gave priority to ethical thought in his teaching, treating physics and logic as auxiliary disciplines to facilitate understanding of the human behaviour, attitudes and aspirations he postulated.According to him, the aim of all human actions was to strive for ataraxia (ἀταραξία), that is, a state of inner peace, indifferent to pain and suffering, and to strive for freedom from fear, especially the fear of death and wrath of the gods." Krystyna Bartol on Epicurus.
This is a compelling narrative only if you ignore every available fact
The long and short of it is that Swisher is not a good journalist—or, framed more generously, that she thrived in an industry with remarkably low standards for which we are still paying the price. from The Miseducation of Kara Swisher, a review of Burn Book by Edward Ongweso Jr. [The Baffler; ungated]
Small Press Distribution (SPD) Shuts Down
Small Press Distribution, one of the last remaining independent book distributors in the United States, has closed. In an announcement made March 28, SPD executive director Kent Watson said that the closure is effective immediately, and that the staff is in the process of winding down the business. Founded in 1969, SPD was the only nonprofit literary distributor in the U.S. What the closure of SPD means for readers.
Marty wanted to get every movie there ever was, we recorded everything
The collection is also a physical manifestation of his famously omnivorous appetite for visual media. Scorsese has frequently spoken about growing up asthmatic in a New York City household that lacked books but was one of the first on the block to get a television set in 1948, when he was six years old. For young Marty, who wasn’t able to play in the streets as frequently or vigorously as other kids, the 16-inch screen of the black-and-white RCA Victor in the living room became his window to the world – and, critically, his first exposure to great cinema. from
‘He was always voraciously watching’: Scorsese’s secret life as an obsessive VHS archivist [Grauniad; ungated]
The epic, which has all of life and then some, is strewn with lists
We all make lists, if only to buy bread and milk. But we tend to forget how mythic and subversive, joyful and maddening, enchanting and sobering, and utterly chilling lists can be—and what they can do. To love a list is to partake in letter and word, form and change. To make lists is to join a long line of list makers, to indulge in a timeless art, to break down the artificial wall that separates thinking and doing, thinkers and doers. from One Thing After Another: A Reading List for Lovers & Makers of Lists by Kanya Kanchana [Longreads]
A lot of the best Graeber has an “undeniable” quality
It has taken a little while and repeated readings for it to sink in, but I think that Graeber was reaching the point of rejecting, or at least severely (if implicitly) qualifying, almost all of these positions by late in his authorship. Particularly in On Kings (2017), his collaboration with his mentor Sahlins, and The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021), co-written with the archeologist David Wengrow and completed just a couple of weeks before his death, Graeber’s politics grew more “mainstream” in a number of respects, even as his narrative of the origins of political authority and economic hierarchy remained fresh, radical, and richly documented, and even as his prose style retained all its charm. But perhaps LSE professorships, FSG book contracts, and the approval of the Financial Times have moderating or even co-opting effects after all. from What Happened to David Graeber? [LARB, ungated]
“I don’t ask questions. I answer them.”
Who was Jack Lord. "When Jack Lord died, he left 40 million dollars to charities in Hawaii. There is Jack Lord's Special Memory of Elvis.' 'Stoney Burke' fan? Jack Lord has a collection of selected works. "This is a critical lesson for any young writer. We want our characters to be “real.” We want our heroes to be “relatable.” But characters are not real and heroes are not normal. They can’t be. If they were, they wouldn’t be heroes." 'The Jack Lord Rule'
A celebration of Paris café culture returns after more than a decade
Thousands of spectators gathered to watch more than 200 servers compete in Sunday's "Course des Cafés," the newly-revived version of a century-old race.
Waiters and waitresses traversed a 1.2-mile loop starting and ending at City Hall, suited up in traditional crisp white shirts, black trousers, neatly tied aprons and in some cases, bow ties. They each carried a tray loaded with a croissant, a full water glass and an empty coffee cup.
the wombles could not be reached for comment
Woman mistakes bobble for baby hedgehog and rushes it to Cheshire animal hospital. "Volunteer Danielle Peberdy, 36, said the kind-hearted woman had done the right thing in not ignoring a hedgehog out in the day. She said: "Hedgehogs shouldn't be out in the day so she did the right thing; the only problem was that it was a bobble.""
Ritual is part of my nature. I would call all of my pieces “rituals"
We hear from Budapest that the eminent composer Peter Eötvös died today. He was 80 and had endured a long illness. After an apprenticeship with Karlheinz Stockhausen, Eötvös emerged in the 1980s as a leading voice in late and post-modernism. Four of his operas were internationally premiered – Three Sisters at Lyon, Love and Other Demons at Glyndebourne, The Tragedy of the Devil at Munich and Sleepless (2021) in Berlin. His final opera Valuska, was premiered in Budapest on 2 December last year.
Closet logic
"I could watch Carrie and her pig blood, Pam on a hook in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I didn’t mind Seth Brundle spouting wings and pus, Regan MacNeil going from twelve-year-old girl to devil spawn. But when Tom gets bolder, when he transforms, I found it hard to stomach. I didn’t watch the movie again for years. Conceiving of Tom as only a murderer—sociopathic, obsessed platonically—I could ignore how queer he really is." from My Funny Valentine, an essay about The Talented Mr Ripley and realization by Michael Colbert
Like a grid, but for movies
moviegrid.io
- "Select a movie for each cell using the clues that correspond to that cell's rows and columns... Each game, you have nine movie guesses to fill out the grid. Each movie, whether correct or incorrect, will count as one of your nine guesses. If a movie poster pops up, congratulations -- you got it right you little cinephile."
Sperm whales drop bubble of poo off WA to prevent orca attack
Sperm whales drop bubble of poo off WA to prevent orca attack in rarely recorded encounter. Observers look on in amazement as sperm whales off Western Australia's southern coast successfully defend themselves from a pod of attacking Orca by defecating at will, creating a cloud of diarrhoea.