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The soul of a library is something really complex
Here in the Manuscripts Room, the space itself looks the same, but it does not sound the same; depopulated, it is oddly quiet. Loudly quiet! This quiet is completely different from the constant rustle of ambient noise that counts as what we could call “library quiet.” Today, the distinctive energy of the Manuscripts Room is nowhere to be found: on a typical day, staff and readers alike are focused, on the clock, working swiftly and deeply, using fragile materials that are, by definition, unique and irreplaceable. This distinctive energy is the product of a thrilling alchemy of two forms of raw materials: readers, and the works in their hands. Absent readers, absent works, the reading room is just a room. from How to Lose a Library
The Closing of the Bulgarian Frontier
Dimiter Kenarov writes about returning to Bulgaria after years in the US; about his childhood in the country under communism, the cultural explosion of the 1990s, and the sense of returning stagnation.
The God of the Exodus story took sides
In the United States today, organized Christianity is mostly associated with restrictions on reproductive autonomy, countermajoritarian and white nationalist agendas, and an embrace of free enterprise economics (even though it has also played a central role in civil rights and progressive movements throughout U.S. history). A Theology of Liberation, by contrast, represents a tradition that put religious reflection at the heart of the struggle of the global poor. By embodying ambition instead of compromise, it also offered an alternative to the schismatic tendencies of multicultural liberalism. from Salvation Now
...a dialogue with yourself under two names in the published literature.
"The aim of writing under the name of this nonexistent philosopher was, in Rorty’s words, ‘intellectual empathy’, understood as the attempt to enter into the mind of another thinker, a kind of exercise. This thinker, who does not exist, nevertheless takes up a particular perspective on the world, a perspective that rests on a different set of assumptions and preoccupations from the author’s."
'Forging Philosophy' [via: Arts & Letters Daily.]
The Hole
“Is this the land that time forgot?” Lopez gets animated as he recounts the time, money and energy he’s sunk into his home and the neighborhood. His wife wants to move. Then, he softens as he explains why he stays. “I stay here because it’s quiet. It’s peaceful,” Lopez says. “This place, it’s idyllic.” from The Tiny NYC Community Forgotten for Decades [Bloomberg; ungated]
An idol with feet of clay whose demolition is long overdue
It is tempting to think that a career as long and productive as Kundera’s would finally assume a distinctive unity. But looking closely at the life and work has the opposite effect: what stands out are various ruptures and intimations of underlying incongruence, from Kundera’s disavowal of most of his early work in poetry and drama to his vacillation over the wording of his later texts, as well as his initial refusal to allow his late, French texts – from La lenteur (1995) to La fête de l’insignifiance (2013) – to be translated into Czech. from The Two Milan Kunderas by Alena Dvořáková
Cocteau Twinge
Poetry is not holy just because it speaks of things that are holy. Poetry is not beautiful just because it speaks of things that are beautiful. If we are asked why it is beautiful and holy, we must answer as Joan of Arc did when she had been interrogated for too long: “Next question.” from The Secrets of Beauty by Jean Cocteau [The Paris Review; ungated]
A Name For The Now
In a meta-analysis of Kyle Chayka’s New Yorker essay about “what to call our chaotic era”, MetaFilter / Kuro5hin’s own Rusty Foster goes (slightly) long in his Today In Tabs newsletter about how the right name for the current era is “the Jackpot” -pace William Gibson-, Cormac McCarthy, and keeping going.
The Kids are Alright
Stairway to Heaven.
(YouTube via Invidious so you aren't tracked.) At the annual prize-giving ceremony at St Andrews College in Ōtautahi (Christchurch) in Aotearoa, the music department covers Led Zepplin's 'Stairway to Heaven' and absolutely nails it. It's going viral here but deserves a wider audience.
Sometimes a finger is just a finger
Guardian: “As a BBC licence payer I demand more of this type of behaviour.” Huffington Post: “Undeterred by the faux pas, the newscaster simply composed herself and began reading from the autocue about the latest updates in the Boris Johnson Covid inquiry. Fortunately for Maryam, the moment took place when the UK feed was showing Prime Minister’s Questions, so only international viewers saw the moment play out live.” CBS News: “Maryam Moshiri, the chief presenter at the British network, said she was "joking around a bit with the team" when she stuck up her middle finger just as the broadcast went to air.” In the Metro, further BBC news mishaps.
One-Vote Wonders From Sight and Sound's Greatest Films Poll
BFI: 101 Hidden Gems: The Greatest Films You’ve Never Seen. “Hailing from every continent but Antarctica and spanning more than 120 years, this selection is, in its way, as representative of the riches of cinema history as that other list we released at the end of last year. Fiction rubs shoulders with nonfiction, films made by collectives sit alongside hand-crafted animation, and a healthy dose of comedy sidles up to heartbreaking drama – and then there are the films that defy all categorisation.”
The Language of the Third Reich
Victor Klemperer's The Language of the Third Reich (1947) describes how the Nazis manipulated the German language in order to get the general population using extreme right-wing words and phrases in their everyday discourse without them even noticing.
The new, sweet oranges quickly displaced the bitter variety
The word for orange and its cognates in several Indoeuropean languages arrived in Europe via Persian (نارنگ nārang then, and نارنج nārenj nowadays). At the same time, in Persian oranges are called پرتقال (porteqāl) which literally means... Portugal! Why is that? from Portuguese Orange, Persian Portugal
Read Palestine Week - Nov 29-Dec 5
Palestinian books shared this week by their publishers.
These are free to read at the publisher sites, and cover a diverse array of genres, ideas and languages, with more activities planned and shared from over 400 publishers. As Kazuo Isiguro said: "But in the end, stories are about one person saying to another: This is the way it feels to me. Can you understand what I’m saying? Does it feel this way to you?"
Blind people gesture (and why that’s kind of a big deal)
"People who are blind from birth will gesture when they speak. I always like pointing out this fact when I teach classes on gesture, because it gives us an an interesting perspective on how we learn and use gestures. [...] Not only do blind people gesture, but the frequency and types of gestures they use does not appear to differ greatly from how sighted people gesture. If people learn gesture without ever seeing a gesture (and, most likely, never being shown), then there must be something about learning a language that means you get gestures as a bonus."
Shane MacGowan: remember him THIS way.
Here he is at his peak,
both as a songwriter and a performer. Here's another side to his songwriting. And here's today's Guardian obituary by Alex Petridis, which gets it about right.
Is John Likeglass Still Around?
The Mystery of VelmaDinkley.com [25m] is an internet mystery posted earlier this year. YouTuber CHUPPL has lost countless hours of sleep trying to answer the questions surrounding this subject. Ruh-Roh! Does a community of Scooby Doo fans have something to hide? The ensuing investigation is entirely human and the end is entirely satisfactory.
I've Made a Huge Mistake
Chris Lewicki recounts a story about how he almost killed a half-billion-dollar Mars rover. Turns out cables are hard.
Giant Nerd Husband
In 2017, Malaysian artist Fishball began a thrice-weekly autobiographical webcomic about her and her (much taller) boyfriend: My Giant Nerd Boyfriend. Seven years, 2.3 million subscribers, 786 million views, and 912 strips later, this month they officially tied the knot.
Coming soon to the box office.
Good (non-Hollywood-ish) movies coming down the pipe.
Vulture magazine lists over a dozen top movies from the Venice and Toronto International Film Festivals.
Interview with Joseff Gnagbo
Joseff Gnagbo is a journalist, academic, and political activist from Cote d'Ivoire who was granted political asylum in the UK and placed in Cardiff, where he learned Welsh and quickly became involved with the Welsh language movement. Now he is the new Chair of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, the pressure group that fought via direct action, including serving prison terms, to get legal protection for the Welsh language. Siôn Jobbins interviews him (in English) to discuss his experiences and commonalities he sees between Cote d'Ivoire and Wales.
How to improvise a boat out of a train.
100 years ago this month Buster Keaton released his groundbreaking silent film "Our Hospitality", described as his "...first feature as auteur and his first masterpiece."
the penguins are gathering in a circle
Vaporwave goodbye to the waking world in dreamcore95.exe, a chill, short idle game with impeccable vibes and, if that's not enough inducement, also a defragging widget.
Some obscure and mysterious mix of expected and unexpected
Regardless of how we understand “timelessness,” that vague but irreplaceable quality we take to inhere in any classic, a good joke comes as close as possible to embodying its reality in the written word.
How bison are restoring US grasslands
How bison are restoring US grasslands.
Plains bison co-evolved with the short-grass prairie. In the 12,000 years since the end of the Pleistocene, they have proven themselves to be potent ecosystem engineers.
An adult bison eats about 25lb (11kg) of grass a day. The grasses adapted to their foraging. Vegetation across the plains uses the nutrients in their dung. Birds pluck their fur from bushes to insulate their nests.
Bison also shape the land literally. They roll in the dust and create indentations known as "wallows" that hold water after rainstorms. After the bison move on, insects flourish in these pools and become a feast for birds and small mammals. Pronghorn antelope survive by following their tracks through deep winter snows.
"I wanted it all to go down."
The Machine Breaker.
Christopher Ketcham profiles Stephen McRae, who briefly conducted a one-person campaign against industrial civilization.
(via)
"Best Practices for Media Relations in a Time of Defund the Police"
Why Do Cops Keep Lying?, an excerpt from Canadian journalist Cecil Rosner's upcoming book Manipulating the Message.
I’m An Insurance Adjuster And I’m Going To Total Your Car
Published in The Autopian by an adjuster who agreed to write on the condition of anonymity. "In short, modern cars have so many complex components that they are very expensive to repair even with what looks like light damage. As the adjuster, you are under pressure to lock up as many claims as possible in the day to meet the company’s expectations. Does it look broken? Replace. Is it likely to be broken behind that part? Replace. When the software tells you you’ve hit the 75% or higher threshold of the value for the car, you wrap it up. Bam, the car is now deemed totaled by the insurance company."
Restaurants in Peace
Restaurants in Peace
is a simple website for memorializing your favorite, departed eateries. Scroll through the submittals so far or add your own. [via mefi projects]
Kathleen Sully, the Vanished Novelist
"[Kathleen Sully's] name appears in no encyclopaedia, in no dictionary of biography, in no other survey of the English novel. One reason for her critical neglect is that she didn’t fit in—a reflection of the institutional prejudices of the English literary world. She was a woman writing when writing was a man’s game—not just a man’s game, but a public school/university-educated man’s game.
Woman tells office she can't come in as 600kg seal is blocking her car
Tasmanian woman tells office she can't come in as 600 kilogram (1322 pounds) seal is blocking her car. (Text article, video, photographs. Cute, no seals or people were harmed.)
"This is nice, ma, everything's fresh...including Vinnie!"
Dom DeLuise in "Eat This! The Video"
In the late 1980s, actor/comedian Dom DeLuise produced a series of cooking videos to promote Eat This…It’ll Make You Feel Better!—a book of Italian home cooking dishes inspired by his mother’s recipes. The food all looks delicious, but the real draw is Dom himself—a bottomless fount of ebullience, laughter, and generous good humor—whether preparing a recipe alongside his adoring (and adorable) wife, helping his 80-year-old “mamma” select a nice pork sausage at the neighborhood meat market, or just clowning around with the local workers and residents of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn (the very streets where he was born and raised.) A lighthearted, nostalgia-inducing snapshot of a bygone era.
In the late 1980s, actor/comedian Dom DeLuise produced a series of cooking videos to promote Eat This…It’ll Make You Feel Better!—a book of Italian home cooking dishes inspired by his mother’s recipes. The food all looks delicious, but the real draw is Dom himself—a bottomless fount of ebullience, laughter, and generous good humor—whether preparing a recipe alongside his adoring (and adorable) wife, helping his 80-year-old “mamma” select a nice pork sausage at the neighborhood meat market, or just clowning around with the local workers and residents of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn (the very streets where he was born and raised.) A lighthearted, nostalgia-inducing snapshot of a bygone era.
Lord David Cameron
What David Cameron’s return says about British politics
- A man who caused many of Britain’s problems is now offering to fix them (Economist; ungated)
The book club that spent 28 years reading Finnegans Wake
“I don’t want to lie, it wasn’t like I saw God,” Fialka said, of reaching the book’s end. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
“When people hear you’ve been a member of a book club that reads the same book every time you meet, most people go, ‘Why would you do that?’” said Bruce Woodside, a 74-year-old retired Disney animator who joined Fialka’s reading group in the 1990s. Though “it’s 628 pages of things that look like typographic errors”, said Woodside, who has been reading and re-reading Finnegans Wake since his late teens. “There’s a kind of visionary quality to it.”
Connections
I just yesterday discovered that all three seasons of James Burke's history series Connections [Wikipedia] are available on the Internet Archive. That's 40 episodes for streaming or download. This comes along with news [ArsTechnica] that Curiosity Stream has a new short series Connections With James Burke [Trailer] now on their platform. Previously, from 2010.