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another seven tons of iron taken out of here since last June
Going through a parent's hoard after their illness or death or can be daunting. For five exhausting years, Thalia and Tara blogged at Tetanus Burger about whittling away at the 78 junk cars and mysterious piles left by their father at their family's residential lot. Reader beware, there are truly horrific stories about their childhood. But there are also cute kittens (scroll to the bottom of the linked post)!
An Oral History of The LAWN Hip Hop Message Board
Concurrent with the rise of message boards in the early aughts, there was a group of young, ambitious hip hop artists in North Carolina who were schooled in the trade of that ol’ boom-bap.
In 2001, they launched a message board of their own that created a unique online community that spawned unexpected collaborations and relationships that led to the creation of albums and families alike.
Suffering from Success
The Instant Pot Failed Because It Was a Good Product
The Instant Pot is, by all indications, a perfectly good machine—maybe even a great one. The IP, as the device is known to its many devotees, is a kitchen gadget in the most straightforward sense of the term: It’s a classic labor-saver, promising to turn ingredients into family meals while you clean up, tend to your kids, and do all of the other things you could be doing instead of keeping an eye on the stove. Once you get the hang of the electric pressure cooker, it seems to basically deliver on that promise, chugging along gamely through years’ worth of weeknight dinners of pork green chili or chicken tikka masala. Since its debut in 2010, the Instant Pot has sold millions of machines and spent years as a must-have kitchen sensation.
Sure enough, in 2019, when the private-equity firm Cornell Capital bought the gadget’s maker, Instant Brands, and merged it with another kitchenware maker, the combined company was reportedly valued at more than $2 billion. A few years and one pandemic later, the company filed for bankruptcy on Monday, weighed down by more than $500 million in debt after years of supply-chain chaos and limited success expanding the Instant brand into other categories of household gadgetry. Perhaps counterintuitively, that the Instant Pot remains a useful, widely appreciated gadget is not unrelated to the faltering of its parent company. In fact, it’s central to understanding exactly what went wrong.
What's the next chorus to this song now?
We swung Mack the Knife in Berlin town.
The magnificent Ella Fitzgerald live in West Germany in 1960, singing the obligatory Mack the Knife (very well-known at the time from releases by Bobby Darin and Louis Armstrong). She forgot the lyrics? No problem!!
Global BIPOC Board Meeting #16 Minutes
MetaFilter's Global BIPOC Board has made the decision to publish meeting minutes in the form of a MetaTalk to improve visibility and increase the speed at which minutes are shared publicly! Minutes will continue to be uploaded to the board landing page as well in the form of a PDF. Thanks for reading.
Global BIPOC Board Meeting #15 Minutes
MetaFilter's Global BIPOC Board has made the decision to publish meeting minutes in the form of a MetaTalk to improve visibility and increase the speed at which minutes are shared publicly! Minutes will continue to be uploaded to the board landing page as well in the form of a PDF. Thanks for reading.
Short answer: 'yes' with an 'if'; long answer: 'no' with a 'but'
The Simpsons Is Good Again - after 34 seasons, 750 episodesm and a decades-long funk, the show innovated its way back to popularity and relevance
Every person I spoke to for the story - from Broti Gupta, one of the first writers on The Simpsons to have been born after the show's premiere, to James L. Brooks, one of the series' founders, to the former members of the No Homers Club fan community, infamous for compaining about the decline of the show - agrees that The Simpsons, in 2023, is undergoing a renaissance. The staff, working in the shadow of a looming writers strike when I visited, are putting out some of the most ambitious, poignant, and funny episodes in the show's history - episodes that, after all these years, have managed to broaden our understanding of these familiar characters and why they remain so important to so many people. And thanks to the streaming era, a whole new generation is growing up bingeing The Simpsons, bolstering the sense that the show, once left for dead by critics, may really go on forever.
And all the kings horses and all the kings horses penises
Kingly is a webcomic abougt a very sweet king. if Prince Valient met Hagar the Horrible but was actually funny and with more genitals.
Joan Didion, the Death of R.F.K. and a Mystery Solved
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live”
"In the past, moments of national trauma had provided an opportunity for unity and cohesion. But Ms. Didion found herself confronted with a fractured version of America that’s not too different from the one we’ve come to recognize today. " Fascinating thought piece (NYT) about Joan Didion and Gregory Dunne's reaction to RFK's assasination while in Hawaii.
Happy birthday, Sweden
Happy birthday, Sweden, which is celebrating 500 years as a nation today on June 6, which became National Day in 1983 and an official public holiday in 2004. One reason the date of 6 June was chosen because it is the day in 1523 when Sweden became independent of the Union of Kalmar, which had formerly united Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It was a genuine new start for Sweden, and it was the occasion of their electing Gustav Vasa as their king and adopting their own flag. The second reason for choosing 6 June is that, in 1809, Sweden adopted a new constitution on that date. The tradition of celebrating 6 June as Flag Day began in the 1890s, when Artur Hazelius held such celebrations at his Stockholm-based open-air museum named “Skansen.”
Overlooked! A detail in The Shining that you’ve never seen...
Stanley Kubrick scholar Filippo Ulivieri shares a hidden, almost subliminal aspect of Jack Nicholson's performance in The Shining: quick, unsettling glances that break the fourth wall. (SLYT)
I like that I am heard before I am seen.
Happy Pride Month! So, another artist suggested by wowenthusiast is anonymous Brooklyn rapper Leikeli47 [Wikipedia]. She recently completed her Beauty trilogy with the album Shape Up [YT playlist, Pitchfork review]. Leikeli spoke with NPR's Sidney Madden [44m] about the new album, her outlook and philosophy, and her struggles for authenticity. She did a set for NPR Music's 15h Anniversary [23m] that was so fire that Uproxx had to write about it.
"Women, millennials, and “dudes with beards and tattoos.” W, M, D."
Millennials just keep voting (NYT gift). But will they move to the right (NYT gift)? Maybe (WaPo gift), maybe not (New York).
She’s fine and she’s human
Searching for Meg White - a profile and almost interview of the difficult-to-track-down White Stripes drummer.
You could wake up feeling a whole new way you never felt before.
When Carroll High School of Fort Wayne Indiana canceled the school play, "Marian, the True Tale of Robin Hood" because it included LGBTQ+ themes, the students decided to take matters into their own hands.
Ukraine war heading into second summer
The Ukraine war is heading into the summer, most commentators are waiting for the Ukrainian counteroffensive to kick off in earnest. In recent days Russia has been striking Ukraine with drones and missiles harder than in a very long while, and today Moscow was struck by Ukrainian long-range drones. Recent pledges of F-16 training (but no firm deliveries of airframes yet) and actual deliveries of Storm Shadow cruise missiles have somewhat overshadowed the work Ukraine has put in in building brigades with Western equipment.
Who’s Telling the Truth about Disco Elysium?
People Make Games (previously) have just concluded a three-month investigation into the circumstances surrounding the departure of key personnel from Disco Elysium (previously) developer ZA/UM. The result is a two and a half hour long report.
A British Reporter Had a Big #MeToo Scoop. Her Editor Killed It.
Nick Cohen, a former columnist at The Guardian, was accused of sexual misconduct for years, but little happened. An investigation by The Financial Times was spiked, meaning the whole story has only just come out now (NYT, Archive.is). "The British news media is smaller and cozier than its American counterpart, with journalists often coming from the same elite schools. Stringent libel laws present another hurdle. And in a traditional newsroom culture of drinking and gender imbalances, many stories of misconduct go untold, or face a fight."
Bringing 19th-Century Black Organizing to Digital Life
The Colored Conventions Project.
The first Colored Convention was held in 1830 in response to Ohio’s 1829 exclusionary laws and a wave of anti-Black mob violence that had forced two thousand Black residents to flee the state...more than 200 state and national Colored Conventions were held between 1830 and the 1890s. An Introduction to the Colored Conventions Movement. Colored Conventions and the Carceral States. Mary Ann Shadd Cary’s Herstory in the Colored Conventions. To Stay or To Go? The 1854 National Emigration Convention. A rich site with lots of detailed exhibits.
"Addressing some of political journalism’s long-standing shortcomings"
7 news outlets reimagining political journalism in smart ways
(WaPo opinion page gift link)
40th Anniversary of The Story of Mel (Hacker folklore)
Who are you, Mel Kaye?
[via mefi projects]
40 years (and two days) ago, The Story of Mel was posted to Usenet. This tale of a software engineer, his blackjack program, and the ingenious hack hidden inside it has enshrined "Mel" in the pantheon of Real Programmers. But did Mel really exist? Who was he?
A Field of Ruins
Autofiction has often been derided as both overly concerned with a writer’s individual experience—“navel-gazing”—and inconsiderate to those other than the writer whose lives it depicts. But these criticisms betray a fundamental misunderstanding of what draws writers and readers alike to autofiction. The best—most redemptive—autofiction since Proust included more than 400 characters in his rhizomatic lifework has concerned itself with the ways in which individual lives and identities are connected to the lives and identities of others, and sought to represent this interconnectedness to readers who also sense the terror of being “walled-up” inside their own consciousness. from The Autofiction Writer and the Torturer by Marcus Hijkoop
The B-52s, The US Festival, 1982
In 1982, the first version of The Us Festival [Wikipedia] happened, attracting a then-ridiculous-sounding 400,000 people in attendance across a three-day weekend. One of the acts on the first day, New Wave Day, was The B-52s. Thanks to the miraculous infusion of cash and technology from Steve Wozniak, who organized the festival we have The B-52s At The Us Festival [1h], the entire set, with pretty good video quality and great sound!
strangers doing silly things together
I think the best most human thing in the world is strangers doing a silly thing together
A short Tumblr post by calamitys-child lists a few examples, such as "very tiny girl at the pharmacy interviewing everyone in the queue and every single one of us in turn sat down and answered this toddler's questions like we were on Letterman".
‘drag Stalin’
Let 3’s decades-long expertise in creating challenging art makes ŠČ the hardest-working single letter in Eurovision history.
Initially, Let 3 were satirising communist prudishness and conformity in the last years of Yugoslavia. Images of their early performances show themes which are Let 3 trademarks to this day: huge moustaches, military headwear, and frequent male nudity. Youtuber Eurovision Histories walks us through the meaning of the song Mama Šč! (read the comments for more insights!)
Special Event: Live Stream: The Grand Final (2023 Eurovision Song Contest)
Good evening, Europe! Good morning, Australia! The Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest airs TODAY, Saturday, May 13, 2023 at 2100 CEST / 3:00pm EDT. The Big Five and last year's winner, Ukraine, already secured their spot in the final. The other twenty finalists made it through one of the two semifinals for their spot in the lineup tonight. There have been many memorable acts this year, but only one can be the Eurovision 2023 winner. Who will it be?
These cats are pretending to go to France and they need puns
I've established a tradition of making my mom little books of photos that show her cat Jax and my cat Bean having adventures. My mom is a retired French teacher, so for Mother's Day she'll get pictures from their trip to France. I'm needing help with a few more images and I think some of you have interest in cat shenanigans and French puns. I am using Canva to do these and don't have Photoshop skills.
Dolly Parton, Rock Star
After promising in her Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame speech that she'd now have to make a rock and roll album.... Dolly Parton has come through, in ways only Dolly Parton could! Rockstar, coming out in November, has the most ridiculous cast of rock musicians you can imagine. But not only that! This sister isn't holding back because this rock album is THIRTY TRACKS LONG! Anyway, here's the lead-off single, World On Fire.
"Allah is not imprisoned by the binary"
When I first spoke with wadud over Zoom, she told me she started diversifying Allah’s pronouns after teaching an undergraduate religious studies course at Virginia Commonwealth University in the late 1990s. wadud asked her students to explore the lyrics of Joan Osborne’s song, “What if God Was One of Us.” While discussing pronouns for God, the men in the class told her that they could relate to God when God was referred to as “He,” but not when God was referred to as “She.” In that moment, wadud decided to start using female pronouns for Allah, who, according to traditional Muslim teachings, transcends gender, yet has historically been described with male pronouns.Hafsa Lodi: The Muslim Women Using Feminine Pronouns for Allah.
Islam’s forgotten bohemians
"I am love’s infidel;
the Muslims’ creed is no use to me.
My veins are taut like wire; I’ve no need of the Hindus’ holy belt.
So go away from my sick bed you foolish physician:
For the lovesick, the only cure is a glimpse of the beloved.
"That is why fundamentalists, whether the Pakistani Taliban, the Saudi government or ISIS, have destroyed so many Sufi shrines and places of pilgrimage. The poetry sung at those places celebrates and advances an Islam that rejects political power, an Islam incompatible with the ambitions of religious fundamentalism."
My veins are taut like wire; I’ve no need of the Hindus’ holy belt.
So go away from my sick bed you foolish physician:
For the lovesick, the only cure is a glimpse of the beloved.
"That is why fundamentalists, whether the Pakistani Taliban, the Saudi government or ISIS, have destroyed so many Sufi shrines and places of pilgrimage. The poetry sung at those places celebrates and advances an Islam that rejects political power, an Islam incompatible with the ambitions of religious fundamentalism."
To be more specific, he’s a surgeon.
“I AM A SURGEON!!” [Twitter]
If you’ve been on social media over the past few days, you’ve probably seen an incandescent doctor (played by Freddie Highmore) yelling that he is a surgeon while an impassive Dr. Jackson Han (played by Daniel Dae Hyun Kim) watches from his desk. It’s a fascinating few seconds of television, especially when it’s been divorced of all context, then remixed, amplified, and snipped into smaller memes. Where did this even come from? The Good Doctor is a show originally adapted from the South Korean drama Good Doctor, and it aired in the United States on ABC for six seasons. [...] The clip of this scene, which has now circulated across numerous social media platforms, seems to have first been interpreted ironically on TikTok. Users initially posted it in full in late April; then it proliferated in a series of increasingly absurd edits, before making its way onto Twitter. People aren’t sharing this clip because they’re amazed by Highmore’s intense performance or the quality of the script.” [via: Polygon]
Ancient human DNA extracted from 20,000-year-old deer tooth pendant
Scraps of ancient DNA coaxed out of a deer tooth pendant show it likely hung around the neck of a woman or girl around 20,000 years ago. We don't know what she looked like, but she was related to a population of humans further east of Denisova Cave in southern Siberia, in which the pendant was unearthed. (Nature article.)
Young Chinese Love Everything About Sweden. Except Living There.
After years working in China’s finance industry, Helen Wang was feeling on the edge of burnout. She was fed up with working grueling hours, then being expected to be on call during her precious time off. The 28-year-old wanted to find a new path: one where she could “lie flat” for a while.Then, a friend gave her a left-field suggestion: move to Sweden. On Chinese social media, Scandinavia is often portrayed as a socialist utopia — a place where women’s rights are respected, parents of young children receive lavish support, and the working culture is relatively relaxed. What better place to start over?
Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Humphrey Bogart
In other words, this isn’t the most obvious foursome to occupy a painted, nostalgic eternity together. But now, ironically, thanks to these ubiquitous paintings, Monroe, Dean, Presley, and Bogart seem forever inseparable. So who decided on this grouping, and why? The answer is comically, unnecessarily complex. from The Hopper-Consani Connection [The Believer; ungated]
American Football buys The American Football House
In 1999, the band American Football released their eponymous debut album (which would later come to be known as LP1 after they also named their next two albums American Football). Its cover was a picture of a nondescript white house at 704 W. High Street in Urbana, Illinois, which has since become an emo pilgrimage site. And now, the band and their label own the American Football House.
Experts Agree That Memories Of Rare Music Can Persist For Many Years
Lost Ones: Decades later, Ben Ratliff, former pop music critic at The New York Times, can recall the details of a song he heard once, but that it is impossible for you to listen to. I’m sorry to report that it cannot be streamed. It cannot be purchased on a compact disc or a cassette, used or new. There’s no rare vinyl pressing listed on Discogs. Ratliff’s bit of recollected music criticism, shared over email, is a kind of ghost story.
Small Wonders Magazine
Small Wonders Magazine
[via mefi projects] is a new online speculative fiction and poetry magazine. Their inaugural issue contains fiction by Saswati Chatterjee, Premee Mohamed, Wendy Nikel, Charles Payseur, Moses Ose Utomi, and John Wiswell, and poetry by Beth Cato, Mary Soon Lee, and Ali Trotta.
The Internet Isn’t Meant To Be So Small
It is worth remembering that the internet wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't supposed to be six boring men with too much money creating spaces that no one likes but everyone is forced to use because those men have driven every other form of online existence into the ground. From Kelsey McKinney, writing for Defector.
"he’s really quite good-looking for a guy in his 40s."
Someone sent Slate's 'How to Do It' column a barely disguised Star Trek: DS9 plot synopsis:
The Wife I’m a Surrogate for Wants Me to Spend More Time With Her Husband. That’s a Very Bad Idea.
I’m a 21-year-old woman, and I’m seven months pregnant at the time of writing this. My boyfriend is on deployment, and while he was away, I decided to surrogate for a couple that lives in the area. The money is better than anything I could make otherwise, and part of the contract I signed meant that I moved in with “Miles” and his wife, rent-free and for much nicer accommodations than I could find on the market.
The couple I’m carrying for is super sweet and some of the friendliest people I’ve ever met, which is starting to turn into a problem. I’m sure it’s just a combination of pregnancy hormones, my boyfriend being away, and having a little too much free time, but I’ve found myself fantasizing about Miles. It doesn’t help that his wife, “Keiko,” keeps pushing us to spend more time together when she’s not hanging out with me. Nothing overtly sexual has happened, but sometimes he does this thing where he rubs my ankles (the swelling’s bad), and it just feels so unbelievably good. In my more rational moments, I can tell that this is very definitely a Bad Idea. But I’m living in his house, and he’s really quite good-looking for a guy in his 40s. And a few times I’ve “let my hands slip” to rub at his shoulders or chest. He always gently asks me to stop after a moment, but I know I’m on the verge of losing control here. How do I stop thinking about this guy?
Enjoy. Learn. Don't Gatekeep.
EYECANDY is a labor of love for the people.
It’s something to enjoy and learn from.
It’s not something you should gatekeep—
It was made to blow the gates open.
It’s forever WIP.
It’s never 100% accurate.
It’s a little messy.
It’s for you.
This Wine-Dark Sea has Haunted Many Imaginations
So what color is the sea? Silver-pewter at dawn; gray, gray-blue, green-blue, or blue depending on the particular day; yellow or red at sunset; silver-black at dusk; black at night. In other words, no color at all, but rather a phenomenon of reflected light. The phrase “winelike,” then, had little to do with color but must have evoked some attribute of dark wine that would resonate with an audience familiar with the sea—with the póntos, the high sea, that perilous path to distant shores—such as the glint of surface light on impenetrable darkness, like wine in a terracotta vessel. from A Winelike Sea by Caroline Alexander [Lapham's; ungated]
FIDE World Chess Championship 2023
After Magnus Carlsen declined to defend his title, the 2023 World Chess Championship between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren has concluded. Guardian coverage. Full streams playlist on youtube. Agadmator recaps playlist.
Point of Personal Privilege
More than an aspirational and abstract index of a Whitmanian democracy-to-come, Robert’s Rules was an especially formal response to the very real complications and specifically American violence of white supremacy, segregated democracy, and civil war. from Reading, Race, and “Robert's Rules of Order” by Kent Puckett