March 2024 Archives
March 3
Alone on the Ocean, With 400,000 Friends
Cole Brauer’s Instagram feed hardly feels like the work of someone racing a 40-foot sailboat around the world in the Global Solo Challenge. But Ms. Brauer, 29, is not an average ocean racer.
In 2022, Ms. Brauer had tried out for another competition, the Ocean Race, which is considered the pinnacle of professional ocean racing. Sailors in that race are highly trained, wear matching foul weather gear and have corporate sponsors. And most of them are men. Ms. Brauer, who had sailed thousands of miles on high performance ocean racing boats, felt she was ready to join their ranks. (NYTimes - archive)
But after competing in trials in France, Ms. Brauer was told she was “too short for the Southern Ocean” and was sent on her way.
Brisbane City Council to reintroduce koalas to four bushland areas
Brisbane City Council to reintroduce koalas to four bushland areas.
Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner has announced a partnership with the University of Queensland to reintroduce koalas in areas across the city, including Mt Coot-tha.
My hosts were nice people. They showed us extraordinary hospitality
Kate Wagner (a cycling journalist best known for her blog McMansion Hell) takes a trip to the Austin Grand Prix for Road and Track magazine as a guest of INEOS F1 team. A subeditor chose the pull quote “If you wanted to turn someone into a socialist you could do it in about an hour by taking them for a spin around the paddock of a Formula 1 race. The kind of money I saw will haunt me forever.”. Shortly after, an editor chose to pull the article entirely.
Radley Balko goes long against a George Floyd conspiracy documentary
The Fall of Minneapolis (IMDb), a right-wing conspiracist documentary arguing that Derek Chauvin was innocent of wrongdoing against George Floyd, has recently gained some traction in more “respectable” conservative circles.
Long-time police reporter Radley Balko (mefi’s own) has written a three-part critique of the documentary breaking down the film’s inaccuracies, the naïvely positive coverage it received in Bari Weiss’s The Free Press, and the various corporate and social systems that work to protect police racism and violence: “The Retconning of George Floyd” · “The Autopsy” · “The Great Flattening” [more inside]
Long-time police reporter Radley Balko (mefi’s own) has written a three-part critique of the documentary breaking down the film’s inaccuracies, the naïvely positive coverage it received in Bari Weiss’s The Free Press, and the various corporate and social systems that work to protect police racism and violence: “The Retconning of George Floyd” · “The Autopsy” · “The Great Flattening” [more inside]
Iris Apfel, Eye-Catcher With a Kaleidoscopic Wardrobe, Dies at 102
Iris Apfel, a New York society matron and interior designer who late in life knocked the socks off the straight fashion world with a brash bohemian style that mixed hippie vintage and haute couture, found treasures in flea markets and reveled in contradictions, died on Friday in her home in Palm Beach, Fla. She was 102. [New York Times; ungated] [more inside]
Karen Carpenter, the Drummer Who Sang
An eighteen-year-old Karen Carpenter going wild on the drums on Dancing in the Street (and the same song again). This is from back when the Carpenter siblings were two-thirds of the Dick Carpenter Trio. At fifteen she was already a fantastic drummer, as can be heard on their cover of Caravan. Here she is in 1976 on stage doing a drum solo on multiple sets that turns into a drum duet and here's a similar routine from the 1976 Carpenters TV special except she's duetting with herself. By then she rarely drummed on their songs, though here she's drumming on Help in 1974. But in 1971 she still drummed on most tracks and that version of the band was recorded for the BBC in a 40 minute concert. Finally, here's a discussion thread by fans about her as a drummer.
A story about Barbie on a quest to stop the heat death of the universe.
Maybe you remember YouTuber Ted Nivision from a previous post. Here we find him slowly dissolving his sanity in a new adventure: I Watched Every Barbie Movie Ever Made [1h50m], which culminates with the 2023 Barbie film. It doesn't go well.
When Worlds Collide
Mexica, Mercedes, and Indigenous Voices in Maps
"There’s a popular poster of the world composed of satellite images, with continents arrayed horizontally like the Mercator wall map we knew in grade school. [ . . . ] consider the choice to view the world from such a distance, without borders or place names, where green, brown, deep blue and icy white surely obscure all traces of civilization, along with the harm humans have done."
Greek Tzatziki and its History
"Tzatziki made Greek yogurt famous, and gave life to the tasteless cucumber. More garlic is used in Greece to make Tzatziki, than any other dish in our cuisine. There is no order given in a restaurant without saying 'vale kai ena tzatzikaki'. There would be no gyros without it, no fried zucchini and no lamb on the spit without a side order of TZATZIKI."
The Dahlia Wars
What value do we put on labour and can you copyright a tuber? Loved this glimpse of a fervent hobby and the associated economy, with shades of tulipmania delving into thoughtful comments on what it means to make a living from what you love.
We know what the problems are, so what about the solutions?
Fat profits are one of the telltale signs of an illegal monopoly
The amount of profit that Amazon makes from third-party sellers, as opposed to AWS or some other division, might sound like a technical distinction, but it’s essential to the case against the company. The FTC alleges that Amazon’s low-price image is a mirage: According to the FTC, the company actually keeps prices higher than they would be in a competitive market—not just on Amazon but across the internet—squeezing consumers and small businesses in the process. from Amazon’s Big Secret [The Atlantic; ungated]
March 2
Would you sacrifice the possibility of a better world for this one?
Ezra Klein calls for Biden to step aside. Decrying the seeming inevitability of the Biden nomination, Klein calls for a hard look at Biden's many weaknesses (Gaza, age, polling against TFG), and points out that a candidate can be selected at the convention. Subsequent discussions focused on historical convention selection and answering a wide range of listener questions. [more inside]
What if we made no money?
This was a way to experiment, free of the pressures of a formal publication TinyLetter shut down on February 29th. [more inside]
What’s More Unsettling? The Prospect of 2024 or Another Ghost Story?
It’s early 2024, nights are shortening (at least in the northern hemisphere), and here’s another roundup of weird audio dramas to take your mind off other horrors. While these roundups are, of course, invaluable, you might want to check out the Audio Drama Directory as a searchable guide to audio dramas and actual plays (mostly SF, Fantasy, and/or Horror). [more inside]
Laurie Anderson is always a few years ahead
Laurie Anderson has been working and playing with a model of her late husband for years. The results, Anderson says, can be hit and miss. “Three-quarters of it is just completely idiotic and stupid. And then maybe 15% is like, ‘Oh?’. And then the rest is pretty interesting. And that’s a pretty good ratio for writing, I think.”
Fiction. Desire. Fantasy. Power. Death. Identity. -- Twilight
ContraPoints has a new video essay out, titled simply Twilight [2h53m]. It covers quite a lot. Like a lot more than you think it's going to cover. I enjoyed it and learned things.
sure that the truest thing you know is what is getting your attention
daniel schmactenberger on the metacrisis. [slyt] "why is it that no literally no country, no company, in the world wants climate change. no nobody is like climate change is the world that I want, but we're orienting to it so fast and we can't stop and nobody can stop it because we all want stuff that requires energy that is driving that thing and nobody wants species Extinction and nobody really wants to live in a world with automated AI weapons but we're all racing to build them so what is actually driving the world to a world that literally nobody wants I think there's a deeper analysis of that and the market is a part of it" [more inside]
against the world
"It is common to describe worldbuilding projects as encyclopedic, but few worldbuilding projects have the space (or the interest) to investigate the depths of historical-psychological complexity, ambiguity, unknowability, and irreducibility that might be seen in the edit history of a single contested Wikipedia page—to say nothing of the epistemological failures of Wikipedia itself, its biases and overwhelmingly vast absences. Worldbuilding as a totalizing project cannot help but fail." Vajra Chandrasekera (author of The Saint of Bright Doors), "The Lone and Level Sands"--a brief but critical look at worldbuilding that starts with last year's profiles of Brandon Sanderson and grows to take in the entire project of writing fiction (ed. note: i died at the sentence, some books are television). [more inside]
"An incomplete and infuriating list"
Things Unexpectedly Named After People. For example: Main Street in San Francisco is named after Charles Main. By Roland Crosby. Via.
i suspect the unruly waves personally offended her, as a herding dog
She is a brilliant fluffy asshole with a million opinions who barks at anyone with the audacity to walk past her property as though she is going to tear them limb from limb and has never, ever been physically aggressive with anyone. Content warning: pet illness; it's very very dusty in here. [more inside]
Asian Elephants mourn and bury their babies, Indian study finds
Asian Elephants mourn and bury their babies, Indian study finds. A study conducted between 2022 and 2023 finds elephants travel a great distance to bury their young with care.
Versions of the dessert later appeared in the Sears Roebuck catalog
"Storytellers say that for the World’s Fair, Bertha asked The Palmer House pastry chef to create a small cake or confection that could be included in boxed lunches for ladies visiting the fair. The pastry chef developed a thick, dense, fudgy chocolate bar, covered in walnuts and a sweet apricot glaze. It was unlike any other confection and became incredibly popular." Should they be cake-like or fudge-like? Do we actually know their history? Any way you cut it Wikipedia has a lot of information about the brownie. [more inside]
Robert Wilson and Phillip Glass collaboration of Einstein on the Beach
A favorite section of mine. Einstein on the Beach... knee play#5 My favorite part of the American opera by Phillip Glass (music) and Robert Wilson (visuals), and Lucinda Childs (choreography). At 4.5 hours long and no [more inside]
We don’t want to categorise people, so we don’t
Sites that are for adults should cater to all of grown-ups’ interests. Lots of people who are over 18 like sex, but they also like comedy and sports and music, so [it’s about] being able to cater to our audience base and to be able to provide opportunities for creators. from Keily Blair, OnlyFans: ‘We are an incredible UK tech success story’ [FT; ungated]
March 1
Art that stares back
The Corey Helford Gallery in downtown Los Angeles announced its next group show collaboration: Care Bears Forever, in partnership with the official owners of the Care Bears brand (Cloudco Entertainment). On view through March 30, this exhibition features new and original, one-of-a-kind artwork inspired by the characters, from over 75 international contemporary artists.
Take me to a place I haven’t been, show me something I haven’t seen...
What do Nona Hendryx, Rough Trade, Ultravox, Pere Ubu, The Police, Jonathan Richman, Nash the Slash, Sun Ra, Martha and the Muffins, John Cale, Alex Chilton, Joan Jett, XTC, the Cramps and so many more have in common? Obviously it's the fact that they all played at the Edge, a 200 person concert venue and eatery in Toronto in the late 70's. Not bad considering the place was only open for 2 and a half years. [more inside]
You know that it's the best of Cheapos
Everyone's favorite queer YouTube Marxist media analyst Alexander Avila looks back at the career of recent Grammy winner Miley Cyrus and her alter egos Miley Stewart and Hannah Montana in his video Hannah Montana's Guide to Life Under Capitalism [1h26m] And there's a LOT he will pull out of this series, and I found it all worthwhile. One small note: automated voices of famous people are used to read passages of text, and it can be a bit jarring.
Orchestral Devices in the Light
I play music covers using electric toothbrushes, credit card machines, typewriters, and other electric devices. I control the devices using a microcontroller, some wires, and my programming skills. Thanks to the ideas of my subscribers, my devices now have googly eyes, and some even wigs and pipe cleaner arms. Sometimes I also make the devices perform choreographies, by making the devices move each other. it's Device Orchestra [more inside]
"I have a Bubsy 3D poster on my wall, it brings me daily inspiration!"
Garfield (2004) was a game for the Playstation 2 and PC. It was a pretty lackluster 3D production where the idea was to help the cartoon cat clean Jon's house within eight hours (real time!) or else be put on a diet. The few places that reviewed it gave it extremely low scores (0/10!). Youtuber planet clue recently had a look at the game (20 minutes) and, while agreeing it's no great work of art, saw that there was still a bit of fun to be had, if it could be made to run on Windows 11, and if one could get over its issues. So, they went about hacking it to correct its more egregious flaws, and when they were done put their improved version online, as Garfield+ (Windows only).
Sometimes a sandworm is just a sandworm
What do King Arthur, Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Aragorn and Paul Atreides have in common? Call it Magic Dick Theory. (Although on closer inspection, maybe not Paul so much.) The Ringer offers up a "psychoanalytic reading of canonical chosen-one narratives in fantasy and science fiction."
"Improv Theology"
"Altruistic endeavours by an army of Trevors"
"The aim of this website is simple. It's to gather the global wisdom, skills, experience, empathy and generosity of those who share this name, to do good stuff as far and wide as possible, for people across the world with the first or last name TREVOR." Trevor Cunningham told the Guardian about setting up the website and support network Trevors Together.
Can I have some Moor? The saucy metaphysics of moles, chili, and curry
"There are, however, a few surpring similiarites in our practices and customs. For example, the prominenance of chilies in both Indian and Mexican cooking. In the global gastronomic geography the two cuisines share a single place that can only be called eccentric: they are both imaginative and passionate infractions.... There is an undeniable similarity between curry and mole: the combination of sweet and the spicy, the reddish color full of sumptuous reflections, and its accompaniment to a meat or vegetable. ...Is [mole] an ingenious Mexican version of curry, or is curry a Hindu adaptation of a Mexican sauce? Our perplexity increases when we consider that there is not one but many kinds of curries and moles." -"In Light of India", Octavio Paz, Nobel Laureate in Literature & Mexican Ambassador to India [more inside]
Road Worrier
The "Atlanta Magnet Man" bikes around Atlanta with a hitched trailer that uses magnets to attract metal debris that poses a risk to people’s car tires. The idea is completely his own, and he does it for free.
“I can’t really find anybody that says what I’m doing is a terrible thing unless, you know, they own a tire shop,” he said.
Think of a crepe or a soft tortilla, and you’ll have the idea
Although lefse was available year-round in Norway, it is more often a holiday food in the U.S., served especially around Christmas. Want to know more about lefse? Life in Norway has you covered, as does Lefse Time. [more inside]
What’s neglected is not necessarily justly neglected
The reality is that most writers will be forgotten. Readers don’t have the time or energy to read everything good that’s in print, let alone chase down the far greater number of books that are good and out of print. There are very, very few obsessives like me who dig into the vast piles of forgotten books and try to report back. The canon of well-known, widely taught, in print and easily available writers is only a narrow and well-trodden path through the vast territory called the literature of the past. What lies off that beaten path is much the same as what we see among the new books that are being published today: in other words, great books and awful books and an enormous amount in between. from We Must Rescue Forgotten Geniuses If We are to Read Them by Brad Bigelow [The Neglected Books Page] [more inside]