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Tell Me One More Time What to Do About Grief. "Accept the lasagna. Do not start reading that Joan Didion book." [NYT]
posted by storybored at 9:53 PM PST - 50 comments

Gay USA's Andy Humm and Ann Northrup look forward to Stonewall 50 with a panel discussion [58m]: Eric Marcus of the Making Gay History podcast [previously], Martin Boyce (present at Stonewall), Carla Jay (original member of Gay Liberation Front), and Jamie Adams (Park Service Ranger in charge of the Stonewall National Monument). Looking to the past to contemplate the future, including Stonewall 50 observances and the Reclaim Pride movement. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 9:23 PM PST - 2 comments

Paul F. Tompkins as Dame Sir Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber provides critical commentary for the 1925 film The Phantom Of the Opera. [more inside]
posted by dephlogisticated at 7:00 PM PST - 12 comments

Guardian journalist and all-round awesome Twitter egg, Simon Ricketts, has died from cancer, less than a month after announcing in a typically beautiful and unself-pitying article that he would soon be gone. [more inside]
posted by penguin pie at 3:33 PM PST - 35 comments

WaPo's Alexandra Petri briefly covers The Year That Was. Sample: "The Parker Solar Probe, seeing how things were going on Earth, demanded to be shot into the sun, and we obliged." (NYT).

MeFi's Own Miss Cellania is busy producing year end lists. Sample: Year-end Lists 2018: Animals.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:29 PM PST - 10 comments

From CityLab by Sarah Holder, NOV 16, 2018. Stop Complaining About Your Rent and Move to Tulsa, Suggests Tulsa Starting this week, remote workers from all over the country can apply to move to Tulsa (Oklahoma) in exchange for $10,000 in cash, a housing stipend for a fully-furnished apartment in a building downtown, and a desk at a local co-working space. The program, called Tulsa Remote, is being fully funded by the George Kaiser Family Foundation, a Tulsa-based philanthropy ..., and was planned with the city’s cooperation. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 12:16 PM PST - 107 comments

A new short science fiction story from Annalee Newitz in Slate. Each month in 2018, Future Tense Fiction—a series of short stories from Future Tense and ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination about how technology and science will change our lives—will publish a story on a theme. The theme for October–December 2018: Work. [more inside]
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 12:15 PM PST - 13 comments

It was just supposed to be a quick assignment — a hit of kitschy Y2K memories for anyone who remembered a weird website or a goofy novelty song or even just some gag from Are We There Yet? But with every person who agreed to be interviewed, the Hampsterdance turned into one more thing: a hairy beast of a saga.
posted by clawsoon at 12:09 PM PST - 42 comments

Norman Gimbel, lyricist known for Killing Me Softly and Girl from Ipanema, has died He was also well-known for work in television and film, including Laverne & Shirley, Wonder Woman, HR Puffnstuff, and Happy Days.
posted by stillmoving at 11:44 AM PST - 18 comments

The Trump administration, eager to explore Alaska’s oil reserves, is planning seismic tests on the calving grounds of animals Indigenous people depend on economically and spiritually. Here’s a closer look at the ones with the most to lose. [more inside]
posted by poffin boffin at 9:45 AM PST - 3 comments

"two people from two different Americas — one immigrant, the other native — whose lives were upended by the same moment of violence and then plunged into the center of another divisive national debate about immigration. . . . Two people who were, each in their own way, mourning the loss of family members, with little in common beyond raw need. Two people now trying to translate this unspoken need into something familial..."
posted by drlith at 8:19 AM PST - 2 comments

Long promised, here we will take a walk through the humble samosa's global journey of belonging to everyone, everywhere. FPPs are too brief to list every culture who believes it to be their very own, so I'll simply fill this up with links to stories and recipes for you dive deep into yourself.
posted by infini at 6:53 AM PST - 28 comments

“The mysterious 8chan poster known as “Q” promised on multiple occasions that “2018 will be GLORIOUS.” For people who genuinely believe that Q is a government insider close to President Trump, that “glory” was supposed to come in the form of mass arrests of some equally dramatic event that would expose the so-called “deep state.” But even as QAnon community broke into mainstream awareness, vindication remained elusive.” The Year In Q (The Contemplator) “2018 was a year in which right-wing pundits and self-proclaimed “prophets” made a variety of predictions and proclamations that never came true“ 2018: The Year in False Prophesies and Failed Predictions (Right Wing Watch)
posted by The Whelk at 6:49 AM PST - 61 comments

"We walked through the offices and saw chipped furniture. We saw a crumbling empire at every turn. Our job was to make it seem otherwise." Mark Burnett is the TV producer of "The Apprentice", the show which revitalised Donald Trump's public persona and paved the way for his Presidency.
posted by epo at 5:37 AM PST - 71 comments