October 13, 2023
The Right to Read
“What they’re trying to do offends me at the root of who I am and what I’m about.” - LeVar Burton Wants You to Read Banned Books
Solar-powered penguin audio porn to help re-establish a penguin colony
Australian-first "love machine" helps re-colonise little penguin population locally-extinct for 30 years. When two little penguins recently came ashore on NSW's far south coast and mated they were, without knowing it, pioneers in re-establishing a colony that had been locally extinct for decades. [more inside]
Income would have to jump 55% to make buying real estate ‘affordable'
The Whole Earth, in its entirety
Gray Area and The Internet Archive have made the Whole Earth Catalog and its descendants newly available online through the archive of Whole Earth publications... Blog post announcing the archive from the Long Now Foundation. [CW: reported racist imagery / representation in at least one of these issues] [more inside]
Wheelwright respect
The surprisingly complex development of the stone-age wooden wheel, from the POV of a woodworker. [YT, 22min] The framing device of the exploration is addressing the question, "Why didn't they use wheels to move stones when building the pyramids?" but the video is not really about pyramid theories/stuff.
“It’s not really folk, but it’s sort of like… that.”
Elliott Smith playing "Clementine" for a mostly human crowd. Or as Stereogum put it, Watch An Unearthed Elliott Smith Appearance On A Goofy 1995 Morning Show Co-Hosted By A Puppet.
You Got to Hold On
Since their earliest days playing record store gigs, the Alabama Shakes have been an absolutely holy-shit powerhouse of rock'n'roll soul.
But for all their collective skill, the true genius of the band was always frontwoman Brittany Howard -- a former cashier and postal worker-turned-generational talent whose electrifying voice, lyrical verve, eclectic tastes, and directorial eye drove the band's rapid musical evolution, from the anthemic southern roots rock of 2012's Boys & Girls to the cinematic groove, kaleidoscopic funk and eerie psychedelia (bordering on spiritual experience) that was 2015's Sound & Color.
And beyond: after a hiatus, Howard went solo to work on her debut effort Jaime (2019), a heartbreaking and deeply personal record inspired by her late sister and her own experience growing up as a queer, mixed-race woman in the Deep South.
Now, after brief forays into multiple side projects, jamming with Prince [audio] and Paul McCartney, an immaculate piano duet with Herbie Hancock at the Kennedy Center, and a delightful music video (starring pal Terry Crews, her dad, and a whole swath of her hometown), Howard has surprised fans with a second solo album, starting with the lead single: "What Now." Haven't heard enough about these fantastic albums? Well, bless your heart, there's [more inside]
Exceptional. Creative. Inspiring.
The MacArthur Foundation recently announced the 2023 MacArthur Fellows. Even the short video introductions (2023 Fellows in 90 seconds, 2023 Fellows in 3 minutes) fill me with joy. Working in varied endeavors - statistics, jazz, law, fiction, anthropology, hula, poetry, biology, painting - these individuals give us new ways to see and understand our shared world. The MacArthur Fellows Program at Wikipedia. [more inside]
It’s just someone holding a piece of steel against a big, spinning rock.
TW Lim writes about knife-sharpening as a process less about making a knife objectively, maximally sharp than about making a knife be what what it needs to be to do its particular job, in Forming an Edge. Don't miss the electron microsopy.
Seemingly [Blue] Ranch
The journey of 'seemingly ranch,' from meme to top of the Empire State Building [NPR] [CW: Taylor Swift, Advertising, X, Ranch Dressing] [more inside]
the difference between a story and a painting or photograph
From 1986, Susan Sontag's short story "The Way We Live Now." (SL New Yorker) (I only just came across this story yesterday and loved it and thought I would share it with you.)
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