April 1, 2020
Yo dawg I heard you like rock...
This is real rock. Played on a turntable. Loud.
RIP Krzysztof Penderecki, composer, 1933-2020
A few days too late, because I thought it'd have already been posted, but: Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki died on March 29, 2020. Renowned among other things for his keen explorations of musical timbre, he is particularly well-known for his composition "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima," and (probably often unknowingly) for his music having been included in the soundtracks of movies such as The Shining. [more inside]
Piece by piece, only way to make a work of art
Does Mo Rocca's tale of assembling a jigsaw puzzle in isolation make you wish you had your own – but you're concerned about coronavirus-affected mail? New Zealand's Te Papa Museum has you covered, with many works of art available as digital jigsaw puzzles. Prefer American artists? The Colby Museum of Art has a few puzzles for you. Seeking bucolic British scenery? The Pendon Museum has digital jigsaw puzzles featuring early 20th century country scenes in a range of difficulties from children to adults. You can also assemble selections from National Geographic's photo collection piece by piece. [more inside]
shitgibbon
Building the Perfect Profanity (Discover): Researchers asked what makes certain words rude, and what happens when you compound profanity with normal words. [The authors] took 487 common, innocuous English words and asked participants to consider how well they would lend themselves to being combined with a profanity (they give the example "assdoor"). "We examined a potential source of emergent tabooness when combining extant taboo words (e.g., shit) with common nouns (e.g., gibbon) to form novel compounds (e.g., shitgibbon). [...]The five strongest candidates for taboo compounding included sack, trash, pig, rod, and mouth ... the five least acceptable candidates were fireplace, restaurant, tennis, newspaper, and physician." (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review study abstract)
Punctuating the Crisis
You're The Man Once Again, Dog
Father, city engineer, pancake curator
Edward C. Bennett’s lovely legacy: The Bennett family wrote a descriptive account of their patriarch, a man they clearly adored.
“Ed was unnaturally calm, patient, and kind. His sons witnessed when he would smash his thumb with a hammer and he would just say, Nuts!” [more inside]
Tuba Skinny -- Maple Leaf Rag
Dunmanifestin
What do the names of British houses mean? [slNYer]
Welcome to the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) Digital Library
The ACM Digital Library has opened their doors.
Recognizing that many computing researchers, practitioners, and academics are now working remotely, ACM is committed to supporting research, discovery and learning during this time of crisis. For the next three months, through June 30, 2020, we are making all work published by ACM in our Digital Library freely accessible.
Take it slowly. This book is dangerous!
Dr. Seuss Raps over Dr. Dre Beats. Youtuber and film director Wes Tank raps Fox in Socks. And if you want more: Green Eggs and Ham.
April Foods (or Fool's) Day 2020
"Can we agree this year's April Fool's pranks will consist only of delicious desserts disgusted as boring, less-delicious foods?" and "the only april fools jokes i wanna see tomorrow are like: i baked bread today. april fools, i actually baked a cake" share a common sentiment: instead of pranks that might materially deceive anyone on April Fool's Day 2020, let's do silly food-related things. Or make a food bank donation. (Not following those guidelines: the fake announcement "Today Google stops funding climate change deniers" advocating Extinction Rebellion.)
He's busy now in other dimensions. He's not resting.
Tom Every, a.k.a. Dr. Evermor, died on Monday, March 30, 2020 at age 81. His art park, home of the Forevertron, has been featured on PBS, and, naturally, in Atlas Obscura. His body of work, in which junkyard objects gained new life as whimsical creatures and imposing sci-fi contraptions, helped define a genre of sculpture and anticipated the steampunk moment in style. Evermor's art can also be seen at The House on the Rock and in various other places around Wisconsin.
"Most people use vim in two stupid dimensions. But not me."
A nostalgia for misery, a relocation of poverty to aesthetics
Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before: A Study in the Politics and Aesthetics of English Misery, an essay by Owen Hatherley examining the journey of northern-English voters from anti-Thatcherite Labour collectivism to a spitefully reactionary nostalgic nationalism, as seen through the writings and public statements of sensitive miserablist turned fascist sympathiser Steven Morrissey.
‘Pencils down’
New Comics Day has occurred every Wednesday since the creation of the direct market in the 1970s, as die-hard fans rush to buy new books before spoilers pop up online. But no longer: This week, for the first time in more than 80 years, no new comic books will ship to shops, and production is on hold into the foreseeable future. No previous global event — not the Second World War, not 9/11 — has previously shuttered the comic book industry. Comics vs. coronavirus: Comics industry shut down for the first time in almost a century [The Conversation]
"We hope it brings you some quiet piece and joy"
British folkies Katherine Priddy, Jon Wilks, Lucas Drinkwater, Jon Nice and Knees Thompson have just collaborated (remotely, of course) on this cover of Nick Drake's Northern Sky. It's quite the loveliest thing I've heard all week.
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