June 14, 2021
Zapped!
Zapping: The boisterous protest tactic that ignited early LGBTQ activism Designed to disrupt the status quo and gain support for gay rights, these theatrical tactics included everything from duck costumes to pie throwing. [National Geographic] Archive link. [more inside]
I woke up like this.
The China National Space Administration's Zhurong Mars rover has taken a selfie [image heavy link in Chinese]; and it is cute as hell. [more inside]
How Gay is Gay Enough?
"What kind of representation actually counts as gay representation? What counts as pandering? What counts as baiting? And what's the difference?" How Gay is Gay Enough? (about the anime Yuri on Ice* but also about queer representation in media in general) [more inside]
Taking inspiration from the seafood
SMILY-Didgeridoo,
a.k.a. Kazuki Kitagawa, is a didgeridoo craftsman, educator,
and performer with a distinctive style based on beatboxing. In recent years he’s achieved some publicity for
making a didgeridoo from a giant spider crab to promote the small fishing town where he lives.
An earthquake with pirates at the Southern Baptist Convention
Next week more than 16,000 Southern Baptist pastors and leaders will descend on Nashville, Tennessee. Some of them will be bringing pirate flags, part of an ultraconservative attempt to "take the ship" back. They want to take it back from people like Russell Moore, former president of the denomination's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, who wrote a pair of long, scathing letters condemning the racism and lack of support for sexual abuse survivors in the SBC's leadership. The letters have caused an “earthquake,” not just in the SBC but throughout conservative Christendom. Some are blaming the current state of the church not only on the marriage between Republican politics and the SBC, but also on the theology and institutions of white evangelicalism itself. [more inside]
"It’s a non-academic approach that I think is interesting"
Midwest Modern’s Architectural Road Trip: Josh Lipnik uses his Twitter account Midwest Modern to document regional architecture and design, creating a visual archive across space and time [Belt Magazine]. Midwest Modern on Twitter.
Foreign Exchange
Corrie Francis Parks’s absorbing stop-motion short “Foreign Exchange” is all about perspective. Through a continuously evolving landscape of minuscule stones and banknotes, mini-universes emerge that meld the two materials into culturally significant tableaus. “Between the dazzling layers of currency and sand lie connections that can be mined in infinite ways. Each person who views this film will unearth different associations filtered through their worldly experience and national background,” Parks says. Sand and Currency from Dozens of Countries Converge in an Endless Interchange of Culture and Economics [Colossal]
NYC’s Street Trees
For the data-loving dendrophiles, NYC Parks has mapped every streetside tree in the city. [more inside]
F* It, We'll Do It Live
Just before 8 AM Sunday, NPR's Scott Detrow tweeted, "Well, ten minutes to @NPRWeekend, just about none of the software we use to put on a show is working. We will be on the air either way, tune in on your local NPR member station!" Audio engineer and Technical Director Stu Rushfield broke down how they pivoted to produce the show live in a Twitter thread. [more inside]
Beyond Sociology 101
The University of Toronto's Sociology Department posts the reading lists for its PhD comprehensive exams. This is the list of books and articles that the faculty think are required for serious scholarship in these subfields; it's also a great place to look for syllabus ideas for courses in related fields. (h/t Raul Pacheco-Vega) [more inside]
A build-up of bunions
A bunion is a minor deformity of the big toe. It angles the toe outward from the foot, with a bony protrusion forming at its base. By far the most common contemporary cause of bunions is constrictive boots and shoes – with high heels often blamed for today’s bunions. It seems that shoes contributed to bunions many centuries ago too. Of the 177 individual skeletal remains we examined in our study, at least 18% had bunions. But when we dated the skeletons, we found that only 6% of people who’d been buried between the 11th and 13th centuries – long before the pointed shoe was in vogue – had suffered from bunions. The Conversation looks at the physical cost of wearing fashionable shoes in the 14th century.
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