July 8, 2020
Changing Their Tune
Over the course of two decades, white-throated sparrows across western and central Canada have changed one of their songs, replacing a three-note call with a two-note one. [more inside]
How Lucy and Desi changed the TV landscape
"CBS wasn’t sure the country was ready for an interracial television sitcom about a fiery American redhead and a Cuban fellow. To quell the studio's concerns, Ball and Arnaz formed their own company and became their own bosses, producing the I Love Lucy show on their own and selling it to CBS." Screen Prism goes on to note that the couple's refusal to shoot inferior quality kinescope (The Jerry Lewis Show 1960 Color Videotape and B&W Kinescope Comparison), set them up to invent the rerun when Lucy was pregnant (Terrence Moss blog). Desilu Productions (Wikipedia) went on to become the the second biggest independent TV production companies of the time. The Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse (Wikipedia) lead to The Untouchables [intro], and set up The Twilight Zone with the episode "The Time Element." Also, Lucille Ball is the reason we have 'Star Trek' (Business Insider), another Desilu production.
We Don’t Think the Cat Should Get Killed
When it finally happened, as an indie directed by Michael Hoffman, with a cast that included Michael Keaton, Robert Downey Jr., Catherine O’Hara, Bebe Neuwirth, Ari Graynor, and Dunne, Game 6 suffered an unfavorable rollout. After premiering at Sundance in 2005, the movie opened on a handful of screens in March 2006 before practically disappearing. The only film written by one of the most celebrated and influential figures in American letters, a perennial contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, isn’t available to stream on Amazon or Hulu or Netflix or HBO Max or the Criterion Collection. For most people in 2020, Game 6 does not exist. A movie’s journey from creation to audience is beset with all sorts of obstacles, illustrating just how vulnerable the ecosystem of movie viewership really is. The story of Game 6 is an object lesson in just that. From “The Trivia Is Exceptional”: The Making and Disappearance of Don DeLillo’s ‘Game 6’ [The Ringer]
Rhythm & Blues Review (1955)
DON'T DRAW PEGGY TOO SHAPELY
Humor/pop culture website Cracked has gotten their hands on the animation guidelines for King of the Hill, which are mix of practical advice, character observations, and snark. (SLCracked)
Joe Sacco: Paying the Land
Renowned cartoonist Joe Sacco has a new book of graphic journalism out called Paying the Land. Perhaps best known for his two books on Palestine (Palestine and Footnotes in Gaza, respectively), his new book focuses on the indigenous Dene people of North America, "resource extraction, and our debt to the natural world". [more inside]
History Books Are Meant to Educate; Monuments Are Meant to Glorify
“If the criteria is that the subject of the statue owned slaves, then what’s next; taking down the statues of the Founding Fathers? Denigrating the memory of the Founding Fathers?”[T]he protestors have shown they were not bluffing. Statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson have been removed by protestors... Attention should be brought to the Founding Fathers, not because they were white slave owners (although that should be enough), but because the entire narrative about their intentions regarding creating the United States is not history, but mythology. Traditionalism has consequences. Myths have consequences. And these myths must be dismantled as much as any statue. — Renegade Cut, The Cult of Tradition [more inside]
My story will be that John Harvard gave it to me.
The first real symptoms were not mine, but my cat’s. Miette, who kisses me on the lips each morning to see if I have become food yet, became deathly ill with a stomach virus two days after my return; my other cats soon contracted it as well. I know what you’re thinking, but please let my husband have this. It pleases him so much to believe that our cats might have had coronavirus “before those cats in Belgium”.
Patricia Lockwood writes a plague diary for the London Review of Books: “Insane after coronavirus?”
Patricia Lockwood writes a plague diary for the London Review of Books: “Insane after coronavirus?”
Our Nation, Our Heritage
Over the past few days, Senator Tammy Duckworth (IL) has been smeared as a “vandal” and “coward” in nativist attacks (NYT) by Fox News host and bow-tied racist Tucker Carlson, which were shared by current U.S. President and former victim of bone spurs, STD warrior, and liker of soldiers who aren’t captured Donald Trump. Purple Heart recipient Duckworth lost her legs and the use of one arm (NYT) when the helicopter she was piloting in combat near Baghdad in 2004 was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. [more inside]
The Muppets Take on Hamilton
Baby carrots are not baby carrots
Baby carrots are not baby carrots (Washington Post): They're milled, sculpted from the rough, soiled, mangled things we call carrots, and they serve as an example, though perhaps not a terribly grave one, of how disconnected we have all become from the production of our food. In Case You Didn't Already Know, Baby Carrots Are A Big Fat Lie (HufPo): In fact, baby carrots were originally one farmer's ploy to sell more carrots. The late Mike Yurosek, a California carrot farmer, invented baby carrots in 1986 because most full-grown carrots were too ugly to sell. The Origin and Evolution of Baby Carrots (World Carrot Museum):
Real baby carrots (miniature version of full size) are what they are, about 3 or 4 inches in length. Baby "style" cut carrots (those whittled down from larger carrots) started off by the "inventor" as being approx 2 inches in the 1980's, and have remained so, more or less, ever since. Why Are Baby Carrots Always Wet? (MEL): Water is literally added to the bag. Without it, the carrots would dry out. Baby Carrots – 3 Myths You Need to Know (Craving Health): Myth: Baby Carrots are unsafe to eat because they are soaked in a toxic chlorine bath.
PPP Bailout Search by Zipcode
Pro Publica has a searchable database of all the recipients of PPP bailout loans greater than $150,000.
Frog and Toad are Friends
These amphibians, they act in complicated ways to each other, but the friendship is the only thing standing between them and despair.” For the uninitiated, reading such deep psychodrama into a story about a couple of anthropomorphic polliwogs might seem a bit much. But anyone who’s spent time in the world Lobel built for these two critters knows that, if anything, it’s almost an understatement. Bonus.
Abolish Schools
Is Unschooling the Way to Decolonize Education? "As more and more people across the nation call for an end to institutionalized racism, the realization is that for equity to take root, every level of our society needs to change. Institutions that perpetuate white supremacy, including schools, will need to change or be abolished in their current form."
Ron responded, "There are 168 hours in a week."
Mathematician Ronald L. Graham died July 6th. Ron Graham was among the most prolific living mathematicians, a leader in discrete mathematics and one of the creators of the field of modern theoretical computer science. He was a close collaborator with many mathematicians, notably his wife Fan Chung and the illustrious Paul Erdős (whose practical affairs he and Fan also managed for many years). He served as director of information sciences at Bell Labs for decades, and had been president of both the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America. [more inside]
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