August 17, 2018
"It all begins in Billtown."
Williamsport, Pennsylvania was once a booming lumber town that claimed to have more millionaires per capita than anywhere else in the world. The city is now primarily known as the home of the Little League Baseball World Series, but a pro team also calls Williamsport home. The town's minor league baseball history, which includes the infamous "potato incident", traces back to the late 19th century.
Nowadays, the New York-Penn League's Crosscutters, a Phillies minor league affiliate at the Class A Short Season level, play ball in Williamsport between June and September. With the Phillies and Mets coming to town to play in Major League Baseball's second annual Little League Classic, Phillies blogger Justin Klugh tells the story of a small town minor league franchise looking to add its own chapter to Williamsport's proud baseball history.
Nowadays, the New York-Penn League's Crosscutters, a Phillies minor league affiliate at the Class A Short Season level, play ball in Williamsport between June and September. With the Phillies and Mets coming to town to play in Major League Baseball's second annual Little League Classic, Phillies blogger Justin Klugh tells the story of a small town minor league franchise looking to add its own chapter to Williamsport's proud baseball history.
Equal Fights Movement
WWE, the company that dominates professional wrestling in the U.S. (and most of the world), mostly hasn’t allowed men and women to face off in the ring for more than a decade. But intergender wrestling is thriving on the independent scene, 170 fans at a time.
The un-celebrity president
Jimmy Carter finishes his Saturday night dinner, salmon and broccoli casserole on a paper plate, flashes his famous toothy grin and calls playfully to his wife of 72 years, Rosalynn: “C’mon, kid.”
She laughs and takes his hand, and they walk carefully through a neighbor’s kitchen filled with 1976 campaign buttons, photos of world leaders and a couple of unopened cans of Billy Beer, then out the back door, where three Secret Service agents wait.
Ward just kind of wobbled towards home
"With the bases loaded and no outs in the top of the fourth, David Fletcher scorched a ground ball to Jurickson Profar at third base, setting off one of the quickest, oddest triple plays you’ll ever see."
Yo Yo Mas
Why did Laurence Olivier return so often to Shakespeare's Othello? Why did Ansel Adams keep photographing the Grand Canyon? Cellist Yo-Yo Ma brought his great inspiration, and in turn part of his own life story, to an enthusiastic audience packed around the Tiny Desk on a hot summer day... [NPR]
What is this? A bridge for ants?
The wasp nest was seemingly out of the reach of the invading army ants... but the ants would not be denied. [twitter] [more inside]
Leets conseyedeer a passahgee from a Shakahspereyean soleyeleguyah
In which Ryuichi Sakamoto crafts a playlist for his favorite restaurant.
“He went home and composed an email to Mr. Odo. “I love your food, I respect you and I love this restaurant, but I hate the music,” he remembered writing. “Who chose this? Whose decision of mixing this terrible roundup? Let me do it. Because your food is as good as the beauty of Katsura Rikyu.” (He meant the thousand-year-old palatial villa in Kyoto, built to some degree on the aesthetic principles of imperfections and natural circumstances known as wabi-sabi.) “But the music in your restaurant is like Trump Tower.””
Men Talk a lot in Movies
Film Dialogue from 2,000 screenplays, Broken Down by Gender and Age. "...we Googled our way to 8,000 screenplays and matched each character’s lines to an actor. From there, we compiled the number of words spoken by male and female characters across roughly 2,000 films, arguably the largest undertaking of script analysis, ever." Besides presenting aggregate stats, the article allows you to drill down into individual movies. [more inside]
Dollar General: not so much as an opportunity as a diagnosis for towns
Where even Walmart won't go: how Dollar General took over rural America (The Guardian). As the chain opens stores at the rate of three a day across the US, often in the heart of ‘food deserts’, some see Dollar General as an admission that a town is failing. There are more Dollar General locations than McDonalds locations in the United States, and the company's growth doesn't show any sign of slowing down (Retail Dive). [more inside]
"it will be a very cold day in hell"
The statue of Baphomet... is seated and accompanied by two smiling children. The Satanic Temple (previously) has deployed a statue of "a goat-headed, winged creature" in Little Rock, Arkansas, right near the Capitol building. The idea is to challenge the government for recently erecting a Ten Commandments statue. [more inside]
(I would title the Björk one "Broomin' Behavior")
- David Lee Roth as microwave popcorn.
- Ozzy Osbourne as windshield wipers.
- Michael Stipe getting a friend’s attention in a busy restaurant.
- Prince sips a cup of really bad coffee.
- Stevie Nicks as a VCR, rewinding a tape.
- John Mellencamp enjoying a summertime snack. [potentially NSFW]
Building a crypto-utopia in Puerto Rico
Crypto developers and investors are moving to Puerto Rico, attracted by lucrative tax regimes They plan to regenerate the island using blockchain technology. But not all of the locals support their bold plans. SLGuardian, leading to SLYT.
The war goes on
“HERE. WE. GO.”
Here's the First Trailer for the Next Star Wars Animated Series, Resistance [YouTube] Take to the skies.
Street Basketball is a Sacred Space
The spirit of the dead must live its life one more time in an accelerated fashion before departing to the realm of the ancestors. . . . It is believed that doing what was once done frees the living from the dead and vice versa.Ancestor Work In Street Basketball, an excerpt from Black Gods of the Asphalt: Religion, Hip-Hop, and Street Basketball by African-American scholar Dr. Onaje X.O. Woodbine (interview).
Prisoners With Jobs
“The prison organizing has coincided with a movement that has taken hold across the country as teachers go on strike and protest slashed education budgets in their states. The hope is that the prisoners may eventually be able to build a coalition with the teachers and potentially even coordinate their strikes.” - LOUISIANA PRISONERS DEMAND AN END TO ‘MODERN-DAY SLAVERY’. Another nationwide Prison Labor strike planned for August 21st.
538 starts forecasting the US 2018 midterms.
Classic: I’ll take the polls, plus all the "fundamentals": fundraising, past voting in the district, historical trends and more."538's new forecasting models for the 2018 House elections are out. [more inside]
The Thing That Should Not Be
Sean T. Collins writes: ALL HAIL THE MONUMENTAL-HORROR IMAGE
- "How striking scenes from ‘The Shining,’ ‘The Wicker Man,’ ‘The Exorcist,’ and other iconic horror movies make an indelible mark on us." [more inside]
The Universal Operating System
25 years ago this month, Ian Murdock announced a brand new Linux release. Today, it's one of the most important projects in the free software movement. That's right, Debian/GNU Linux is 25 years old! [more inside]
I know a place where souls are free, where love is worn like skin
Among aficionados of the music of Jonathan Round there is some debate over where his particular genius is best exemplified by his transformation of already popular songs into his unique style, or through his own songwriting where his own lyrical gift is given full voice. Either way, Round's music is something not to be missed. [more inside]
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