Interesting that the two most important sources in this article give largely contradictory advice. But I guess we who journal do so for all kinds of reasons…depending on the person, the day, the mood… → What’s All This About Journaling?

Continuing down the candy trail. → In Japan, the Kit Kat Isn’t Just a Chocolate. It’s an Obsession.

Faithful Reader B. shared this story with the click-baity (for a certain set that includes me) title How Instagram Saved Poetry. I thought about it and was equally intrigued and troubled. It reminded me of another recent article on the Instagram poetry phenomenon, Instagram Poetry Is A Huckster’s Paradise. I thought about that and was sad, but I wasn’t sure what I was sad about. Stephen Marche’s The Crisis of Intimacy in the Age of Digital Connectivity started to put it all together for me, and it’s about a lot more than poetry, writing or even art.

“Day and night he wrote visas. He issued as many visas in a day as would normally be issued in a month. His wife, Yukiko, massaged his hands at night, aching from the constant effort. When Japan finally closed down the embassy in September 1940, he took the stationery with him and continued to write visas that had no legal standing but worked because of the seal of the government and his name.” → The Japanese Man Who Saved 6,000 Jews With His Handwriting

On the little-known novel Hunter, by the author of The Turner Diaries, and its role in extremist actions. Written in 1995 but even more relevant today. → After the Massacre

Great news, word nerds! → Green’s (Amazing) Dictionary of Slang will soon be free.

Tiny Books Fit in One Hand. Will They Change the Way We Read?

For your eyeballs: Simon Schubert’s “Paperwork” creased paper art & Joe Reginella’s Memorial Statues Mark[ing] Fictional Disasters in NYC & 2018 Astronomy Photographer of the Year winners

For your earholes: the oldest surviving Duke Ellington radio broadcast, known only to a small handful of connoisseurs and never made available to the public (includes the story of the recording and solid musical notes and links) & ► The Hot 8 Brass Band covers Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart”

Today in 2008, Barack Obama becomes the first person of African-American (or bi-racial) descent to be elected President of the United States.

A history of “tart cards.” → Dial ‘S’ for sex

I’ve only read a few of these, but I can confidently say Terrance Hayes’ book belongs. → TS Eliot prize announces ‘intensely political’ shortlist

I’m almost sold by this making of lemonade from the dwarf lemons that are QAnon. → The Wizard of Q

“Our results indicate that the routinization of Twitter into news production affects news judgment” → Do journalists pay too much attention to Twitter?

Remember that time Donny Osmond’s needs trumped the red hot Beastie Boys? → Excerpt: Beastie Boys Book by Michael Diamond, Adam Horovitz

I’m not surprised by the top three. Are you? → Exclusive: Data Reveals … The Books We Most Often Try To Read But Secretly Give Up On

Why do these tragic, brilliant pieces of long form journalism keep finding me? → A Generation in Japan Faces a Lonely Death

It’s all our fault. This is why we can’t have nice things. → The world’s biggest organism is facing its end

The winning photos in the 2018 Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition include some stunning entries. See also, zooming back out a bit, Cantor Arts Center and Stanford Libraries collaborate to make Warhol photography archives publicly available.

Today in 1915, the human voice is heard across the Atlantic for the first time when B. B. Webb, a radio engineer in Arlington, West Virginia, says “Hello” in a signal received by an American Telephone and Telegraph Company antenna mounted on Paris’ Eiffel Tower. The first two-way transatlantic telephone call wouldn’t be established until 1927. The first text message—the Spanish Influenza of the voice-calling world— wouldn’t be sent until 1992.