-
The Oatmeal (with an assist from Augusten Burroughs) nails it again. → How to be Perfectly Unhappy.
-
A barely literate prisoner with a dictionary and a Mario Puzo novel teaches himself to read then finds (many!) errors in—and becomes friends with the editor of—Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Another great episode of the Criminal podcast.
-
Some fascinating Lincoln links [must resist bad puns]: The Blood Relics From the Lincoln Assassination and the amazing story of the 1901 exhumation of Lincoln’s body.
-
You abso-effing-lutely should read The Dexterous Tongue’s explanation of English Expletive Infixation!
-
Before the computer, there was something almost as complex: the Chinese typewriter.
-
Kurt Vonnegut’s only play—Happy Birthday, Wanda June—is underrated. It’s funny and full of outrage. And despite not being much of an opera listener, I’m intrigued by the idea of the Indianapolis Opera adaptation. Among other videos at the link, this ►workshop performance clip. [Thanks, Reader J.]
-
Is Listening to an Audio Book “Cheating?”. Cognitively, the short answer: mostly not.
-
Apparently, a company has successfully trademarked the contraction “should’ve.”. I’ll let that one speak for itself.
-
The Nod Travel Pillow makes a ton of sense…but could I bring myself to actually use it?
-
Meet the parents who won’t let their children study literature
-
Hindsight is…well, you know. → The Good Old Days? 12 Crazy Vintage Ads That Prove We’ve Come A Long Way
-
Get Lost in the Stacks of These 10 Beautiful University Libraries
-
Starved, tortured, forgotten: Genie, the feral child who left a mark on researchers. See also, the Nova documentary ►Genie: Secret of the Wild Child (transcript here).
-
Today in 1957, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus deploys the National Guard to intimidate the “Little Rock Nine”—nine black students scheduled to enter the all-white Little Rock Central High School—and support the protesting segregationists. I wish this sounded more outlandish. The action, and the polarizing photos, would lead to fiery national debate in what became a seminal moment in the history of the civil rights movement. Coincidentally, on this same day in 1908, novelist, essayist and poet Richard Wright was born just outside Natchez, Mississippi. Wright’s work, including the powerful novels Native Son and The Outsider, would be a significant force in race relations and civil rights in the United States and, after his permanent move to France, around the world.
WEB
Links, links, links…from a certain, uncertain mind.
Links: August 21, 2016
- “Sting’s brain scan pointed us to several connections between pieces of music that I know well but had never seen as related before…” → Don’t scan so close to me: McGill researcher scans Sting’s musical brain. Also: the full paper, “Measuring the representational space of music with fMRI: a case study with Sting”. Thanks, Reader M.
- Book Critics vs. Food Critics.
- Bryan Alexander—futurist, writer, teacher and fellow bookworm—is rounding up a near-future science fiction reading group of sorts. Strong readers, loosely joined, with great book choices so far. Join in!
- Following on our earlier link to the Mother Jones expose on private prisons comes news that the Justice Department will stop using them.
- “Stationery options are so plentiful that a designated paper concierge is on hand to advise customers on selecting the just-right weight, texture, shade, sheen, and thickness.” → A 100-year-old Japanese stationery store lets customers design the perfect, custom notebook
- From heavy metal bassist (including appearance in the cult film Heavy Metal Parking Lot) to devout Hasidic luthier. → The story of Z.Z. Ludwick.
- A lagniappe: (with the right font), UPSIDE DOWN can be spelled upside down using letters that are right-side up: umop apisdn
- The Long History of Olympic Typography: A Debate
- These Surreal Ancient Alchemy Manuscripts Are Terrifyingly Cool
- Today in 1979, Alexander Godunov—principal dancer in the Bolshoi Ballet and well-known (in the USSR) actor—defects to the United States while on tour in New York City. Godunov’s defection would indirectly spark an international incident when his wife and fellow dancer, Lyudmila Vlasova, was detained at the airport until U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev intervened and Carter was convinced she was returning willingly. Godunov would serve as principal dancer for American Ballet Theater, which was directed by his friend and fellow defector Mikhail Baryshnikov, and then play a few well-known roles, including a memorable turn in Peter Weir’s film Witness and battling with Bruce Willis in Die Hard. In 1987, Godunov became an American citizen, celebrating with a burger stuffed with caviar. Sadly, Gudonov’s life was cut short by complications from hepatitis and alcoholism. He died in 1997.
Links: August 14, 2016
- This week’s link cluster: the brain. First, the fascinating and sad story of Henry Molaison, the “man who couldn’t remember” and the research into—and ultimately custody of—his brain (Thanks, Reader B.!). Then, a unique brain of a different kind, that of the world’s greatest free-climber, Alex Honnold, who essentially doesn’t feel fear (I become nauseated watching him climb on video). Finally, a glimpse at the plasticity of the brain and a bright future for some victims of paralysis: ‘Brain training’ technique restores feeling and movement to paraplegic patients.
- And, Reader B. strikes again with CuratedAI, “A literary magazine written by machines, for people.”
- It just might be that book lovers live longer. But if you’re smart, you should be watching more trashy films. How to find the time? Maybe I’ll just stick with the benefits of being bad-tempered and pessimistic.
- Which hip hop artists have the largest vocabularies…and how do they shape up against Shakespeare? You might be surprised…
- The UC Berkeley Chancellor spent $9000 on an “escape hatch” to “provide egress” from student protestors.
- A nice bit about commonplace books (everyone should keep one!) and a picture of an interesting historical example with hand-cut alphabetical tabs → Commonplace Books and Uncommon Readers [Thanks, Reader C.]
- A weird case: an artist being sued in order to be forced to claim he is the creator of a painting.
- The Strangers Project is a collection of over 20,000 anonymous handwritten “journal entries” shared spontaneously by passing strangers. I ask people to write about anything they want—as long as it’s true. [Thanks, Reader G!]
- American naturalist and Alaska explorer Robert Kennicott’s death was a mystery; 150 years later, his skeleton helped solve it.
- Today in 1784, Russian fur trader Grigory Shelikhov founds Three Saints Bay on Kodiak Island, the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska. From this base, the Russians would explore the Alaskan mainland and assert their claim over the territory they would later sell to the United States for $7.2 million dollars…or two cents per acre.
The World is Good…
“The world is much better than it has ever been, as evidenced by the following economic data visualized by Max Roser at University of Oxford.” → Here’s Proof that the World Isn’t the Hellhole It Feels Like
Links: August 7, 2016
- It’s been a week of maps. Here are some for you to explore. Jerry Gretzinger has spent 30 years mapping the imaginary country of Ukrainia in over 3000 8×10 panels. Back in the real, old world, Old Maps Online indexes more than 400,000 historical maps in libraries around the world. Courtesy of Cornell Library, a collection of “persuasive” cartography, or maps “intended primarily to influence opinions or beliefs.” And a map burning up social media with its perfect combination of hilarious and absolutely unsupported research, What Cost is each State Obsessed with.
-
Learn to fold an origami elephant, help set a record and support a good cause. → #ElephantOrigamiChallenge
-
“The three lost worlds feature beautiful scenery, moving music, and are inspired by Percy Shelley’s Ozymandias, Lord Byron’s Darkness, and John Keats’ When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be.” → Experimental Game Turns Players into Poets and Writers
-
Following a link from a few years ago to PDF editions of Paul Klee’s two Selected Notebooks, now you can browse all 3,900+ pages of Klee’s notebooks online.
-
Slow cooking. Slow computing. Slow reading. Slow living. Slow TV seems inevitable. → Netflix’s newest show for binge-watching is a real-time knitting marathon
-
Cecilia Levy’s paper art…remarkably delicate art made from old books.
-
I want to live there. → Life Behind the Stacks: The Secret Apartments of New York Libraries.
-
Take a moment to marvel at the 2016 National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year winners and honorable mentions.
-
Today in 1934, in United States v. One Book Entitled Ulysses by James Joyce, U.S. Appeals Court judges Learned Hand and Augustus Hand (cousins and a story in their own right: Augustus had a hand in some of the court’s most famous rulings on censorship and contraceptives, while Learned is the most frequently cited lower-court judge in Supreme Court history) rule that Joyce’s famous novel was not obscene or libidinous and therefore not pornographic. The ruling makes for interesting reading. Really. A bit of the flavor:
“The net effect even of portions most open to attack, such as the closing monologue of the wife of Leopold Bloom, is pitiful and tragic, rather than lustful. The book depicts the souls of men and women that are by turns bewildered and keenly apprehensive, sordid and aspiring, ugly and beautiful, hateful and loving. In the end one feels, more than anything else, pity and sorrow for the confusion, misery, and degradation of humanity. Page after page of the book is, or seems to be, incomprehensible. But many passages show the trained hand of an artist, who can at one moment adapt to perfection the style of an ancient chronicler, and at another become a veritable personification of Thomas Carlyle. In numerous places there are found originality, beauty, and distinction […] Indeed, it may be questioned whether the obscene passages in Romeo and Juliet were as necessary to the development of the play as those in the monologue of Mrs. Bloom are to the depiction of the latter’s tortured soul.”
Links: July 31, 2016
-
The STRONG LANGUAGE blog is a “Sweary blog about swearing” (NSFW, naturally). Highlights include Mapping the United Swears of America & the followup Sweary maps 2: Swear harder, Donald Trump swears a lot and “More man? Plague, plague!”: How to curse like a misanthrope.
-
Technology killed bookstore chains. Can technology save indie bookstores?
-
The Terrible Beauty of Californian Wildfires, as Seen by David McNew
-
Stick that in your cup and drink it… → InStem study finds cockroach milk is next superfood
-
“Fantasies about the future have a troubling effect on achieving actual goals. If positive thinking doesn’t work, what does?” → Don’t Think Too Positive.
-
“We are reduced to quarter rations and no coffee,” he continued. “And nobody can soldier without coffee.” → If War Is Hell, Then Coffee Has Offered U.S. Soldiers Some Salvation
-
The archives of Randall Munroe’s archives of his What If (Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions) series are a great browse [Thanks, Reader A.!]. I recommended the book a few years ago…and still do!
-
Once all but left for dead, is cursive handwriting making a comeback?
-
The always awesome Atlas Obscura now has a podcast! And don’t forget their forthcoming book.
-
Today in 1703, Daniel Defoe is pilloried (literally, as in the stocks’ harsher sibling), for publishing his pamphlet The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters; Or, Proposals for the Establishment of the Church in which he satirized Queen Anne’s actions against the non-conformists (“…people in the World, who, now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve…”), arguing they should simply be exterminated (“Crucify the Thieves!”).
Typewriter Capital of the World: Syracuse
So many tasty typewriter photos. → Typewriter Capital of the World: Syracuse
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- Next Page »