Withheld: July 26, 2020
QAnon (I just can’t even, not this week) ☡ Kim & Kanye (mental and marriage illness isn’t my thing) ☡ The “Washington Football Team” (because I don’t want to jinx it) ☡ Cabin crashing bears (too barbearic) ☡ the emasculation of the CDC (CDC no evil…) ☡ Superman’s new black suit (I can’t Cavill with it) ☡ Trader Joe’s rebranding (An Eskimo Pie by a better name is still sweet ice cream action)
Responses: July 26, 2020
- Reader A.: “‘Friable‘ is a good term from geology, describing rocks that crumble easily, there’s a good one for the antonym ‘indurated'”
- Reader B.: “With regards to WORD(S): friable; how would you explain ‘fricassée’?’ — Apparently unrelated. Fricassée is from the French fricasser (to chop and stew food in its own sauce). The origin of fricasser is uncertain, but possibly from frire (to fry) + quasser (to break in pieces).
- another Reader B.: “Your opening quote has a good caution for my profession: ‘if you point the people’s eye to the future, they might not see what is being done to hurt them in the present.’ ¶ I like the idea of having a withheld section.”
- Reader M.: “Circular brought to mind an amazing film I saw twenty some years ago at a Festival: The Perfect Circle .. end of last century .. set in Sarajevo during the war .. a group of innocents caught in the crossfire of insanity .. always wanted to see it again, but my library doesn’t have it [sigh] .. I think I’ll look for it through inter-library loan .. thanks for reminding me .. ¶ p.s. my circle started just to the left of bottom (7 o’clock) and was drawn clockwise .. I guess I’m weird or the Japanese poetry is getting to me…”
- Reader S.: “Loved that 10yr timelapse of the Sun! Check this out: This photo of the Sun is the closest ever taken“
from Homegoing (Yaa Gyasi)
…Yaw wasn’t certain that he believed in forgiveness. He heard the word most on the few days he went to the white man’s church with Edward and Mrs. Boahen and sometimes with Esther, and so it had begun to seem to him like a word the white men brought with them when they first came to Africa. A trick their Christians had learned and spoke loudly and freely about to the people of the Gold Coast. Forgiveness, they shouted, all the while committing their wrongs. When he was younger, Yaw wondered why they did not preach that the people should avoid wrongdoing altogether. But the older he got, the better he understood. Forgiveness was an act done after the fact, a piece of the bad deed’s future. And if you point the people’s eye to the future, they might not see what is being done to hurt them in the present.
—Yaa Gyasi
—found in Homegoing (2016)
friable
friable · /FRIY-ə-bəl/ · /ˈfrʌɪəb(ə)l/. adjective. Crumbly; easily broken up into fine fragments. In medicine, tumors that are easily torn apart and prone to malignancy. From Latin friāre (to crumble). Related to fricare to (to rub), from which we get friction, among other words. See also: pulverulent, frangible, brittle, flaky.
[Read more…]Links: July 19, 2020
0 – Just watch Hamilton, even if you are allergic to all things hyped. I was fortunate to see it twice onstage and I can’t express how much I loved it → Hamilton on Disney+: Why we’ll never stop fighting about this brilliant, frustrating musical – Vox ※ Debating ‘Hamilton’ as It Shifts From Stage to Screen (NYT) ※ A fascinating exploration from an unexpected source: How does ‘Hamilton,’ the non stop, hip-hop Broadway sensation tap rap’s master rhymes to blur musical lines? ※ Everyone has a theory: Why Eliza Gasps at the End of Hamilton.
- A modern classic worth revisiting: White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack ※ Complete the Privilege Points Questionnaire ※ Join the viral ‘Check Your Privilege’ challenge ※ If you’re really ambitious, spend some time with Lyala Saad’s Me and White Supremacy Workbook.
- A linguistic perspective: The harmful effects of responding ‘All lives matter’ to ‘Black lives matter’
- I dare you to try Circular, a simple game where you attempt to draw as perfect a circle as possible, and not lose time for a while. ※ For inspiration and awe, ► watch the World Circle Drawing Champion at work ※ Previously: How do you draw a circle? We analyzed 100,000 drawings to show how culture shapes our instincts and Nick Barclay’s ultra-clever movie posters made entirely of circles.
- Some good long(ish) reads: The Quarantined Hippies Trapped in a Jungle Paradise // The True Cost of Dollar Stores // The glitz and absurdity of Las Vegas’s gun playgrounds // The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Lockets
- A poetry archive and collection of “actors, poets, and regular people reading and performing poems,” the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation spans work “from English metaphysical poets and early American writers through contemporary poets born throughout the English-speaking world.” I can’t figure out if Adrian Brinkerhoff is a fictional character, a myth, or just an invented name.
- The eyes have it: 1820s Selfie // Boryana Ilieva’s Film Set Floor Plans // Milcho Pipin’s “Locked Up” photos from inside a Brazilian Prison // Francesco Nazardo’s (occasionally NSFW) photography // EXP TV‘s 24/7 broadcast of “an endless stream of obscure media and video ephemera” // Mourn on the 4th of July postcard art project // G. Augustine Lynas’ sand sculptures
- Underwater Post Office ※
Whale Mail Is the New Snail Mail at the World’s First Underwater Post Office ※ You’ve got mail — it was posted at this underwater postbox in Sabah - Explore Boobslang, the argot of New Zealand prison inmates (thesis including a 3000-term lexicon. It’s curly mo.
- Smörgåsbord → The Sisyphean Quest to Bring Back Discontinued Foods // Why ‘Everything Is Cake’ is the perfect meme for our horrible era // Would You Kiss This Fish? // Google Forms Escape Rooms // (an LOL) Lexicon for a Pandemic // OffLimits Cereal // World of Snail Mail forums // WindowSwap // The Brimley/Cocoon Line Calculator (I’m having a hard time getting over the fact that I’m almost over it).
- Today is National Ice Cream day in the United States, proclaimed so by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, as is July’s official status as Ice Cream Month. Some…interesting ice cream flavors: horse flesh, foie gras, Old Bay caramel, lobster, mayo, Cheeto, Hawaiian pizza with Spam, crocodile egg, pickle soft serve, sea urchin, squid ink, and the previously mentioned tear gas. ※ A few delicious facts: New Zealand is the top per-capita consumer of ice cream in the world, weighing in at 7.5 gallons a year // Norway holds the record for largest ice cream cone, a 2015 monstrosity over 10 feet tall // The first known recipe for ice cream dates back to 1665, and one of the flavors was ambergris // The “ice cream” headache is caused by the nerve endings on the roof of your mouth, which aren’t accustomed to cold, sending a signal to the brain that the body is catastrophically cooling, causing a constriction in the brain’s blood vessels.
Grey Gardens
Albert and David Maysles’ ► Grey Gardens ※ Read more about the documentary (voted 9th best documentary of all time!) and its cultural influence including a film, play and a musical…and references in all sorts of popular songs and television episodes.
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