My soul is a secret orchestra, but I don’t know what instruments — strings, harps, cymbals, drums — strum and bang inside me. I only know myself as the symphony.
—Fernando Pessoa (translated by Richard Zenith)
—found in The Book of Disquiet (2001)
Anchorite
anchorite /AYN-kər-iyt/ /ˈaŋkərʌɪt/. noun or adjective. Someone who has withdrawn or secluded themselves from the world, usually for religious reasons. A recluse; a person of solitary habits. From Greek anakhoretes (one who has retired), from anakhorein (to retreat, retire), from ana (back) + khorein (withdraw). See also: ascetic, hermit, loner, solitarian.
[Read more…]Links: April 19, 2020
- Trained a neural net on my cat and regret everything
- There’s a slew of streaming media by entertainers of all kinds right now, including comedy, but Tip Your Waitstaff is one of the more interesting. Each week Mike Birbiglia and a guest (so far including John Mulaney, Gary Gulman, Maria Bamford and more) get together to work on jokes, which is both fascinating and funny.
- Nick Cave on creativity in the age of the Coronavirus | David Lynch Predicts a ‘More Spiritual, Much Kinder’ World After Quarantine Ends | John Keats wrote A Letter from Quarantine.
- Color Names is a collaborative effort to name all (16,277,216) RGB colors based on user-submitted names and voting. Meanwhile, colors.lol selects palettes from which sets and names are randomly generated, leading to combinations such as “ungentlemanly light grey, deadly muted blue and entopic periwinkle.” | More seriously, this two-part piece on The crayola-fication of the world: How we gave colors names, and it messed with our brains is eye-opening and pairs well with this 2012 Radiolab episode on Colors.
- Thanks to the #ColourOurCollections initiative you can download coloring book pages based on materials from libraries, archives and museums from around the world.
- As my ability to pseudo-multitask becomes weaker—and the sheltering in place becomes staler—I find myself using ambient sound/noise systems more to help concentrate and focus. My current pick is the Name of the Rose Ambient Background Generator, just one of more than 200 customizable sound generators at MyNoise. A few other recommended sites: Rainyscope for rain sounds, Coffitivity for coffeeshop sounds and Soft Murmur for a mixable variety.
- From the early days of commercial printing comes comes an extraordinary saga of piracy and fraud.
- The news is getting old,but the language of, and around, Coronavirus remains fascinating. A mini-roundup of articles on the topic: A “Lockdown Lexicon, Covidictionary, Glossary of Coronacoinages” in two parts: #CORONASPEAK — the language of Covid-19 goes viral & #CORONASPEAK — the language of Covid-19 goes viral — 2 | Social change and linguistic change: the language of Covid-19 | Corpus analysis of the language of Covid-19 | Coronavirus meets linguistic diversity | ‘Take care and be safe’: Rewriting email etiquette in our new coronavirus reality | and a bit of fun, the Covid-19 Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
- For your ears: Matthew Perpetua’s curated yearly playlists (1970-2005) | A Buddhist Monk Covers Queen, The Beatles, and The Ramones | Rare footage of a Snow leopard calling. For your eyes: 2020 Sony World Photography Awards | 50 Weirdest Stock Photos You Won’t Be Able To Unsee. For both: Louis Armstrong House Museum’s first virtual exhibit.
- Today in 1770, while the barely 15-year-old Marie Antoinette was being married by proxy to Louis XVI of France, Captain James Cook—on a mission to find the mythical continent of Terra Australis—becomes the first European to lay eyes on the Eastern coast of Australia.
Plant Guy builds terrariums
Watching 植物男子 (“Plant Guy”) ► create his incredible terrariums, including cliffs and waterfalls, is compelling and soothing—a meditative window into miniature worlds.
CathodeTV
Normally a “Los Angeles based monthly curatorial screening showcasing contemporary and archival experimental film/animation,” in the era of physical distancing Cathode Cinema has transformed itself into ► CathodeTV, featuring “past programming, experimental shorts, strange TV feeds, subconscious channel surfing, themed blocks of programming and much more.”