Dumbfounded, I stood before the court, trying to figure out if there was a state of being between “guilty” and “innocent.” Why were those my only alternatives? I thought. Why couldn’t I be “neither” or “both”?
—Paul Beatty
—found in The Sellout (2015)
pixilated
pixilated · /ˈpɪksɪleɪtɪd/ · /PIK-sə-LAY-təd/. adjective. Whimsical, impish, mischievous. Intoxicated, deranged. In the 20th century, distorted by visible or enlarged pixels. From pixie + -lated (as in titillated, stimulated, elated). ¶ Popularized in the 1936 Frank Capra movie Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, in which a psychiatrist testifies, “Perhaps I can explain, Your Honor. The word pixilated is an early American expression, derived from the word ‘pixies,’ meaning elves. They would say, ‘The pixies had got him,’ as we nowadays would say a man is ‘balmy.’”
[Read more…]Links: July 26, 2020
- ‘You’re Not a Racist and Neither Am I’: The Former Feminist Who Turned to White Supremacy ※ How white women get written out of the hate movement // On the other hand → Stumbling toward wokeness ※ And here’s an inspiring photo of an inspiring man → “Crazy Dion” Diamond (the photo’s context makes it even more so).
- Numeracy. It’s a thing → Wealth shown to scale ※ But how is it I am invisible on that scale if it pays to be grumpy and bad-tempered?
- “Seemingly preposterous, but worth taking very seriously” → Music in Human Evolution
- Much needed → Jia Tolentino on Practicing the Discipline of Hope
- Inside the Social Media Cult That Convinces Young People to Give Up Everything
- Look upon these visual works, you mighty, and be ensnared → 2020 iPhone Photography Award winners // The Wonder of Miniature Worlds // The ancient art of painting on water // Stefan Visann’s trippy photos // The ISS Photo Explorer // Discarding Images Medieval illustrations // Birds with arms
- What Hot Dog / Image / Frog / Dildo / Cursed Image are you?
- Gallimaufry → $26 million robotic dolphins // The World’s Smallest Wireless Record Player // The Endless Doomscroller // Tiny Camera Backpacks for Beetles // Mammaries for Humanity // Secret Hitler // Tour Pharaoh Ramesses VI’s Tomb // The screamer in Munch’s ‘The Scream’ isn’t screaming.
- Today in 1776, by decree of the Second Continental Congress, the United States Post Office (USPO)—forerunner of today’s United States Postal Service—is established with Benjamin Franklin appointed to lead it. Franklin was unemployed, having been relieved of his role as one of the joint postmasters of the British Colonies for his revolutionary activities. But before being fired, Franklin had replaced the haphazard colonial routes with new routes design for efficiency, including regularly scheduled mail runs, and instituted a standardized system of costs based on weight and distance. The USPS has grown a bit: today it processes and delivers nearly 500 million pieces of mail every day, or approximately 48% of the world’s mail volume, to locations across more than 42,000 zip codes from 00501, home of the IRS mail collection in New York, to 99950 in Ketchikan, Alaska, where I rode my first funicular (and purchased my first professional level coffee gear). ※ See also: The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service
Tokyo, 1913-1915
“► Footage from the dawn of film taken in Tokyo, Japan from 1913-1915” enhanced with the help of neural networks.
Bardcore “Jolene”
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“