- Flimsy plastic knives, a single microwave, and empty popcorn bags: How 50 inmates inside a Michigan prison prepared a feast to celebrate the life of George Floyd
- Some word wide news → Talk the Talk is back—better than ever—as Because Language and Merriam-Webster launches Word Matters, with some of my favorite word people hosting. ※ Macmillan Dictionary’s emoji 🤗 ※ ► Marie’s Dictionary ※ Mortimer J. Adler’s “How to Read a Dictionary”
- “AKA the world’s largest seed bomb” → Meet the Bioremediating Missile (Brm. 1.) ※ Interview with the creator, Jos Volkers ※ Stunning photos of seed vaults by Dornith Doherty: Archiving Eden: The Vaults (2008 – Present) ※ During World War II, twelve scientists at the Pavlovsk Experimental Station chose to starve to death protecting the collection of seeds ※ This also reminds me: Scifi readers might want to look into Paolo Bacigalupi’s novel The Windup Girl.
- “Cadaeic Cadenza” is a short story of about 4000 words “composed in Standard Pilish, in which the length (in letters) of successive words in the story ‘spells out’ the digits of the number π — in this case, the first 3835 digits.” If that’s not enough, it includes segments that riff on Poe, the band Yes, and T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” among others. ※ Much more constrained writing and a lot of other wildness at the parent site: Cadaeic
- “I am very fascinated by the possibility of recovering what is considered an ‘error,’ because something else always hides behind this term.” Vavarella creates some arresting art that still has me pondering → Glitch: The Truth in the Error. A Conversation with Emilio Vavarella Thanks, Reader B.! ※ Vavarella’s site with selected works // Speaking of art, a fascinating exploration of art, authenticity, and history through the lens of one painting’s unfolding story: The Disappearing Gauguin
- Long and long(ish) reads → How Prison Turned My Childhood Friend Into a Neo-Nazi // America’s ‘untouchables’: the silent power of the caste system // The Last Nazi Hunters
- A farrago of links → When We All Have Pocket Telephones (1923) // Drive-through strip clubs // Smog Tasting // WitchTok // Kosher Kannabis // Zombie cicadas // Hell Ant // Drug-Smuggling Cat Escapes // The Tony Romo of Cornhole
- Listen up! → ► Come As You Are — Swing Edition ※ ► Smells Like Teen Spirit Cover In Classical Latin // Bad (Michael Jackson) – Bluegrass Edition // ► Melanie Faye’s Tiny Desk (Home) Concert
- An olio for your orbs → Mark Powell’s Ballpoint Art // Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours // Gorey’s Covers for Literary Classics // Free Colour Vision Test // Malaysian Geometric Cakes // 2020 Ruth Asawa Stamp // Larry Fink’s Beat Photos
- Today in 1962, drummer Pete Best is dismissed from a little band called the Beatles. Best, the band’s first full-time drummer, performed for three seasons with the band in Hamburg, and more than 200 shows at the Cavern Club in Liverpool. He also played on the band’s first full-length recording session on New Year’s Day, 1962, an audition for Decca Records, and their first recording session at the now legendary Abbey Road studios in June, before being summarily dismissed—at the behest of the rest of the band—by their new manager, Brian Epstein. Regardless of the reasons—and accounts vary, with reasons given including Best’s ability as a drummer, his overbearing mother, and Best’s popularity with the band’s fans—the dismissal was underhanded, sneaky, and not befitting for someone who had worked hard to get the band to the brink of an unheralded level of stardom. Best would continue to perform through the 60s with the Pete Best Combo, including an album titled Best of the Beatles, infamous for disappointing a Beatles-manic public who expected a compilation of that band’s hits, not an album of originals with a title playing on Best’s name. In 1988, after retiring from a career as a civil servant, Best returned to music and tours, with his brother Roeg, as the Pete Best Band.