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.