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A Recipe for a Zesty Life
(Harry Bliss cover of the New Yorker, published a year ago today.) Published by Joshua Allen, 31 years ago this Halloween: Every day I should create a little and destroy a little. The NBA is back, baby. Please direct all reasonable basketball discussion elsewhere. Detroit vs. Everybody.
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DoorDash.com Once Peddled Porn
Unearthed from the Wayback Machine: TikTok.com was once a couple’s homepage. In 2000, Hinge sold hinges and Threads sold threads. In 2001, DoorDash was a pornhub and OnlyFans was a hub for music and film fans, only. At least until 2003, Hulu belonged to a couple named Hung and Lucy. (Via Annie Rauwerda)
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Tetris, Records, Innovation, Effect, McNugget
It’s the game I’ve spent the most time playing in my life and, oddly enough, the one I’ve had the most communal experience with. My friends, family and I never really paid attention to points. We were always gunning for the most lines. Unless there was a tie, of course, then points came into play.…
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The Stanley Kubrick Collection
I still have a DVD set of his that I got in high school, that replaced a VHS set I had bought a few years prior. While on the subject of Criterion, I like this virtual closet, “of 1,327 real Criterion editions, shelved in spine-number order — exactly as a true collector keeps them. Look around,…
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82-0
I’ve had about a dozen people mention this to me. Didn’t take me long to get to an 82-0 team, but I think I’d take this 69-13 team over them all day. You can’t help off Curry, which means Jordan gets endless single coverage. That’s basically illegal basketball.
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A Chicago Fan’s Incredible Show Archive
Aadam Jacobs “secretly recorded over 10,000 local concerts since 1989. Now, they are cleaned up and ready to listen to for free online.” “On July 8, 1989, a young music fan named Aadam Jacobs, with a compact Sony cassette recorder in his pocket, went to see an up-and-coming rock band from Washington for their debut…
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The Decline of the Tagline
What happened to the movie tagline, asks Nancy Friedman. “They used to be memorable and quotable. Now they’re redundant, wordy, or banal.” “Sinners is about music, vampires, and racism, with Michael B. Jordan — who’d go on to win an Oscar for Best Actor — in a double role: That’s his dual photo on the…
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Bread Infographic
A London bakery used a loaf of bread as a graph to illustrate the costs of running their business. “The Dusty Knuckle is a ‘purpose-driven’ business: ‘we strive to use our busy operations to help at-risk youth take forward steps in their lives through on-the-job training and mentorship.’ The Insta post says that ‘all the…
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Hard things are supposed to be hard.
From The EQ School: “Changing old patterns, ending relationships you’ve outgrown, raising children, creating from your core, letting go, stretching, growing, and stepping into the unknown. The more worthwhile endeavors require you to show up vulnerably & honestly, and they leave space for something new to happen.” They go on: “All of my familiar self-protective…
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On Tyranny
John Lithgow reads 20 lessons on Tyranny, penned by historian Timothy Snyder. 1. Do not obey in advance 2. Defend institutions 3. Beware the one-party state 4. Take responsibility for the face of the world 5. Remember professional ethics 6. Be wary of paramilitaries 7. Be reflective if you must be armed 8. Stand out 9.…
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Guerra de las Galaxias, Presentado por ¡Cerveza Cristal!
The original Star Wars trilogy didn’t air in Chile until 2003, and when it did, it had only one sponsor, a beer company that in lieu of traditional commercials, hilariously inserted scenes featuring their beers. This is something I think about often. Apologies for the poor Spanish in the title. (Via Kottke)
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A “Brief Respite from a Harsh Reality”
A “chess set made from paper in the Buchenwald camp by political prisoner Hermann Rautenberg, a Jew from Berlin.” “On an old fishing boat, posing as a group of innocent boating enthusiasts, Herman Rautenberg from Berlin met with other youths involved in anti-Nazi activities. In spite of being arrested a number of times, Rautenberg was…
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“If you can’t be a good example, at least try to become an interesting cautionary tale.”
Not sure what is exactly that Merlin Mann is up to, but he’s been posting words of wisdom on Github. Lots of gems.
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Rest in Peace, Steve Albini
I know there’s “cooler” albums to talk about, but In Utero and Surfer Rosa were profoundly important to my teens, and I haven’t stopped listening to Mclusky Do Dallas since seeing them in San Francisco this past March. My friend Tom had the good fortune of studying under Albini in the early 2000s and had…
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American Moviemakers on Letterman
Rewatching American Movie unlocked fond memories of Mark and Mike on Letterman. I cannot stop laughing.
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Brain Scans of Jazz Musicians Reveal Secrets to Creative Flow
As reported in The Conversation: “Flow, or being ‘in the zone,’ is a state of amped-up creativity, enhanced productivity and blissful consciousness that, some psychologists believe, is also the secret to happiness. It’s considered the brain’s fast track to success in business, the arts or any other field. But in order to achieve flow, a…
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Charles Schulz Drawing Peanuts
“I wish I had a better education but I think that my entire background made me well-suited for what I do. If I could write better than I can, perhaps I would have tried to become a novelist and I might have become a failure. If I could draw better than I can, I might…
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Pop (T)art(s)
From Wikipedia: “Introduced in 1964 and initially called Fruit Scones, the name was soon changed to Pop-Tarts as a pun on the then popular Pop Art movement.” (File under “things learned watching Jeopardy!)