April 27
Recognising the patterns
The signal (and apparently extemporary - almost certainly not) Vatican meeting between Zelensky and Trump is producing a wide range of analysis seeking what was going or or alluded to. Women’s Wear Daily / WWD delves into Zelensky’s wardrobe and it reads like a retelling of William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition / PR [coffeeandflapjacks blog a book review blog]. [more inside]
Are you a coelacanth or a coelacan't?
A group of Indonesian and French (among others) researchers has, for the first time filmed a living Indonesian coelacanth in the wild, at a depth of 145 m. In addition to the various PR buzz, they've also published a scientific paper on the sighting. [more inside]
Not everyone was a good sport about being called out
For more than a decade, O’Brien kept a meticulous log of mixed metaphors and malaprops uttered in Ford meetings, from companywide gatherings to side conversations. It documents 2,229 linguistic breaches, including the exact quote, context, name of the perpetrator and color commentary. from The Ford Executive Who Kept score of Colleagues’ Verbal Flubs [WsJ; ungated]
TOGETHER AT LAsT
Wes Anderson has had many creative partners. But have any stimulated the juices of anticipation more than his most recent? Richard Ayoade will feature in The Phoenician scheme (also Hanks, Del Toro, Ahmed, Johansson, Cumberbatch etc.). This is the trailer. [more inside]
📚 Canadian small press hat-trick #1 📚
Under the fold, a small press roundup for Canadian presses Above/Ground Press, Figure 1 Publishing, and Inhabit Media. (small press previouslies.) [more inside]
NO sEGER, NO sALE
Pat Finnerty is boycotting Chevrolet over the crappy interpolations in its commercials and the lack of Bob seger. It seems to be going okay, so far.
Error or Minority?
The Identification of Non-binary Gender in Prehistoric Burials in Central Europe A new paper from Cambridge University Press on evidence of non-binary people in prehistoric Europe. [more inside]
Tactical pens
Do you like writing instruments? Do you like being able to stab people if necessary? Have I got something for you. [more inside]
It’s a foot! It’s a foot!
A new reality show featuring the talented and emotional judge from The Great Pottery Throw Down (highly recommend), Keith Brymer Jones, and his partner Marj Hogarth, actor and self-taught textile designer, as they renovate a new home and studio:
Our Welsh Chapel Dream [more inside]
“The Visible Invisible”
Natural caves, just like artificial mining shafts, occur in rocks that are made up of minerals. In these environments, the phenomenon of luminescence can be observed on a much larger scale... My photos, taken under ultraviolet light, reveal a side of familiar places that likely no one has seen before. Gray walls shine like starry skies or glow in rainbow colors.
A less noticeable apocalypse
Repetition at a mass scale. Ghibli. Ghibli. Ghibli. Repetition close enough in concept space. Ghibli. Ghibli. Doesn’t have to be a perfect copy to trigger the effect. Ghebli. Ghebli. Ghebli. Ghibli. Ghebli. Ghibli. And so art—all of it, I mean, the entire human artistic endeavor—becomes a thing satiated, stripped of meaning, pure syntax. from Welcome to the semantic apocalypse by Erik Hoel
Jeanette Winterson on AI, ghosts, and making cats bigger
'I’d like to go up in space as a very old lady and just be pushed out'. Guardian Australia, part of the 10 Chaotic Questions series. Warning for mention of rabbit death. Previously on the book burning she mentions.
April 26
On the many sides of mittens
Henry Wadsworth's Hiawatha, with the Kalevala's trochees (viz. trochaic tetrameter), instantly inspired jokesters to lampoon its rhythmic style. One short passage, more than others, gained especial notoriety. Generations worked together to compose a mitten manual. Underneath the cut I've gathered two recordings of this passage, emphasizing the good humor of Longfellow's repetition. [more inside]
Two teens plead guilty to trafficking $1 million worth of giant ants
Two teens plead guilty to trafficking $1 million worth of giant ants in Kenya. The haul of Giant African harvester ants could have been worth more than $1 million, and has drawn attention to wildlife trafficking of smaller animals.
Mary MacLane, the Wild Woman from Butte
A century before publishers started marketing novels as “essential sad girl literature” and newspapers ran headlines about the “cult of the literary sad woman”, Mary MacLane confessed all, at the age of nineteen, and became the enfant terrible of American letters, seemingly overnight. “This is not a diary. It is a Portrayal. It is my inner life shown in its nakedness. I am trying my utmost to show everything—to reveal every petty vanity and weakness, every phase of feeling, every desire. . . . These are the feelings of miserable, wretched youth.”
Previously (2013): Mary MacLane: teen diarist from Montana who set America ablaze in 1902 [more inside]
Previously (2013): Mary MacLane: teen diarist from Montana who set America ablaze in 1902 [more inside]
The surprising Tech Behind McMaster-Carr's Blazing Fast Website speed
sad. old. radio.
THE NIGHTLY: "a web-based radio station for insomniac dreamers, wistful lonely hearts, and general appreciators of a sort of indescribable beautiful drearynes."
I stumbled upon it because their instagram page chanced to send me a follow request. I hit play a few months ago and have barely paused it since. [more inside]
Rescinding the Definition of “Harm” Under the Endangered species Act
This does not sound good--Here is short NPR news piece about proposed changes to the EsA: Destroying endangered species' habitat wouldn't count as 'harm' under proposed Trump rule [more inside]
A supposedly fun thing
“People under 40 aren’t passive travelers,” she said. “They’re treating cruises like floating resorts, with curated experiences at every turn. Whether it’s $250 on a mixology workshop, $80 for a wellness session, or $500 for a once-in-a-lifetime diving excursion, they’re not hesitating to layer on costs when it adds value to the story they want to tell.” from Party on the Lido Deck [sherwood]
shakespeare and Hathaway, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g
A letter found in a book binding may reveal that shakespeare didn't abandon his wife. The letter, known since 1978 but only now linked more firmly to the Bard, "at least doubles the number of letters known to be addressed to or sent from shakespeare and his family." [more inside]
There is no good way to say this: words fall short
Fiction, as I’ve learned from writing it and reading it, tends to be about the inexplicable and the illogical. sometimes my students complain about what they read in fiction—“I don’t believe this would happen in life” or “I don’t believe any parent would do that to their children.” What can I say to a young person who has strong convictions but a lack of imagination? Not much, really. The world, it seems to me, is governed by strong conviction, paltry imagination, and meagre understanding. from The Deaths—and Lives—of Two sons by Yiyun Li [The New Yorker; ungated] CW: suicide [more inside]
April 25
Week-end prior to the Canadian Federal Elections
One man's solitary life with the cassowaries
The house that Yasi built: One man's solitary life with the cassowaries.
A devastating cyclone helped Kenn Parker build his rainforest home, and now his favourite neighbours are the cassowaries who come to visit with their chicks.
"...a rotating cohort of formerly incarcerated people."
"The overarching goal of All square is to offer a true second chance at life post-incarceration that is otherwise systematically denied through near insurmountable restrictions to necessities like housing and jobs."
A shred Of Hope To Cling To
In case the news cycle has anyone wondering when the side of the angels will win - George santos has been sentenced to over seven years in prison. [more inside]
"They all agreed that twelve weeks was the acceptable standard."
The Fable of Complexity A video in which a .... medieval?... office worker gets overloaded, asks for help, gets help, and then things get worse and worse and more and more complicated. [more inside]
so i guess we're arresting judges now.
"I think I write toward the feeling of a door held ajar."
Lena Moses-schmitt and Martha Park (LitHub, 04/25/2025), "Art and Craft: An Illustrated Conversation": "How does it feel to move between writing and art, for you? Do they overlap?" Lena Moses-schmitt's website links to more of her work, e.g. "The Matrilineal Pleasures of 'A Life of One's Own'," "Drawing Cars," "Indoor Feeling," "skating Costumes I Have Known," and "Blue Mountain." Martha Park's website links to more of her work too, e.g. "Natural Ends," "Cast in Concrete," and "The Ark at the End of the World."
An eddy of calm before the meteor storm
Maybe you’d meet somebody out, remotely checking the answering machine plugged into your landline for messages. Maybe you’d go home to make dinner and catch the news on TV or NPR. Then, if you were into computers, you might turn on the one you had at home and dial in to the baby internet via modem and read funny things or post on message boards, waiting, always waiting, for the pages to load, line by line. Did we have more time to read books then, or does it just seem that way? from From ‘Infinite Jest’ to Oprah’s Book Club, 1996 changed the (literary) world [LA Times; ungated] [more inside]
‘Why do they dislike me so much?’
For Charlotte Proudman, only one opinion matters: that of the women and children she defends in the family courts. [more inside]
A Dog's Way Home
After 529 days on the loose in Australia's Kangaroo Island, Valerie has been found! Previously on the blue: Well sometimes I go out by myself.
“What in the Maple MAGA, harmful stuff is going on here?”
How JD Vance Became a Flashpoint in An Election in Durham, Ontario (TheLocal - support independent Canadian media!)
Love means never having to say "sorry about flopping on your head."
The common belief about cats, ferals in particular, is that tomcats are not fond of kittens (being obstacles in the way of mating again) and that raising them is the mother's burden. But, as is often the case, shelly Roche's TinyKittens is both educational and full of surprises. [more inside]
Like walking through crumbling shelves of old notebooks
When people ask me why I shoot Polaroids, I lie to them
Give me the boxy, modest Polaroid, if only for its defiance, even of its creator. While poor Edwin Land was fixated on creating “the realization of an impulse,” something that could be “an adjunct to your memory,” what he couldn’t know, as the future unfolded beyond him, was that his creation’s enduring value would prove to be its relationship to every time but the present. from Polaroid Death Machine [The Georgia Review]
April 24
Coffin weavers create a loving last goodbye using invasive vine
Coffin weavers create a loving last goodbye using invasive vine.
Coffin weaving workshops teach people how to make an alternative to traditional wooden caskets to suit their loved ones while helping the environment at the same time.
Generally speaking a tileset should let you tell one tile from another
Mahjong solitaire (also known as shanghai) has been popular on computers since the 1980s, and it was particularly popular in the 90s when a version by Microsoft was released.
For those that don't know, it is a tile matching game that (typically) uses Mahjong tiles; aside from these tiles it shares nothing with Mahjong. Even then, the tiles are mostly an aesthetic choice; when I played on my Palm m500 I used a tileset made of punctuation characters, as they were much easier to see at that resolution. Generally speaking, a tileset should let you tell one tile from another. Today floppy disk enthusiast Foone Turing has located a tileset that is the exact opposite of that. [more inside]
Now add the Thoms
Half an hour of fascinating rhythmical nerdery: Analyzing RADIOHEAD's Rhythms - A Deep Dive into their Electronic Beats. (sLYT) From Captain Pikant, wherein you will find similar dives into Bjork, Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk, Daft Punk and many others.
Never too old to thrash
Grinning mischievously, Juanjo Albizu dons a baseball cap, tucks his T-shirt neatly into his sweatpants and adjusts the velcro straps on his elbow pads before positioning his skateboard on the bowl's edge, ready for the "drop". Albizu's attempt at a gnarly trick draws stares because the athlete is a sight to behold, wheeling around the unassuming skate park in northern spain having just turned 88. [Reuters; ungated]
Wizards of the Coast gets its comeuppance
"Wizards of the Coast has released the system Reference Document, the heart of the three core rule books that constitute Dungeons & Dragons' 2024 gameplay, under a Creative Commons license. This means the company cannot alter the deal further, like it almost did in early 2023, leading to considerable pushback and, eventually, a retreat. It was a long quest, but the lawful good party has earned some long-term rewards, including a new, similarly licensed reference book." [more inside]
LGBTQIA+ News: April 24 Edition
And now, news for, of, and about the LGBTQIA+ community. A lot of it is transgender-centric right now, but that's because of things going on in politics. I do promise more when it happens.
In this week's post: More fallout from the UK supreme Court, the (Un)Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, crabs and cinnamon rolls
("Dog on Fire", the Daily show theme, plays.) [more inside]
Will the real Mcsweeney please stand up?
Twenty-five years ago, the still-nascent Timothy Mcsweeney's Internet Tendency planned a cute little April Fool's Day prank (previously) with a family from Massachusetts (remember, dear reader, these were simpler times!). Then things swerved. (previously) [more inside]
Called it.
“Nobody knows about Howard.”
The story of Howard smith is about boundaries and a figure who continually transgressed them. It’s also a story about life and art being inextricable. smith loved fashion and dancing and Mozart. “The happiness and also the sadness in his music,” says Aaltonen, “[Howard] just loved.” He was also an inveterate collector of objects that he liked to arrange in his living spaces: African masks, vintage farming tools, Korean ceramics, and modernist pottery. Amid all of this, you’d find his own work. from The CIA and the Collagist [Alta]
April 23
How to support your friend who lives with ME/CFs or long COVID
That's pretty much all there is to say
0:03 ━━━🎂━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:19
Me at the zoo
jawed ☑
5.34M subscribers 【subscribe】
355,641,639 views - 20 years ago - sAN DIEGO ZOO [more inside]
Me at the zoo
jawed ☑
5.34M subscribers 【subscribe】
355,641,639 views - 20 years ago - sAN DIEGO ZOO [more inside]
Trump's Loss, Toronto's Gain
Current and future leaders in science, medicine, academia, law, tech and the arts are choosing Toronto as their destination, drawn to its stability, diversity and freedom of discourse. For many of these expats, our city is a perfect perch from which to combat the spread of fascism. What they all share is a deep desire to work in a country that values their contributions. We’re lucky to have them. (slTOLife) [more inside]
Darwin and Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace's Unrealized Last Book: Insights from the Plan for Darwin and Wallace "Wallace's planned book provides insight into how the co-founder of modern evolutionary biology saw his legacy in relation to Darwin's, and his role as fierce and eloquent defender of his and Darwin's theory during a fascinating period in the history of evolutionary biology. "
In New York, the call for “More!” rang out and was soon answered
I spent much of February exploring the rabbit-hole of the brief-lived phenomenon of books inspired by (or simply exploiting) the success and notoriety of Ursula Parrott’s 1929 novel, Ex-Wife. Recently reissued and featured in the title of Marsha Gordon’s biography of Parrott, Becoming the Ex-Wife, Ex-Wife is no longer a neglected book. But what most readers don’t know — even Gordon mentions it only in passing — is the extent to which Ex-Wife led to a whole series of Ex-titled books, most of them drawing upon or taking off from Parrott’s book. from The Ex- Files: Ex-Wife, Ex-Husband, Ex-Mistress, Ex-Racketeer, etc.
Marie sharp’s Habanero Pepper sauce
“In Belizean Kriol, the habanero pepper, rated 100,000 to 350,000 on the scoville scale, is popularly described by the phrase, “Ih bun, but ih nice.” (Translation: It burns, but it’s nice.) Whether you’re enjoying a traditional coconut fish stew or everyday rice and beans, no meal is complete without a good dousing of a hot sauce loaded with the fruity yet fiery native pepper. And, you’ll find that more often than not, that sauce goes by the name of Marie sharp’s.” [more inside]