(January 1, 2018)
You know what time it is! You’ve got nothing to do today — read!
- This article should be at least five times longer than it is because there’s much more to discuss here. But read it for the headline alone: “Would Alexis de Tocqueville Have Joined a High School Football Team?” (spoiler: the answer is yes) https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/11/would-alexis-de-tocqueville-have-joined-a-high-school-football-team/281562/
- Old Italian pizza-making man talks about his process http://video.newyorker.com/watch/a-priceless-pizzeria-in-brooklyn
- In the public’s mind, man and work seem to be the same thing. But are they? Ought we try to separate the art from the artist, the maker from the made? Or do we believe genius gets special dispensation, a behavioral hall pass? https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/11/20/art-monstrous-men/
- In Praise of Slow Reading http://lithub.com/against-the-attention-economy-short-stories-are-not-quick-literary-fixes/
- “Castles in the Air” The American democracy and dream are the building of castles in air. Whither goeth the one so goeth the other, these days up in smoke and the spout. https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/home/castles-air
- What makes Christmas music Christmas music? https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FVox%2Fvideos%2F801103840077220%2F&show_text=0&width=560
- On commuting… https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/04/16/there-and-back-again
- Running out of sand in Miami 😦 https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/17/13660014/miami-beach-sand-erosion-nourishment-climate-change
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- an artist — excel is his canvas. https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fgreatbigstory%2Fvideos%2F1769248003377625%2F&show_text=0&width=560
- Gun rights rooted in much more than the Constitution… https://newrepublic.com/article/146190/brutal-origins-gun-rights
- “If a movie’s good enough, the effects don’t matter”
https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FVox%2Fvideos%2F809568755897395%2F&show_text=0&width=560 - fish have feelings too!!! https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/science/depressed-fish.html
- Joan Didion’s Los Angeles notebook
- it’s a bubble world https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/25/media-bubble-real-journalism-jobs-east-coast-215048
- why Americans eat bacon for breakfast https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fwashingtonpost%2Fvideos%2F10157240676837293%2F&show_text=0&width=560
- This was VERY helpful for me to read: https://www.thecut.com/2017/11/ask-polly-i-moved-back-home-and-no-one-else-is-single.html
- All we ever do these days is debate baby boomers vs. millennials: https://www.vox.com/2017/12/20/16772670/baby-boomers-millennials-congress-debt
- a profile of Wyatt Koch, who has more wealth than 99% of us ever will (excluding the 1% of course) https://deadspin.com/bless-this-oafish-koch-heir-and-his-hideous-shirts-1821513843
- Che tristezza! Poor Spelacchio — and poor Roma. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/opinion/rome-christmas-tree-spelacchio.html
- “White supremacist rallies felt very out of place in 2017, a year that is supposed to be after 1963.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2017/12/22/please-disney-remove-2017-from-canon/
- “The goal of trivia—its underlying purpose—highlights human beings’ smallness in relation to the universe. To master even a fragment of it is to graze the face of the sublime.” WOW. “HQ Trivia Is a Harbinger of Dystopia” https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/12/hq-trivia-future-dystopia/549071
- ““All I Want for Christmas Is You” is a sort of Hegelian dialectic of Christmastime desire, taking the conflicting notions of abundance and specificity and packaging them neatly into an earworm for the generations.” https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/12/mariah-carey-badass-philosopher/421467/
- More hope: “If you had to choose a moment in human history in which you wanted to be born, you’d choose today, because the fact is the world is healthier, wealthier, better educated, more tolerant, more sophisticated, and less violent than just about any other time in human history.” https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/barack-obama-reflects-on-leaving-the-presidency/549236/
- I think about this all of the time. “It’s striking to think some people once saw the online world as a raceless utopia…” https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/white-people-dont-use-white-emoji/481695/
- Considering race and masculinity when growing up with The Simpsons https://longreads.com/2017/12/29/the-other-people-in-springfield/
- Watch the recap of the fascinatingly sad Browns — how can a team be so bad? — but also watch What If Barry Bonds Didn’t Have a Bat? because wow. https://www.sbnation.com/2017/12/21/16807382/cleveland-browns-stats-chart-party
- sweet, fun advice: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/26/arts/television/jenna-fischer-the-first-time-i-was-paid-to-act.html?_r=0
- “Tortoises are proof of nature’s genius and of our own imperfection, our fragility and brevity in a world that existed long before us and will exist long after we’re gone.” https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/magazine/a-pet-tortoise-who-will-outlive-us-all.html?_r=0
bianca k. cockrell 