~metafilter | Bookmarks (953)

The author Tom Robbins has died. I had no idea he was so old. He was old for a Baby Boomer, and probably didn't even qualify for inclusion in that generation, born in 1932, well before the war that the Baby Boomers followed.He was a very distinctive writer by any account. I found his work in high school, and loved the irreverence and fun...

WaPo gift link: A campus sign said 'Tell us something good.' Students delivered. Free thread for this week. Do you have a small something good to share?

"Originally published in 1942, How To Cook A Wolf is presented as a wartime cooking guide, but... its essays are an argument for living the best life that you can when everything around you goes to shit." - Emma TerhaarAnne Wallentine: For Fisher, cooking or outfoxing the "wolf" is not about following a recipe, but spurring open-armed attitudes towards food and life. "How to...

Tsui Hark returns with a take on chapters 34-40 of Jin Yong's Legend of the Condor Heroes and a US release, starring Xiao Zhan as the protagonist Guo Jing. The Wikipedia summary can catch you up and will contain spoilers for the Jin Yong wuxia classic series but might make it easier to follow along with the epic movie. If you can't get enough...

Meet the waterfront millionaires trying to cancel the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples ActShort history of the shíshálh swiya Dock Management Plan and the reaction of adjacent land owners.This completely infuriating quote basically sums up the colonizer view, emphasis mine: The enforced removal of private boat houses and docks, as stipulated by the proposed plan, will not only significantly devalue our property...

Seattle Times' Gemma Wilson on 'Hamilton': Because time is what makes all theater feel new, and understanding where we've been is the only way to see our present clearly. So what does this show mean today? Here we go. ( archive )

The Winton School in New Zealand was forced to cancel its annual musical due to COVID concerns. So they leveraged the spectacular South Island New Zealand scenery seen in Lord of the Rings, got a professional cinematographer on board, and made a full-length fantasy epic: The Great Sword of Isthgul.The Great Sword of Isthgul is the sequel to principal Steve Wadsworth's film "The Great...

Sex Lives of Whale Sharks Caught on Camera: Pursuit, Love Bites, and Getting Into Position. Researchers have captured rare video of whale shark courtship behavior, revealing intimate details of the largest fish in the sea.

Since the 1960s the Aral Sea, originally measuring 68,000 square km (or about half the size of England), almost entirely disappeared, destroying a thriving fishing industry. Parts of it have since been restored in Kazakhstan. "I was five or six the last time I saw ships in the sea when we went swimming". It's especially unfortunate that on an island in the middle of...

Such realizations left the heirs with a mix of emotions: confusion, guilt, shame, resentment. For them, giving up their wealth requires rethinking not just their place in the world but also their very identities. They come from a variety of backgrounds and support many different causes, but they're all grappling with the same question: What does it mean to be a "good" rich person?...

Written in 1975, near the end of several decades when public pinball machines were illegal in New York City, this article by the nonfiction master John McPhee (h/t: OmieWise) describes a shootout ("flipout"?) between two grandmasters of the game.The story of the overthrow of Fiorello LaGuardia's ban on New York City pinball is told in the documentary Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game....

Pat Finnerty is finally back with a new episode of What Makes This Song Stink, on the topic of the song "Lonely Road." Suggested talking points include hot tub fates, The Fuckin Songs, misguided covers, and excessive tattoos.

Tanja Lemke-Mahdavi and Olaf Lemke describe their exhibition of 15th and 16th century Italian and Spanish frames with painted and gilded inscriptions, all of which once had an intimate connection with the paintings they held, explaining and commenting on them. (The Frame Blog also has an archive worth checking out)

Library of Congress: "The singer, songwriter, activist, and folklife advocate helped us mark the opening of the new David M. Rubenstein Treasures Gallery with a very special concert presentation... Alongside a few of Natalie's own compositions, and a few old popular compositions, the concert featured mostly traditional folksongs which have connections to the unparalleled archival collections of the American Folklife Center."

A 13-million-year-old species of turtle has been discovered after its fossil sat in a display case at an Northern Territory museum for decades. An expert says there could be countless more undiscovered animal fossils in their collection. (Australia).

Starting at age 15, Adrian Alexander Mann built a grand piano in the garage, from scratch. The piano is extraordinarily long, because the strings have none of the winding usually found on piano strings so that they can be of a manageable range of lengths. When I was 14 I asked my piano teacher how long a bass a string would need to be...

In Utrecht, a public webcam underwater in a canal lock is the key to allowing fish to pass.

If you need a break from doomscrolling: Ke Huy Quan has just done a Puppy Interview for Buzzfeed.The Puppy Interview is now a semi-regular stop for celebrities on press junkets, where they answer questions - or at least try to - while playing with puppies. In this case, Ke Huy Quan is matched with four pug puppies (and takes one of his famous selfies...

On July 1, 2023, a Pentagon official at NASA headquarters calmly stated, 'We see these metallic spheres all over the world, making maneuvers we can't explain...moving at Mach 2 against the wind, with no apparent propulsion." This was a government scientist, discussing objects that defy the laws of physics, in a briefing where the Pentagon and NASA were sharing findings like this after a...

Newly detected near-Earth asteroid has astronomers' full attention [WaPost 2025-02-02, gift link] [At announcement, last Wednesday, the] likelihood of impact was very low, just 1.3 percent... Astronomers are making further observations and refining calculations for future orbits of Asteroid 2024 YR4. By Friday, the impact probability edged upward to 1.6 percent. In the week since the article was published, the probability has gone up...

Leo Kelly is an 11-year-old beverage critic, and he already has the power to change restaurant menus. (NYT gift link). "This is the effect of Leo Kelly, now 11, who has been reviewing the drink for roughly half of his life as the "Shirley Temple King." In short videos on Instagram, and occasionally on TV, he ranks Shirley Temples on a 10-point scale, considering...

SOUR: An essay in The Player's Tribune written by Ettore Ewen, better known to the world as WWE wrestler "Big E Langston". He reflects on growing up as the son of a Carribbean preacher in Florida, surviving depression and body dysmorphia while being a football star and champion powerlifter, finding friendship and innovative ways to promote Black excellence as part The New Day tag...

Salvatore Ganacci advises you about middle school. His Take Me To America is (perhaps) about trying to be a good son. Elsewhere, Salvatore chooses an onion, avoids the police, invents Grakour, deals with a problematic carrot, and visits 1980s Japan. The Vedran Rupic trilogy of Salvatore videos consists of Boycycle, Step-Grandma, and the award-winning [CW: weird violence] Horse.