You can watch the first five seasons of The Dick Van Dyke show on YouTube for free — the first season is here.
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Minnesota Guaranteed Free School Meals for All Kids. Now Let’s Do It...
Minnesota Guaranteed Free School Meals for All Kids. Now Let’s Do It Nationwide. It’s been a big success: “We can see that students are just better prepared. They’re better able to learn and focus.”
California’s raised the minimum wage for fast-food workers and contrary to some...
California’s raised the minimum wage for fast-food workers and contrary to some bad press & much industry outcry, it’s been a success. “California’s fast-food sector gained jobs in all but one month since September 2023.”
Whooping cough cases reach highest level in a decade. “The U.S. has...
Whooping cough cases reach highest level in a decade. “The U.S. has recorded over 32,000 whooping cough cases this year, compared with around 5,100 as of mid-December last year. Infants are most vulnerable…” (Guess why?)
10 years ago, I wrote about why I support Wikipedia with a...
10 years ago, I wrote about why I support Wikipedia with a monthly donation. “I consider it a subscription fee to an indispensable and irreplaceable resource I use dozens of times weekly while producing kottke[dot]org.”
Louis Armstrong Reads ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas
While poking around for Christmas music, I found this little-known recording of Louis Armstrong reading ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas, recorded shortly before he died.
The poem, first published in 1823, would be Armstrong’s final commercial recording. Armstrong taped it on February 26, 1971, on a reel-to-reel recorder at his home in Queens, New York, during his last spell of good health.
Truly one of the great voices of all time.
Tags: Louis Armstrong · video
You can watch the first 8 minutes of Severance season two right...
You can watch the first 8 minutes of Severance season two right now on Apple TV+. The season starts on Jan 17. To prep, you might want to watch a recap and/or the excellent season one finale.
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey
Blockbuster auteur Christopher Nolan’s next movie will be an adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey. Here’s what we know and don’t about it so far:
The film will be a “mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new IMAX technology” distributed by Universal Pictures.
...
This hotel in Monterey Bay, CA has a stick library available for...
This hotel in Monterey Bay, CA has a stick library available for dogs. “Every morning my dog would carefully pick one out to take to the beach.”
You shouldn’t be driving over 100 mph — and your car shouldn’t...
You shouldn’t be driving over 100 mph — and your car shouldn’t let you. “The NTSB recommended that automakers be required to install technology to prevent reckless speeding.”
A roundup of the words of the year for 2024, including brat,...
A roundup of the words of the year for 2024, including brat, manifest, kakistocracy, polarization, brain rot, enshittification, sanewashing, girl mossing, vibe, and broligarchy.
Pricing calculator for creator economy platforms. For instance, if you have a...
Pricing calculator for creator economy platforms. For instance, if you have a newsletter with 1000 subscribers that pay $5/mo, Substack will cost you $500/mo, Patreon $400/mo, Ghost $19/mo, Beehiiv $39/mo, Ko-fi $6/mo, Buttondown $29/mo.
Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants
Well this is something special, a holiday treat for the end of 2024: a group of archivists (including Chris Person) has uploaded an HBO magic special by Ricky Jay that has been largely unavailable since it aired in 1996.
This is an RF rip of Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistant...
Gisèle Pelicot, Dominique Pelicot, and what many men would do. “What would...
Gisèle Pelicot, Dominique Pelicot, and what many men would do. “What would a woman do to an unconscious man if she thought no-one would find out?”
Rickey Henderson has died aged 65. “There may not have been any...
Rickey Henderson has died aged 65. “There may not have been any player in history who was better at more things than Rickey Henderson was.” He was so fun to watch.
Last minute gift idea for the art fan in your life: Amy...
Last minute gift idea for the art fan in your life: Amy Sherald: American Sublime. Saw this in the bookstore this morning and it’s such a beautiful book.
My mouth is watering reading this retrospective by Cup of Jo’s retiring...
My mouth is watering reading this retrospective by Cup of Jo’s retiring food writer, Jenny Rosenstrach. Lots of good recipes, like Smashed Pea Toasts with Ricotta? Yum.
Balkonkraftwerk: a German word meaning “balcony power plant”, aka the low-cost solar...
Balkonkraftwerk: a German word meaning “balcony power plant”, aka the low-cost solar panels people are hanging from their balconies to generate extra household energy.
A Thirty-Year-Old Man Today vs. a Thirty-Year-Old Man in 1884. “Today: Is...
A Thirty-Year-Old Man Today vs. a Thirty-Year-Old Man in 1884. “Today: Is working toward paying off a two-bedroom condo by age seventy-five, if all goes well. 1884: Owns a drafty, four-hundred-square-foot cabin by the crick. Loves it.”
My Jade Plants Flower And Yours Can Too
I posted this picture of my jade plant flowering on BS and a lot of people expressed surprise that jade plants flower, and I was wondering: did you know jade plants flower? Growing up, my mom always had lots of jade plants, and I was in my twenties the first time I saw flowe...
Al Green’s Cover of R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts”
Al Green released a soulful cover of R.E.M’s “Everybody Hurts,” and it whips.
“I could really feel the heaviness of the song, and I wanted to inject a little touch of hope and light into it. There’s always a presence of light that can break through those times of darkness.”
Last year, Green released a version of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day.” (via @allyourscreens.bsky.social)
“As an entomologist, I’ve been doing this for over 25 years now,...
“As an entomologist, I’ve been doing this for over 25 years now, and it is a rare day when the humans actually get to win one against the insects.” Murder hornets eradicated from the US.
20-minute video of carving a capital “I” in stone. I love how...
20-minute video of carving a capital “I” in stone. I love how you can tell how deep he’s carving by the volume of the hammering.
Gisèle Pelicot is the person of the year for 2024. “She told...
Gisèle Pelicot is the person of the year for 2024. “She told the court in Avignon she wants women who have been raped to know that ‘it’s not for us to have shame – it’s for them’”.
From Literary Hub, The 50 Biggest Literary Stories of 2024. Book bannings,...
From Literary Hub, The 50 Biggest Literary Stories of 2024. Book bannings, AI, Gaza, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Taylor Swift, Alice Munro, The Hugo Awards, etc.
Megastars used a pandemic-era grant intended to save music venues from closing...
Megastars used a pandemic-era grant intended to save music venues from closing to pay for sneakers and birthday parties, which is especially annoying because of how many venues closed after not receiving funding.
Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott writes about the $2 billion in donations her foundation...
Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott writes about the $2 billion in donations her foundation gave in 2024 and also some alternate and forgotten definitions of the word “invest”: “To devote resources for a useful purpose. To endow with rights. To clothe.”
The Killings of Young Mothers. In the US, “when women under age...
The Killings of Young Mothers. In the US, “when women under age 25 get pregnant, their odds of death by homicide more than double.”
The Vanity Fair Interview with Billie Eilish, Year Eight
Vanity Fair has done a video interview Billie Eilish every year since she was a relatively unknown 15-year-old singer/songwriter. They skipped releasing last year’s interview but they are back with year eight.
I’ve said this before but it’s incredible that they picked Eilish for this:
I still marvel that Vanity Fair embarked on this project with this particular person. They could have chosen any number of up-and-coming 2017 pop singer/songwriters and they got lucky with the one who went supernova and won multiple Grammys.
Her selection over a multitude of other talented, rising stars is truly one of the great talent scouting successes ever.
Tags: Billie Eilish · interviews · music · video