I missed that NIN’s Tron:Ares soundtrack came out a couple of weeks ago. Listening this morning to catch up!
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Upcoming exhibition from the MFA in Boston: “‘Faces in the Crowd: Street...
Upcoming exhibition from the MFA in Boston: “‘Faces in the Crowd: Street Photography’ explores the evolving techniques photographers have used to record the human experience as it has played out in populous urban spaces…”
The Mainstream Media Is Catastrophically Failing To Meet The Moment. “Mainstream media...
The Mainstream Media Is Catastrophically Failing To Meet The Moment. “Mainstream media has become so terrified of appearing biased that they’ve abandoned their basic responsibility to clearly communicate truth to the public.”
The Taco Bell 50k Ultramarathon was run in Denver over the weekend....
The Taco Bell 50k Ultramarathon was run in Denver over the weekend. Competitors must eat at 9 out of 10 Taco Bells along the route. “By the 4th stop, all entrants must have consumed at least one (1) Chalupa Supreme or one Crunchwrap Supreme…”
I missed this from a couple of months ago: Inside the World...
I missed this from a couple of months ago: Inside the World of “The Great British Bake Off”. “No show does so much to hide its true nature: namely, that it is a competition people desperately want to win.”
What Makes for a Healthy Society?
In a 2014 preface for his 1978 book The Ohlone Way, a description of how the indigenous peoples of California’s Bay Area lived before Europeans arrived, Malcolm Margolin shared a list of what he thought constituted a healthy society:
Sustainable relationship with the envir...
“Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi won the 2025 Nobel Prize...
“Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work shedding light on how the immune system spares healthy cells, creating openings for possible new autoimmune disease and cancer treatments.”
Empty Nest? Or Open Door?
Last year, Gretchen Rubin wrote a widely circulated piece about trading the “empty nest” metaphor for something that “emphasizes possibility”: the open door. I somehow hadn’t read it when it came out, but being in the midst of emptying the nest/opening the door, it was unsur...
How to Write in Cuneiform, the Oldest Writing System in the World....
How to Write in Cuneiform, the Oldest Writing System in the World. “Cuneiform consists of three components — upright, horizontal and diagonal — made by pressing the edge of a reed stylus, or popsicle stick if you prefer, into a clay tablet.”
In Praise of Comfort Films
In his latest video essay, Thomas Flight praises the comfort film and shares some examples (The Big Lebowski, Perfect Days, Mon Oncle, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Moonrise Kingdom) from a few different types.
We want high stakes to make things interesting. But if you’re cons...
Tim Berners-Lee: “I gave the world wide web away for free because...
Tim Berners-Lee: “I gave the world wide web away for free because I thought that it would only work if it worked for everyone. Today, I believe that to be truer than ever.”
Oh I don’t know, the appearance of two perfectly overlapping fiery rings...
Oh I don’t know, the appearance of two perfectly overlapping fiery rings in the sky doesn’t seem like a good omen to me, even at low frequencies.
We Are Not Fascists, and If You Call Us Fascists, We Will...
We Are Not Fascists, and If You Call Us Fascists, We Will Arrest You. “There is nothing funny about calling me or Donald Trump a fascist, and if you do, we will ship you to Guantanamo.”
Keeping Up Appearances star Patricia Routledge dies at 96. I loved that...
Keeping Up Appearances star Patricia Routledge dies at 96. I loved that show — almost every time I’m driving and see a herd of cows in a nearby field, I shrill, “Mind the cows, Richard!”
80 of the Most Iconic Guitar Intros
Watch as Paul Davids plays 80 of rock’s most iconic guitar intros, including ones from Robert Johnson, Chuck Berry, The Kinks, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, ZZ Top, Joan Jett, AC/DC, Blur, and The White Stripes.
Name A 28-Year-Old. “The data tells us that 3,880,894 children were born...
Name A 28-Year-Old. “The data tells us that 3,880,894 children were born in the year 1997, and yet we can find no trace of them in popular culture.”
I think I’m gonna read Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence next,...
I think I’m gonna read Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence next, inspired by Evan Puschak’s recent video. Just downloaded the free ebook from Standard Ebooks.
Harvard Library’s collection of Soviet and post-Soviet lapel pins. Sputnik, Aeroflot, the...
Harvard Library’s collection of Soviet and post-Soviet lapel pins. Sputnik, Aeroflot, the 1980 Olympics, Tolstoy…collect your favorites!
Swift Justice: A Look Inside a Taliban Courtroom
Swift Justice is a short documentary that, perhaps for the first time, takes viewers inside a rural Afghan courtroom operated by the Taliban, whose arbiters decide cases using Sharia law. [Content warning: a man is visibly beaten in the courtroom to make him “speak the tru...
Life Is More Than an Engineering Problem, an interview with Ted Chiang...
Life Is More Than an Engineering Problem, an interview with Ted Chiang from earlier this year. “I don’t believe it’s meaningful to say that something is better art absent any context of how it was created. Art is all about context.”
The 25 Most Influential Magazine Covers of All Time, including, of course,...
The 25 Most Influential Magazine Covers of All Time, including, of course, Ali on the cover of Esquire as Saint Sebastian. See also all the nominated covers.
Instead of hiding rips and tears, the visible mending movement turns them...
Instead of hiding rips and tears, the visible mending movement turns them into art. “Born from the Japanese art of sashiko, visible mending enables crafters to eschew fast fashion and make mistakes beautiful.”
Old Masters, New Media
In a five part series called “emoji-nation”, Ukrainian Nastya Ptichek mixes the work of well-known painters with graphical elements of new media. In the second part of the series, the works of Edward Hopper are augmented with social media interface icons:
The first part finds emoji doppelgangers for works of fine art while the third part uses paintings as movie poster imagery for the likes of Kill Bill and Home Alone (paired with Munch’s The Scream). For part four, Ptichek places modal dialogs over art works:
And part five plays around with several Google interface elements:
Love this kind of thing. Feels like I’ve seen something like it before though. Anyone recall?
[This is a vintage post originally from Apr 2014.]
Tags: art · Nastya Ptichek · remix · timeless posts
When Kittens Came to My Prison, I Had Not Petted One in...
When Kittens Came to My Prison, I Had Not Petted One in 15 Years. “All those hard cases doing hard time melt like butter on a summer sidewalk when they visit the felines, feed them, watch them chase the birds and bees…”
A Chronology of All 113 Prints of Hokusai’s The Great Wave
A few years ago, a researcher looked at every surviving print of Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa that she could find (113 in all) and, using differences caused by “woodblock wear”, developed a system for determining if a particular print was made early in the life of...
Are you ok? In a recent video, Hank Green tells his brother...
Are you ok? In a recent video, Hank Green tells his brother John: I’ve Not Been Doing Well. Lots of what Green says here resonates with me.
Quentin Blake: How I Draw
Illustrator Quentin Blake, who is most widely known for his energetic drawings for Roald Dahl’s books, generously shares his drawing process on his website and also in a series of videos.
I do a freewheeling sort of drawing that looks as though it is done on the spur of the moment. However even a single drawing needs a certain amount of preparation and planning. Most of the time I need to do a rough in which I find out how people stand, what sort of expressions they have and how they fit on the page.
Here are some of the videos he’s done. Quentin Blake draws a Hornswoggler:
Ten Minutes of Illustration (in three parts for some reason):
The illustration above is from The Wild Washerwomen.
Tags: art · books · how to · illustration · Quentin Blake
The official number of exoplanets tracked by NASA has reached 6000. Astronomers...
The official number of exoplanets tracked by NASA has reached 6000. Astronomers have found “planets covered in lava; some with the density of Styrofoam; and others with clouds made of gemstones”.
Musician Plays the Last Stradivarius Guitar in the World, the “Sabionari” Made...
Musician Plays the Last Stradivarius Guitar in the World, the “Sabionari” Made in 1679. I had no idea Stradivari made guitars.
A company called Blackdot has built a tattooing robot. The company says...
A company called Blackdot has built a tattooing robot. The company says the machine is less painful and the tattoos look like they are laser-printed.