- Hayao Miyazaki Would Hate You Fucking Losers – Harsh, but true. I can’t believe how many people I know jumped on posting those images on LinkedIn. So gross.
- How to make a book – Another great post from Mike Monteiro’s Good News. I immediately sent it to my sister, who is a freelance editor. It also made me think about whether I have a book in me.
- Michael Shannon Loves Music Like We Love Music – As a card carrying member of the R.E.M. fan club (not kidding), I unabashedly love this. I wish they would tour Australia!
- Knitting Through Digital Decay: A Collection of Digital Preservation Jumpers No One Asked For (But Here They Are Anyway) – LOVE this! I really need to get back to the project I started to knit a modern fairisle that incorporates the DOCOMO emoji.
- South Korea releases long-awaited report into overseas adoptions of thousands of children – I’m glad that some of these kids are starting to get answers. Heartbreaking, though…
Category: Random Links
Links that I’m reading/watching/listening to/thinking about
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Links I’ve been reading lately
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AI: The New Aesthetics of Fascism
Ahhh, yes. And it’s all over Facebook. I had to unfriend a former colleague this week for posting a shitty image of a Muslim man walking a British police officer on a dog leash, who actually tried to defend that (as somehow being related to child abuse?) when I called him out for it. It’s awful and dehumanising and racist. Leni Riefenstahl would’ve loved Gen AI.
AI imagery looks like shit. But that is its main draw to the right. if AI was capable of producing art that was formally competent, surprising, soulful, they wouldn’t want it.
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Love this.
From Meanjin to Warrane, Apple Maps adds more than 250 Indigenous placenames in Australia. Hey, this is pretty good. I just checked on my iPhone and I was able to see Warrane now included for Sydney Cove, as well as a label for Eora Nation. Apple have done something similar in NZ, and they have shared details on grants and partnerships with indigenous groups in both countries. I’m still salty with Tim Cook for that inauguration bribe, but this seems like an unambiguous Good Thing, and we need those these days. (I switched from Google Maps some time ago.)
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Botanical block prints
How gorgeous is Lili Arnold’s work? As soon as I saw this Colossal post, I fell in love with that Strelitzia print. A few minutes later it was ordered and on its way to me, exchange rate be damned. (She features several native Australian plants as well, which made me wonder at first if she was Aussie. Alas, Californian.)
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“Conversion therapy with a side of ranch”
Why Dads Take Their Gay Sons to Hooters (NYT Archive.is link) – This is actually a really lovely little essay, and I’m glad I read it. 🦉 (Link via Mefi.)
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The Garden of Early Delights
We saw Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Early Delights in the Prado three years ago in Madrid, but this episode of Smarthistory is like having your own guided tour through the weirdness. Definitely watch it on the biggest screen you have! There’s just so much to look at, and they do a good job of explaining why it’s unlike every other painting done at this time. Plus it’s really funny listening to art historians trying to describe things like “a bird man on a toilet pooping out a water balloon filled with the people he’s just eaten”. (Link courtesy of Colossal.)
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Martha-tini?!
Note to self: next time (if there ever is a next time) I’m in Vegas, definitely go to Martha Stewart’s restaurant. I love the conceit that it’s just a super-sized version of her kitchen, with dishes she makes at home… like that dessert sprinkled in 24kt gold. 😂
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Knitting the gut-brain connection 🦠🧠🧶
The Darling Square library is hosting a special event in April and May: Crafting wellness: exploring gut health through knitting. Huh. I’ve seen a lot of random fibre projects in my time – coral reefs, breast prostheses, neurons, bunting with knitted leaves on it – but never a knitted gut biome!
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Run Cliff, run! 🏃♂️
Today I learned about Cliff Young, a 61-year-old teetotaler potato farmer from rural Victoria, who won the 1983 Sydney to Melbourne ultramarathon. He may have even inspired Forrest Gump. How have I never heard of this guy? He’s amazing! I love his shuffle. The article there teases that he may have cheated, but really it’s just that he accidentally got up a couple hours early on the second day, breaking a gentleman’s agreement to sleep until dawn. That gave him a 30km lead, but given that he actually finished 50km ahead of second place, it seems obvious he would have won regardless. I wish I’d known about him before I ran my marathon; I would’ve added him to my little notecard of inspiration that I carried with me.
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Links that interested me today
- ‘Writing a Freer World’: An Appreciation of Tove Jansson at 92NY – My sister sent me that, surprised to learn that Tove Jansson was a woman! Yes, indeed. Relatedly, my friend Sohan is in Helsinki and texted me yesterday from the Jansson exhibition at the Helsinki Art Museum. It’s nice when your friends and family know your hobbies well enough to share things with you. 🩷
- The Greatest Two-Hit Wonders – I disagree with a lot of these on the basis that they are “album bands” rather than singles bands. I mean, the Cure? Crowded House? Jimmy Buffett? No way. (Blues Traveler = 100% though.)
- My Dinners With Harold: How a shy Ph.D. in English literature revolutionized the science of cooking and became revered in the most famous kitchens in the world – Lovely little profile. I really should get Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking for the Snook sometime.
- Hot ball in aloe gel – I laughed so hard at that Mastodon post that I cried. Juvenile, I know, but so funny. 😭