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.)
Category: Random Links
Links that I’m reading/watching/listening to/thinking about
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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. 😭
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Random links I have enjoyed lately
- The Secret History of the Manicule, the Little Hand that’s Everywhere – 👈 Fun!
- Why do plastic containers always come out wet from the dishwasher? Science has the answer – Is this actually surprising news to anyone?
- How to make the Smitten Kitchen Purple Plum Torte in March, 2025 – More than just a recipe. Nice writing; subscribing to this blog.
- Please stop externalizing your costs directly into my face – “Block AI scrapers” has been on my Blog To Do list for some time, but I know it’s a fruitless, Sisyphean task. I imagine once I know the scope of how badly they’re hitting me, I’ll be as angry as Drew here.
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Early mark
Q&A: Where did the “early mark” come from? HUH! I never knew that. I definitely say it, so I must have picked it up from Rodd or other people in NSW.
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Links that amused me today
- Bluesky CEO: imagine a ‘world without Caesars’ – LOLLLLL. I kept seeing photos of that woman on my social feeds but couldn’t figure out why. I knew her shirt looked familiar. That’s bloody genius.
- Ask Michael Stipe – Somehow I missed this when it was posted many years ago. I like that he consistently rejects people’s attempts to make his work deeper than he intended it to be, but still allows everyone’s interpretations to stand as valid. Incidentally, I’m still annoyed that there were two R.E.M. questions in Pop Culture Jeopardy, and none of the teams got them correct. They were not an obscure band, people!
- The Capybara Cafe – TIL there’s a cafe in Florida where you can interact with capybaras. And also, you have to cover up your knees because they think they are potatoes. 🥔
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Random Links
- A Guest Blog from Judy Morris on a Four-Year Quilting Project – I recently resubscribed to Martha’s blog, and I’m loving it. This quilt is stunning, and I can’t believe the epic amount of work that went into it.
- A game called “It is as if you were on your phone” – Ha! I love random stuff like this. Rodd had a couple issues playing it on his Pixel phone, but it worked fine on iOS. (Link courtesy of Kottke.)
- And this video, that made us laugh and laugh this morning. Never let it be said that Germans don’t have a sense of humour! 😂🇩🇪