Category: Friday Unrelated Information

1. I will always read something about the heyday of printed catalogs. “Longing” is such a apt word choice here:

As a form of media, mail-order catalogs themselves were a story of longing and aspiration that came to define shopping as an American way of life. What you bought and where you bought it from was a statement about who you were and who you could be. This was as true of the inch-thick catalogs from department stores like Sears (whose holiday-season edition was upgraded from mere catalog to “Wish Book”) as it was of the thousands of specialty retail catalogs, from J. Crew and Tweeds to Swiss Colony and Fingerhut, that followed its lead.

(What I wouldn’t give to have saved the mid-90s J. Crew and Tweeds catalogs!)

2. It’s So Hot That Japan Needs a New Word for It: “kokushobi,” or “cruel heat day,”

3. Now that the floor in the garage is done it’s time to start organizing stuff (and painting the footings, and maybe the door, and then adding more lights). This will be me rearranging the tool cart:

1. I’d heard that Jon Oliver had a guest appearance on General Hospital and this piece collects all the clips and gives us details of the bonkers plots. As the subhead says, “It’s nice to sit back and watch a man have the time of his life.”

2. Perfect headline: Australian officials ask fans to respect the privacy of Neil, a 1,000 kg seal who respects nothing

3. “There’s a lot you can do in a hi-viz vest”

@elisejoshiBench + Fully Funded Transit > Waymo

♬ original sound – IG: elisejoshi

1. I think I can get the primer finished in the garage by tomorrow so we can pressure wash the concrete Sunday, but in the meantime I’ll be thinking about the entirely-offline “Summer of Ludd” festival that happened in NYC.

2. I’ll also be pondering if I can find a religious leader to give me an AI-use exemption, because it worked for this lady.

3. I’ve never seen anything more compelling in my life

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Drywall Junkies (@drywalljunkies)

1. I feel like I should post something patriotic for America’s 250th, so here’s Winson Hearn writing about imagining a better political future:

Cultivating political imagination is an act of hope. It reminds us that even though the institutions and centers of power in our world are currently captured by dumbass evil humans; that is not a permanent state. The future has not occurred yet. The dreams you imagine and the beliefs about how the world should be you develop based on those dreams will inform the actions you take in the future. They give you new stories to tell, new futures to paint, new invitations to extend to your neighbors.

Before January 2026, I could not imagine that thousands (millions?) of Americans would choose collective well-being over personal safety. I did not think we had it in us. That was a failure of imagination on my part, and I will never again fail to believe in that possibility, thanks to my comrades here in Minnesota. I was wrong about what was possible, and it genuinely encouraging to find out just how wrong

2. Also patriotic: Ellen Cushing writing about World Cup visitors discovering ranch dressing in The Atlantic: 

We like the recent wave of ranch stories because they are funny, but mostly because they make us feel good. They remind us that this country can serve as a source of delight for the rest of the world, that we can make things that feel worth taking back home and sharing.

3. Not patriotic at all but oddly touching? “I Work Very Hard, And I Would Like To Try Cake, By A Horse” in The Onion.

“Every day I dream about what it will be like if I get to eat cake. Here is what will happen. First, I will walk to the cake and puff my nose at it like hrrrfff to make sure it is not a snake. Then I will trot in a circle to show that I am a horse and I am large.”

1. I love this: 2000-Year-Old Roman Theater Hosts World Cup Watch Party.

2. Caity Weaver writes about garage sales, thrift stores, and estate sales in The Atlantic. You get history and pathos and sentences like this:

“For every delightful discovery of a charmingly wacky neighborhood where one resident’s garage-door mural features an alien camouflaged among the paddles of a prickly pear cactus, and another homeowner has installed a rooftop statue of an orange pig with blue angel wings, there will be a haunting encounter with a nearly silent man hoping to sell a single button-down shirt for 50 cents. If you don’t have the stomach to witness people’s lives up close, do not ever stop at a yard sale.”

3. Thinking about my orange cat. 🙁

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by SuzyPugu (@suzy.pugu)

1. I’m a little late today because we have another summer Friday for Juneteenth. Now I’m plotting how to get 4-day weeks until Labor Day and might be doing this later:

2. No one was more surprised than me to learn that Provo has a (kinda) jazz kissa? They listen to more than jazz and I’m not sure there are coffee drinks but otherwise it’s the same. The Kids These Days are discovering listening to an entire album and I am trying to be supportive of them and not roll my eyes! (Review from their Instagram.)

3. Anthropeum is a game that has you guess “where in the world, and when, does this human artifact belong?” It’s incredibly difficult!

1. It’s a Summer Friday tomorrow so I’m wrapping things up early. From the vintage children’s bookseller account:

2. Vacations are important for mental health, as is taking a break to primal scream sometimes:

3. Here’s a short piece about the online life of Snoopy as a meme, how he remains wholesome, and how he was a symbol of resistance in the Vietnam War (something I didn’t know!). Quote: “[Snoopy] is the last sacred thing in a sea of the profane.”

1. More hating on AI? Don’t mind if I do!

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Emily Mattheson (@emilymattheson)

2. “But Karen,” you may be asking, “What about hating on American politics?” We have that, too!

3. Please enjoy “the 74 most incredible lines in Moby-Dick.” I thought this one was fantastic: “I looked around me tranquilly and contentedly, like a quiet ghost with a clean conscience sitting inside the bars of a snug family vault.”

1. One of my current interests (cough hyperfixations cough) is finding fabric in weird camo patterns. Except I almost bought some fabric in a Waffen SS pattern (“Platanenmuster“) before I googled it and realized it was Nazi, so now Camopedia is my best friend. Currently on the hunt for emerald Guyana tiger stripe!

2. Another encyclopedia for a long-running interest: the Japanese Woodblock Print Search. Search 223,000 images or upload an image to get a match.

3. Something to think about if you’re headed to the pool in the near future:

1. A surprisingly interesting look at envelope security patterns–it goes from their history into collections into architecture. (This is the same place that linked me to stick figures in peril a few weeks ago.)

2. Word of the day: Ossicone, “columnar or conical skin-covered bone structures on the heads of giraffes, male okapi, and some of their extinct relatives.”

3. I will always watch old ladies lift heavy weights, because it me, as the kids say. Way to go, Grandmother!