Better Living Through Literature
Words + Projects + Stuff I Like
1. This is an acceptable use of AI: An A.I. Model Helped Uncover 303 Previously Unseen Nazca Lines in Peru
2. This feels relevant to yesterday’s politics essay:
(Charles Schulz, Peanuts, Sept. 9, 1965)
3. The weather finally turned here and the weekend is going to be MAXIMUM COZY:
(Nick Vargas)
4. I can’t stop laughing at this, sound ON:
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1. The Northern Lights were visible in Utah last night but we did not see them, alas. But maybe we CAN see the Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, which is coming into view tonight and getting brighter until Monday.
About 40 minutes after sunset on Friday, find a spot with a good view down to the western horizon. The first thing that will catch your eye will be the bright planet Venus, the Evening Star — that’s your starting point. Hold your fist out at arm’s length; the comet is about 2½ fists to Venus’s right.
2. Let’s read about the world’s most iconic train journeys.
3. I am begging you to turn the sound up on this:
Koyaanisqatsi isn’t quite as haunting if you replace Philip Glass with the music from the Wii Shop Channel.
— Andy Kelly 👽 (@ultrabrilliant.xyz) September 13, 2024 at 12:33 AM
Whoops, I almost forgot to post today. I think this is a sign I need to start the weekend early.
1. Via Kottke, a site that catalogs chrome logos and components from vintage cars and tech: Chromeography.
2. Happy to hear the dockworkers’ strike has been resolved so quickly. Solidarity, always! 
3. Clearly I need to start watching this game show. The prompt: “A sea shanty about struggling socially on the ship.”
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1. It’s never too late: Norma Geddes took her first stained glass class at age 69. “Now 82, Geddes spends up to eight hours a day, seven days a week working in her studio.” Living the dream!
2. I can confirm from personal experience this is true (also these are great colors for a crazy stripe sweater):
3. The idea of leaves being criminals just makes me laugh (good tips in the post):
4. And finally, this is the best description of Afternoon Writers Brain I’ve ever heard:
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1. New career goal alert: Scent designer. “Where a perfumer blends alluring scents for the body, [Tasha] Marks creates custom-made odours for spaces – usually museums, galleries and historic buildings.”
2. Would you like to look at 217 Tiki postcards from the past? You probably would (via my friend!).
3. This has been in my head for a while now:
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1. Speaking of illustrated mail, how about The Postcards That Picasso Illustrated and Sent to Jean Cocteau, Apollinaire & Gertrude Stein? I love how the messages sound exactly like how friends text: “I don’t see you anymore. Are you dead?”
2. I just learned about the GERMAN FORKLIFT CHAMPIONSHIPS?!
3. Who knew Edo fish could convey so much? (I’m #3.)
Which Edo fish distressed by current events are you?
— Dr. Paula R. Curtis (@paularcurtis.bsky.social) Aug 3, 2024 at 11:29 AM
Monday is, of course, US Labor Day and I”ll also be gone Tuesday (Doc’s usual day off) to go have one last adventure of the summer. See you Wednesday!
1. Japanese bathhouse cutaway illustrations? That’s a combo of words that I will immediately click on. Check out Isometric Drawings of Sento, Kissaten and other Japanese Establishments by Honami Enya.
2. Herman Melville probably worked as a pinsetter in a bowling alley in Honolulu? This 2019 NY Review article gives the evidence and a lot of the history of bowling. (Archived link to get around their paywall.)
3. I can’t stop watching this:
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1. More Costco: This NYT piece (gift link) is full of staggering facts, such as “Costco sells half the world’s cashews” and “It has been estimated that Costco sells some $200 million in gold [bars] a month.” Also has a brief history of Costco and an analysis of their market perception (positive!).
2. This is fun: live streams of watering holes in the Namibian desert. If it’s dark when you check it, you can always rewind.
3. This is mesmerizing: a circular sock machine in action. I immediately looked up the manufacturer but the machines are a mortgage payment. Guess it’s hand-knitting for me!
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Some very niche links today:
1. A book documenting Japanese public toilets, with an excellent name: Toilets a Go Go
2. A tumblr collecting different skies from video games: Video Games Skies.
3. “Every Time This Biographer of the Brontë Family Calls Them Unemployable.” Ha!
This is my last “summer Friday” and Doc goes back to work next week. Why do the fun months seem so much shorter than the hard ones? (Looking at you, January.)
1. We’re big Costco fans for appliances and home stuff (just got a new mattress!) and would definitely use Costco Travel. So reading about someone’s Costco trip to Cancun in The Paris Review of all places was extremely my jam (emphasis mine):
This is the Costco psychology: quality over brand; value over status. To be ripped off is to be taken for a sucker. It is to have your resources wasted, your hard-earned cash sucked into a delusion of taste, timeliness, or class. It is to be left with nothing; or worse, to be haunted by an alternate timeline in which you saved more money. Costco is a fortress against this loss, and the only vacation that my parents would allow is one that safeguarded against that mentality.
2. This story is so wholesome: The Gay Supermarket Sweep “Business Partners” From the ’90s Have a Wilder Story Than You Know
3. Perfect, no notes: 