Category: Friday Unrelated Information

1. Again, I don’t want to go on a watch list, but I thought this take on the online popularity of our boy was right on:

People don’t cheer for chaos when they feel like justice is possible. But right now, what options do they have? The Supreme Court is corrupt, for many people voting feels useless, and the people in power are funded by the very corporations they’re supposed to regulate.

Of course, Mangione gets turned into a meme hero—it’s not him they love; it’s the idea of someone finally fighting back.

Also this meme in that newsletter was pretty great:
Anyway! Just doing intellectual exercises over here, not condoning anything, nope, no siree.

2. This combines Dad Lore and 80s Nostalgia and is just fun to look through–someone posted their dad’s collection of hand-drawn VHS labels on Reddit. The recreation of the “Festival of Claymation” font!

3. “City of Bend to vandal: Stop putting googly eyes on statues” (click for pictures, amazing).

4. Subtle foreshadowing had me wheezing.

@xran..domx #CapCut subtle foreshadowing.#subtleforeshadowing #subtle #funnyy #funny #pepsi #mentos #pepsiandmentos #fyp #fyp #fypageシ #foryoupage #viral_video #viral ♬ original sound – your month your…

1. Did I click through The Catalog Blog and want to look at most things? Yes. Is the J. Peterman catalog in there? Of course!

2. Speaking of ephemera, this recipe booklet/story book is astonishing–it rhymes, the art is exquisite and also just plain weird: The Prince of the Gelatin Isles from 1926.

3. I don’t want to get put on a watchlist so I’m not going to share a lot of what I’m seeing about the United Healthcare CEO, but I thought this summary by journalist Taylor Lorenz was good.

“People have very justified hatred toward insurance company CEOs because these executives are responsible for an unfathomable amount of death and suffering. I think it’s good to call out this broken system and the people in power who enable it. Again, not so they can be murdered, but so that we can change the system and start holding people in power accountable for their actions.”

4. OK, I do have to post this though. That last line!

@philiplabesAnd medical violence is always wrong, but only when it flows one way

♬ original sound – Philip Labes

1. I hope someone’s working on this:

2. Related:

3. Maybe we need 45 minutes of “Resting Place Beside the Soft Fern Stream.”

4. Another good thing: Feeding squirrels peanuts. This is exactly the vibe under the feeder:

 

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1. Journalist Lyz Lenz wrote about the election last week and I promise it’s funny and not one of the endless “what went wrong” takes, but she also makes a great point. We have work to do regardless.

But as devastating as these next four years will be, the reality is that I live and work in a red state, and the work is not much different despite the results of the election.

Even under a Democratic president, Iowa saw a loss of reproductive rights, an erosion of the social safety net, book bans, loss of rights for LGBTQ people, and the loss of funding for public schools. I still saw the childcare tax credit discontinued and wages stagnate while the cost of living rose.

[…] There are no quick fixes to building a better life. Even if Harris won, Trump voters would still be around, still running our school boards and state legislatures.

This is the work.

2. My old coworker Justin Shiels also posted this last week and it’s been in my head (click through the whole slideshow):

3. Joy, of course, is not the same as buying things. But my brain is saying what if buying yarn for a rainbow sweater WAS a way to create some joy? Hmm.

 

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1. I’m trying not to read everyone’s outrage, which keeps throwing gas on my own fire of outrage, but this quote from Kate Manne talking about misogyny is going to live in my head forever:

They don’t necessarily want women to go septic and die in parking lots, denied life-saving reproductive care in case it constitutes an abortion—a reality that Trump deliberately and proudly ushered into being. But if that’s the price of a cheaper tank of gas, or being able to afford a bigger house, or run a more profitable business, then they’ll willingly pay it

2. But enough of that! I’m going to refer to “planting iris” a lot in the future, I think. From Leonard Woolf’s Downhill All The Way: An Autobiography of the Years 1919-1939, via Austin Kleon:

One of the most horrible things at that time was to listen on the wireless to the speeches of Hitler—the savage and insane ravings of a vindictive underdog who suddenly saw himself to be all-powerful. We were in Rodmell during the late summer of 1939, and I used to listen to those ranting, raving speeches. One afternoon I was planting in the orchard under an apple-tree iris reticulata, those lovely violet flowers… Suddenly I heard Virginia’s voice calling to me from the sitting room window: “Hitler is making a speech.” I shouted back, “I shan’t come. I’m planting iris and they will be flowering long after he is dead.” Last March, twenty-one years after Hitler committed suicide in the bunker, a few of those violet flowers still flowered under the apple-tree in the orchard.

3. This is really the same sentiment as the quote above:

1. Speaking of women’s health: Is It Perimenopause or the Fascist Death Knell of Late-Stage Capitalism?

Is my insomnia caused by a spike in testosterone, or by the crippling fear that I could be arrested for saying the word “abortion” in 2025? Even if I’m joking. Like now. (This is a joke, for future reference.)

Is my anxiety perimenopausal, or is it a natural reaction to finding out Hulk Hogan might be the new Secretary of Homeland Security?

2. When satire is absolutely believable:

3. Yes this is true:

1. Jess Valenti burning down the house in her latest newsletter: “Yes, I’m a Single-Issue Voter” (emphasis mine).

I know the phrase is meant to be an insult—a dismissive jab suggesting that women’s political interests are superficial and simplistic—but I’m more than happy to don the label. Because the ‘single issue’ Republican men find so offensive isn’t really abortion: it’s women’s humanity.

That’s why they’re going to lose in November. We are fighting for our lives and they mock us for it.

2. I would put the odds higher than 50/50, honestly:

3. If you think your job is tricky, be glad you didn’t have to piece together a book found in a bog letter by letter. ‘It was terrifying’: ancient book’s journey from Irish bog to museum treasure.

4. Why are people making TikToks about me?

@mamacares9000 is there a hairbrush filter?? we love our quirky doggie !! #dogloversoftiktok #dogsitterlife #dogsitting #longervideos #longervideosontiktok #nobodycaresbutmama ♬ original sound – nobody cares but mama

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.

[image or embed]

— 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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