The Perelandra Bookshop in Colorado has a reader-in-residence position. “The reader gets a small stipend for their three-month stint — $50 per month for books, and another $50 per month for coffee.” (thx, tom) Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Francis Ford Coppola shares some audition clips from The Outsiders, featuring the impossibly young Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Diane Lane, Tom Cruise, and Anthony Michael Hall. Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
When I linked to a recent NY Times article about rewilding golf courses, I pulled out this startling fact: “The United States has more golf courses than McDonald’s locations.” Nathan Yau of FlowingData found that that is indeed true but wondered where all of the golf courses were … | Continue reading
Super interesting short interview with Johnnie Burn, the sound designer for The Zone of Interest. They filmed the house scenes simultaneously with hidden mics and cameras and then cut the film and made the sound mix from that. Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Minnesota sushi is made by rolling deli ham, cream cheese, and a pickle together and then cutting it into slices. It’s also known as “midwest sushi, pickle wrap, pickle roll-up, frog eyes, pickle dawg, Iowa sushi, Lutheran sushi…” Yum! Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Studies have shown that people who ride e-bikes get more exercise than those who ride pedal bikes. “Researchers have discovered that when riders find it less grueling, they tend to go on longer rides.” Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Here’s some parenting content on which I clicked quickly: neuroscientist Andrew Huberman interviewing parenting author and psychologist Becky Kennedy (a.k.a. DrBeckyatGoodInside). In the three-hour episode, they… explain how to respond to emotional outbursts, rudeness, [and] ent … | Continue reading
The soothing ASMR experience of a multi-layered grilled cheese sandwich made with extremely thin slices of bread. Now my mouth is watering and I’m nearly asleep. Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Should Newspapers Publish Poetry? An essay argues yes. (From last August.) I’ve always thought that certain kinds of blog posts can be if not poetry then at least poetry-esque, with their brevity and surprising-ness. (via metafilter.com) Join the discussion on kottke.org … | Continue reading
The US Postal Service is set to release a sheet of 16 stamps featuring the legendary photography of Ansel Adams. Ansel Adams made a career of crafting photographs in exquisitely sharp focus and nearly infinite tonality and detail. His ability to consistently visualize a subject — … | Continue reading
Why don’t we just ban fossil fuels? “In the last four decades, the United States has outlawed lead paint, phased out asbestos and curtailed tobacco marketing and sales. Similar policies can be used for fossil fuels.” Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Bookstores should ditch the short-term thinking of efficiency & bring back big, comfy reading chairs (which help make life-long readers). “Reading made me a reader, but so did having a place that allowed that experience to be pure, self-directed…” Join the discussion on k … | Continue reading
To mark the 20th anniversary of Napoleon Dynamite, stars Jon Heder (Napoleon), Efren Ramirez (Pedro), and Jon Gries (Uncle Rico) travelled to the Sundance Film Festival and recorded this charmingly hilarious video. Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Tech has shifted from the Star Trek era (smartphones, voice computing, virtual reality) to the Douglas Adams age (hallucinating LLMs, wayward robo cars, AI girlfriends). “When technology becomes absurd, we must respond with absurd inventions.” Join the discussion on kottk … | Continue reading
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas: “Today and today only, I’m offering half off on tilting any jurisprudence in your favor — all principles must go!” Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Check out this letterpress print of a lobster made by Eunice Chiong with Lego pieces as the stamps (watch a short video of her printing process). Chiong has been working with Legos and letterpress for many months now…check out more of her creations on Instagram and in her portfol … | Continue reading
Back in 2015, as the New Horizons probe was approaching Pluto, NASA posted an illustration of the dwarf planet’s orbital timeline: A short piece on Vox then noted: The entire history of the United States has unfolded in the time it’s taken Pluto to orbit the Sun once. And that’s … | Continue reading
The seafloor animals who live in Antarctica’s Southern Ocean are generally “squishy” — they lack armor “because there’s nothing around to crush them”. Climate change is bringing king crabs into the area, which could disrupt the unique ecosystem. Join the discussion on kot … | Continue reading
Denis Villeneuve: “Frankly, I hate dialogue. Dialogue is for theatre and television. I don’t remember movies because of a good line, I remember movies because of a strong image. … Movies have been corrupted by television.” Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
A doctor trained in wilderness emergencies (and who has summited Everest three times) explains all the different ways Mt. Everest can kill you — in a refreshingly no-nonsense way. Mt. Everest is a famously inhospitable environment for humans — if someone from sea level was droppe … | Continue reading
With online ordering now, people have a lot of options when it comes to Girl Scout Cookies, but it’s particularly worth supporting Troop 6000 with your order — “the troop serves families living in temporary housing in the NYC shelter system”. Join the discussion on kottke … | Continue reading
I dropped the ball on not featuring this gorgeous letterpress version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island sooner — the Kickstarter campaign only has 70 minutes to go! Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Join or Die is a documentary about the life, work, and ideas of Robert Putnam, popularizer of the concept of social capital and author of the prescient Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. How many times last year did you go to church? How many times did … | Continue reading
I remember watching this scene in Se7en, where the sun shines brightly through car windows in the pouring rain, and it jolted me out of the movie — fake rain! Fincher called the take “priceless”, a happy accident. Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Michael Sippey made an absolutely unhinged “electoral college” version of Pong Wars. This is somehow worse than the NY Times’ twitchy election needle. Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
In every issue, the quarterly Buddhist magazine Tricycle publishes a winning haiku from its ongoing monthly haiku contest. The poem appears alongside a column written by the contest’s judge, poet and author Clark Strand. This season’s haiku-adjacent column includes the following … | Continue reading
I laughed: Gilbert & Sullivan’s Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, by Mitch Benn. Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
This Facebook post from June 2018 by Dave Barnhart, a Methodist pastor, is worth quoting in full: “The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically p … | Continue reading
If a “helen” is an amount of beauty, then “1 millihelen is the amount of beauty needed to launch a single ship”. See also the list of humorous units of measurement (e.g. “1 kilowarhol – famous for 15,000 minutes, or 10.42 days”). (via robinsloan.com) Join the discussion o … | Continue reading
The new MLB uniforms make players look as if they’re wearing diapers. Although the uniforms are supposed to help keep players cool and enable mobility, “everyone hates them,” per Phillies shortstop Trea Turner. Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Spain takes climate action: “Flights with a rail alternative that takes less than two and a half hours will no longer be allowed, ‘except in cases of connection with hub airports that link with international routes.’” (via bsky.app) Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Ross Andersen for the Atlantic on the effort to talk to sperm whales using AI tech: Their codas could be orders of magnitude more ancient than Sanskrit. We don’t know how much meaning they convey, but we do know that they’ll be very difficult to decode. Project CETI’s scientists … | Continue reading
Middlemarch Madness: a schedule for finishing George Eliot’s masterpiece by April 14 by reading a few chapters at a time. Starts Fri! I read Middlemarch for the first time 2 years ago and loved it — one of my all-time faves. (via bsky.app) Join the discussion on kottke.or … | Continue reading
I know there are some knitters around here, and I’m curious what people are making, if anyone cares to share. I’ve been knitting a Nine Note Seed Stitch Wrap for the past couple months. Next I’d like to finally try making a Junko Okamoto sweater, or maybe a James Watts sweater. A … | Continue reading
Now that I have kids, I can more fully appreciate The Kid Should See This, a repository of “smart videos for curious minds” (and Kottke favorite). “Drawing Sharks With Pancake Batter” blew my mind. Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Wesley Moore awards “Best Theft of a Movie” to Ryan Gosling in his “Awards for Acting Categories That Don’t Exist at the Oscars.” Worth it for the GIFs alone. Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Beautiful stop-frame animated documentary about why people knit and mend. “When your life is sort of falling apart, you need to create a purpose in it for yourself, and if that purpose is quite small, it doesn’t matter.” Directed by Samantha Moore. I’ve also been enjoying Arounn … | Continue reading
I’ve been thinking a lot about alternate families/relationships/friendships lately and this Modern Love piece — about a man with a wife who doesn’t remember him (Alzheimer’s) and a girlfriend who is now part of the family — was unexpectedly moving. Join the discussion on … | Continue reading
A huge study of more than 99 million people confirms the safety of Covid vaccines and that their benefits “vastly outweigh the risks”. Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
New Law Requires SNAP Recipients To Balance Food On Nose Until Receiving Command To Eat It. “‘There’s no reason why working-age, able-bodied food stamp recipients can’t show us that they’re very good boys,’ said House Speaker Mike Johnson.” Pitch perfect. Join the discuss … | Continue reading
The new Apple Sports app for iPhone is pretty good but isn’t great for keeping up with football — MLS & the European leagues are there, but no Champions/Europa Leagues, national teams, etc. Hopefully that’ll change. Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
“Brothers dancing in sync” (above and below) is turning out to be my favorite video genre of 2024 so far. (Thanks, Instagram algorithms.) Both these duos — the Irish Gardiner Brothers and the Delaware-based Griffin Brothers — have been around for years, so they may be old news to … | Continue reading
It’s a little painful to me that a woman my own age is not only a philosophy professor and mother to two small children but also a long-distance runner who writes a thoughtful and affecting online column about all of the above. She — Sabrina Little — has a new book out about virt … | Continue reading
The viral advice column of the week: “I Think My Husband Is Trashing My Novel on Goodreads!” Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
What did Neanderthals look like? An overview of “the evolution of Neanderthal portraits” since the 1800s. “Interpretations sometimes say more about their makers than their subjects.” (via thebrowser.com) Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
I’m feeling a little retrospective and nostalgic today, so if you’ll indulge me, I’m going to acknowledge a couple of personal milestones. 1. Today marks 19 years of me doing kottke.org as a full-time job. What. The. Actual. F? I kinda can’t believe it. Before this, the longest I … | Continue reading
A Kickstarter campaign for a book on the art of band logos. “The Stones ‘Lick’ logo wasn’t inspired by Mick Jagger’s lips, but the Hindu deity Kali.” Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
I love this print from Anastasia Inciardi at 20x200 — lots of familiar foods and comfortably delicious products. Inciardi is known for her mini print vending machines and also sells prints and other things online. You can check out her work on Instagram. Tags: Anastasia Inc … | Continue reading