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Caroline Strickland Prettiest Girl Of Heaven Originally hailing from Virginia, Caroline Strickland is a Brooklyn-based musician who focused on making music exploring the sense of self, self-actualisation, and ‘the tension between arrogance and tenderness’. Prettiest Girl Of Heaven is the final single to be lifted from Strickland’s forthcoming EP, Martha’s Calling. The song sees Strickland perform the kind of rousing vocal that reminds me of Florence Welch, setting it against …

A while back, I was surprised when I saw the writer of a well-researched webcomic assume that academics are paid for their articles. I ended up writing a post explaining how academic publishing actually works. Now that I’m out of academia, I’m noticing some confusion on the other side. I’m doing freelance journalism, and the academics I talk to tend to have some common misunderstandings. So academics, this post is …

This idea was sparked a few months ago when I restored an adze. The owner wanted a new handle and some edge reshaping. The head was made by Hans Karlsson. The owner purchased it a couple decades ago from Country … Continue reading →

The big news of the day was the nine-page memo from the Department of Education on the issue of Title IX implications on the House settlement. Recall that the settlement includes some back pay for student’s who were determined to have lost out on NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) money and to allow universities to pay for the use of student’s NIL going forward. Recently some programs have shuttered their collectives …

The following is an excerpt from Matt Kennard and Claire Provost's brilliant book Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy. This section is my brutal edit of the original text. The book paints a more broadly and easily understood picture; I firmly recommend reading the book. The bit below is all about how the German banker Hermann Abs suggested a sort of capitalist Magna Carta, a framework for capitalists to cut …

David Lynch, on Los AngelesRoger Ebert on David Lynch and Mulholland DriveDavid Lynch on surrealism in the American grainSurrealist Cinema BBC Arena 1987 presented by David Lynch

Here's my weekly update with a few interesting random findings that I came across the last week or two. I am going to try to make sure they're here in time for you to enjoy with your morning coffee (or beverage of choice) every Saturday or Sunday, and include some of my thoughts around them.Remembering David LynchI was incredibly saddened to hear of the passing of filmmaker David Lynch yesterday. …

Last July, my history professor husband and I took a trip to Mississippi, Tennessee and Georgia to visit a selection of Civil War battlefields that comprise the "western theater" of that great war. From our starting point in Vicksburg, Mississippi, we drove north up the scenic Natchez Trace Parkway to Shiloh, Tennessee, then northeast to Fort Donelson, where we also contrived to visit the Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge. We then …

My friends bullied me into doing this template but with Jigen. Yes I had a very good time!

Roger Deakin visits a Jaguar factory in Coventry, in the United Kingdom, where he finds— 160 cabinet-makers were at work in two shifts, day and night, selecting and cutting out the shapes of delicate walnut veneer for the dashboards and door panels of the higher animals—“cars” seems too mundane a word—that have evolved from the feral SS Jaguar 100 sports model of 1936, with its sweeping wings, wire wheels, knock-on …

Reading Time: 35 minutes I hope all of you who’ve sent me complaining messages about there being ‘too much AI stuff’ in Curios over the past few years are feeling suitably-chastened now that Sir Keir’s going to MAINLINE IT INTO THE NATION’S VEINS. Whether or not intravenous injection was necessarily the right analogy for the forced introduction of a potentially-nefarious technology that noone necessarily wants into the body public is…questionable, …

Time flies faster than we can think of. Nagarathna Memorial Grant – 2025 is open for applications; this is our eighth edition. When I started it, I didn't think much about how it would turn out in a couple of years. So, there were no expectations. But it has grown into its own thing in these seven years. I have met so many interesting people and their work. It has …

Congratulations.Good decision 😄.Beekeeping is a wonderful hobby.There's a lot to recommend it; it's relatively inexpensive to start, training is usually widely available, it involves an invigorating combination of hard work, practical skill, observation, insight and understanding, and - if you manage all that - your bees should produce some delicious honey that is better than anything available in the supermarket.In fact, if you get that lot right, and you're blessed …

Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts: Comfort Zone In this very special episode, the gang makes their “Pro” and “Pro Max” predictions for tech in 2025 and oh my, does it get wild! Who’s best clued into the tech coming this year? Who is just wish-casting their way to third place? We’ll have to wait to find out. NPC: Next Portable Console On this special edition of …

In her 2008 memoir, A Freewheelin’ Time, Suze Rotolo described how Bob Dylan, her boyfriend between 1961 and 1964, developed his look. Apparently it was Dave Van Ronk, a slightly older Greenwich Village folkie, who urged the 21-year-old Dylan to start paying attention to his image. In Rotolo’s words: “Such things might have been talked about in jest, but in truth they were taken quite seriously. Much time was spent …