To Read

1. Toasters in dishwashers and hair dryers in aquariums. Electrical physics is wild, y'all.

I put a toaster in the dishwasher.  I know; some of you have just decided that I am a total moron, and won’t read further.  That’s OK.  I learned two very important lessons from this little experiment:  (1) It is very difficult to discern the difference between Conventional Wisdom and Conventional Ignorance;  (2) When Conventional Ignorance is challenged, things can get nasty. 

2. What are words? Not much of anything, maybe? (long read)

For the Japanese, the Indonesians, and the Savosavo there is no distinction between what Anglophones call “foot” and “leg”. They’re just the same part of the body for those cultures, with a single word to refer to both together. The Lavukaleve speakers of the Solomon Islands don’t even need a distinction between arms and legs, they’re just limbs after all. Hands are just arm segments. But then they would laugh at the Indonesians, because obviously feet are separate from the rest!

3. Why Old Sports Photos Often Have a Blue Haze

Rich Clarkson’s photo of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, then named Lew Alcindor, in the 1968 NCAA Men’s National Basketball Final Four semifinal game in Los Angeles is a masterpiece of composition, timing, and exposure. The square format is the result of shooting the game action with a Hasselblad – a practice that continued into the early 2000s. But that isn’t what makes this photo historically interesting.

To Watch

4. Dick Van Dyke dancing and singing? I don't care what you think about Coldplay, this is delightful.

5. If you want a period drama that has a happy-ish ending but is a little morose at the same time, try North and South from the BBC (not to be confused with the PBS Civil War one). According to Emily—according to something she read on the internet once—it has one of the best onscreen kisses? I wouldn't know because, fun fact, I don't like watching people kiss, including on screens.

6. Emily and I found watching media about the pandemic during the pandemic a little too hard. But now that we're some distance from it, David Tennant and Michael Sheen try to get through U.K. downtown in Staged is weird, quirky, and hilarious.

Sundries

7. To Install: If you have €4, this is a way to add a little whimsey to your Mac.
8. To Parent: We pay for a Good Inside membership for parenting, and it's worth every penny. We've done workshops on anxiety, deeply feeling kids, and more and we always come away feeling hopeful that maybe we're not the worst parents in the land.