2. These Tributes for the Passing of Queen Elizabeth – I’m worried for the UK. From what I’ve read, the new Prime Minister is like Margaret Thatcher on steroids. That is the last thing they need right now. And they don’t have the EU to keep things from going off the rails and now they don’t even have the Queen. Guess we’ll see what mettle King Charles is made of.
4. This Rousing Speech by Michael Sheen – If you ever doubted Sheen’s talent, you won’t after watching this. If he had been born 100 years ago (or more) he’d have ruled the world. Hell, he could rule the world today if he wanted to.
This was posted by a friend of mine on FB and one of her friends posted a comment saying here’s evidence that this speech is completely spontaneous –
As a Welshman I’d like to explain a few things for those that might not know:
Spirit of ’58 – This is referring to the last time Wales got to the World Cup – 1958. The teams have been pretty poor between then and until the last 5 or so years so it’s seen as a massive achievement just to get to the finals.
Rob’s page – This is referencing the current Wales manager Rob Page who has been somewhat of a really good stand-in after Ryan Giggs, the previous manager, was removed after assault allegations surfaced.
Yma o hyd, you sons of speed – This is two references, the first is a very popular Welsh language folk song called Yma O Hyd, which has been co opted recently by the Welsh fans and Welsh FA to stir support. It’s a song about although being invaded and ruled by the English and despite their best efforts, the Welsh language and the Welsh people / culture are ‘still here’ (yma o hyd in welsh).
The other reference in this is to Gary Speed, a Welsh football legend who sadly committed suicide in 2011 that was adored by Welsh football fans.
[Shared with me by Angela G., Thanks Stasie!]
5. This Video Showing a Cartoonist Creating a Work of Art – MESMERIZING!
6. This Artist’s Drawings of the Queues Waiting to Say Good-bye to the Queen – Beautiful art illustrating an historic moment.
1. This Country Music Group on America’s Got Talent – I’m not a regular AGTT watcher. I tend to watch the truly amazing performers who go viral via YouTube weeks or even months after they’ve been on the show. But I managed to catch this performance just a few days after they were on. Most likely you’ve already seen it or at least heard about it.
Chapel Hart is a KICKASS trio from Poplarville, Mississippi. Their performance was so sensational that the judges (Howie Mandel, Heidi Klum, Sofia Vergara, Simon Cowell and host Terry Crews) made an exception to the rules and gave a “Golden Buzzer” to the group even though there were no more Golden Buzzers left to give.
CHAPEL HART; PHOTO CREDIT: ALEXIS CARTER
Chapel Hart (sisters Danica Hart and Devynn Hart, and their cousin Trea Swindle) performed an original song called “You Can Have Him Jolene” which is a tribute to their idol (and America’s idol) Dolly Parton.
You can watch the video (again and again) below and also read the lovely tweet from Dolly herself!
(Side note: a little history behind Dolly’s Jolene. One day Dolly met a little girl named Jolene and she said to the girl – such a lovely name, I should write a song. And she did! But she decided to use a little bit of her own life for the story. Going all the way back to just a year after she was married to her husband Carl – 1996. It seems there was a bodacious redhead making goo-goo eyes at Dolly’s hubby and that was the inspiration for the song. Needless to say, Dolly ain’t gonna let Jolene have him.)
In addition to getting this fabulous recognition from Dolly, Chapel Hart also has been invited to debut on the Grand Ole Opry. It’s been quite a week for these three young women.
(One more side note – Dolly Parton made a cameo on this week’s The Orville. She plays herself, even though it takes place in the 25th century. It’s clever how they work that out in the storyline. It was fantastic!)
What a fun new take on my song, @ChapelHartBand! Carl's birthday is today so I think I'll hang on to him, and I'm not notifying Jolene that today is his birthday 😉 #AGThttps://t.co/UFiT1AH84R
If you’d like to watch the video directly on YouTube here’s the link.
[Shared with me by my friend Meta]
2. This Emu named Emmanuel Todd Lopez, and his adorable caretaker, Taylor Blake of Knuckle Bump Farms –
Taylor had been making education videos when Emmanuel made an unplanned cameo and since then Taylor and Emmanuel’s videos have gone viral. People are scrambling to get a hold of some of the “Emmanuel, don’t do it!” merchandise! Taylor says – it’s coming!
3. This Editorial About Why It Matters That J Lo Took Ben Affleck’s Last Name – Honestly, I don’t know why a 50+ year old (especially one who’s been married like four times) would want to take their husband’s name.
Here’s the thing – I get that it’s easier four couples to share the same last name, especially if there are kids involved. In this day and age I feel like at the very minimum that couples should hyphenate their names and both take each other’s names. There are also couples who figure out how to merge their names into a single name.
And I get it – from a family legacy thing and ancestry and all that (carry on the family name) that doesn’t work but really, the whole family legacy thing is bullshit. It’s just men and their egos.
Anyway, this article explains very thoroughly why it is problematic for Jenny from the Block to take Ben’s name.
You’re a feminist Jennifer!
4. These Coffee Pods – I have one cup of decaf coffee every morning which is why I don’t really like to make a pot or futz with a lot of different appliances.
Recently I have been using a small pour-over and it’s fine but it still takes a bit of time and effort, sometimes more than I want to put in first thing in the morning.
But I stopped using k-cups for a couple reasons, the main one being that they are bad for the environment. The second reason being that drinking a hot beverage that has been poured through plastic is not healthy. After all, we avoid putting items in plastic now in the microwave. Why would we think it’s okay to run hot water through k-cups to make coffee?
Enter Cometeer. These are “pods” in that they are pod-shaped but that is the only similarity. The contents are high-quality beans that are ground and brewed and then flash-frozen into a small sphere. The spheres are put into the pods. Cometeer sends your package in dry ice so it arrives frozen (you receive notification so you can watch for it as soon as it’s delivered and can get it into your own freezer.)
All you need to do is drop one of the spheres into a cup of hot water and you have a perfect cup of coffee. I have to say, I don’t think I’ve ever had such a smooth cup of coffee.
I signed up for a subscription (every four weeks) for the decaf package and have only tried two of the types included so far. It comes with four different varieties.
Seriously, this is life changing. Also, it makes fabulous iced coffee drinks!
5. This Milwaukee-Themed Collage – Only Milwaukeeans will understand how wonderful this is.
Can you identify all of them?
Starting at top going clockwise: The Purple House, Brother Ron and his Religious Car, superfan Mike “Freeway” McCarter, the late year-round sunbather and nudist Dick Bacon, John Hamann aka “The Milverine”, the late Frank “Pepperoni Cannoli” Pecoraro, and in the center, TV attorney David Gruber.
6. These Vintage Home Gadgets – Why can’t they figure out a way to make things that we use everyday that look pretty, like they used to. Okay, maybe not the mixer, but the other things are wonderful! I love those Bosch coffee grinders.
7. This 60 Minutes Story on the 21st Century Public Library – This made me actual miss being in libraries and it’s been a long time since I felt that way.
1. This Grrrl – It’s no surprise that Lizzo the goddess would handle a mistake like an adult.
After the release of the track Grrrls from her upcoming album ‘Special,’ there was a bit of a social media uproar because the lyrics contained some words considered derogatory to the disabled community.
Instead of making excuses and getting defensive or apologizing and then doing nothing about it, Lizzo apologized andchanged the lyrics. She actually listened. Shocking!
2. This Performance Artist / Dada “Dynamo” – She was one of those people who lived many lives in a lifetime. Elsa Hildegard Plötz was born in 1874 in Swinemünde in Pomerania, Germany (now Świnoujście, Poland.) ,
In her younger years she did vaudeville in Berlin and then traveled around Europe leaving a string of lovers behind her. She eventually landed up in NYC where she worked as an artist’s model and she also created her own art, mostly with found objects – sculpture, fashion, performance art, she didn’t limit herself in the mediums she worked with.. She also wrote poetry and it was considered “perhaps the best of any woman’s of our time” by TheLittle Review.
She made sculptures and costumes from found objects (her wedding ring was a rusted metal hoop picked off the pavement) and wrote experimental poetry, which she also performed. Memorable ensembles included a bra constructed from tomato soup cans and a caged canary; hats tinkling with stolen teaspoons; postage stamps worn instead of rouge. Modesty, whether in the studio or on the street, was for squares. She collaborated with fellow surrealists Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray on the film The Baroness Shaves Her Pubic Hair. Alas only a few stills survived the editing process.
From ‘Sleep with everyone! Be embarrassing!’ – the dada baroness who shocked society by Hettie Judah; The Guardian; 31 May, 2022
It was in NY that Plötz acquired her Baroness title, after a brief marriage at age 39.
She was considered a pioneer in dadaism, she is credited with having invented “Readymade” (though like so many woman in art, she isn’t really given any sort of honors for the achievement – case in point, an article about Readymade that doesn’t even mention her and which is linked to from the article about the Baroness where it saying she invented “Readymade”!)
She was a contemporary of Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray and other , were members New York’s literary and art scene, especially those in the Arensberg Circle of Artists. In fact she collaborated with Duchamp and Man Ray on a film called “The Baroness Shaves Her Pubic Hair” (there are only a few stills remaining.)
Still, despite all these accomplishments, her male counterparts, who actually, in some cases, were working on concepts thought up by the Baroness, are the ones people know of, whose names people recognize, who are in the museums, who received the credit. Will the historical sexism ever be rectified?
3. These Crocs – These are wonderful sandals – They have great support and cushiness which are the two things most important to me nowadays. They don’t run particularly wide or narrow, which is good because the straps aren’t adjustable (and they don’t come in a “wide” size). I also like that they give me a little height. For decades I tried to hide my height but now that I’ve started shrinking I am actually happy to have a little lift back.
Having said all that, there are a couple things I wish were different…
Ass I mentioned, the straps aren’t adjustable. That’s actually not a good thing. My left foot is slightly bigger because I broke it years ago. The sandals fit me great but when my feet swell, as they are bound to do, especially if I’ve been on them all day, or if it’s hot, or if I’ve had too much sodium, the left shoe gets uncomfortable tight.
I REALLY wish they would have made these flat. To clarify, as I said, I like the height, I just wish the heels were even with the toes. I just don’t think it’s good for anyone’s foot to have all the pressure on the ball of your foot. They certainly don’t do this for men’s shoes.
One last thing, they don’t really “breathe” so your feel will may get hot sometimes.
5. This Teacher – Mr. Daniel Gill has kept an empty chair in his classroom for FIFTY years. He’s done this to teach his students the importance of making people feel welcome.
Let me explain. When Gill was a kid he had a best friends named Archie. Archie was black. Gill was white. Neither boy thought anything of this until one day when the two of the went to a birthday party together. They showed up and the mother of the child who the party was for, answered the door. She looked at both of the boys and proceeded to tell them she didn’t have enough chairs. Gill told her that was okay, they didn’t both need a chair, they could either share or could even sit on the floor. She repeated that there wasn’t enough chairs and that is when the boys realized it had nothing to do with chairs, it had to do with the color of Archie’s skin.
So, in the 1980s, when Daniel Gill started teaching, he put an empty chair in his classroom s that there would always be an extra seat available for anyone who stop by – there would never not be enough chairs.
He has taught five decades worth of students lessons of tolerance and anti-racism.
6. This Deleted Scene from Love Actually – There are so many wonderful things about this scene, I actually wish it had been left in. It makes me wonder what other deleted scenes are out there.
7. This Ragtime Song – It will put anyone into a better mood. The rag was written in 1913 by Amanda Ira Aldridge, a British composer whose father was African-American and mother was Swedish.
After completing her studies, Aldridge worked as a concert singer, piano accompanist, and voice teacher. A throat condition ended her concert appearances, and she turned to teaching and published about thirty songs between the years 1907 and 1925 in a romantic parlour style, as well as instrumental music in other styles. Among her pupils were the children of London’s politically-active Black middle-classes, including Amy Barbour-James, daughter of John Barbour-James, Frank Alcindor son of Dr John Alcindor, and composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’ssister Alice Evans.[2] Her notable students included African-American performers Roland Hayes, Lawrence Benjamin Brown, Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson, and Bermudian-British actor Earl Cameron.[3][4][5][6] In 1930, when Robeson performed as Othello in the West End, Aldridge was in attendance, and gave Robeson the gold earrings that her father Ira Aldridge had worn as Othello.[7] Aldridge also took the singer Ida Shepley under her wing and converted her from a singer to a stage actor.[4] In 1951, African-American weekly magazine Jet reported that she was still giving piano and voice lessons aged 86.[8]
Before we get started – hey Wordle fans, have you tried Artle yet? I read about it this morning on Hyperallergic. It was launched by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. I got the second piece of art today. Haven’t a clue what the first one was.
Also, I found a large stash of British coins in a Harrods coin purse I had (much more logical than in with my foreign coin collection because I plan on using these next time I go to the UK.) And there were enough for me to make the shield. COOL! I even had enough for two more shields less one coin each. I have a ridiculous amount of foreign coinage.
Anyway, back to the important stuff!
1. These Toast Plates – Those who know me will understand why I went a little gaga when I saw these and they also know I would never leave the store without having purchased them.
I found these beauties in the gift area of my local grocery store, but if you want them (and why wouldn’t you?!?) I found them online for significantly less than what I paid (about a third of the price.) I’m thinking I may need more than 4! (Especially after I broke one of the glasses I bought in Prague today, glasses that I bought 27 years ago and can’t get any more. It me wish I had bought more than 4.)
Click on the picture below to go to the site.
2. This 13-Year-Old Singing Empty Chairs at Empty Tables – If this doesn’t make your heart ache you had better check your pulse.
3. This Turn-of-the-(Twentieth)-Century French “Influencer” – Cléopâtre-Diane de Mérode was born in 1875 in Paris. Her mother enrolled her in ballet classes at eight years old. Turns out that Cleo was a prodigy, and she debuted with the Paris Ballet when she was only eleven years old.
By sixteen, Cleo had become a teenage trend setter, becoming known for her signature hairstyle (a chignon.) The hairstyle became so popular it caused problems with the Swedish telephone service…
“The Stockholm telephone authorities are finding fault now with the way in which (switchboard operators) do their hair. It appears that of late the Swedish lassies …have adopted the mode of coiffure first initiated by the French dancer Cleo de Merode, in which the hair is drawn over the ears. The subscribers have since found a falling off in the hearing powers of the operators, as the result of which complaints of inefficiency in the service have been made.”
The American telephone journal, Volume 8, 1903
This photo was taken in 1903 and would have been sold as a collectible card/postcard. Didn’t the person who do the restoration/colorizing do an amazing job?
Cléo de Mérode has been referred to as the most beautiful woman in the world.
If you want to read more about her, there is an excellent article here.
4. This Photo – I literally love everything about it. Literally.
6. This Instagram Artist – You’ll absolutely go down the rabbit hole on this IG page. Ariel Adkins travels the world creating wearable art that matches or complements the places she is photographed.
7. This History of Why We Decorate Our Nails – This was super interesting. It’s not just about the history of why we paint our nails, but also about the cultural significance of nail art. (Melissa K, you’ll want to watch, obs.)
1. This Winslow Homer Painting – I just think it’s an incredible piece of art but if you want to read an in-depth analysis of the piece, you can find that here.
“Dressing for the Carnival” by Winslow Homer, (1877)
4. This Lip Balm – I had been using the same lip balm (Sugar Advanced Therapy Treatment Lip Balm) for some time but found that whenever I carried it in places where it could get warm it got melty. Kiehl’s has a similar product that is better but I’m not sure they are making it anymore. I haven’t been able to find it for a while and their website shows it is out of stock in all colors (though they do have a “notify me” option on the page.)
They both lasted longer than most lip balms I had found but I still have to re-apply throughout the day. That is when I found this product. Well, technically I found this first, but it’s a bit pricey. So I looked for something similar that wasn’t going to break the bank AND that was an all natural product.
6. This Banned Book – Which resulted in a non-fiction graphic book about its banning to be published in fall of 2023.
Jarrett Dapier was a library science graduate student in 2013 when he filed a Freedom of Information Act request that resulted in his uncovering a Chicago school district’s attempt to remove Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi without following the formal book challenge process. Once the information became public there was an outcry from both students and parents.
The book, called Wake Now In The Fire, is written by Dapier and illustrated by AJ Dungo, and tells the story of a group of high school students who are trying to push back against censorship at their own school.
7. These Two Friends – Denise Mercedes and Maria Castellanos like to show how clothes look on bodies of different sizes. I would give anything to have had more body positivity growing up.
I thought I’d add a new section to the blog. Am I taking requests? We’ll see. Either way, hopefully you’ll discover something new or reminisce on something old.
Click on the image to go to the video to hear the song.
Natalia Lafourcade – Alma Mía (En Manos de Los Macorinos) ft. Los Macorinos
Tuesday is International Women’s Day CELEBRATE accordingly!!!
1. This Ukrainian Artist’s Work – Maria Prymachenko’s artwork are cheery and colorful but some of the pieces are darker, which is not surprising considering what the Ukrainian people have been through over the past decades.
2. This Website – The V&A Museum kept quite busy in 2020 and 2021, and through social media and online activities they kept their patrons informed and engaged during the pandemic. I follow them on Facebook and get their newsletter but somehow I missed this.
Luckily a friend of mine’s daughter is dressing up as Marie Antoinette for school and while I was looking for this picture to show both of them I found this fun page.
What we have is an interactive site that allows you to create your very own Marie Antoinette style wig! You can make it as small or as LARGE as you like (I discovered that depending upon the way you swoop you can even create braids). After you’ve made your wig you can decorate it with a various feathers, flowers, pendants, and other items (note the ship). Last, but not least, you can powder it to your heart’s content (there are some lovely colors to choose from.)
Here’s one of my creations
I always love learning new things, especially history. This was particularly fun. Is seems the wigs got pretty out of control for a while. Men’s wigs were as big a deal as the women’s wigs.
3. This Mom’s Sense of Humor – Kayla Marie Sullivan used her skills from when she was a reporter to convey the difficulties of parenting a two-year-old. It’s H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S.
4. This Historic Mystery Solved! I have loved the Venus of Willendorf (sometimes called the Woman of Willendorf) since the first time I saw it. I mean, what’s not to love – they worshiped a voluptuous babe!
The Venus is estimated to be around 30,000 years old and made from oolite limestone. It’s called the Venus of Willendorf because it was found in 1908, somewhere close to the banks of the Danube River near Willendorf, Austria. But they’ve never know her origin.
Researchers led by Gerhard Weber, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Vienna, believe they have matched the figurine’s limestone with a location near Lake Garda in northern Italy, revealing the likely origin of “one of the most famous signs of early modern human symbolic behavior,” according to a study published on Monday in Scientific Reports.
The new research suggests that the crafters of this iconic object, a hunter-gatherer culture known as the Gravettian people, traveled hundreds of miles across the treacherous landscape of Europe before the last ice age, though the team noted that it’s unclear what might have prompted such a journey.
5. This Crowd-Sourced History Project – Charles Dickens is well-known for his literary genius but one lesser known element of his life is that as a younger man he taught himself a form of shorthand using Thomas Gurney’s 18th century manual on Brachygraphy. The word Brachygraphy means “a system of writing using abbreviations or special characters” – in other words, shorthand.
There are several documents that Dickens wrote using brachygraphy that scholars have been struggling to decipher, some with success. But the one that has been most elusive is the Tavistock letter.
Two Dickensian scholars, Claire Wood of the University of Leicester, and Hugo Bowles of the University of Foggia, decided to create the Dickens Code Project in the hopes of getting assistance from puzzle experts and code breakers around the world. They ended up with sixteen full submissions, none of which were complete.
Shane Baggs, a computer technical support specialist from San Jose, California, won the overall contest, while a college student at the University of Virginia named Ken Cox was declared the runner-up.
Since then, Baggs and Cox have managed to finished deciphering nearly 70% of the letter, far more than they ever expected. You can see a line-by-line translation here.
Full page of the Tavistock letter.
6. This Inspiring Article – With all that is going on in the world we need some positivity and hope. Here ya go.
7. THIS Postmodern Jukebox Video – I was lucky enough to get to go to a REAL concert last week. I saw one of my favorite bands – Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox (PMJ). And man, I was not disappointed!
PMJ does covers of songs in a variety of styles, such as the roaring twenties, sixties girl group, swing, jazz, gospel, and “film noir.”
This video is one of the songs sung at the concert – you will recognize it right away. We didn’t have this many performers but some of them – like Tia Simone (wow), LaVance Colley (wow), and Olivia Kuper Harris (beautiful) – were there on Friday!
In this corner, weighing in at 165 pounds, we have Hall of Famer, Grammy winning Neil Young, clocking in at a spry 76 years old.
And in this corner, weighing 194 pounds and clocking in at a sturdy 54, we have Joe Rogan, backed by his 11 million anti-vax Spotify listeners.
It was a David and Goliath moment to be sure and Goliath was the victor.
Wait, that’s not the way it’s supposed to work. God damned Spotify.
But here they come, over the hills, like the calvary in an old politically incorrect western who ride in at the last minute. Only this calvary are canceling their accounts in droves along with a few other big name artists who have joined Neil Young and asked to have their music removed from the Music behemoth.
Joe Rogan must have been a little concerned about his image taking a hit because he “apologized” and said that he would have more mainstream people on his show. Then four hours later he promptly posted more misinformation on Twitter. Yeah, he’s a twat.
Since I’ve already done so myself I thought I’d give you a few tips.
First off, I put “cancel” in quotation marks because you can’t actually cancel your account. What you can is change your plan from a paid plan to the free one.
To do this
1. Log into Spotify 2. Click on your name in the top right corner and choose Account 3. Choose the Available Plans tab 4. Select the Change Plans button 5. Choose the free plan, they will make you confirm it like three times
They give you an opportunity to tell them WHY you are changing to the free plan. I said it was because I support Neil Young and that Spotify isn’t doing enough to stop the spread of misinformation.
Spotify is pretty shitty for not letting people delete their accounts but at least this way they won’t be getting your money.
There are other streaming services you can use instead of Spotify – Apple Music, Pandora, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, etc.. Here’s a list of options. Admittedly, I don’t think any of them have everything Spotify does (which is why it has become the most popular service), but you need to make the decision – which is more important, bells & whistles or your principles?
Before I cancelled my account I hesitated because I had put so much work into creating my playlists. Then I found out I could easily transfer my playlists and changed from Spotify in the flash of an eye.
Turns out there’s an app for that!
I chose Songshift but there are other options that most likely work equally well. I chose this particular app because I’ll be able to use it to share playlists with people even after I’m done transferring my playlists from Spotify – which makes the investment worthwhile (I’ll explain in a moment). AND if by some miracle, if Spotify does a huge overhaul in how it runs its company, I can easily move my playlists back.
Now, if you don’t have a lot of playlists you could probably just use the free version of Songshift but I had about 25 of them so I could to subscribe. Subscription (I think it’s $4.99/month which I can cancel at any time) gives me the ability to transfer multiple playlists at one time. Otherwise it will only do one at a time. So, like I said, if you have 5 or 6, the free version will probably be fine, much more than 8 or 9 and you’re probably going to want to make the investment, at least for one month.
It also gives me the ability to share playlists with anyone on multiple music streaming services – Pandora, Amazon Music, Apple Music, just to name a few. I’m curious to see how that works.
Anyway, transferring is super easy – you sign in to both your Spotify account and whatever new music streaming service you’ve chosen then you selection one service as the one you are transferring from and one that you are transferring to and that you choose which playlists you want to transfer. (Like I mentioned, you need the premium version if you want to do more than one at a time.)
It wills start the process and look for matches. A lot of the songs will match without problems but some of them you will need to approve and some of them you may need to help find matches for. You can choose to ignore songs that your new service can’t find a match for if you don’t want to spend the time looking.
Once all the songs have matches you hit the “Confirm Matches” button…
Once it has “shifted” all the songs you will see that it has finished and you need to hit the “Continue” button.
After that there’s one more button to hit and you’re finished with the process.
I moved to Apple Music because I used iTunes for so many years. I had a bunch of playlists there already so I merged the duplicate playlists together. (More decluttering!)
Hope this helps those of you who want to drop Spotify but have been hesitating.
Do it! You’ll feel better. And remember, Spotify is not a music company, it’s the Netflix of audio.
Addendum (2-2-22)
A friend of mine (thanks Ann!) shared this post with me. If you are having a hard time making a decision on which music platform to go with this may help you out…
I wanted to make sure I was reading this correctly. Basically it’s saying: if P!nk had a song streaming on Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music, the song would have to be streamed 128 times on Apple Music for her to earn a dollar, the song would have to be streamed 315 times on Spotify for her to earn a dollar, and the song would have to be streamed a whoppin’ 1,250 times on YouTube Music for her to earn that same dollar.
I’m not familiar with Tidal Music and I didn’t even know Napster was still around but seems to me that, of the options I was considering, Apple Music is the best deal for musicians. I’d definitely avoid YouTube Music and Pandora.
1. This Music Video by Ingrid Michaelson (Featuring Zooey Deschanel) – I’ve always been obsessed with animated stop-motion films created with felt.
Here’s another short film I’ve watched about a half dozen times (it’s on Netflix). It’s called ‘Robin Robin’ and it’s a delightful holiday gem.
2. This SNL Monologue by John Malkovich – truly a national treasure.
3. This Tour of Fortnum & Mason (and also Harrods) at Christmas – My friends know this, but F&M is my mothership and it’s been calling to me for the past couple of years. For myself personally, not being able to get to London and Ireland to visit my friends there and do all the things I love to do in the UK is in the top five most difficult things about the pandemic.
4. This Christmas Short (which is actually a Christmas Advert)
5. This (Faux) Letter to Santa – gotta love a little historical humor.
“Dear Santa, I’ve been very good this year, destroying the abbeys, killing my wives and getting rid of the pope. For Christmas, I would like money, France and more power. If you don’t give me this, I’ll make myself Santa instead”#letterstosantahttps://t.co/XWRdRyJZa3pic.twitter.com/puzwPNUO5Y
6. This Collection of Eggnog Cartons – Called the “Eggnog Project“, graphic designer Madeleine Eiche has curated a museum-worthy selection of eggnog cartons that exhibit the variety of designs in American eggnog packaging.
[Found on ‘Messy Nessy Chic’]
7. These Letters from J.R.R. Tolkien to His Children – Can you imagine receiving something so incredible? Not only were the stories wonderful (which is no surprise) but the drawings are magnificent!!!
1. This Photo of Frida Kahlo – I was uber excited when I saw this picture. I did a little research to see if I could find out how Kahlo came to be sitting with Nayantara Sahgal and Rita Dar, the daughters of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (who was the sister of Jawaharlal Nehru and the aunt of Indira Gandhi). I found this article and it doesn’t give a lot more information. It’s most likely that the two women were visiting Mexico in a diplomatic capacity. The article is very interesting though, talking about how saris are essential a garment of protest and resistence. Fascinating!
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Brown History (@brownhistory)
[Found by my friend Ami on IG]
2. This 80s Remix of Adele’s ‘Easy on Me’ – Wonderful, makes my heart swoon.
3. This Graphic of the Languages of the World – I love info stuff. Puts things in perspective, doesn’t it? Tell me, why do we think that English should be the universal language?
4. These Earrings from KIKAY – I KNOW I’ll be wearing them ALL the time. They’re super light and I mean, look at them with my hair! (The photo on the right is me.) This shop is dangerous though. I also bought a pair of pink soot sprites (if you are a fan of Studio Ghibli you will remember they appeared in the films My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away.) And look at these guillotines – perfect for Halloween (always thinking ahead.) I know I’ll be ordering more earrings and soon.
[Found via Beryl Shereshewsky – If you aren’t watching her videos you need to do so immediately!]
5. This Example of Video Editing – Which is PURE GENIUS! Warning: it’s very easy to go down the rabbit hole on this person’s YouTube channel.
[Found by my pal Angela on Reddit. Thanks Stasie!!!]
6. This Table! – Seriously, how wonderful would this be, dining ON a Venetian canal? This isn’t staged, it’s a real table at a real restaurant – Ristorante Ai Barbacani
7. This “Last” Bookstore – I’ve wanted to go here for a while, but after seeing this story on CBS Mornings now I NEED to go here. A friend of mine went a few months ago (the lucky duck) and sent me a few snapshots but I think you need to see it in person.
1. This Painting by Katsushika Hokusai, circa 1832 – I was fascinated by this piece of art when I first saw it. I must admit, I haven’t seen a lot of paintings of waterfalls so I don’t have much for comparison, but what I found most wonderful was the way the artist showed movement, both at the bottom of the waterfall and in the waves.
It may not be easy to see in the image below but if you go to this page there is a copy of the piece where you can enlarge different sections of the painting. You can double click on the image to enlarge it and then use the cursor to move the view.
P.S. I decided to look up to see what paintings there were of waterfalls and there are quite a few but I am unfamiliar with all of the artists. Which could explain how I haven’t seen any previous to this one. You should take a look, some of them are equally impressive.
2. This Micro-Documentary about the Liverbirds, One of the First Female Rock Bands – I’ve never heard of the Liverbirds, have you? (And it’s pronounced LYE-VER BIRDS.)
It’s infuriating that generations of women have had to make the choice between a career or a family. Wait, scratch that. Looking at history as a whole, the majority of women did not even have the option of a career. But in the past, oh, maybe 100 years or so, they sort of did. But of course women who chose careers were expected, unless they were in a lower income bracket, to stop working if they got married. Can you imagine what things would have been accomplished if women had been allowed to work?
3. ThisHUGE ASS Log Cabin – Sad that it burned down.
4. These Firefighters Working to Protect ‘General Sherman‘ – With all the floods on the east coast, news of the fires in California and the Pacific Northwest have fallen off the “front page.” But it doesn’t mean they have burned out. One wildfire hotspot has sadly turned out to be the Sequoia National Park. Sequoias are among the longest living trees in the world, most of them live hundreds of years. “General Sherman” is the oldest single trunk tree on the planet. It is believed to be between 2,200 to 2,700 years old. There have been a combined total of over 43,000 acres of Sequoias burned so far.
Firefighters, like so many of our public employees that get little notice, are real heroes.
😰
Firefighters are wrapping fire-resistant blankets around ancient trees — including the 275 ft General Sherman, the biggest tree by volume on Earth — and historic signs as blazes tear through California's world-famous Sequoia National Park.
5. This New Book on Miniature Eye Portraits – Believe it or not, I’ve been obsessed with eye miniatures for years. I can’t believe they are publishing a book! Now, before you go “ewww” this is weird, the idea behind them was that lovers would send portraits of their eyes to one another so that they could have keepsakes and reminders but only they would know the person so well that they could identify them by their eye. It was to keep the relationship private or secret. Read this article to find out more.
6. This Astronomical Clock in Prague – it’s over 600 years old! I’ve been fortunate enough to have been to Prague twice, but both trips were well before smartphones. I’m sure I took plenty of photos but I have no idea where they’d be now. We’re talking mid-1990s. But two things I remember vividly are the Charles Bridge and this clock.
P.S. And here’s a little follow up from last week. And I’m weeping all over again!
Word of the Week
Quote of the Week
This week I’m going with a poem rather than a quote – it was so good I had to share it. Of course traveling right now is not easy but once this damned pandemic is over we should all get back to traveling the world!
Try to travel, otherwise you may become racist, and you may end up believing that your skin is the only one to be right, that your language is the most romantic and that you were the first to be the first. Travel, because if you don’t travel then your thoughts won’t be strengthened, won’t get filled with ideas. Your dreams will be born with fragile legs and then you end up believing in tv-shows, and in those who invent enemies that fit perfectly with your nightmares to make you live in terror. Travel, because travel teaches to say good morning to everyone regardless of which sun we come from. Travel, because travel teaches us to say goodnight to everyone regardless of the darkness that we carry inside. Travel, because traveling teaches us to resist, not to depend, to accept others, not just for who they are but also for what they can never be. To know what we are capable of, to feel part of a family beyond borders, beyond traditions and culture. Traveling teaches us to be beyond. Travel, otherwise you end up believing that you are made only for a panorama when instead inside you there are wonderful landscapes still to visit. – Gio Evan, poet and songwriter. Translated from Italian.
