Thursday, June 04, 2026

Friday Links!

An utterly fascinating read leading off the week: Beans use an immune receptor to call in airstrikes on caterpillars.

A short video on how tough it is to make it as a professional athlete, and he was honestly a very weak player in the NBA (but had a nice career overseas): How I made it to the NBA - Joe Alexander.

Fabulous: The Grate Cheese Robbery: How organized crime fell in love with cheese.

A terrific read: The Cartoonist Who Mocked the Madness of Modernism. 

Both tremendous and beautiful: ‘They take you out of life, out of time’: a journey into Spain’s astonishing cave paintings. 

From Wallace, and it's excellent: Stephen Colbert Didn't Get Cancelled - Mass Culture Did: From 55 million to 6.7 million viewers in 34 years — and what that tells us about the end of America's shared mass-media, mass-consumer culture. Another in a series of food tours in Japan: JAPAN - Spring 2026: AKITA. This is going to be hard to control: YouTube Is Crawling with Pirated Audiobooks Made Using A.I..

From D.G.F., a thoughtful and provocative essay: The liberal establishment doesn't take repression seriously: What Democratic support for institutions like ICE means in this moment..


posted by Bill Harris @ 10:07 PM

MOMA!

We went to the MOMA today and I am fried beyond belief, for some reason. Here are some random pictures from today with very little explanation.

First, the city itself, with a view I've never noticed before today: 













The choice of background color is remarkable in this next work. In person, it makes the image almost three dimensional when you're viewing from the right distance:











This is an absolutely stunning photograph:











This painting was magnificently dark, but it also had many different shades of darkness:















This was, according to the artist, some kind of cathedral to birds or air or something. Unfortunately, that's not what I saw. I saw the repressive totality of the authoritarian state (potato, potahto).





posted by Bill Harris @ 2:42 PM

Wednesday, June 03, 2026

Conundrum

I like salmon, but C doesn't seem nearly as keen. 

"I was going to pick up some salmon, but I don't think you like it as much as I do," I said.

"I do like it," she said. 

I've only seen you eat it at Hamido," I said. "Never at home."

"I like salmon," she said. "I just don't like it undercooked or overcooked, which are the only two ways I prepare it."

posted by Bill Harris @ 12:00 PM

Tuesday, June 02, 2026

Pablo Torre Finds Out finds Mamdani

I believe I mentioned a few weeks ago that Pablo Torre won a Pulitzer for the investigative reporting in his podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out.

Almost no one does sports journalism anymore, but he does, and he's terrific when he does it. What he's also great at, though, is being goofy. Somehow he switches back and forth seamlessly between the two.

He interviewed NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani this week for his podcast, and the entire segment is so funny and genuine. Mamdani is one of the most engaging politicians I've ever heard, and he so clearly embraces life in a way that other politicians (most of whom always seem entirely miserable) just don't.

Anyway, it will put a smile on your face, and it's only about 25 minutes long. Here's a YouTube link, but you can stream it on all major platforms (Spotify, Amazon Music, etc.): Zohran Mamdani Talks Knicks, Arsenal & What We Think of Tottenham.

posted by Bill Harris @ 4:14 PM

Monday, June 01, 2026

Vampire Crawlers (completed)

I made it to the end of the existing Vampire Crawlers content today and it's an incredible value at $9.99.

It would have been an incredible value at $19.99, too.

It's a fantastic card game, one of the funnest card games I've ever played, and it fits perfectly into the Vampire Survivors universe.

Highest marks, and if you have a chance to pick it up, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

posted by Bill Harris @ 1:51 PM

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