I submitted my dissertation manuscript on December 5th! I will find out by December 12th whether or not it is "defensible"! Thank you to all the people who have sent encouraging comments over the last few weeks and months. I am excited to read fiction and magazines again.
Why it matters: The intoxicated suspect was a raccoon.
"Raccoon gets drunk at Ashland ABC store and passes out in bathroom", Sabrina Moreno for Axios Richmond
Found via Colin on Bluesky.
The air smelled like the soil of a damp redwood forest and the city was so silent it was impossible to imagine the infinite lives existing within a seven-mile-radius of me.
The Scenic Routes SF newsletter
Submitted by Natalie.
I always feel so stupid when I write this, but when I started in financial journalism, I assumed that the point of financial markets was to allocate capital to real-world economic uses, and by now I know that the point of financial markets is to create fun opportunities for gambling.
"Buy Low, Sell to Yourself", Matt Levine in his Bloomberg newsletter Money Stuff
Submitted by George.
It is New York’s final boss, a brawny, bronzed behemoth that now lords it over the city with a brutish swagger.
"An eco obscenity: Norman Foster’s steroidal new skyscraper is an affront to the New York skyline", Oliver Wainwright for The Guardian
Jesus wept, in a light sweater.
"How to get through cold, wet, dreary days" Mike Monteiro in his newsletter Mike Monteiro's Good News
Submitted by Angela.
I don’t believe things are random, but I do believe they are mysterious.
"Studio Notes 05: Old Yellow Book", Lisa Cheng Smith for her newsletter Yun Hai Taiwan Stories
Submitted by Derek.
Still, with so much gray winter passion, no fucking.
Weird Fucks, Lynne Tillman
Forever grateful to Kristine Woods, the cool queer fiber arts professor who got me into Lynne Tillman when I was a baby art student. I just learned that Tillman's papers are held at NYU and I have no professional reason to go rifle though that collection but wow, what a treat that would be.
In order to accommodate the decreasing ripeness of the topics, I have had to gradually modify the style toward the end of the book.
Transformation in Optics, Lawrence Mertz
Submitted by Wesley.
The adolescent is somebody who is trying to escape from a cult.
"In Praise of Difficult Children", Adam Phillips for the London Review of Books
Submitted by Erin.
The ‘pink’ color in particular looks like the flesh-tone of someone who has been puking for several hours and would really rather get a bullet in the head than go on living.
Bruce Schuchardt as quoted in an Ars Technica article
The article is about the origins of the named CSS colors, which are a great illustration of how much of the internet as we know it is the product of random guys making choices that didn't seem very high stakes at the time.
It is not clear whether the Pensthorpe beaver, whose sex and age is unknown, was illegally released into the reserve by activists using a practice known as beaver bombing.
"‘No one knows where it came from’: first wild beaver spotted in Norfolk for 400 years", Donna Ferguson for The Guardian
Submitted by dorian.
He may have laissez-ed a little too bon of a temps.
When The Clock Broke, John Ganz
Submitted by Chris.
Their union birthed a violation of ethics, made manifest in overpriced goods.
"The Account of Steamy Forbidden Romance and Professional Annihilation That Everyone's Talking About", Katie Way for Hell Gate
This sentence and the piece overall made me nostalgic for the NYC Conflict of Interest Board social media team, among the best to ever do it (it being unhinged municipal agency social media).
Buntut received a fraud conviction and was sent to jail, a place definitionally very similar to a lounge, but emotionally very different.
"The Airport-Lounge Wars", Zach Helfand for The New Yorker
Submitted by Ryan.
Monkey glands were such a popular anti-ageing therapy that it caused international concern over supply, leading the French government to ban hunting monkeys in its colonies.
"Late Empire Life Extension", Aeysha Siddiqi in her newsletter
Submitted by Kira.
I was born to be indolent and this was the softest of rackets.
Humphrey Bogart, as quoted on his Wikipedia page
Of course, humanity cannot solely rely on an army of robot wolves to protect us from bear attacks.
"Robotic ‘Super Monster Wolves’ are guarding Japanese towns against bears", Andrew Paul for Popular Science
Submitted by Mars.
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