The Magpie #019: New Phone, Houthis?
Welcome to this week’s edition of The Magpie, a wire service for the weird compiled from the open tabs of writer Alex de Campi. Here’s what’s going on:
A cornucopia of amphibious and other delights to distract you from the horrors of this world. Also:
Rejoice, for it is Fish Doorbell season! Weird animals that count as fish for Lent! Big ship stuck! Big ship smash into parked bigger ship! Uninvited otter! Gay humpback whales! A frog buried in a time capsule for 31 years survives and becomes media sensation, Looney Tunes inspiration! And the Maryland Oyster Catchers’ new bearded clam logo:
Sorry I went AWOL again, Tuesday before last was kiddo’s spring break and we went and climbed a small mountain very slowly! I’m pleased to report all three of us (me, kid, dog) made it to the top. And last week just was all day job all the time. So, whew, a lot to catch up on.
I also have a fantasy graphic novel out today from Dark Horse! Please read it! It’s kind of weird and pretty long (300pgs)! It is about what happens when Earth’s ley lines reverse and magic suddenly becomes a thing again (spoiler: people handle it very badly). It is very very hard to make things and put them out into the world so if you are able to buy/borrow my books and/or leave positive reviews about them on hellsites like Amazon or social media it helps me a lot to fight another day.
And now to the tabs. First, we go to the holy days of Lent, where good Catholics are supposed to eat no red meat (hence Carneval, before Lent begins— carne vale, farewell to meat). But for every Catholic rule, there’s an Archbishop-approved way around it which is why for the purposes of the fast, the following animals temporarily become fish: barnacle geese in Ireland, capybara (!!) in Venezuela, beavers in Canada, and alligators in Louisiana:
Rule-breakers wanted: how the language of job adverts influences the personalities you’re likely to find employed there.
In “well, duh” news: ChatGPT is a drug, and AI is wrong 60% of the time. Also, this article makes an excellent case that genAI is increasingly the aesthetic of fascism.
The natural result of A+B+C above is asking ChatGPT how to do your coup.. Also this is not investment advice, but: fuckity yikes?
In more technologically positive news, a heretofore unknown manuscript fragment of the circa 1230 Merlin vulgate cycle was discovered sewn into a 16th-century register of deeds, which is cool enough by itself, but wait, there’s more: hi-tech imaging was used to access and copy the manuscript without removing it from the register or damaging the book it was sewn into. Science!
An attempt to estimate how many manuscripts were written by female scribes by using quants and AI has been largely given a pat on the head and told “nice try”—for once, not because of embedded misogyny, but because the analytical methods low-key sucked. I’m not actually surprised to learn that a number of early restorers and preservers of medieval manuscripts were women. Here’s one story of such a restorer in the 1700s.
EYES WIDE SHUT SECRET RITUAL ORGY CLOAK. In related matters, neo-tantric sex group tries to root out abusers.
The olds are alright: 85 year old Wisconsin man who came to the State Congress to support a ban on gender affirming care, met a bunch of trans people, realized he was wrong, and spoke against the ban instead.. Also, the last pilot who took part in the Battle of Britain passed away aged 105.
Running while Black, on doing the Hood Half Marathon in LA.
“Most energetic neutrino yet!” calm down little buddy, this world takes it out of you.
All hockey hair team! (North American ice hockey has its own peculiar hair styles and rituals, and they’re delightful.)
In victimless crime news, director scams Netflix out of millions for a film he never made. My favorite bit is the $600k he spent on two mattresses, c’mon just say he owed money to the Mob. Also who keeps giving these white guys giant credit card limits?!
I used to love Graydon Carter era Vanity Fair but it’s telling that the creative economy has crumbled so much that the thought of being paid six figures to write a single article seems like something made up. Behold the gilded era of magazine journalism.
I think I have more respect for Steven Soderburgh than I do for anyone else in Hollywood? His work ethos and career have always been goals to me, and having once had a pretty decent career shooting music videos I can say that all his hands-on-bess makes sense. I was a better director because I knew how to edit film, and I’m a better comics writer because I drew my own storyboards and then found out what didn’t work in the edit. Anyway, interview with Soderburgh.
An elderly friend died recently, and I have a recording of her telling my daughter about her childhood in Denmark and fleeing the Nazis, so this piece by Zach Rabiroff didn’t destroy me at all, nope. Neither did Mara Wilson’s essay on her childhood friend Michelle Trachtenberg. I am made of steel! Nah, I’m totally lying, I wept like a baby at both.
Roko’s Basilisk came from a Harry Potter fanfic because of course it did. Also, Puma, you are dead to me.
Increasingly obsessed with stories of Myanmar’s scam factories?!
I’m not really into podcasts but maybe you are? Some of these look great, I have to admit.
While the New York Times’ political coverage remains quisling shit, the magazine side is quietly creating some of the best and most graphically exciting digital-native articles I’ve ever seen? I first noticed them with Sam Thielman’s truly excellent features on Charles Burns’ new book and Jaime Hernandez, but this Sara Benincasa story is next level..
“Some Historical Context For How I Came To Piss Myself In The Paris Catacombs”
An app that forces you to touch grass (complimentary).
Everywhere is as crazy as Texas now, so listen to some Texans tell you how to survive it. (also all of this is good advice.)
Kraftwerk as a jeremiad for the days when the future was cool and exciting.
WIKIPEDIA PAGE OF INTEREST: The legal precedent for AI not being copyrightable is a monkey selfie.
RECIPE: This orzo is life-changingly good.
MUSIC:
New Gaga and she’s singing nonsense syllables again, nature is healing!!!
Also this is from my Solidarity Now! union and worker song Spotify playlist and I think we all need to hear this right now?
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Excellent newsletter title!