He sees himself as many Angelenos do: in the gray area between homeless and homeowner. Enough money to get by, but not enough to ever have the picture-perfect California single-family home. One more person with a dream of putting down roots in one of the priciest real estate markets in the country. from An ambulance, an empty lot and a loophole: One man's fight for a place to live [Los Angeles Times; ungated]

"Designing a chair is a very constrained exercise: the general dimensions and angles are very much fixed," Yovanovitch said. "Designing a shoe is even more constrained and technical." from Christian Louboutin and Pierre Yovanovitch perch chairs on legs informed by "iconic women"

Though LSD was sometimes passed around in the 1960s on actual blotting paper, sheets of perforated ('perfed') and printed LSD paper do not come to dominate the acid trade until the late 1970s, reaching a long golden age in the 1980s and '90s. As such, the rise of blotter mirrors, mediates and challenges the mythopoetic story of LSD's spiritual decline. For even as LSD lost the millennialist charge of the 1960s, it continued to foster spiritual discovery, social critique, tribal bonds and aesthetic enrichment. During the blotter age, the quality of the molecule also improved significantly, its white sculptured crystals sometimes reaching and maybe surpassing the purity levels of yore. Many of the people who produced and sold this material remained idealists, or at least pragmatic idealists, with a taste for beautiful craft and an outlaw humour reflected in the design of many blotters, which sometimes poked fun at the scene and ironically riffed on the fact that the paper sacraments also served as 'commercial tokens'. from Acid media [Aeon; ungated]

Let's go back to December 1942, to the corner of Wabash and Ohio, to a small abandoned basement tavern that was also once a pizzeria named the Pelican Tap. The new tenants living directly above the abandoned tavern are a recently married couple with their newborn daughter. The 39-year-old father is the painter and restaurateur Richard Riccardo, owner of the famous Riccardo's Studio Restaurant on Rush Street. from The Secret History of the Original Deep-Dish Crust [Chicago]

There was allure beyond negation. Branson's geo-cultural attributes—not quite the Midwest or the South or Appalachia yet also all three; a region of old European settlement but also westward expansion; perched above whatever modest altitude turned the soil to junk and predestined the land for poor Scots-Irish pastoralists; in a slave state with the largest anti-Union guerrilla campaign of the Civil War but little practical use for slavery—invite an unmistakable imaginative allegiance. This is the aspiration and the apparition that the novelist Joseph O'Neill has termed Primordial America, the "buried, residual homeland—the patria that would be exposed if the USA were to dissolve." "Wherever they hail from," 60 Minutes' Morley Safer went on, "they feel they are the Heartland." No matter the innate fuzziness, Real America in this formula is white, Christian, and prizes independence from the state. It is atavistic, not reactionary. from The Branson Pilgrim by Rafil Kroll-Zaidi [Harper's; ungated]

Slovakia's populist prime minister shot in assassination attempt, shocking Europe before elections [AP]

Who is Slovak populist prime minister Robert Fico? [Sky] What do we know about Robert Fico's alleged shooter? [Euronews] Robert Fico shooting was 'politically motivated,' Slovak officials say [Politico] Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria

In the same way a dollar is made up of 100 cents, one bitcoin is comprised of 100 million satoshis—or sats, for short. But not all sats are made equal. Those produced in the year bitcoin was created are considered vintage, like a fine wine. Other coveted sats were part of transactions made by bitcoin's inventor. Some correspond with a particular transaction milestone. These and various other properties make some sats more scarce than others—and therefore more valuable. The very rarest can sell for tens of millions of times their face value; in April, a single sat, normally worth $0.0006, sold for $2.1 million. from Time Is Running Out in the Hunt for Rare Bitcoin [Wired; ungated]

In her essay 'The Double Standard [PDF] of Aging,' Susan Sontag explores how a "visceral horror felt at aging female flesh" is entrenched in our visual culture, manifested in caricatures of viragos and witches. "Rules of taste enforce structures of power," she wrote, "the revulsion against aging in women is the cutting edge of a whole set of oppressive structures (often masked as gallantries) that keep women in their place." Reclaiming elderly sexuality is an act of defiance, a rebellion against a youth-obsessed culture, fuelled by misogynistic gender norms. from The Untold Lives of Mature OnlyFans Performers [Huck] CW: NSFW language, it's about OnlyFans and has pictures of women in lingerie.

All these right-wing thinkers are much more comfortable thinking about the blurred lines between sexual and economic politics than many thinkers on the left. And they understand that Keynesianism rests on a certain kind of sexual contract. Any challenge to this order—whether it be an escalation of wage or benefit claims, or the flight from sexual normativity, or unmarried women claiming welfare benefits—disrupts the fiscal and monetary calculus on which Keynesianism rests. Public spending becomes profligate, debt burdens become intolerable, inflation spirals out of control. All of which is to say that the state is subsidizing marginal lives more than it is subsidizing capital. from Extravagances of Neoliberalism, a conversation with Melinda Cooper [The Baffler; ungated]

A comedian's only responsibility is to make the audience laugh. If you're not making the audience laugh, then you're failing at your job. You want to speak truth to power, you want to make a political statement, you want to be confessional—none of that is more or less valid than doing ventriloquism or doing an impression of Christopher Walken. They're all equal, so long as they make people laugh. If it's more important to you to do something that doesn't make the audience laugh, fine, but it's not comedy. It's something else. from Two Guys Walk into a Bar: Kliph Nesteroff on the Evolution of American Comedy [The Sun Magazine]

Lest you believe that interest in studying the habits of unstudied coolness was limited to the world of food and drink, recall the concurrent obsession with "off-duty" beauty and style, a concept that lost its novelty with the advent of Instagram. These days, fascination with figures in the culinary world seems to be very "on-duty"—the tools they use, the shoes and jackets they wear. Today, few may remember that copas de balón were first embraced by lauded chefs rather than marketers at beverage companies ... But the allure of a choice that's more utilitarian than aesthetic has helped the copa de balón endure. It's unexpected and delightful, like a fancy sandwich served on a quarter sheet tray. from The Balloon Effect

Musk is not a tech visionary with a side interest in politics these days, nor is he just another bored billionaire with a nativist streak; the political activism and the technological ambitions are inseparable. He believes his work is part of a civilizational struggle in which woke progressives pose an existential threat to humanity. And he spends most of his days inside a feedback loop that's radicalizing him even more. from I Read Everything Elon Musk Posted for a Week. Send Help. [Mother Jones; ungated] [CW: Elon Musk]

In a state with prolonged bouts of drought and unquenching thirst, stolen water is an indelible part of California lore. But this was not Los Angeles' brazen gambit to take water from the Owens Valley. Or San Francisco's ploy to flood part of Yosemite National Park for a reservoir. The water grab described in a federal indictment allegedly happened cat burglar-style, siphoned through a secret pipe, often after hours, to avoid detection. from Feds say he masterminded an epic California water heist. Some farmers say he's their Robin Hood [LA Times; ungated]

They Made A Crypto Shark Tank. It's Hilariously Bad.

In the dreamworld of the arts, every inanimate thing is animate, every object contains the entire world, millions of years of history and future and feeling. As she writes her story, which is ultimately her life, it can look like anything she wants. The more she thinks about it, the greater the possibilities. The more she's cast out, the more she must innovate. The more she will be unique, the more her voice will be untamed. Whatever she is, whoever. She has lived for literature from the beginning and so literature will be her; her indomitable will shall make it so. Our young writer, still unpublished, is the essence of the word itself. Any of her books that may, that will come, be published, read—a footnote. from Every Ship Is a Passenger Too: On Publishing Today by Chris Molnar [LARB]

Zoom in on God's Hand

This cloudy, ominous structure is CG 4, a cometary globule nicknamed 'God's Hand'. CG 4 is one of many cometary globules present within the Milky Way, and how these objects get their distinct form is still a matter of debate among astronomers. This image was captured by the Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera on the U.S. National Science Foundation Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, a Program of NSF NOIRLab. In it, the features that classify CG 4 as a cometary globule are hard to miss. Its dusty head and long, faint tail vaguely resemble the appearance of a comet, though they have nothing in common. Astronomers theorize that cometary globules get their structure from the stellar winds of nearby hot, massive stars. [NoirLab]

So please, remember: there are a very wide variety of ways to care about making sure that advanced AIs don't kill everyone. Fundamentalist Christians can care about this; deep ecologists can care about this; solipsists can care about this; people who have no interest in philosophy at all can care about this. Indeed, in many respects, these essays aren't centrally about AI risk in the sense of "let's make sure that the AIs don't kill everyone" (i.e., "AInotkilleveryoneism") – rather, they're about a set of broader questions about otherness and control that arise in the context of trying to ensure that the future goes well more generally. from Otherness and control in the age of AGI by Joe Carlsmith

The first essay, "Gentleness and the artificial Other," discusses the possibility of "gentleness" towards various non-human Others – for example, animals, aliens, and AI systems. The second essay, "Deep atheism and AI risk," discusses what I call "deep atheism" – a fundamental mistrust both towards Nature, and towards "bare intelligence." The third essay, "When 'yang' goes wrong," expands on this concern. In particular: it discusses the sense in which deep atheism can prompt an aspiration to exert extreme levels of control over the universe. The fourth essay, "Does AI risk 'other' the AIs?", examines Robin Hanson's critique of the AI risk discourse – and in particular, his accusation that this discourse "others" the AIs, and seeks too much control over the values that steer the future. The fifth essay, "An even deeper atheism," argues that this discomfort should deepen yet further when we bring some other Yudkowskian philosophical vibes into view – in particular, vibes related to the "fragility of value," "extremal Goodhart," and "the tails come apart." The sixth essay, "Being nicer than Clippy," tries to draw on this guidance. In particular, it tries to point at the distinction between a paradigmatically "paperclip-y" way of being, and some broad and hazily-defined set of alternatives that I group under the label "niceness/liberalism/boundaries." The seventh essay, "On the abolition of man," examines another version of that concern: namely, C.S. Lewis's argument (in his book The Abolition of Man) that attempts by moral anti-realists to influence the values of future people must necessarily be "tyrannical." The eighth essay, "On green," examines a philosophical vibe that I (following others) call "green," and which I think contrasts in interesting ways with "deep atheism." The ninth essay, "On attunement," continues the project of the previous essay, but with a focus on what I call "green-according-to-blue," on which green is centrally about making sure that we act with enough knowledge. Related: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized [Nature] Previously: posting such things on an Internet forum could cause incalculable harm

Europeans have more time, and Americans more money. It is a cop-out to say which you prefer is a matter of taste. There are three fairly objective measures of a good society: how long people live, how happy they are and whether they can afford the things they need. A society must also be sustainable, as measured by its carbon emissions, collective debt and level of innovation. So which side does it better? [Financial Times; ungated]

Wherever the blame lies, at the heart of the story are humans operating, ruptured, in an institutional machine. Many of the 42 are still 'deeply injured' by the incident, said Simon, who acts as their unofficial spokesperson. As the whole affair unravelled, the diocese was already under immense strain. The COVID lockdowns set clergy against their bishops, with many priests livid at having to close their churches. Others were angered by moves to invest millions in a new wave of informal congregations meeting in pubs, coffee shops and cinemas. And throughout it all there was division and tension over the church-wide culture war about gay blessings. 'There's so little trust at the moment,' Roger reflected. 'And in London, all the anger and the issues have a face: that face is Martin Sargeant.' from In the Shadow of St Paul's [The Fence; ungated] [CW: suicide, misogyny, homophobia.]

From a certain angle, the review feels less like a piece of music criticism and more like a Dada-ist joke on what music criticism even is. Or at the very least like a shitpost that was prophetic in its use of the visual, flippant language people would soon be employing en masse to post about art online. Squint, and it's a masterpiece ... of some kind. But it goes down in the stats sheet as an actual review—and in that sense, it wasn't really fair to Jet. from The Ballad of Ray Suzuki: The Secret Life of Early Pitchfork and the Most Notorious Review Ever "Written" [The Ringer]

Because of that decision made in Mountain View, we now have a huge accidental archive of our collective past. Awkward flirtations, drunken rants, earnest pleas; friendships fraying or rekindled, personae tried on and discarded, good jokes and bad decisions; every dumb or brilliant or anguished thing we wrote below the subject line — we have an instantly searchable record of it all. To mark the anniversary of this revolution, the editors of New York asked some of our favorite writers to excavate their individual archives and tell us — with dismay or pride or chagrin — what they saw. from How Gmail Became Our Diary [Intelligencer; ungated]

Thucydides intimates that the careful art of drawing fitting analogies, honed as it may be through the diligent study of political history, will assist some to think more clearly about the present. But mastering this art should not be confused with political mastery. The power of 'great' events will remain too easily harnessed, and too hard to control, to serve only those who are clear-headed and well-intentioned. Specious analogies will remain a danger for as long as people stand to benefit from them, and their emotional pull will continue to knock even the most astute off balance. And yet, if there's little chance that political life will ever be freed from distortive thinking, it may still prove less hazardous for those who look toward history as something more than a sourcebook of convenient parallels. from What would Thucydides say? [Aeon]

Thucydides previously

In this video ad, the Hero Wars mascot Galahad finds himself in dire straits as but a human plough-horse upon the field. His captor, half-cow, half-human woman, brands him on the buttock with what looks like our old friend the purple devil emoji—rather a "naugty" [sic] act. Suddenly set upon by wolves, the cow lady is compromised—and Galahad steps up to become white knight, fending the beasts off with his axe. The cow lady and her new hero Galahad elope to her encampment, where she carries him around like a baby, and spots him for sit-ups. Needless to say, the episode of the bovine damsel does not occur in-game. from The Weird World of Hero Wars Ads: Sex Sells [Splice Today]

For examples see: Hero Wars Ads As Art

Shakespeare toys with numerous European languages throughout his work, including Italian, French, Spanish, and Dutch. Often, these are spoken in thick accents, with comedic pronunciation. The same holds true for his use of the various British dialects—Scots, Welsh, Cornish, and Irish—heard in scruffy taverns or high courts. In Henry V, soldiers fracture the King's English while the king himself and a French princess descend into a comical Franglais courtship. Yet, no matter how garbled the speech, playgoers can usually identify distinct languages and dialects—that is, until they bump up against what scholars have called the "invented language," "unintelligible gabble," and "'Boskos thromuldo boskos' mumbo-jumbo" in his comedy "All's Well That Ends Well." from I Understand Thee, and Can Speak Thy Tongue: California Unlocks Shakespeare's Gibberish [LARB]

By leveraging a unique large dataset and new techniques for exploring this dataset, our paper highlights the diversity of moral dilemmas experienced in daily life, and helps to build a moral psychology grounded in the vagaries of everyday experience. from A Large-Scale Investigation of Everyday Moral Dilemmas, in which Philosophers are studying Reddit's "Am I the Asshole?" [Vox]

Why have philosophers had so little to say about Descartes's stove, and so much to say about his dreams, his resolve, and his conception of analytic geography on that winter's night? Suppressing the agency of the stove makes it easier to tell a simple story about the agency of the individual thinker. But it has made it that much harder to discern the subtle yet powerful ways in which modern air conditioning technologies condition thought, culture, and social experience. from Descartes's Stove by the author of Air Conditioning, Hsuan L. Hsu

Menswear writer Derek Guy compares UK TV personality Piers Moron's fashion style with that of Kermit the Frog. That is all. [a thread on X]

In this episode we'll look at how production notes flat out lie about the making of a film, we'll look at two different sides of Gran Turismo, and we'll check out the history of CGI and why it fell from grace. We'll bust some common misconceptions about CGI, and we'll look at the most notorious "no CGI" project that I know of. the 4th and final episode of "NO CGI" is really just INVISIBLE CGI

Episode 3 Episode 2 [Previously] Episode 1 [Previously]

Paul Auster, the prolific novelist, memoirist and screenwriter who rose to fame in the 1980s with his postmodern reanimation of the noir novel and who endured to become one of the signature New York writers of his generation, died of complications from lung cancer at his home in Brooklyn on Tuesday evening. He was 77. [NY Times; ungated]

Le grand écrivain américain Paul Auster, auteur de « Moon Palace » et « Léviathan », est mort à 77 ans [Le Monde; ungated] Paul Auster's New York Tragedy "an appraisal" by Lucy Sante [New York Times; ungated] Paul Auster, American author of The New York Trilogy, dies aged 77 [Grauniad; ungated] 'A literary voice for the ages': Paul Auster remembered by Ian McEwan, Joyce Carol Oates and more [Grauniad; ungated] Paul Auster, a life in images [El Pais; ungated] Paul Auster: Why Is America the Most Violent Country in the Western World? [LitHub] The Wolves of Stanislav: An Improbably True Parable for the Pandemic Age [LitHub] "Scribe" [LitHub]

At the frame shop there is so much beauty, it can't be real. Maybe this is the afterlife, I think. Or purgatory. ... When my boss stomps up from his frame-building cellar and sees me, he always barks: Are you still here? Which is literal, because I'm new and only working part time, but also existential because how am I still here—or back here? It's been a year since I returned to Chicago, but it still doesn't feel like real life from Don't Bleed on the Artwork: Notes from the Afterlife by Wendy Brenner [Oxford American; ungated]