Month: February 2023

Scent of a Documentary – The A24 Candle Collection

A24 and Joya partnered to create a scented candle collection inspired by nine classic film genres: Horror, Western, Thriller, Noir, Adventure, Musical, Sci-Fi, Rom-Com, and Fantasy. Each Genre Collection candle sold separately.

A24 is the New York City-based entertainment company behind Minari, Uncut Gems, The Lighthouse, The Farewell, Midsommar, Lady Bird, Moonlight, The Witch, The Lobster, Ex Machina and more.

No 10 Documentary – lotus, lavender, vinegar, Chinese coumarin, blackcurrant, brandy, oakmoss

Inspired By: university library archives, weathered newspaper clippings, a timeline of the events. found footage, the opinion of an expert, competing narratives, court documents (newly unsealed), the fog of memory, time.


https://joyastudio.com/products/a24-documentary

10 Tostolyan Conclusions

These conclusions, which paraphrase Tolstoys thought or draw dotted lines from his thought to the present, are offered not as so many truths but as prompts for dialogue.

1. We live in a world of uncertainty. Assured prediction is impossible. History and individual lives contain contingent events that might just as well not have happened. No account that tries to think contingency away can be adequate.

2. There can never be a social science, in the sense that nineteenth-century physics is a science.

3. We need not only knowledge but also wisdom. Wisdom cannot be formalized or expressed adequately in a set of rules. If it could, it would not be wisdom at all. Wisdom is acquired by attentive reflection on experience in all its complexity.

4. Because the world is uncertain, presentness matters. The present moment is not an automatic derivative of the past. In human life, more than one thing can happen at any given moment. Theories that assume otherwise mislead.

5. Because presentness is real, alertness matters. The more uncertain a situation, the greater the value of alertness.

6. Numerous biases distort our perceptions of our lives. We must understand these biases to minimize their effect.

7. The idea that truth lies in the extreme is not only false but also dangerous. Even extraordinary moments are largely the product of what happens at ordinary ones.

8. The road of excess leads to the chamber of horrors.

9. True life takes place when we are doing nothing especially dramatic. The more drama, the worse the life.

10. Plot is an index of error.

Anna Karenina In Our Time
Gary Saul Morson
From the section One Hundred Sixty-Three Tostolyan Conclusions

Mexico Protests Electoral Law Changes

MEXICO CITY — Tens of thousands of people filled Mexico City’s vast main plaza Sunday to protest electoral law reforms that they say threaten democracy. The plaza is normally thought to hold nearly 100,000 people, but many more protesters couldn’t fit in.

The marchers were clad mostly in white and pink — the color of the National Electoral Institute — and shouted slogans like “Don’t Touch my Vote!”

The reforms proposed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador were passed last week. They would cut salaries, funding for local election offices and training for citizens who operate and oversee polling stations. They would also reduce sanctions for candidates who fail to report campaign spending.

“He wants to return to the past” when “the government controlled elections,” said protester Enrique Bastien, 64, a veterinarian, recalling the 1970s and 80s when the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, ruled Mexico with fraud and handouts. “It was a life with no independence.”

Tens of thousands protest Mexico electoral reforms
Tens of thousands of people filled Mexico City’s vast main plaza to protest electoral law reforms that they say threaten democracy

What are some things we just don’t hear anyone say anymore?

What are some things we just don’t hear anyone say anymore?
by u/Up2Eleven in GenX

porkchopespresso
“Smoking or non smoking?”

NAMEEXCEEDSMAXLENGT–
Regular or unleaded?

sweet_ned_kromosome
“I have to return some videotapes.”

soIstartBlasting
Turn off the internet; I’m expecting a phone call

porkchopespresso
“I dropped off the film at Walgreens to get it developed”

Thirty_Helens_Agree
Got one from the boomer-era DJ on my local college station. In the middle of his Friday night 60s show he said he wasn’t able to play a particular track because “there’s a pot seed burn on the record.” DJs on that station also occasionally say something long the lines of “I decided to flip that 45 over and play the B-side for you.”

MadhatterQ
Call me Collect. Or I have to get a phone card

KookyComfortable6709
I need to go to the library to use the encyclopedia for my report due Friday.

Nutbush City Limits – Tina Turner

“Nutbush City Limits” is a semi-autobiographical song written by Tina Turner which commemorates her rural hometown of Nutbush in Haywood County, Tennessee, United States. Originally released as a single on United Artists Records in August 1973, it is one of the last hits that husband-wife R&B duo Ike & Tina Turner released together.

In the years since, “Nutbush City Limits” has been performed by a number of other artists, most notably Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band, and Turner herself has re-recorded several different versions of the song.

As an unincorporated rural community, Nutbush does not have official city limits; rather, its general boundaries are described by signs reading “Nutbush, Unincorporated” which are posted on the local highway (Tennessee State Route 19).

A line dance to the song, called the “Nutbush”, created in the 1970s disco era, took off in Australia during the 1980s, and it has seen sustained success to this day, including gaining viral popularity internationally through TikTok.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutbush_City_Limits

Top Songs of the 80s

WFNX Top 101 of the Decade (1989)
https://www.rocklists.com/alltime16.html

1. The Smiths – How Soon is Now?
2. The Cure – Just Like Heaven
3. Modern English – I Melt With You
4. The Cult – She Sells Sanctuary
5. U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday
6. The B-52’s – Love Shack
7. R.E.M. – It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
8. The Cure – In Between Days
9. Talking Heads – Once in a Lifetime
10. New Order – Blue Monday
11. R.E.M. – Radio Free Europe
12. U2 – Bad
13. XTC – Dear God
14. Peter Gabriel – In Your Eyes
15. The Clash – London Calling
16. Talking Heads – Burning Down the House
17. New Order – True Faith
18. U2 – Pride (in the Name of Love)
19. The Cure – The Lovecats
20. The The – Uncertain Smile
21. Kate Bush – Running Up that Hill
22. The B-52’s – Roam
23. U2 – I Will Follow
24. The Mighty Lemon Drops – Inside Out
25. Public Image Ltd. – Rise
26. The Sugarcubes – Birthday
27. The Cure – A Night Like This
28. R.E.M. – Fall on Me
29. Tracy Chapman – Fast Car
30. Ministry – Every Day is Halloween
31. Sinéad O’Connor – Mandinka
32. U2 – New Year’s Day
33. The Cure – Let’s Go to Bed
34. The Pixies – Monkey Gone to Heaven
35. The Psychedelic Furs – Pretty in Pink
36. R.E.M. – So. Central Rain
37. O Positive – With You
38. New Order – Age of Consent
39. The English Beat – Save It for Later
40. The Cure – Close to Me
41. XTC – Mayor of Simpleton
42. Violent Femmes – Blister in the Sun
43. Big Audio Dynamite – E=MC2
44. New Order – Temptation
45. The Cure – Why Can’t I Be You
46. The Vapors – Turning Japanese
47. The Replacements – Alex Chilton
48. Tears for Fears – Mad World
49. INXS – The One Thing
50. R.E.M. – Pretty Persuasion
51. Bryan Ferry – Slave to Love
52. Chameleons U.K. – Swamp Thing
53. The Clash – Rock the Casbah
54. The Waterboys – The Whole of the Moon
55. Mission of Burma – That’s When I Reach for My Revolver
56. The Smithereens – Blood and Roses
57. Roxy Music – Avalon
58. Hoodoo Gurus – Bittersweet
59. Indigo Girls – Closer to Fine
60. U2 – I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
61. The Cure – Lullaby
62. The Smiths – Bigmouth Strikes Again
63. Love and Rockets – So Alive
64. Peter Gabriel – Red Rain
65. The The feat. Sinéad O’Connor – Kingdom of Rain
66. Roxy Music – More than This
67. New Order – The Perfect Kiss
68. The Pretenders – Precious
69. The B-52’s – Private Idaho
70. Echo & the Bunnymen – The Killing Moon
71. The Sisters of Mercy – This Corrosion
72. U2 – With or Without You
73. Siouxsie and the Banshees – Cities in Dust
74. The Clash – Clampdown
75. Echo & the Bunnymen – Bring on the Dancing Horses
76. The The – Infected
77. Depeche Mode – Just Can’t Get Enough
78. INXS – Don’t Change
79. Morrissey – Suedehead
80. U2 – Two Hearts Beat as One
81. The Cure – Fascination Street
82. Echo & the Bunnymen – Lips Like Sugar
83. The Pixies – Gigantic
84. The Church – Under the Milky Way
85. The English Beat – I Confess
86. The Cure – Love Song
87. XTC – Senses Working Overtime
88. Peter Gabriel – Sledgehammer
89. INXS – Need You Tonight
90. Tribe – Abort
91. Midnight Oil – Beds are Burning
92. The Godfathers – Birth, School, Work, Death
93. Billy Idol – White Wedding
94. Simple Minds – Don’t You (Forget About Me)
95. The Psychedelic Furs – The Ghost in You
96. INXS – Devil Inside
97. Blondie – Rapture
98. The Pretenders – Back on the Chain Gang
99. Thomas Dolby – She Blinded Me With Science
100. Gene Loves Jezebel – Desire
101. David Bowie – Cat People

Losing Your Job Because You’re Sick Then Losing Your Insurance Because You’re Unemployed

There are plenty of cases in this book where you find just frustration with the way our health care system works or does not work. You know, one interesting story you tell is of a woman who comes into the emergency room. This is not during the COVID days. She comes into the emergency room, and she wants chemotherapy treatments, and she knows she has cancer. And in fact, she has detailed instructions from the oncologist who has been treating her. Why was she coming to the emergency room?

NAHVI: Well, she came to the emergency room because her oncologist had stopped treating her. So what her story was – she was a young lady. She was diagnosed with cancer. And then she started getting treatment for her cancer with an oncologist at a private – not-for-profit but private institution. And then what happened was that because of her chemotherapy and her cancer treatments, she took too many sick days from her job. So she ended up losing her job. Then she lost her health insurance because of losing her job.

So her chemo – her oncologist wasn’t able to see her anymore because she didn’t have insurance anymore. So he or she referred this patient to our hospital, which was a public hospital where I was working at the time. She didn’t understand that she had to go see an oncologist. So she just came to the emergency room. And I thought there was a misunderstanding.

I saw her, and I said, you know, I’m an ER doctor. I – if I could treat you, I absolutely would. I just don’t have these tools. I don’t have that capability. And then we ended up kind of going from there. But that’s how she ended up in the emergency room with me.

DAVIES: But it’s interesting – I mean, it would take her, I think she said, weeks or months to get an appointment with an oncologist. And she knew that if you come to the ER, they have to treat you, right? I mean, so she figured, hey, you can’t send me away.

NAHVI: That was what she told us, yes. She said that she was familiar, that there was some law out there, that if you are uninsured under any circumstances, you come to an emergency room, we have to treat you. And she’s right. Except the caveat to that, which kind of is what made me so uncomfortable at that time, was that she had a great understanding of the situation, except that what we have to do in the ER is stabilize you, not necessarily treat you. So you have to be evaluated by law. And whatever we can do to stabilize you, we have to do.

In the eyes of this legislation, she was stable. So she had cancer, and she was dying, but she was dying slowly. She wasn’t dying quickly. So she was technically stable. And it became this kind of horrible thing that I had to explain to her that, yes, you’re protected by this law and yes, you have cancer and yes, you’re dying, but I can’t help you.

An ER doc reflects on life, death and uncertainty in the early days of COVID-19
Fresh Air

What’s In My Bag – Damien Jurado

Damien Jurado goes shopping at Amoeba Music in Hollywood. His latest album ‘Reggae Film Star’ is available from Maraqopa Records.

Check out his picks:
Scott Walker – Scott 3 (CD)
Cécile McLorin Salvant – Ghost Song (LP)
Ritchie Valens – Ritchie Valens (LP)
The Standells – Why Pick On Me / Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White (LP)
Fugazi – Instrument [OST] (LP)
Bobby Darin – The Direction Albums (LP)
Various Artists – Back From The Grave, Volume 9 (LP)
The 4 Seasons – The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette (LP)
Frank Sinatra – Watertown (LP)
The Doors – The Doors (LP)
Jessica Pratt – Quiet Signs (LP)
King Crimson – In The Court Of The Crimson King (LP)

It’s Hard to Appreciate What You See Every Day, Examples of


What does Europe have that North America does not? from AskReddit

__ijustbluemyself__
I grew up in a place called Rochester, Kent. We have a Norman castle that I lived about a 10 minute walk from. It was so normal to me that I didn’t even think about it.

I came back to visit years after I’d moved away and was like… fucking hell this is like 1000 years old. I learnt to ride my bike in the castle gardens and didn’t register the castle

Jypahttii
Know how you feel. I grew up in Cornwall where there’s a lot of wild coast paths you can walk, and one section has some standing stones in a field, smaller but similar to Stonehenge. As an adult I’m like “wow these were left by the Celts and are several thousand years old”. As a kid I was like “whatevs mate it’s just some fuckin stones innit”

 

Ohio Train Disaster

Car inspections have experienced some of the biggest cuts. Norfolk Southern management has gradually reduced the amount of time workers are allowed to spend inspecting trains for defects before they leave rail yards. About seven years ago, according to Motherboard’s previous reporting and confirmed by Whitaker, management set a recommendation that workers spend no more than two and a half minutes per car. In recent years, that time limit has dwindled to less than 90 seconds per car—not enough time, workers say, to actually inspect anything, when cars can be up to 100 feet in length. Norfolk Southern did not answer Motherboard’s question about the issue of car inspections in its response.

Because of staff cuts, workers who used to inspect hundreds of cars a day now have to inspect a thousand or more, according to multiple Norfolk Southern employees Motherboard interviewed in 2021. They said that managers will pressure workers not to report safety defects they discover, because fixing them will hurt PSR metrics such as the amount of time trains spend in the terminal, which, under PSR’s philosophy, is supposed to be as little as possible. But, if they don’t report a defect and something catastrophic happens on the rails, workers feel vulnerable, believing the company will try to pin responsibility on individual workers not following official protocol. As a result, workers feel they operate under two different, often contradictory rulebooks, one official to maintain a pretense of safety and one unofficial intended to keep trains moving. In this sense, one mechanic who worked for Norfolk Southern for 13 years, told Motherboard that workers can “kind of be screwed one way or the other.”

‘32 Nasty:’ Rail Workers Say They Knew the Train That Derailed in East Palestine Was Dangerous
A freight train carrying toxic chemicals derailed 50 miles outside Pittsburgh, forced thousands to evacuate, and created a toxic cloud. Workers knew the train had safety issues.
VICE
Aaron Gordon

Some William James Anecdotes

A Gift for Hellen Keller:
There were also field trips, such as the one James took in May 1892 with sixteen grad students to interview the twelve-year-old Helen Keller. Keller later recalled that James “brought me a beautiful ostrich feather. ‘I thought,’ he said, ‘you would like the feather, it is soft, light, and caressing.’”

Visit to His Late Sister’s Old Neighborhood:
James is edging up on a notion of immortality here. He was thinking of more than his own. The day before he started lecturing at Oxford, he had been at Leamington, where his sister Alice had lived, and where he had so memorably rushed up to see her nineteen years before. Though it was raining, James made a point of looking up her old lodgings. What of Alice James might remain at 9 Halliburton Terrace?

His Brother Bob Thanks Him for Sending a Copy of His Book:
In October The Meaning of Truth appeared. A grumpy thank-you note from brother Bob urged William, “For God’s sake stop your research for truth (pragmatic or otherwise) and try and enjoy life.”

William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism
Robert Richardson
(Highly recommended)