IYKYK 😂

The written word is having a rough week:

any excuse to post the Lalanne giant duck

What will inevitably happen with this is that the entire conversation will centre on whether or not people can tell if something is written by AI, thereby conveniently obscuring the much more important question: what were the criteria by which this writing was judged as exceptional?

there's a whole bizarre episode about Gladstone noticing the the wine-dark sea thing, writing a big essay on it which then triggered decades of people trying to work out (often wrongly) if it was an evolution of vision or language issue (Guy Deutscher's Through the Language Glass tells the story)

finally, some useful information on here

Huge news in the museum world: Ronald Lauder is giving (giving!) the Neue Galerie to the Met Museum -- 600 artworks, building, the whole thing as.ft.com/r/ce602a4d-b...

you don’t say

Hehe, all the local charities have stalls at Exeter Pride and I think Ambrose The Devon Air Ambulance Bear has been saying "no it's just an actual mascot costume" roughly once every 30 seconds for the last two hours

The author sent me a copy, and it's really something to behold in person.

Thinking back to one of the greatest hater editorials of all time, along with its sheepish correction (49 years later): 🧪https://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/arts/1920editorial-full.pdf

the pandemic sourdough starter in the freezer is going to have the last laugh, isn't it

that aside, it's hard to believe this whole movie wasn't based on someone reading the book on acid

I think my favorite thing about this high-fashion book of Jell-O™ deserts from 1973 is knowing that most of the incredible food in the photographs must necessarily be made of mostly cast acrylic resin:

marginalia getting right to the big questions

In the magical documentaries of Jean Painlevé the animals, especially the sea creatures, are the stars. ‘Each creature, he said, determined the style, structure and commentary.’ Emilie Bickerton is entranced by his world of Surrealism and science.

Fine, fine, I'll order the toddler

TECH BRUNCHLORDS: we believe AI has successfully achieved human-level cognition NEUROLOGISTS: okay so your brain is like, imagine if there was a kind of pudding that sang two bars from Semi-Charmed Life whenever somebody nearby was baking cookies, right? we don’t know why it does that

I am admittedly something of a coffee snob as I only get mine from one place these days but every once in a while I like to see what else is out there and find myself mystified. Pineapple candy! Sprinkles! Just caffeinate me sufficiently so that I do not fall up the stairs

Reading a bad book is like watching a poor fight. Instead of being caught up in it, you try to figure out what is the matter. —A. J. Liebling, “A Talkative Jerk”

frog kite over the Heath

I am pretty sure I am not having a stroke but I just went to look up the location of a bar in Covent Garden and Google Maps thinks The Strand is Oxford Street

Possibly the best thing in Moma's current Duchamp show is this 1913 newspaper cartoon poking fun at his "Nude Descending a Staircase"

The Met introduces Raphael as "one of the greatest influencers of all time"

TIL that John Huston planned a big-budget film about "Freud's discovery of the subconscious" to be scripted by Jean-Paul Sartre, and starring Marilyn Monroe as one of Freud's patients.

supermarket email rather desperately trying to make these ‘flavour trends’ happen

I really love this particular club of ‘what do you mean you thought it was …?!’

What would you like the headline of your obituary to be? 'Publisher of the Dead Joins Them.' —Edwin Frank, NYRB editor, answers a few questions for Cultured magazine.

Way back in the late '90s I was a lecturer at the Whitney during a Charles Ray retrospective, and the guards would talk about unsuspecting visitors reaching out to touch the top of his Ink Box and, when their fingers suddenly descended into the liquid, pulling back and spattering the wall with ink

‘For Charles and Ray Eames, everything was architecture.’ – Catherine Ince on the husband-and-wife duo’s absolutely prefab designs for modern living

I have the worst of two worlds: lutefisk (Scandinavian) - white fish cured in lye (you read that right) and natto (Japanese), fermented soybeans that look and smell like something HR Giger came up with in a test kitchen

Thursday is my favorite day of the year in Barcelona — Sant Jordi. Imagine the center of a US city occupied by acres of book stalls. Streets closed. No cars. Just book shopping. And roses. beteve.cat/agenda/sant-...

perfume has always had a great history of nonsense copy and slogans but we’re reaching new ridiculous heights. I just want to smell nice. I don’t require spiritual overhauls or existential revelations

trying to source some bacon chops and discovered this unintentionally hilarious farm brand photo. at what point did someone go, this is the best we're getting if you insist on the cat

I learned a ton from Robert Rubsam's heartfelt deep-dive into the Bruno Schulz film adaptations by the Brothers Quay, masters of stop-motion puppetry libertiesjournal.com/articles/the...

incredible bit from one of the Guardian's agony column problems

the French cover for Maigret’s Christmas is very good

I would donate to a GoFundMe to re-animate Northrop Frye

anyone need a ham

found out Gladstone wrote a 1500+ pg/3-volume set on all things Homer in his spare time and the Times ran a 30+ page (= book pages) review of it in two instalments (you can still buy Homer and the Homeric Age as well)

Just needed to mention that also born on this day, but in 1832, was Hermenegildo Bustos. Also painted some still-lifey things. Here with added scorpion and frog.

peak north London conversation outside my window: ‘it’s cheaper to go to Italy and pick out a marble slab yourself as you don’t know what’s being sold here’

when we first got a microwave in the 80s my dad made everyone stand in the other room when it was being used

Time for this classic, I believe

as an adult (now with extra age!), this still never fails to please me m.youtube.com/watch?v=SgdV...

What a world this is when you can sit on your sofa and listen to astronauts get permission to stow the toilet for re-entry. 🚽🌍

"Do I scream for the beadle or go for the ham? Do I go for the ham? A baguette dilemma for the Windham-Campbell gal"

does any body want to talk about whether or not things are sandwiches