- The Pleasure of Falling Asleep With a Book on Your Face [comic via New York Times, header image source]
- How to Embrace Sobremesa, the Mexican Art of Lingering at the Table [food and wine] “It’s about an interchange of experiences, knowledge, and laughs. It encourages you to be present, not worrying about your troubles, and appreciate the simple moments in life….” During sobremesa, plates are cleared, sweet treats are set, drinks are replenished, and digestifs are brought out serving as fuel for conversations, ranging from lighthearted to deep and emotional. The chatter often lasts longer than the meal and eases into the next activity or preludes bedtime, depending on the dining time.
- ‘I’m good, I promise’: the loneliness of the low-ranking tennis player [the guardian]
“Can we get you anything, Andre?” the gaggle circling him asked earnestly. “Uh, sure, I’ll have some water,” he replied half-heartedly, even though he was standing a few paces from a fridge full of bottled water. He wanted to give them something to do. One of them was dispatched and quickly came back with a plastic glass full of chilled water. Andre took a small sip and put it down on the table beside him, the one I was sitting at. He didn’t pick it back up. After a few moments, Andre and his entourage moved on.
I couldn’t stop staring at the glass of water he had left behind, and considering what it represented. I stared at the smudges left in the condensation by his fingers, and then watched the water marks slowly bleed out to the bottom of the glass. Agassi later wrote in his autobiography of how lonely he found tennis. I understood what he meant, of course – I found it lonely, too. But remembering the sight of him besieged by help in San Jose, I think I’d have preferred his kind of loneliness. - I Shrink 10x every 21 seconds until I’m an atom! – youtube vid below
- The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel – youtube vid below
Jenny NIcholson’s 4 hour critique of Disney’s Galactic Starcruiser experience – very … immersive! - A whole slew of tv scripts – check it out if you’re into TV Writing!
- Friendship in a Time of Chaos [substack]
“Fans Are Not Friends …
Sometimes people you think are your friends are not friends, they are ‘fans’. This is the case for anyone whether they are well-known or not. The difference between ‘friend’ and ‘fan’ mightn’t be obvious in areas beyond the traditional ‘performer/artist and fan’ dynamic, but briefly, a friend is interested in You; a fan is only interested in what you do. A friend is someone you are interested in; a fan is someone you expect to endlessly adore you and always be positive about everything you do.” - A.I. ‘Friend’ for Public School Students Falls Flat. Los Angeles schools hired a start-up to build an A.I. chatbot for parents and students. A few months later, the company collapsed. [nytimes gift article]
“A.I. companies are heavily marketing themselves to schools, which spend tens of billions of dollars annually on technology. But AllHere’s sudden breakdown illustrates some of the risks of investing taxpayer dollars in artificial intelligence, a technology with enormous potential but little track record, especially when it comes to children. There are many complicated issues at play, including privacy of student data and the accuracy of any information offered via chatbots. And A.I. may also run counter to another growing interest for education leaders and parents — reducing children’s screen time.” - The American Novel Has a Major Problem With Fat People [new republic]
“In Jonathan Franzen’s Crossroads (2021), one of the central characters, Marion, is introduced as “the overweight person who was Marion.” “Sexually,” Franzen writes, “there was no angle from which a man on the street might catch a glimpse of her and be curious to see her from a different angle, no point of relief from what she and time had done to her.”
….
Reading fiction has long been my sacred space, where I go to see the world reflected on the page, not to mention that reading fiction builds empathy. But whose world? And empathy for whom? Only those whose bodies we deem socially acceptable?” - AN OPEN LETTER TO WYNA LIU, THE NEW YORK TIMES’ CONNECTIONS EDITOR [mcsweeney’s]
“When I work out two categories and have just eight words left, you’d think it’d be easy. But that’s still seventy possible combinations. Seventy!”
nikiverse 