Thom's Link Emporium - 6 March 2022

Links

• Teenagers watching Tourette's videos on TikTok are showing unusual symptoms of Tourette's. This is an excellent, fascinating piece. It’s interesting that when people are told about a symptom having a mental aspect that they feel like they’re being told they’re a liar, but so much of our physical health has a mental aspect. Basically, they’re suffering from something real, it’s just not like regular Tourette’s.

• It's a cliché that most journalists in the US live in Brooklyn, but if we accept that it's true, why did it happen and what are the implications? I like the use of economic reasoning to explain the status quo in journalism.

• Yuval Noah Harari thinks that Putin has already lost

• The Protagonist’s Best Friend Would Like to Stop Having to Shoehorn So Much Exposition into Their Dialogue:

“Here are some other facts, apropos of nothing: You’re close with your grandmother, but she still refuses to explain the significance of the cryptic map that hangs over her fireplace because “it’s too dangerous.” You’re self-conscious about your height and you’re allergic to roses. A local zookeeper has just been infected with a mysterious tiger virus, and he rides the same bus as you. Your kitchen is home to an extensive collection of high-end olive oils—and yes, that will come in handy later on in a hilarious, slippery way you’ll never see coming.”

• Kongō Gumi is the oldest company in the world. It was founded in 578 to build buddhist temples

• Download director's commentaries which you can then listen to as podcasts:

• What is it like to work at the Sherlock Holmes museum in London? (Spoiler: Not great, but entertaining)

• RIP Shirley Hughes. Almost all of the first books I can remember (Dogger, Lucy and Tom’s Christmas) are all by Shirley Hughes. Her books were wonderful for children and showed real-life, untidy and characterful houses. They’ve kept their magic for me all my life, and the Christmas in Lucy and Tom’s Christmas* is still the Ur-Christmas for me.

• Ted Gioia on the acquisition of Bandcamp by Epic Games

“When I was a younger man, I used to handle negotiations on business acquisitions. I’ve lost count, but I probably did 30 or 40 multimillion dollar deals over the years. In more than a few instances, the acquiring company destroyed the business it bought. Not immediately, but it happened sooner or later. They didn’t do it out of malice or contempt. They often had the best intentions. But when forced to choose, they did what was best for the parent company, not the acquired business.”

• Hours of fun to be had playing around with some beats and basslines on this Roland Studio tool

• The Scottish Highlands, Appalachians and Atlas Mountains all used to be part of the same mountain range

Listening

• My top albums for February (not necessarily released in February, but at least from this year):

  1. Time Skiffs - Animal Collective (Spotify,  Music) Tuneful mayhem from the indie stalwarts.

  2. Texas Moon EP - Khruangbin & Leon Bridges (Spotify,  Music) World music aficionados find a kindred spirit in Leon Bridges making what sounds like Frank Ocean outtakes.

  3. Live from Studio S2 - Hania Rani (Spotify,  Music) Solo piano music from the Polish musician and composer.

  4. Motordrome - MØ (Spotify,  Music) Indie pop star MØ returns with a fresh, inviting album with a dark side

  5. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You - Big Thief (Spotify,  Music). Beautiful, melodic folk pop

• Here’s some of my favourite music from February on Spotify and on  Music

• Also, this week’s In Our Time about anarchist Peter Kropotkin was excellent

Reading

• I haven’t been reading many books this week what with the extra time I’ve been forced to devote to doomscrolling. However, a few weeks ago I finished Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr. I absolutely loved his All The Light We Cannot See, and definitely enjoyed the scope and adroit handling of the various threads but it didn’t hit me in the heart quite as much as All The Light…

Watching

• I went to see The Batman. It was fine, I guess. I liked the grittiness, Robert Pattinson was well cast as a sulky Kurt Cobain and I like the idea of Batman returning to his detective roots. Perhaps its best feature is that it didn’t end up with a couple of invincible people kicking the crap out of each other. But it was pretty long and I’m not sure it really sold its reason to exist.

Some Batman Bonus content

• I am watching a darker, grittier Batman movie:

• Dorian Lynskey on the history of Batman

• Jake Kring-Schreifels on Designing Gotham

• And who cares about plot holes?

Quote

Take life seriously but none of the people in it.

Kurt Vonnegut, Letter to Gail Godwin, 25 November 1967 (From Letters of Note newsletter)

*Now called “Lucy and Tom at Christmas” to make it sound like a cookery’s show’s festive special