The tenth annual (May, 1973) Leonard J Waxdeck Bird Calling Contest at Piedmont High School. Great fun.
Today, Metafilter turned 25.
It's the only website I check at least once a day (in reality, it's probably closer to 20, especially if you include ask.metafilter). I've been a member since 2002, which means, at an minimum, I've loaded its front page more than 8000 times.
I've visited it more often than Gmail (MF has been around longer) and Google.com — in fact, I was an early user of gmail because Jessamyn West (MetaFilter's current owner) sent me an invite before it was opened to all users.
To my mind, MetaFilter is unquestionably one of best things ever about the Internet.
Much of the press it's getting in honor of being around a quarter of a century is identifying it as "the good internet." Absolutely true.
HBD, MF!
Black Film Archive is a living register of Black films. In its current iteration, it showcases Black films made from 1898 to 1999 currently streaming.
The Public Domain Review has a nice page on Japanese Fireman's Coats of the 19th Century.
Check them all out on their site:
Japanese Firemen’s Coats (19th century)
Firemen’s coats in 19th-century Japan were reversible — one side was plain and the other side (worn on the inside while tackling blazes) was decorated with rich and symbolic imagery
The NYTimes asked 500+ authors what their favorite books of the 21st century were. The page is interactive so you can track what you've read or hope to read. My fave is on there at #52: Denis Johnson's Train Dreams.
I've posted the full list in the above link, but you can also browse by the polled authors, which may be of more interest.
If you're someone who's always looking for a good book recommendation, you may also appreciate this Ask Metafilter thread: Nonfiction Authors Who Know What They're Writing About.
Ant Lab is back with another stunning video, this one of Beetles, in flight and at swim, filmed at 6000 frames per second.
If you're unfamiliar with the Ant Lab channel, check out their vid on moths from a few years ago:
Kathleen Reilly has redesigned the butterknife so that it doesn't slide off plates and jars. Genius.
She calls this knife Oku. It was inspired by Japanese design and the Oku are made there. Back her on Kickstarter or get more information on her site.
Years ago, I had a small stroke that caused me to reevaluate what I was doing with my life and with my work. Invitations to my next birthday party went out with a photo and readings of two poems, one by James Wright and one by David Whyte.
In the years since, a number of the guests to that party have told me how much they enjoyed the poems. Here they are, along with the photo:
Robert Pattinson reads a poem by James Wright
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Everything Is Waiting for You written and read by David Whyte
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I’d taken the photo post-stroke, while bathing in a client’s bathtub in Beverly Glen, her dog Bailey watching from the sidelines. For some reason, the framing of it reminded me of Alex Colville's work, so I later tinted it in his style.
Outside that bathroom, not far away, the Skirball Fire was having its way with Bel Air, the neighborhood that was literally across the street from where I was staying. I'd spent the morning feeding the chickens and cats and walking the dogs as ash fell from the sky. I'd become consumed by chaos and worry about when it would be our time to evacuate the neighborhood. (If everyone flees simultaneously, no one gets anywhere, so you wait until instructed.)
My client was incommunicado, so I'd taken it upon myself to load her SUV with what I assumed were her prized possessions, leaving just enough room for me and the pets. Thankfully, on the morning when the street's more experienced residents had predicted we'd have to leave, the wind changed and we were able to stay put. Though the fire continued to blaze, the flames never crossed that street; the ash never returned. I drew a bath to celebrate and re-center myself.
Unpredictably, with a glowing reference from that Beverly Glen client (neighbors conveyed my preparedness, which they witnessed through their windows), I started getting job offers from people living in danger zones with their pets. A year later I got calls from a couple in Malibu, and would have accepted the gig had I not already been booked in Santa Monica. While there, the Woolsey Fire scorched that beach-side town. I heard numerous horror stories from fleeing residents who'd moved into the Santa Monica Fairmont Miramar, where I'm a regular at the main bar. They literally had nothing left but the clothes on their backs. Then, I booked a 4+ month gig in Vanuatu during cyclone season which I completed without incident. Less than a month after I left, Cyclone Harold ripped through much of the South Pacific archipelago, including the property I'd been living on, sparing my clients and their staff and their buildings — which had been built to withstand cyclones — but laying waste to much of the greenery.
Today, I'm reminded of this bathroom photo and these poems and that birthday invitation, because someone shared The Poetry Atlas on Metafilter and used the Wright poem as an example. Want to know, exactly, where the hammock swings that the narrator is wasting their life in? The Poetry Atlas will tell you.
The second poem is by David Whyte, who's written and spoken many wonderful things. If you appreciated the line, "Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity," you will enjoy his book, Consolations, which has many such pieces of wisdom. One of my favourites is "Beauty is the harvest of presence."
(In my mind, I always link that line to one by Tom Stoppard: "Life's bounty is in its flow, later is too late." Perhaps you also have lines or definitions that are forever-conflated? Do I digress? So be it. I digress.)
In What to Remember When Waking, Whyte tells the story of an ancient Irish tribe who no longer wish to fight — he describes them as "no longer wanting to have that conversation." So, when next they're confronted with battle, "they turn sideways into the light and disappear into the originality of it all."
Considering the "conversations" we're having, and reflecting on whether they're helping us be the person we want to be, living the life we want to live, can lead to some of life's great awakenings. Am I wasting my life in the right way?
After that stroke, I sold Good Music, my Toronto record shop, to a competitor, and made a promise to myself that I would no longer do things solely for money. I no longer wanted to have that conversation. Rather, I wanted to live a time-rich life. If that doesn't sound easy, I can assure you that it's absolutely harder than it sounds — for the most part, I've managed to do that while living in some interesting places, despite threats of fire, cyclone, or comfortable hammock.
The Geographics YouTube channel has a documentary on Kowloon Walled City, the once extraordinary and ungoverned enclave in Hong Kong.
Click the image below and then use the magnifying glass to zoom in on a cross-section of the city. Simply incredible.
More details on the image on Spoon + Tomago's site.
Via Metafilter.
Some nice street photography and portraiture by Brit, Charlie Kwai.
More in the Projects section of Charlie Kwai's site.
Charlie Kwai
Charlie Kwai is a British photographer known for his direct approach to street photography across the UK and around the Globe.
