In May, Ronen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti wrote The Unpunished: How Extremists Took Over Israel (gift link). It's an excellent read.

If you prefer to learn by listening, today, the NYTimes podcast The Daily, did an interview with Bergman that breaks it all down into an easily-understood timeline. It is a great primer on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and I encourage you to listen to it.

If you're done with that and looking for more, check out The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917--2017 by Rashid Khalidi.

A few weeks ago the film geek internet lost its mind because Tony Zhou made the first new episode of Every Frame a Painting in many years. Though I thought the episode was fine, my favorite of his is the one below.

If you're not a film buff and have never really understood what makes one film dynamic and another a bore — of if you're unaware of what a director does, or what blocking is, give it a watch:

And if you enjoyed that, the whole series is here.

This is a few years old but still interesting: a nearly 2 hour walking tour of the Pyramid of Giza. 4K / 60FPS.

Via TKSSS.

I've often joked that there's a Heron that watches over me. In LA, Spain, Vanuatu, The Dominican, and here in Toronto. I'd swear it's the same bird.

And then there's Yaren, a Stork that lives half the year in Africa and half the year in this livestreamed nest in Turkey.

Yaren not only returns to Turkey every March, she returns to the same friend, a Turkish fisherman named Adem Yılmaz. They've spent each Spring and Summer together since 2010.

More on Yaren's Wikipedia page.

Street photographer Meryl Meisler's got a new book, Street Walker. It's available from Eyeshot and they're only printing as many copies as are pre-ordered.

Elvis & Kresse make bags, wallets, and rugs from upcycled firehoses, parachutes, and rescued Burberry Leather. I find their size decisions to be rather odd (for instance, the bag below does not fit a Macbook Air) and I've never been a fan of companies gendering their products, but I can't deny they make gorgeous items that are intelligently and thoughtfully designed. Wonderful details.

Sustainable & Ethical Luxury: Elvis & Kresse - Designer Accessories

Multi award-winning Elvis & Kresse craft reclaimed materials into sustainable luxury lifestyle bags and accessories. All our designer accessories are ethically handmade with 50% of profits donated to Charities. Our rescued materials include fire-hose, leather off-cuts, printing blanket and parachute silk to name a few.

Elvis & KresseElvis & Kresse

David Szauder creates these Anatomy Sweaters using AI, which unfortunately means you can't purchase them.

You can, of course, view more on David's Site.

Amazed I hadn't heard this story before: in 2011, the Chelsea Hotel did a massive renovation. Recognizing the history here that the hotel seems to have missed, Jim Georgiou, a homeless man, rescued the doors from demolition and spent seven years storing and researching who had lived behind them. Once complete, he sold them at auction and donated half the proceeds to City Harvest food bank.

Guensey's, the auction house, handled the sale:

Guernsey’s will be offering 52 original doors from New York City’s legendary Chelsea Hotel. The hotel was the haunt and home of some of the most iconic individuals in history. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Andy Warhol, Jim Morrison, Jackson Pollock, Jerry Garcia — these are only some of the names linked to these doors. The doors to the rooms where Warhol shot his movie Chelsea Girls, where Cohen and Joplin had a one-night stand, and where Bob Dylan wrote songs for Blonde on Blonde are all included in this sale!

Some of the prices: Bob Dylan, $125,000; Janis Joplin / Leonard Cohen, $106,250; Andy Warhol / Edie Sedgwick, $ 65,625; Jack Kerouac, $ 37,500; Madonna / Isabella Rossellini, $16,250; Jimi Hendrix, $16,250; Joni Mitchell, $10,000; Bob Marley, $8,750; Jackson Pollock, $8,750; and an unattributed red door with a striking painted eye, $12,500.

Here's a gift link to the April 12, 2018 NYT article on it.

Screenwriter David Koepp has a website where you can read drafts of his scripts. Box office-wise, he's one of the most successful screenwriters of all time. Though I'm a hit and miss (mostly miss) on much of his work, I do quite like Panic Room and The Trigger Effect (which he also directed).