ROVR describes itself as Radio Reinvented:

It's live right now, or you can comb through the Archive.

There's also an app for iPhone or Android.

What I've heard so far has been top-notch.

NPR's Books We Love offers up 12 years and counting of their favorite books. Some great filters as well. For example:

• Eye-opening reads from 2022
• Seriously Great Writing from 2013
• Tales From Around the World from 2017.
• Etc.

Terrific resource, very well presented.

I previously posted about 12 Pentagons Hand-made footballs. They've just dropped a new one, limited to 1000 pieces: 32 Bit Mesh.

Two Pages is a series of nomadic sketchbooks shared by designers, artists, and illustrators around the world.

Since 2012, Two Pages connects local and international creative communities through raw creativity and spontaneous mark-making. It is an ongoing effort to record, spread and exchange ideas through the hand-to-hand journey of each book.

Past cities include Barcelona, Tokyo, Antwerp, Mexico City, Tehran, Cape Town, London, and many more. Toronto is happening right now.

You can read an interview with creators on It's Nice That and view Sketchbooks from all cities on Two Pages.

My record store no longer carries new vinyl (used only), but I thought my customers may want to know that Mississippi Records is releasing Yo La Tengo's soundtrack to Kelly Reichardt's 2006 film Old Joy on vinyl for the first time in February. You can pre-order here. You can sample the first track below.

James Lake is known for his phenomenal cardboard sculptures, some of them self-portraits.

His latest piece is stop-motion animated short called Another Day. Lovely work:

More on Lake's site.

Summer Wagner's Midamerican Fever Dream is a narrative series that, surprisingly, is made of photos, not paintings.

The entire series is here. Wagner's other work can also be viewed on their site.

I was rather shocked to learn that an Albatross can live this long; researchers are surprised she's still laying eggs: World's Oldest Known Wild Bird Lays Egg at 74. Amazing.

Surreal and devastating story about an IVF mixup. (NYTM gift link.)

Fantastic info and accompanying video footage of a Robin and their chicks.

Anecdote Alert

One morning, while hiking with my dog, I crossed Parkside Drive to enter Toronto's High Park when something in the sky drew my attention. It was a bird, but it wasn't flying; it was falling, and it hit the ground, hard. It was a Robin, choking on a worm.

I scooped it from the road before a car could squish it and I slowly pulled the worm from its throat. I waited while the bird lay motionless on its side. A few seconds passed and it regained consciousness, slightly stunned. It looked at me and I at it and we sat there for a moment, both of us thinking: Well, that was something!

The bird started to hop but seemed reluctant to fly. It took cover in some brush and stood there, looking at me. I picked up the worm and laid it near the bird, waiting to see if it would eat it again, but it didn't. It just stayed there, blinking. I imagined it was experiencing satori.

I rose, and Shakedown and I continued our walk.

That was four years ago, but I think of that bird every day because I pass that same stretch of road daily.

I like birds. I've always liked them. There is a Heron that watches over me called Gilgan that I've seen in six countries in one form or another. One day, I'll have a her tattoo'd on the top of my left hand. Two years ago, I swiped right on a Tinder profile because of a woman named Wren. It was a small movement, but one of the most impactful in my life, for we became great friends. Before meeting her, the word Wren summoned Auguries of Innocence, which I always incorrectly recall as "He who'd harm the little Wren / Can never be a friend of men."

Of course, the poem also mentions the robin:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour
A Robin Red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage 
...

My other associations with the bird are Leonard Cohen (I can't keep track of each fallen robin), and this:

Do robins walk or hop?

This is a question from the smash-hit 80s board game Trivial Pursuit. My family played it often and one time this was the winning question for me. I concentrated as best I could, trying to decide. I'd seen plenty of robins, but I have minor aphantasia, meaning I cannot create moving pictures in my mind's eye. Think! How do robins move?

The sand in the timer was running out, so I figured I'd just guess and have a 50/50 chance of winning.

"Hop," I said.

My stepbrother-in-law, who was a monster of a man, was delighted to tell me I'd got it wrong. He showed me the card. The answer was Yes.