• We're Still Here - indigenous hip-hop.
  
  
• The new U2, American Obituary, dedicated to Renee Good.
  
  
• Eleanor Rigby on a wax cylinder
  
  
• Marvin Gaye: What's Goin' On blended with Mercy, Mercy Me, since the original mix is a bit clouded in reverb, with not too much rhythm presence.
  
  
• The Droids: The Force (1977)
  
  
• In 2003 Peter Gabriel sang Solsbury Hill while pedaling around the stage on a bicycle.
  
  
• Doncha Bother Me by the Rolling Stones. And didja know they once did a Rice Krispies commercial, for which Brian wrote the jingle?

For today, a mid-1960s street scene. It's New York, Broadway at 49th, the Brill Building. Click for more about Jack Dempsey's Bar.

• This map among many produced by this amusing tool of Chat GPT rankings, inequalities.ai, the Silicon Gaze: a typology of biases and inequality in LLMs through the lens of place. Fiddle around with the filters to produce your own pseudo-info-graphics.
  
  
• Cute car showcase: Subaru's Small Wonder, the 1969 360 Super Deluxe at Vintage Everyday. And from the present day, the Ora Ballet Cat.
  
  
• The 1978 Marvel Super Special Beatles Story comic (.pdf)
  
  
• Sonic weapons in literature: Atlas Shrugged and Inspector Imanishi Investigates, and now, IRL, the Washington Post reports on the Discombobulator and Havana Syndrome.
  (archive link)
  
  
• Been awhile since mentioning Bored Panda (and these days, any unrecognized, fantastic imagery is immediately AI-suspect), nevertheless, noticed a couple of these elesewhere recently and now they're showing up in 50 Incredible Buildings^* That Showcase Human Creativity. The familiars were #41, that aerial view of the intersection of Rue Simart and Rue Eugène Sue in Paris, with those inner courtyards; and the Massive 1886-1906 Wooden Building in Pennsylvania, #69.
* actually, there's 92

• From the 1966 TV21 comic, The Daleks, by Terry Nation. (Click for the whole page.) Lots more in The Dalek Outer Space Book at the Internet Archive.
  
  
• Joe Frank: Somewhere Out There, the 2019 documentary. I've yet to see it since it's never free, apparently due to licensing issues with the music, but here's the trailer, and a 2021 Dave Carlson discussion thereof with clips. Bonus: a newer Joe, Reality Check, from 2013.
  
  
• Also of PBS I'm watching the American Experience from last September, Hard Hat Riot, the clash over Vietnam that swung blue collars to the right, days after Kent State.

• Posing with the Yellow Submarine in Liverpool Alley in Mazatlán last month. Seems to me naming things 'Liverpool' in Mexico is problematic; they've had a department store down there with that name since the 19th century. Looking into other such sculptures I see they have one in Liverpool, England, at the airport. Created in 1984 for exhibition at the International Garden Festival, a yellow submarine, true - but in no way a sculpture of the Yellow Submarine, who're they trying to kid with that thing?
  
  
• WPA Poster Search into the Library of Congress database.

• Mr Neutral vs. Mr Natural
  Scroll down in the Robert Romagnoli entry of the Lambiek Comiclopedia to see a 1976 Mr Neutral parody he drew, with the claim that it disturbed R.Crumb such that he decided to discontinue 'Mr Natural' immediately. He'd been doing this weekly strip for The Village Voice (these were collected in Mr Natural #3). That sequence concludes with Flakey Floont, now married to Ruth Schwartz, having the newly-re-enlightened guru commited. Crumb on Mr Natural #3; no mention of Robert Romagnoli. The Natch did return, in the pages of Hup (1987), and then again in Mystic Funnies (1997). But I remember hearing Crumb say in a more recent interview that he hadn't been motivated to draw Mr Natural in years, even as he made an unexpected cameo in "Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers" in 2022.
  
  
• 14 Atomic Comics at the ORAU Museum of Radiation and Radioactivity.
  
  
• My first book about famous inventors and scientists included chapters on Alexander Fleming, who first created penicillin; Lee DeForest, inventor of the audion;^* and George Washington Carver. Apparently the latter not only taught crop rotation and learned to make ink from peanuts, he was the Scientist Who Crocheted. Check his fancy lace-work!

  * DeForest sent an open letter to the National Association of Broadcasters in 1940 in which he demanded: "What have you done with my child, the radio broadcast? You have debased this child, dressed him in rags of ragtime, tatters of jive and boogie-woogie."

• Upper detail from a 1922 Azulejo panel in Lisbon, depicting an episode from a 1385 Battle between the Portuguese and Castilian armies. Ceramic Azulejo tiling developed on the Iberian peninsula as early as the 13th century but it was the later half of the 17th when (originally Chinese) blue-and-white Delftware arrived and inspired. The Portuguese tile whole exterior walls of their buildings with Azulejo.
  
  
• One of the earliest offerings in these pages are my New York Worlds Fair recollections. Here's 20 minutes of somebody's home movies there, the Fletcher Snapp footage. Lots of Chrysler, not enough Ford and no GM or GE.

• Today I Learned, finally, not only what it means, but how to say it: Synecdoche.
  
  
• A Cute Keychain Camera That's Beyond Retro: Kodak's tiny Charmera.
  
  
• Quoting the Declaration of Independence, now: in the judge's order, releasing the kid (.pdf); and in Alec's most recent, You are being misled about renewable energy technology.

• The Outer Limits: Too Disturbing for 1960s Television? A video tour of several episodes which shook up the RerunZone. I dunno, The Mice does have a disgusting 'bear' but I think It Crawled Out Of The Woodwork is a serious omission here. Repost, for reference: My Life in the Glow of The Outer Limits.
  
  
• Another repost of an extensive fan's site: the David Bowie Pushing Ahead of the Dame.
  
  
• More AI; Dieselpunk, this time; with an actual storyline. Synthsaga scifi presents: The Callaway line!
  
  
• At BirdNote, Claire de Loon.

• Glorious Postcards from the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05). More weird than glorious; example above (note ship flying the Russian Naval ensign). Also at Flashbak: Life in 1940-60s Florida in Gorgeous Kodachrome (don't miss).
  
  
• List of discontinued Pepperidge Farm cookies in the History Oasis. Dresden? Biarritz?! Unmentioned are Orleans; their original, single-sided disks just a memory from long ago, but even their more contemporary, Milano-sandwich form seems to be unavailable now. More, with slight overlap: 19 discontinued Pepperidge Farm snacks we miss the most. Actually, most of those, unfamiliar to me. Best Pepperidge Farm cookies, ranked is an up-to-date listing which includes selections from their new Thin and Crispy line, which are quite good, equivalent, maybe better than Tate's. However, Bordeaux, #1? I don't think so.

• Musical ensemble Sō Percussion performs Steve Reich’s “Music for Pieces of Wood” inside Richard Serra's "Running Arcs (For John Cage)". I remember my surprise when I realized Steve Reich's minimalistic music was NOT electronic. Actually got to see his Octet performed at Carnegie Hall, in the early 1980s.
  
  
• More about the monumental 1992 Running Arcs (For John Cage) sculpture by Richard Serra. I experienced his "Torqued Ellipses" at Dia:Beacon in New York near Yonkers.

• It's Mozart's birthday and my local classical station's Mike Nelson's playing all his persoanl faves - great stuff!

• According to Vivian Chung at the Huffington Post, If You Store Your Bread In The Freezer, You're Getting An Unexpected Health Benefit: Retrogradation, and Resistant Starch. One study found that toasting bread after freezing and defrosting lowered glucose response even further. For once, I've been doing something right.
  
  
• "The most incredible display of aurora I've ever seen in my 20 years of flying." Pilot Matt Melnyk took pictures.
  
  
• A great joy in my life has been spending idle afternoon hours in musty old dilapidated used-book stores. They're all gone, I guess; and to get those materials one might turn now to abebooks or the site I just tried, GoodwillBooks.com. They have CDs & DVDs also.
  (via)

• Who Is In Space right now?
  
  
• End of the line for the Hello Kitty shinkansen.
  
  
• California's Wine Tasting Train Rides.

• Suggestion from Entropic Thoughts: every kitchen should have a slide rule. Perhaps, although in my case the amounts for the half-recipes I usually concoct are easily calculated in my head. Nevertheless I am prepared, my cohort being the last who were taught the slip-stick, use of which was mandated during exams since only the rich kids could afford the new pocket calculators, at that time.
  
  
• Every Noise is an algorithmically-generated, readability-adjusted scatter-plot of the musical genre-space with samples of all the genres derived from Techno. Search with ctrl-F.
  
  
• Vocho is how they call a VW Beetle, in Mexico; and the indigenous Huichol tribes there create amazing art with beads. The Vochol is a VW Beetle that has been decorated with traditional Huichol beadwork. Have to go to Mexico City to see it, or watch this video.
  
  
• America's problems are solved problems. Adam Bonica's refreshing optimism in a time of democratic decay.

• At Weird Universe, a cracker, a mustard seed and a $2 bill - Because 1976 was a Bicentennial year, quite a few Time Capsules were buried throughout the country. Many of them are scheduled to be opened in 2026. This is about one of those, in Richmond, Indiana. I've heard when they've opened these it's sometimes discovered that outgassing from certain of the buried objects has ruined the rest.
  
  
• The Whole Collection of dreamy AI steam-punk visions from Retrofutura. Slop to some, but I love it.

• Located deep inside the Internet Archive, from an early 17th-century book of emblems, or allegorical illustrations. The Latin reads "Faithfulness." (Via the Vault Editions Facebook group.)
  
  
• Shake Hands With Danger: the original 1970 safety video, and a Jim Stringer page where you can read more about his song, and even download the version Caterpiller gave away on cassette. He passed away a couple weeks ago (obit). The vocalist was Charles Oldfather, one time Dean of the University of Kansas Law School.
  
  
• The War on Street Music in NYC -‌- Mayor LaGuardia banned busking in 1935 (JSTOR article).
  
  
• Japan or Die explains Alien Jones. Tommy Lee Jones has been promoting Boss Coffee for almost twenty years in a series of amusing commercials. Unfortunately, the newer ones lack sub-titles but here's the 15-minute collection of them.

• Three WWII submarines which shot themselves with their own torpedoes: the Grunion, the Tang and the Tullibee.
  
  
• Curious about the longest night, shortest day, earliest sunset and latest sunrise, I look to this Readers Digest article, the US has already experienced its Earliest Sunset [and] it's Not on the Winter Solstice. The exact date depends on your location but the latest dawn isn't until early January while the earliest sunset is early December.

• This early Tintin frame from The Blue Lotus grabbed my attention -‌- that elliptical mirror in his Shanghai hotel room, so elegant!
  
  
• Highbrow essay in Aeon: Undefinable yet Indispensable -‌- why is ‘religion’ impossible to define?
  
  
• The latest iteration of Woody Allen's Rags in "Sleeper" -‌- the Casio Moflin, a plush, Smart Companion Powered by AI, with emotions like a living creature! Yours (in silver or gold) for only $430.
  
  
• Mental Floss: 'Tis the season to say "'tis the season" -‌- but why only now?

• A little late with this one but I just noticed, about 7 minutes in to the Great Pumpkin Lucy's on the cover of the TV Guide she's reading here. Recursion!
  
  
• At Flashbak, Alastair Philip Wiper's photographs: the Unintended Beauty of Big Industry in the 21st Century.
  
  
• Condé Nast Traveler asked folks from other countries to show what an American is like.
  70 People from 70 Countries Imitate Americans. The Swiss guy wins.
  
  
• Listicle at Autoweek - the smallest cars in US history. That last one's almost a Little Tikes Cozy Coupe, allegedely the world's best selling car. Red and yellow? Single-seater? You know the one.

• Two fronm the BBC, unrelated: Surfers and swimmers pay tribute to victims of Bondi shooting and (from 2022) The overlooked benefits of real Christmas trees. Note that although I've arranged lights into conical forms, and decorated new plants that were then transplanted outside, I've never had a traditional Christmas tree.
  
  
• Bruce Sterling compiles Every Drink in “Casablanca” (1942).
  
  
• 15 most famous opera songs and arias.

• Random illustration from one of the Japan In Your Pocket books. And while we're there, Why Japan's internet looks weird -‌- unless you live there. They seem to prefer cluttered web-pages; the article begins by criticizing the 2025 Expo site, which I can confiorm was teh suck. Attendees were stymied by the shoddy user experience of a world’s fair meant to show us the future.
  
  
• CNN: the Leader says small cars can bring down big prices. Here’s why that’s unlikely in the USA. One word: Demand. Not enough of it, since Americans find driving in smaller cars scary.
  
  
• Three or four more unrelated Wikipedia articles: the post-War Baby Scoop Era (in which my sister was an unwilling participant); the enormous Angel Oak, a live oak tree on a South Carolina island, near Charleston; and the unofficial mascot of Wikipedia, Wikipe-tan, indentifiable by her puzzle-pieces.

• When I was young, neck-tie wearing men were still hunched over drafting tables, paid to produce images like this with compass and straight-edge. No longer, I reckon. Glad I was taught the trade's rudiments in Junior High shop class.
  
  
• Dick Van Dyke made it to 100 today. He recently reacted to His Life in Photos. Only indirectly Dick, a team recently resurrected Disney's lost Chromascreen sodium vapor process which was used instead of green- or blue-screen to make "Mary Poppins."
  
  
• GQ: Vince Guaraldi's soundtrack nails something no other Christmas album can. The way the contemplative passages in some songs suddenly give way to swinging rhythms is a bit like how you can find yourself ping-ponging between extremes of emotion during this period.
  (This music is rated #1 in misc/Christmas Songs.)
  
  
• More Rash IRL: there's a park in Baltimore named after Clarence H. Rash, who donated the land.

• The Leader Appears to Approve Kei Cars for the USA. Really? And what about the LBJ tariff still in effect, which severly limits smaller pickup truck imports: the chicken tax?
  
  
• Santa Con -- the San Francisco tradition that snowballed into 'bro-mageddon'. Some people even call it the first flash mob. I was receiving the LA Cacaphony Society's newsletters when this began, in the early 1990s, and probably read about it then.
  
  
• Slate: Moondoggle. Everyone agrees: It's a complete disaster.
  (archive link)
  
  
• A YouTube about reality, Why Buildings Stopped Spinning; and some more 'slop': the excellent Driving Tomorrow: Fantastic Future Vehicles of the 1950s at AI Retro Rewind, and the Brass Streets of London, New York, Paris & etc. by Unreal Realms AI Art. The latter's music is hypnotische but the similarity of the effects becomes tiresome. However, jet-packs!