• It's Girl Scout Cookies time -‌- are you in ABC, or Little Brownie Bakers territory? Read the package or check the map at WideOpenCountry. The offerings available from each source (Adventurefuls! Raspberry Rally! Toast-Yays!) are diverging. What is your cookie?
  
  
• Long read about the tire-sized, million-dollar solid gold Canadian Maple Leaf coins (and how one was stolen from the Museum Isle in the center of Berlin).
  
  
• A couple more from the Smithsonian magazine, What Perry Mason Taught Americans About the Criminal Justice System, and Space Officials want a time zone for the moon.

• A pair of travel videos from Kuga, documenting new overnight trains: Kyoto->Shingu and a snowy Tokyo->Izumo-shi.
  
  
• Mattie Lubchansky: Put ME In Charge of Dilbert, You Cowards!

• National Geographic: Why the US once set off a nuclear bomb in space. Starfish Prime was just the first of the five Operation Fishbowl sub-orbital atomic bomb tests of 1962.
  
  
• At Atlas Obscura, the Double-Barreled Cannon of Athens, Georgia. The idea was shooting pairs of cannonballs connected by a chain; but the technology required for simultaneous ignition didn't exist during the Civil War; it was only tried one time and found unmanageable.
  
  
• To this illustrated listicle of Impressive Buildings Standing On Mountaintops I would add that Buzludzha Monument of the Bulgarian Communist Party in Shipka Pass.

• Another from n+1, It Is Happening Again. Worthwhile reading about the aftermath of disasters but that title reminds me of Hoyt Axton:
  When It all
  Comes Down
  I hope It doesn't land on you
  
  
• In By The Way at the Washington Post, Haircuts and cheese curds: Ten hours at the world's largest truck stop, on I-80 in Iowa.
  (archive link)
  
  
• You'll encounter lots of love for 'Blue' but my Joni journey began with her previous record, Ladies of the Canyon. (Actually don't personally rank 'Blue' among the very best although it certainly has some essential tracks.) She appeared on the Dick Cavett program with the Airplane, and Crosby & Stills on 'The Day After Woodstock' playing 'Chelsea Morning' and Willy. Another performance from that album, For Free, on the Johnny Cash TV show.

• You've heard of the Rust Belt. How about the Stroke Belt? Business Insider identifies 13 regions or 'belts' of the USA. Compare with Thirty-Three Maps That Explain The United States from 2015, at All That's Interesting.
  
  
• A database of the Ethnicity of Celebrities, indexed here by first name.
  
  
• Fodor's 2023 No List, don't go there, and I'm already in violation, re: Tahoe.
  
  
• Bernie Taupin explains, What is the Meaning of 'Tiny Dancer'?

• In this week's news, the BBC reports Mars fined after two workers fall into chocolate vat. Note that it was a vat of Dove chocolate, the good stuff. Because of this story, an older one has surfaced, from 2015: I nearly drowned in chocolate, confessions of a Syrian refugee's novel attempt to cross the Channel in a tanker lorry.
  
  
• At Vintage Kids' Books My Kid Loves I learn of The Land Where Ice Cream Grows. Researching this very obscure title took me back to my DC hometown, and an ice cream parlor there called Gifford's, favorite of First Ladies, whose sole heir has a copy which he mentions in his 2017 tell-all memoir, We All Scream. Reading that book now, but it's summarized in a Washingtonian article, the Secret, Dark, and Twisted Story Behind the Gifford Family's Ice Cream Empire. They had shops over in Montgomery County and NoVA, but none near my parents' house so I don't have many memories; we were actually Weile's people.

• At Rest of World, Nine viral phrases that explain China's work culture includes #6, Lying Flat, which was reincarnated in the US as 'quiet quitting' and #9, Let It Rot; as a Chinese proverb puts it, 'dead pigs are not afraid of boiling water' which sounds like there's some overlap with #6.
  
  
• We've all seen it, but what do you call them? Ultralinx provides 50 Amazing Examples of Knolling Photography.
  
  
• A new search engine I haven't quite figured out yet: wiby.me.

• Wonderful -- renderings of Frank Lloyd Wright's never-built buildings at Smithsonian magazine.
  
  
• About the Vermeer show at the Rijksmuseum, opening tomorrow.
  
  
• In Slate, Death By Powerpoint: Why the Military (Still) Can’t Quit it.

• You're Lucky You Have a House, Peasant! A history of company towns, by Joyce Rice and Kevin Moore. I first learned of these places in The Grapes of Wrath and more recently, that in Pennsylvania they're called 'patch' communities, from the patches of coal which were mined there. At patch.com, the 100 most redneck communities of Pennsylvania -‌- unfamiliar with any of them, naturally; but the selection criteria is interesting.
  
  
• Newsweek lists the Best Urban Exploration Sites including a VW Graveyard in Utah.
  
  
• Kurt Vonnegut Buys an Envelope.
  
  
• According to Southern Living, Texans Eat Pickles at the Movie Theater, and they're surprised to learn no one else does.

• Take A Break -‌- nine vintage covers from the Saturday Evening Post.
  
  
• Moss and Fog used an AI to imagine cars designed in the Style of Famous Architects.
  
  
• That sub-set of New York magazine called The Cut has posted 140 contemporary rules, Do You Know How to Behave? Are You Sure? How to text, tip, ghost, host, and generally exist in polite society today which are encountering some resistance. For example, Lizzie O'Leary at Slate disagrees with #38, about winking.
  
  
• At This Is Colossal, Max Mundie's Fungus Fotos.

• At New Atlas, flamboyant Italian clothes defeat facial recognition without masks.
  
  
• Yuichi Yokota's photos of the Nagasaki lantern festival, in the snow.
  
  
• Somebody responding to my MeFi post on the Japanese Music Sirens compiled MP3s for all 125 of them into a zip file, a curiously relaxing and unique set of field recordings.
  
  
• The Guardian reports on Misophonia: how 'sound rage' destroys relationships, which claims that 18% of Britons have the syndrome.
  (archive link)

• I've not been on any of these ten most beautiful hiking trails in the world.
  
  
• It's been 230 years since British pirates robbed the US of the metric system. How the world's largest economy got stuck with retro measurement.
  
  
• So, Planters killed off Mr. Peanut -‌- maybe that's why their peanut-block candy's no longer in the shops.
  
  
• Identify the year in which each of five photos was taken, and win points at ChronoPhoto.

• Via AirRaidSirens.net, listening to the melodious, wheezy tones of Yamaha Music Sirens on buildings, which play old tunes that signal stuff like plant opening times, in Japan. There's a link to a playlist somewhere in there.
  
  
• Discovered scenes from Oskar Werner's Deutsche dub of Trouffaut's "F°451"!
  • the Monorail
  • the TV play
  • the Secret Library
  • Montag ruins the party
  
  
  
• The Wonders of [Google] Street View -‌- only way I can see to navigate is, keep hitting that Random button.
  
  
• In the Guardian, Petula Clark and Tony Hatch recall How we made "Downtown".
  (archive link)

• 1963 Schulz Documentary: A Boy Named Charlie Brown -‌- produced between the first animations of the 'Peanuts' characters, for Ford; and A Charlie Brown Christmas.
  
  
• Wall Street Journal, status of the Belt and Road Initiative: China's Global Mega-Projects Are Falling Apart.
  
  
• Moscow tries to diminish [Koralev] because he's from Ukraine.

• Embrace Mindfulness encourages you to take the long view, thinking four-dimensionally: the glass is already broken.
  
  
• At Messy Nessy, Jennifer Walker reports on the Austrian Gaudí, Hundertwasser.

• Tokyo Times provides some photos looking in, through the windows: the light and warmth of little Japanese bars and eateries.
  
  
• Niche Museums has an entry for the Moffett Field Museum, among many others.
  
  
• NPR report: "Stomp!" closes after 29 years in NYC. Attending that show, early on, seems What I recalled most was Mr.Jenkins; but it did teach me a gravity-assist broom technique I've used ever since, when sweeping; similar to a skill I gained with the shovel after working as a laborer one summer for that Brick-and-Block company.
  
  
• And this just in, from CNN Business, Flipping the Status Quo: M&M's new packaging is causing a stir -‌- where we learn about their new shoes.

• A state school on Michigan's UP has compiled the Overused Expressions every year since 1976. The top of their 2023 Banished Words List is an acronym unfamiliar to me, G.O.A.T? Clearly pretentious, and since I don't want to be boring I'll have to curb my own too-frequent use of #6 (amazing) and #9 (absolutely), but the rest of these aren't part of my vocabulary. Scanning other recent years now, hoping to see 'vibe' listed -‌- and found it, in 2020.
  
  
• Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg's Web Seer completes text strings input with their most common Google search requests.
  
  
• At Quartz, Tea if by Sea, Cha if by Land: Why the world only has two words for Tea.
  
  
• Dirty Laundry Comics, their recent take on 45: Bad Diet & Bad Hair Destroy Human Civilization by Aline Kominsky (RIP) and R.Crumb, published in the New York Review in mid-2020.

• At Vox, yes, Your stuff is actually worse now, where a young woman learns Josephson's Law (New Is Worse), by painful experience.
  
  
• Consumer Reports: Lead and Cadmium Could Be in Your Dark Chocolate
  
  
• 80s Flashback: not the Nena I heard in the gym this morning, but The Waitresses (a band which, by their name, I'd always assumed was all women).

• Watching Letterman interview Zelenskyy in a Kyiv undersground station. (TBH I only lasted about 15 minutes.)
  
  
• In New York, the History of Trump Pretending to be Superman. Although 45 does not appear to be a fan of the genre in general, he's made nearly two dozen cameos in comic books over the past three decades. Doesn't mention Hup #3 (scroll down), where R.Crumb Pointed The Finger at him back in '89.
  
  
• According to Smithsonian magazine, Herds of Moss Balls Mysteriously Roam the Arctic Together. These must be different from those found in pet stores, for aquaria, because Atlas Obscura says the US Government is Begging You to Destroy Moss Balls since they may contain the dreaded invasive zebra mussel.
  
  
• Aaron's Five Laws of Bicycling Survival. I would add making eye contact, to confirm that you have a nearby and approaching driver's attention, to his rule #2.

• I've been listening to Christmas music and the OTR Cinnamon Bear on ICAN, the International Children Arts Network, which is carried on Portland public radio; but I'm accessing it through the Radio Garden which has this wonderful global interface with clickable green dots indicating all the radio stations. So many green dots; find your local, or another.
  
  
• Quick slide-show at CNN Travel, ten of the world's most fascinating abandoned towns and cities.
  
  
• And some more pics, at Vintage Everyday, Burning Man in 1963 as imagined by an AI.

• A listicle, Nine Winter Traditions You Might Not Have Heard Of at Atlas Obscura (love to ride that holiday subway train!) and at Lifehacker, a slideshow, the 13 Worst Health and Fitness Trends of 2022. I like that one of 75 Hard's five or six non-negotiable rules is reading ten pages of non-fiction daily but I take a dim view of that 12-3-30 workout.
  
  
• Speaking of fitness, after a two-year hiatus I resumed my almost every-other-day exercise regimen this summer: stretching, two miles running on the treadmill, then some weightlifting and finally the sauna. This means I'm back at the gym, hearing (and being æsthetically assaulted by) the popular music. One contemporary hit stands out, though, Jax's Victoria's Secret, with its "Dude!" chorus.
  
  
• California Christmas Lights attempts compiling those locations where residents go all out. Before I evacuated the Bay Area, one of them, Christmas Tree Lane in Palo Alto became a favorite, cruising slowly through with headlights dimmed and seasonal music on the car stereo. Here in Sacramento there's a whole grid to explore, in Midtown, the Fabulous Forties, where you can even find hot chocolate stands and live music.
  
  
• At the Smithsonian, Andrew Parker's Pure Structural Colors, like peacock feathers and butterfly wings. He's a zoologist who's figured out easy ways to reproduce them -‌- cosmically bright, they say. More at Wikipedia, Structural Coloration.

Thinking back on all my favorites, I made this chronological list of the places for which I was able to find links; depressingly, they're usually to articles about the store's closing.

• Brentano's had a branch in my local mall, when I was young. The best part was the space in the middle which featured games and art.
• When I lived in Hermosa Beach I visited the Either/Or bookstore at least once a week.
• That was when I first went down to Long Beach for Ray Bradbury's favorite, Acres of Books. An amazing place, but a selection so picked over I never really bought much there. Instead, a journey further east and into Orange County led to
• The Book Baron, which was the best used bookstore ever. Huge, with a fantastic selection.
• When I first lived in Silicon Valley I spent a lot of time down in San Jose at the Thrush bookstore, with its rickety mezzanine level.
• The place most frequent then was Bookbuyers in Mountain View, which I could often walk to. Great selection, open late, and they'd take almost anything for store credit.
• Finally, a little north, just beyond Palo Alto was Feldman's Books which has moved away from his pleasant location on El Camino (with its little garden between the two halves) but is apparently still in business in Menlo Park.

• Catching up on Patrick Farley, his weblog, Electric Sheep Sh*t. This time of year one reflects upon his 'Saturnalia' which I couldn't find there but an archived copy is available. Happy Solstice!
  
  
• K.Thor Jensen, The Ghosts of Christmas Yet to Come, ranked by freakiness. Many of these films unfamiliar to me. Mr.Magoo's gets #17, and Richard Williams' #5.
  
  
• I've learned there's a misunderstanding out there, some believing the purple streetlights are installed intentionally, conflating them with the monochrome LED lighting found in public restrooms to thwart illicit drug injecting. Two views on that: Blue Lights May Deter Intravenous Drug Use In Public Spaces and Blue Lights Meant to Deter Drug Users From Shooting Up Have Big Downsides.

• More about those violet streetlights, noted here back in March. (They're arrays of LEDs; solid-state chips, not bulbs.) At Business Insider, The Great Purpling, explained -‌- the yellow phosphor which makes the light from blue LEDs white is delaminating. Unrealistic fears of the ultraviolet are frightening some, but an article from last year should put those fears to rest. Here's Why Purple Streetlights Are Popping Up Around North Carolina quotes Duke Energy: "There's no safety issues with the lights and they continue to work. They are just purple."
  
  
• These are great -‌- The Night Hawk -‌- Chicago storefronts by photographer Dave Jordano.
  
  
• At Rest Of World, many photos. This is what a tech market looks like in eight places in Asia, Africa and South America.

• The news section of a site called ShengenVisaInfo.com claims they've had enough, as Amsterdam introduces 'Stay Away' Campaign to Discourage Several Kinds of Tourism. Four types of visitors will not be permitted to enter the Dutch capital: Cannabis and Drug Tourists, Batchelor [sic] Parties, Sex Tourists and Overtourism but exactly how this filter is to be implemented is not explained. Overtourism, definitely a problem in summer-time Europe, but what's the solution here -‌- cancelling flights into Schiphol, once all the beds are taken?
  
  
• I've never seen any Hallmark television but I hear about it on the Internet, like in this Vox article, Why are Christmas movie 'miracles' never miracles at all?

• 23 minutes of R.Crumb, holding forth in the back yard. This from a couple years ago.
  
  
• NPR reports on the last 747. My most memorable flight on one: Korean Air to Tokyo, 1989. Music for this bullet: Draggin' by Roger McGuinn. (1973)
  
  
• Two new artists: color-soaked night paintings by Keita Morimoto and at This Is Colossal, Vibrant Textiles and Repurposed Eyewear Camouflage the Subjects of Thandiwe Muriu's Celebratory Portraiture.
  
  
• The twelve words of Christmas: Ice legs, yule-holes and more.

• What Were America's Christmas Monorails? The kind for kids in 1950s&60s department stores -‌- suspension-type, like in Wuppertal.
  
  
• Why Everywhere in the US is Starting to Look the Same blames 5-over-1's, also known as one-plus-five, or podium buildings.

• From an art magazine called n+1, Why Is Everything So Ugly?
  
  
• Medium: Why Fascism's Returning to the World
  
  
• What makes a person creepy? Excerpts from a new book by (Canadian) Julia Shaw, who's come up with 44 behavior patterns or physical characteristics, including just being older. Creepy people were generally thought to be lanky men with poor hygiene who behaved awkwardly.
  
  
• At Noema, Strength Through Geometry: Concrete Built the Modern World. Now It's Destroying It