The passive acceptance of utter cruelty… has become the most characteristic feature of our cultural moment.
Scientists just created spacetime crystals made of knotted light
Researchers have developed a blueprint for weaving hopfions—complex, knot-like light structures—into repeating spacetime crystals.
The NYTimes has a superb article about Stephen Shore’s recent publication of phenomenal photographs he took as a teenager. I love this quote:
I wanted to make pictures that looked like seeing and not pictures that look like photographs.
You’re always giving, my therapist said.
You have to learn how to take. Whenever
you meet a woman, the first thing you do
is lend her your books. You think she’ll
have to see you again in order to return them.
But what happens is, she doesn’t have the time
to read them & she’s afraid if she sees you again
you’ll expect her to talk about them, & will
want to lend her even more. So she
cancels the date. You end up losing
a lot of books. You should borrow hers.
Look at that sweet face.
Spurs very solid v. City. Consistently in control. Great performance after a miserable transfer week. COYS!
Last spring, I planted fennel plants, thinking they would produce bulbs. Not so. I’d planted “herb fennel," a related, but different, plant. It produces anise-flavored seeds, which I’m adding to sandwiches, salads, tostadas, and just chewing on. Utterly delightful. I can’t get enough.
Dolly Parton once noted that there were just three real female singers around—Barbra Streisand, Linda Ronstadt, and Connie Smith. “The rest of us,” she said, “are only pretending.”
Whatever you may think of Kevin Williamson (and I know many some of those I follow on MB loathe sometimes have issues with him), this is sizzling:
It is strange how excessive admiration for the will to power brings out the servility in so many men.
Still, “Come on you Spurs!”
MccGwire’s palette is ethically sourced feathers. (It’s worth opening the image in its own tab.)
He’s my all-time favorite Tottenham player, and it’s not an especially close thing. I will miss his infectious smile, his play, his delightful demeanor. And if anyone deserves to have a statue in front of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, it’s Son Heung-Min.
I’ve always loved songs with accordions, concertinas, Hammond B3s, etc. Long ago, I even made mix-tapes with names like: “Songs with Organs, Including Accordions.” Flaco Jiménez was a major presence on those mixes.
I think this is good. Evokes Solzhenitsyn about how “the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart.”
My contribution to the family fridge today.
So much to love about this, from the title to the typeface to the barware to the subject …
From Alan Jacobs (@ayjay):
Yes, he has horns and a tail, and he’s enormous and frightening, but he’s our friend. Why should we be worried about our friend? …
The powerful love and recognize only power. They’re never going to be our friends. They’re going to use us and discard us. Power alienates, and absolute power alienates absolutely. This is why the Bible says, “Put not your trust in princes.”
Sadly, squirrels decimated the tomato seedlings 2 months ago. But those that survived are my heroes, and we may get some fall fruit off of them.
Fifty years late, I’ve become a Blondie fan. No doubt, Debbie Harry’s sexy cuteness has something to do with it. (But not everything! The songs are great!)
Nick Cattogio, The Dispatch, “Boiling Frogs,” July 11, 2025:
Naming an austere detention camp where conditions are reportedly horrible something as silly as “Alligator Alcatraz” is postliberal Republican politics in a nutshell. On the one hand, it dials up the cruelty to 11 in the belief that maximum ruthlessness is the key to good policy. Beefing up Immigration and Customs Enforcement and deporting people en masse isn’t enough to deter illegal immigration, you see; to make would-be border-hoppers think twice, what you really need is gigantic carnivorous reptiles.
But on the other hand, it’s deeply cringe. “Alligator Alcatraz” sounds like the premise of a schlock TV movie in the mold of Sharknado.*
* or Kristi Noem
Matthew Butterick on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), via @ayjay:
Because here’s the thing: to me one of the greatest risks posed by AI is rooted in our failure of imagination: our failure to broadly imagine the possible forms AI (including AGI) could take; our failure to broadly imagine the possible consequences it could wreak.