An Introduction to Vince Guaraldi, the Brain When Daydreaming, Interesting Maps, etc.

In which I'm standing here with my back against the record machine...

🤘 Takes a minute to get started, but love this cover of Van Halen’s Jump by Aztec Camera.

🎹 An introduction to Vince Guaraldi, who composed my favorite Christmas album, one I have reached for year after year after year.

🐦 Maybe you also want to get to know the Bee Hummingbird, the tiniest bird in the world. “Only found in Cuba, these birds lay their eggs in nests the size of a quarter.” I love them.

🌍 Anton Thomas’ impressive hand-drawn world map contains over 1,600 animals and took three years to finish. “Thomas estimates that nearly a third of the time and labor that went into creating the map was dedicated to researching animal habitats and physical geography so that he could be as accurate as possible. ‘I do gravitate towards beautiful, unique, and iconic animals,’ he says. ‘But as the map got underway, I settled on three criteria that came to shape its philosophy. All animals are wild, native, and extant—not extinct.’”

🗺 Also interesting, this map that introduced “scientific mapmaking to the Medieval Islamic World” in 1154 AD.

🧠 What happens in the brain when daydreaming? “Observations in mice hint at role of daydreams in remodeling the brain.”

☄️ If you’ll recall, last September “fragments of a near-Earth asteroid were carefully dropped off in the Utah desert. The space rocks hold clues to the origin of the solar system and can possibly answer crucial questions about how our planet came to be—if only we can get to them first.” NASA has since struggled to open the canister containing rocks and dust collected from asteroid Bennu, with engineers inventing new tools to crack it open while preserving the pristine rocks.

🕹 Atari has updated the 2600, the late ‘70s gaming console that arguably paved the way for the next 45 or so years. Oddly, cartridges are still required.

📚 Is GoodReads bad for the book industry? I use the site (I’m bad at using the site, but still), but there’s a seedy underbelly, apparently. “The influential user review site has suffered a year of controversies, from cancelled book deals to review-bombing, and exposed a dark side to the industry.” The review bombing is abhorrent, and clapping back at your audience via social media media is downright embarrassing.

🍓 I am in favor of fruit-shaped bus stops.

🏀 And because this is issue #34, I have no problem sharing four minutes of Shaquille O’Neal just ruining people’s days during his Lakers run. The Shaq that averaged 38 points, 17 rebounds and 3 blocks in the 2000 NBA Finals was a Shaq I think about all the time.

✌️ I’ll be home for Christmas, but that doesn’t mean Santa won’t be visiting your inbox next week. Until then, remember to keep the Hoping Machine running.

Love,
Luke