The Bop Spotter, Tenner Ben, Fake Houses, etc.
In which I've got a gun, let's go to a Broadway show.
🗽 Little late this week. Just got back from an NY excursion. Great food. The greatest, really. Better company.
“Great food, better company” should be the entire world’s motto.
🎶 Amongst said company, my good friend Ben, who is currently at the Met but was also just a part of opera singer Joyce DiDonato’s master class at Carnegie Hall.
🚪 You can knock on some doors in New York and never get an answer. The reason: the houses are fake. “Though it was indeed a townhouse when first built in 1847, 58 Joralemon Street was hollowed out and converted into one subway-system vent back in 1907. But the buildings right on either side remain residences, one of which, as Jordan finds, sold not long ago for $6 million.”
🚏 On a random street corner in San Francisco sits the Bop Spotter, an old Android attached to a pole that hears and identifies every song it can from passing cars (and loud weirdos with blu-tooth speakers or overtly cranked iPhones, I assume). It appears someone was blasting “Picking Up the Pieces” around 3am this morning.
📸 From Vox, a video on Kodak and the invention of popular photography. “In 1888, the Eastman Kodak Company rolled out a new camera and a new slogan. ‘You press the button, we do the rest.’ To say this moment revolutionized photography would be an understatement. But this story isn’t just about Kodak. It’s about what happens when a powerful technology, originally only understood by a select few, can suddenly fit in your hand.”
📚 I recently posted about how few people read novels. Since, this came across my desk. How should debut novelists measure success? Most books sell less than 5,000 copies. For many, selling over a thousand copies of a debut novel can be looked at as a success.
🛹 I’m obsessed with this Japanese skateboarding show where contestants use their street skills to navigate some bonkers obstacle courses.
🐋 A photo capturing one “whale of a meal” just won its taker the 2024 Ocean Photographer of the Year.
👓 This is quite the outdoor installation: “14,000 prescription lenses dangle like dewdrops in a lush Japanese forest.”
👩💻 An interview with designer Marlene Weisman, a graphic designer that worked for Saturday Night Live from 1988-1994, responsible for Colon Blow and Schmitt’s Gay and other fake brands burned into my brain, as well as the logos for a lot of faux-shows, Wayne’s Worlds included.
😂 Speaking of, I was reminded this week of this hilarious scene from the first Wayne’s World movie. “Hi. I’m in Delaware.”
✌️Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to take a quick 12-hour-nap. Later, skaters. Keep that Hoping Machine running.
Love,
Luke
