2025-08-15 20:55:21
“Venus Williams is making history in her return to the U.S. Open later this month as the oldest singles player to take the court in more than 40 years.” Go Venus!
2025-08-15 08:04:19
This music video, directed by Kevin McGloughlin for Max Cooper’s song Repetition, features remixed fractal-like forms from the constructed world (roads, skyscrapers, wind turbines, etc.) interspersed with scenes from nature. Totally mesmerizing. (You’ve got a give it a minute to get going though, especially if you’re not a fan of gradual repetitive music. I was in a trance by the end. 😵💫)
Tags: Kevin McGloughlin · Max Cooper · mesmerizing · music · video
2025-08-15 06:46:37
Kieran Healy recently became a US citizen. “I know the nationalities of my fellow oath-takers because of the next stage of the ceremony. This was the Roll Call of Nations. I did not know this was going to happen.”
2025-08-15 05:31:37
Giles Clement tends to go a little overboard with his hobbies. During the pandemic, he taught himself to repair old watches and then decided to try building one himself. Taylor Scott Mason made a short documentary about Clement and his effort to build a watch from scratch in his basement:
Aside from the movement, Clement builds every component of his watches completely from scratch. He even constructed two of his milling machines and designed the typeface for the numbers on the watch face.
My shop is built around two 3 axis CNC machines which I built from scrap steel, surplus parts and a bunch of cussin. The larger of the two has an epoxy granite frame which gives a sturdy platform for cutting titanium and stainless cases, case backs and crowns. The smaller machine sports a 100k RPM spindle and the ability to cut extremely fine details needed for the hands and dials.
I’ve also built a pad printing machine for dials a polishing lathe, a lume injector for hand and dial applications and several drawers full of jigs and fixtures needed to manufacture parts.
You can read more about Clement’s process on his website and buy one of his watches from his online shop. Prices start at $2250.
Tags: Giles Clement · Taylor Scott Mason · video · watches
2025-08-15 02:10:18
Michael Chabon on the time he tried to get hired to write the script for a Fantastic Four movie (in 1995). “What are you doing here? I mean, you’re, like, a serious writer.”
2025-08-15 01:12:25
In the latest issue of his monthly newsletter, Robin Sloan shared a quick reflection on why the Criterion closet interviews are so effective, entertaining, and worth participating in for celebrities (emphasis mine):
Let’s think about the format that is the Criterion closet:
1. Makes people look smarter, rather than dumber;
2. invites them to praise other artists, other work; and
3. demonstrates the way in which praise is reflected back upon the giver, a positive-sum game, with no limit to the size of the pie.
His observation immediately reminded me of how Sloan — and many other of my favorite curators/writers/bloggers/link sharers — writes his newsletters & blogs posts. That kind of generosity, in some ways a result of the connective nature of hypertextual media, is a big part of what first attracted me to the open & personal web and keeps me engaged ~30 years later. And as someone who tries to adhere to #2 as much as possible these days, I can tell you that praising the work of others is great for one’s soul.
What other examples of generous media can you think of?
Tags: blogging · Criterion Collection · Robin Sloan