“The reward center of the European Americans' brains lit up much more when they received money themselves compared to when they gave money to their family members. The reverse occurred in the brains of Latino participants: Their reward centers lit up more when they gave money to their family compared to when they received money.”
radar
The epic that is THE SOLAR GRID—the project I've been working on for the better part of the past 9 years—is now 91% complete.
Entering into hyperfocus mode to push through the remaining 9%.
I'm hardly ever on social media, but this reel about Chinese filmmaker Gao Xiaosong's time in an Israeli Kibbutz is too funny.
You know things are messed up when the person responsible for the monitoring and censorship of anti-genocidal material posted across Meta's platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp), a userbase of almost 4 billion people worldwide, is Jordana Cutler, a person who once worked as a strategy advisor in Netanyahu's 2009 election campaign and later as his Advisor for Diaspora Affairs.
- Egypt Sends Somalia Military Aid: Looks like Egypt has found the perfect pretext to enter into military conflict with Ethiopia, in actuality over Nile water disputes which have been brewing for some time.
This wouldn't be the first time Egypt enters into military conflict with Ethiopia. An attempt to annex Ethiopia was made by Egypt in 1874, which really didn't go very well for Egypt.
Things may get messy because Ethiopia has some sort of military agreement with Turkiye and an arms deal with Israel in addition to a major mining deal too.
I'm sick of both U.S. presidential candidates popping up on my screen several times a day to ask for money. Is there any other place on Earth where rich politicians not only expect your vote, but have the gall to ask you to pay for it too?
Mangal-Media: Istanbul-based micropress with great looking books.
Matt Alt argues that the TV series Shogun's appeal in America is because” our socio-politically fractured era resembles a culture-war version of Japan's era of warring states.”
Anne Carson: Life is Not Fair – The Louisiana Channel
Stuck: Dana Omar is only $3,200 away from reaching her pilot's production goal, and only a few hours to go until her campaign ends.
Matt Madden on discovering Oulipo.
Right-wing influencers duped to work for covert Russian operation – Or, Russia utilizes America's capitalist tendances against itself.
USPS is rolling out their own fleet of electric trucks apparently.
Free Faces: Free open-source typefaces.
Rain Poems-Ottmar Liebert: Beautiful acoustic guitar instrumentals.
Alleged fraudster got $10 million in royalties using bots to stream AI-generated music that he uploaded.
Genuinely surprised there isn't more reporting on Israel remotely detonating handheld devices across Lebanon, and how news of this is not seeping into tech news. This takes the notion of weaponizing handheld devices against its users to a whole new level. Truly terrifying, and we're only seeing the very early stages of its implementation.
Image via Newsmap.
Not quite a collection of short fiction as much as it presents blueprints for approaching fiction, often very grand, interestingly-structured fiction. The reviews of fictitious non-existent books are my favorite in the collection, but there are only a handful of those, and the rest is mostly pretty straight fiction which I didn't get much out of. Not that I didn't like them... Full review of Borges' FICTIONS over at Ganzeer.Reviews.
Day lost to migraine. Will attempt to turn in early tonight and get a fresh start tomorrow.
In other news:
Lionsgate Inks Deal With AI Firm to Mine Its Massive Film and TV Library — The Hollywood Reporter: A new age of schlock is upon us.
Society of the Psyop — E-Flux: Wherever there's the smoke of a conspiracy theory, you better believe there's fire.
Michael Chabon on Israel's latest attack on Lebanon:
Coffee after 4:00pm for me is usually a bad idea, guaranteed to keep me up until well after midnight. So I was surprised to find myself crashing immediately after a 7:00pm Americano, only to reemerge among the living at 1:00am. Circadian rhythm officially fucked.
Phase 1 of PROJECT BLOSSOM complete. Now I can put it aside before entering phase 2 later next week. PROJECT TWENTY-FIVE I must dedicate Monday to, do the whole thing start-to-finish in a single day. Hoping to have 3 full days assigned entirely to TSG next week, need to pencil in a minimum of 6 pages, but more if I can manage. This weekend is for my boy.
The second half of the Penguin edition of Borges' FICTIONS seems to be dedicated to more straightforward short fiction, but much of it still flies over my head regardless. Close to 70% into this strainful little book that I had no idea would be so difficult. Late night gyoza to help me power through.
On a completely different note, love this collection of Kafka covers by Peter Mendelsund.
It is hard to believe that this chapter may very well be the last time I draw her for a very long time if not forever.
My plan for the day turned out to be a little too ambitious after all, but TSG pages are coming along smoothly.
Today's background listening included:
Bret Easton Ellis interviews Paul Schrader — Really great. I particularly love the few Pauline Kael anecdotes Schrader shares. Kael is grossly overrated in my opinion, and I say this having enjoyed a number of her books. She did good to bring actual critical criticism to the field, but neither her taste nor how she expressed it really jive with me.
TRACKMARKS by Hamed Sinno — Sinno, who is one of the most talented and creative people I know, was on a train in London when it got held up because a man on the tracks in what was apparently a suicide attempt. Folks on the train started to get irritated, and that irritation soon ballooned into rage, directed squarely at the distressed man who messed up their schedules. Hamed was wise enough to record this vocalized rage and weave it into a powerful song together with lyrics drawn entirely from advertising slogans seen on the London Underground. 👌