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Hannah Gadsby was on Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast, and they said the title / subject line of this newsletter. I can’t stop thinking about it. Essentially, would gravity have never been figured out besides Newton? Someone invents the refrigerator, someone invents the windmill, someone invents fire… would it have never been figured out? I love this concept, as our culture of worshipping at the cult of personality, fame, or platforming people because “they’re a genius” isn’t necessarily helping. We’ll worship famous people solely for their fame, not their abilities nor actions.

Heck, we’ll worship billionaires just for being billionaires, for some reason. But they’re the ones not paying a fair share of taxes, and they’ve all tricked us into thinking we can have infinite growth in a finite system. When that system breaks down, it’s not going to affect them. It’s going to affect us.

I hope we enjoy our resource wars.

Maybe we’ll find a silver lining in them.

Maybe the war the whole time was figuring out the one resource you really need is friendship.

/s

ANYHOOo… Hannah Gadsby is so witty and intelligent, it’s definitely worth a listen. https://teamcoco.com/podcasts/conan-obrien-needs-a-friend/episodes/hannah-gadsby

 

 

  • A wonderful thought about being present, without the pulling of your existence to the past or future, and all those anxieties that come with it:

“THE JOY OF BEING:

To alert you that you have allowed yourself to be taken over by psychological time, you can use a simple criterion. Ask yourself, ‘Is there joy, ease, and lightness in what I am doing?’ If there isn’t, then time is covering up the present moment, and life is perceived as a burden or a struggle.” – Eckhart Tolle, Practicing the Power of Now

Here’s more on the “Power of Now””” – https://fluidself.org/books/spirituality/the-power-of-now

 

  • Robert Reich is amazing. Here, he explains how super great it is to have 6 political parties in a 2 party system. You wonder why it’s all mucked up. Heck, the controlling party in the house just removed their own speaker for someone scarier than an opportunist… a magical thinker.

 

SPACE

  • A few days late, but happy birthday Carl Sagan.

 

 

 

  • The Commonwealth Club of California is amazing. Unlike City Arts & Lectures who put every interview behind a locked vault, not even accessible for purchase, Commonwealth has a podcast and hosts videos on their Youtube. This interview with Avi Loeb about interstellar objects in our solar system, and his search for Extra-Terrestrial Life, is ABSOLUTELY BONKERS FASCINATING. This isn’t little green men stuff, vs understanding interstellar objects and how they exist in form, and whether there is a possibility of actual function.  This is a wonderful discussion, and purely fascinating.

 

  • Kepler-22b is an exoplanet that might be covered in a global ocean

CDN media

CDN media

 

 

Solving Hubble Tension with a more solid constant might be possible! The distant supernova “H0pe” can be seen three times (labeled SN2a, SN2b and SN2c) in the orange arc of light surrounding a galaxy cluster on the left side of this James Webb Space Telescope image. Other gravitationally-lensed objects are also labeled in this image.

 

 

An Einstein ring is a rare phenomenon predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. It occurs when the gravity of a massive foreground object, such as a galaxy or a black hole, warps the space-time around it. This warping causes the light from more distant objects to curve and form a ring-like structure. The captured Einstein ring, named JWST-ER1, is unusually perfect and encircles a compact, dense galaxy. The ring’s perfection indicates a precise alignment between the observer, the foreground object, and the distant object.

 

SCI TECH

Next week’s newsletter will promise quite a bit more sci-tech than this one, but get your flu and booster shots, people!

 

  • Tech has really ruined a lot, but the next frontier of not ruining things is medical. The nobel prize for the mRNA vaccines is appropriate, because they are going to make us healthy forever. https://www.pennmedicine.org/mrna
Here is a list of the initial vaccines people are working on with the mRNA methodology. This list, from the above website, is LITERALLY WHAT THE VACCINES WILL CURE:

COMEDY

 

  • Let’s celebrate the brilliant triple threat of Jamie Foxx (who did not die YAY!!), who I happened to start watching during his hilarious TV show about managing a hotel in LA. It’s been a blast to watchi his career. But his talents never and don’t stop… here’s the best Donald Trump impression of all time!

 

 

  • Graham passed one day prior to the 20th anniversary of Monty Python originally airing. Also, not Douglas Adams in the audience in front of Eric Idle. Amazing.

 

 

 

  • Comedy Central is KILLING IT, in that they’re now taking all their comedy and creating supercuts about topics. This one is strictly about traveling, mostly flying, but cars, trains, and the like. =) It’s so many great comedians, and a real joy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Andy Richter is a national treasure, and one of the wittiest dudes ever. =)

MOVIES AND TV

Tis the Season, so here he is explaining why gift giving makes ZERO sense, and it destroys economic value:

 

 

  • David Letterman auditioned for Airplane!  He wasn’t good, but he knew it… and I’ll say he saved himself with the Cabin Boy scene. “You wanna buy a monkey??” David Letterman auditioned for Airplane! against his better judgment: ‘I can’t act’ Letterman’s agent forced him to read for the role of Ted Striker as revealed in a new book, Surely You Can’t Be Serious https://ew.com/movies/david-letterman-auditioned-for-airplane/
@letterman Dave’s audition for “Airplane” #letterman ? original sound – David Letterman

 

  • Wayne Brady just came out as pansexual. It’s an interesting notion, because when you live your authentic, real self… you end up feeling lighter. Stop pushing everything down and away. Give up the ghost, and be yourself. That being said…

He’s extremely famous for improv, but he got a bump from the Chapelle Show. And prior to that famous skit, Paul Mooney had a joke *on* Wayne Brady, saying “Wayne Brady makes Bryant Gumbel look like Malcolm X”. Well, Wayne didn’t like the joke, so with agency he took control and took it back. This story is both inspiring, and intellectually thoughtful and interesting. Small things can slip right past us, but you have to work at being conscientious and kind.

 

 

 

 

 

  • A 26 year old “resident genius” on the set, prior to directing Piranha II: A total failure, James Cameron worked on John Carpenter’s Escape from New York at the age of 26, displaying a massive amount of talent and creativity that would lead him down a long road of revolutionizing film and entertainment.

James Cameron And Escape From New York: 5 Behind The Scenes Facts About His Involvement In The Movie https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2495014/james-cameron-and-escape-from-new-york-behind-the-scenes-facts-about-his-involvement-in-the-movie

CDN media

 

 

  • Limelight is actually a great film! But the fact that Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin actually worked together near the end of their careers is a marvel. A profoundly heartfelt story exploring obsolescence, it’s funny and moving and still worth a watch. As I do, here’s Ebert: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/limelight-1972

Limelight

 

Speaking of:

 

 

  • Below, I talk about the Deodato song used in the film, but realized the entire film is free on Youtube! The most oft asked question in film history, according to Roger Ebert and most critics, is what was the intent of the ending scene of the film. This movie with Peter Sellers feels a bit lost as a classic, directed by Hal Ashby of Harold and Maude fame. It’s evergreen and always relevant, charming, and not too far off the mark. Like it teaches us… “Life is a state of mind”. Ebert’s Review at 4 stars is worth revisiting: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-being-there-1979

MUSIC

  • David Bowie in 1999 on the internet, predicting the unimaginable… because he could imagine it.

FULL 15 MINUTE INTERVIEW:

 

 

  • We had a chance to see Little Simz recently. I’ll never miss another of her live shows ever again, and I’ll be up on new albums like a maniac. She’s brilliant.

 

 

  • Lola Young…. newish artist, brand new track… cannot wait for the remixes!

 

 

 

 

 

She also appears in the MOOG Documentary, which is fantastic:

 

 

  • I remember this take on Strauss melted my head at a young age… AND, heck… I’ll post the full movie above! =) Watch Being There. It’s always relevant.

A major piece of music used is the Eumir Deodato jazz/funk arrangement of the opening fanfare from Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss. The single (abridged) version debuted in the top 40 on 2/17/1973, reached #2, and was on the chart 10 weeks.

PEOPLE, CULTURE, SOCIETY

 

  • This article was profoundly liberating for me, a reviewer of 17 years or more… and a hospitality guy who feels guilty not filling out phone and customer surveys, etc. I TAKE BACK MY TIME…

Online Ratings Are Broken Companies aren’t asking for your feedback. They’re begging you for data. https://web.archive.org/web/20230826112044/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/08/online-feedback-surveys-overload/675150/

“Data panhandling, let’s call it: a constant, unwelcome, and invasive demand that you provide feedback about everything” <— so tiring, weighs on psyche, and millions of micro-actions miro-requests all day long.

“For example, the demand to know ‘if you’d recommend us to a friend or colleague’ indicates the pursuit of a market-research benchmark called ‘net promoter score,’ a dumb business metric that persists because it’s easy to use, not because it has value.”

paraphrase: “doc/dentist asking for a rating is probably doing so to raise local search-engine ranking, so new patients can find their practice. 5-star reviews for retail / Food delivery more often used to lord power over poorly paid flex workers than to improve service for you”

“On the one hand, rating them well costs you nothing. On the other hand, being asked to rate them implicates you in an economic circumstance for which you are not responsible.”

“It’s easy to say, “Just don’t order online from companies that don’t treat their workers well.” But the alternatives are dwindling. When you buy a bauble or a burger, you now also receive an ambiguous position of power over the labor of others.”

“Then the demands for input multiply. Data-panhandler companies might implore you to review the delivery, the product delivered, the vendor that made it, the retailer or platform that sold it—and then maybe the support or return experience as well.”

No human can reasonably be asked to determine whether a pack of #10 × 1/2 wood screws offered a 4 or 5-star fastening experience. Acts of data panhandling impose on your time, but they also impinge on your autonomy.

 

 

Listen to a piece on my favorite show… Kai Rysdaal’s Marketplace:

 

  • “Into this house we’re born, into this world we’re thrown, like a dog without a bone”: exploring Heidegger’s concept of thrownness:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrownness

We are thrown into existence. Awareness and acknowledgment of the arbitrariness of Dasein (existence) is characterized as a state of “thrown-ness” in the present with all its attendant frustrations, sufferings, and demands that one does not choose, such as social conventions or ties of kinship and duty.

We have no capacity to control how we are thrown into existence or how that impacts and effects everything down stream, as we understand our “being” in context of our life, as we head inexorably towards death, and constantly change in lieu of this thrownness. It actually melds into another of his concepts… being-toward-death. Exist with the understanding the it’s finite, and let it inform your living. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heideggerian_terminology#Being-toward-death

Premium Vector | Cute dog design with bones

  • The Japanese have some remarkable words and concepts that explain complex things quite simply. I love this… it can be art, performance, architecture aligned with nature, or intentionality:
Shibui (??) (adjective), shibumi (??) (noun), or shibusa (??) (noun) are Japanese words that refer to a particular aesthetic of simple, subtle, and unobtrusive beauty. Like other Japanese aesthetics terms, such as iki and wabi-sabi, shibui can apply to a wide variety of subjects, not just art or fashion.
Shibusa is an enriched, subdued appearance or experience of intrinsically fine quality with economy of form, line, and effort, producing a timeless tranquility. Shibusa includes the following essential qualities: Shibui objects appear to be simple overall, but they include subtle details, such as textures, that balance simplicity with complexity. This balance of simplicity and complexity ensures that one does not tire of a shibui object, but constantly finds new meanings and enriched beauty that cause its aesthetic value to grow over the years. Shibusa walks a fine line between contrasting aesthetic concepts such as elegant and rough or spontaneous and restrained. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibui

 

 

 

 

  • These two seem hilariously fun.
@graciekramer8 Ever wondered what it’s like to train with a professional stunt woman? Well now you don’t have to? #stuntwoman #fail #gymnastics #stunts #wreck ? Seven Nation Army – ???

 

 

 

 

 

VEHICLES

Carlos Sainz, and the story of Smooth Operator: https://www.essentiallysports.com/f1-news-why-is-carlos-sainz-known-as-the-smooth-operator/

@stuffaboutf1 he just wants to sing smooth operator #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #viral #trending #blowup #f1 #formula1 #carlossainz #smoothoperator #stuffaboutf1 ? original sound – Stuffaboutf1

 

By Uncle FishbitsCategories: Newsletter