The Corn Is The Key
America’s First Taco Editor Says That Burritos Are Actually Tacos
By Helen Rosner
Twenty-two years ago, Texas Monthly, the venerable “national magazine of Texas,” published a ranking of the state’s fifty best barbecue joints. The magazine had named the state’s best barbecue before, but the Top Fifty was an extraordinary feat of carnivorousness—a giant inventory of smoked meat, involving hundreds of meals and uncountable thousands of miles—and it became a phenomenon, on and off the newsstand. Regularly revised and updated in the years since, the list drives tourism both to and within the state, names and shapes trends, makes kings of newcomers, and topples long-established empires. So tremendous is Texans’ desire to read about barbecue, so essential is the food to the very notion of Texan-ness, that in 2013 Texas Monthly appointed the food writer and meat savant Daniel Vaughn to the freshly created role of barbecue editor.
This week, the magazine announced the creation of a new position to stand alongside its barbecue editor: beginning September 18th, José R. Ralat will become the magazine’s and the nation’s first taco editor. Ralat—who was born in Puerto Rico, grew up in New York City, and now lives in Dallas—has been something of a professional taco-eater for more than a decade, first writing taco reviews for the New York Press, and then, after decamping from Brooklyn to Texas, ten years ago, launching a weekly taco column with the Dallas Observer. He’s the author of the blog Taco Trail and, until the end of this week, the food and drink editor at the Dallas-based magazine Cowboys & Indians. His new role sounds like an office drone’s daydream: a full-time salary, plus benefits, just to wander around Texas and eat tacos? Sure thing, kid, dream on. But, as with its editorial commitment to barbecue, Texas Monthly considers this job to be not only serious business but essential Texas journalism: in a state where more than forty per cent of the population is Hispanic, including Mexican and Mexican-American residents, tacos are part of daily life, and key to Texan culinary identity.
I recently spoke with Ralat by phone about his new gig; in our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we also explored how to categorize burritos, why tacos are essentially Texan, and Ralat’s mission to correct the record on breakfast tacos.
Wrinkles The Clown
by Nick Schager
s your child misbehaving? Well, if you’re a demented mother and father interested in traumatizing your little one for years to come, you can follow in the footsteps of a shocking number of other American parents and dial 407-734-0254—the phone number for Wrinkles the Clown, a Naples, Florida, creep who, for a small cash fee, will lurk around your kid until they get the message and straighten themselves out.
This is both not a joke and a hilarious gag, as detailed by Wrinkles the Clown (in theaters Oct. 4). Michael Beach Nichols’ simultaneously spooky and amusing documentary concerns the notorious circus weirdo, who became an internet sensation in 2015—and inspired a rash of nationwide copycat dangerous-clown sightings in 2016—thanks to a series of online videos (beginning with this one) and stickers featuring his name, face and phone number that he posted around his hometown. In an age of viral horror fads (Slenderman, Momo, etc.), Wrinkles, bolstered by local news coverage and, then, a 2015 story in The Washington Post, was a standout star, not least because you could actually call him and either leave a voicemail or, if you were lucky, chat with the gruff, curt clown himself.
FLW’s Man-cave
The tragic story of Guggenheim architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s secret love nest
By Ron Hogan
On Aug. 15, 1914, Frank Lloyd Wright was overseeing the final stages of construction at Midway Gardens, a massive entertainment complex on the South Side of Chicago. John, the second of his six children, was helping out on the project, when his father went out to take a phone call.
When Wright came back, he looked shocked and had to lean on a table to keep from collapsing.
“What’s happened?” John asked.
The call had been from Wisconsin, where Wright had built an estate called Taliesin for himself and Mamah Borthwick, his mistress for the last five years. Her two children from her previous marriage were with her at the time.
“Taliesin is on fire,” Wright said. “Why did I leave them today? What if they’re hurt?”
No. Yes. Maybe. Dead or Alive, regardless.
We may be closing in on the discovery of alien life. Are we prepared?
New robotic craft bound for Mars should give us our best shot at finding life on the Red Planet.
By Seth Shostak
In the next decade or so, it’s entirely possible that you’ll see a headline announcing that NASA has found evidence of life in space.
Would that news cause you to run screaming into the street? An article that appeared recently in Britain’s Sunday Telegraph hints that Jim Green, the director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, thinks the public might be discombobulated by the discovery of biology beyond the bounds of our own planet. But that’s not really what Green believes. He’s concerned that we haven’t thought much about the next steps by scientists, should we suddenly confront the reality of Martian life.
Here’s the backstory: In 2020, Mars and Earth will once again be relatively close to each other in their adjacent orbits around the sun. To take advantage of this fortuitous orbital circumstance, space agencies will be lobbing a small brigade of spacecraft toward the Red Planet. Unlike the robotic explorers now prowling Mars’ dusty landscapes, these new craft — launched by both NASA and a European-Russian collaboration — will be engaged in a type of reconnaissance that hasn’t been tried since NASA’s Viking landers set down there in the mid-1970s. The new craft will go beyond merely scouting for locations that were once suitable for life. They’ll be on the hunt for life itself. Dead or alive.
QUEEN & SLIM Bonnie and Clyde meets Thelma and Louise
THE BLACK BONNIE & CLYDE: ‘QUEEN & SLIM’ PREMIERING THIS FALL
BY SOURCESTAFF
Are you ready for a modern-day Black Bonnie and Clyde? Lena Waithe, the Emmy-winning screenwriter, already has everyone on the edge of their seats for Queen & Slim as she explains to Complex.
The film is “Bonnie & Clyde meets Thelma & Louis meets Set It Off. Waithe worked closely with writer James Frey as they adapted an original idea for the story. Universal Pictures will release Queen & Slim a romantic thriller film directed by Melina Matsoukas on November 27.
WWI Begat NFL
How World War I Led to the Creation of the NFL
We talked to Chicago sportswriter Chris Serb about his book “War Football: World War I and the Birth of the NFL”
BY EVAN BLEIER
Had U.S. soldiers not fought in the trenches on the battlefields of the First World War more than 100 years ago, offensive and defensive linemen may not be doing battle in the trenches of NFL game fields today.
That’s one of the major takeaways from veteran Chicago sportswriter Chris Serb’s War Football: World War I and the Birth of the NFL, an impeccably researched work which details the time period during the Great War when football was being played at U.S. military bases at home and abroad by members of the Army, Navy and the Marines.
The majority of the players who took the field in those games, which were played against other bases as well as top colleges to raise money for the war effort, had played at the college level before WWI but had little chance at going pro after their service because a respectable professional league did not exist yet.
There were some semi-pro leagues at the time, but they were looked down upon by the general public, at least partially because they took the Sabbath in vain by playing on Sundays (the only day all factory employees generally had off).
“Before the war, pro football had such a negative connotation that a lot of players played under assumed names because they did not want to be associated did not want their mom to see that they were playing for the Columbus Panhandles, or whatever the team might be, on a Sunday,” Serb tells InsideHook. “They were factory workers, regular guys who might have been good high school football players, but did not have the means to go on to college. They went out and got jobs and still enjoyed playing football and the only time they could play, because they had six-day work weeks, was on Sundays.”
Once the war began, some of these semi-pros enlisted and subsequently joined up with military football teams, mixing on rosters with experienced collegiate players who had also joined up.
Though some of the pre-war semi-pro teams may have included a few guys who were relatively big names in college, the military teams which were assembled during WWI were football’s “first true All-Star teams,” according to Serb.
Girthy, Rock-hard 300 year-old Penis Found
Archaeologists stunned after unearthing 3,000-year-old penis statue used by cult
The girthy penis rock is 21 inches tall
A giant penis statue — measuring an impressive 21 inches — has been unearthed by archaeologists in Sweden.
The girthy phallus might even have been used in blood sacrifices to a pagan fertility god, researchers said.
Dated to be from the Bronze Age, between 1800 and 500 BC, the penis rock was discovered during an excavation near Gothenburg.
It has been linked to a fertility cult, having been found alongside a lot of animal bones which hints that the area was used for sacrifice.
The lack of any human bones ruled out the theory that the phallus was a unique headstone.
Koffee
Songs of the summer should be crowned not in the giddiness of July but in the waning days of September, once the hot season has finished its business. A rearview perspective suggests that “Toast,” by the nineteen-year-old “singjay” Koffee, and produced by Walshy Fire, of Major Lazer, and IzyBeats, ruled this season. It was a mellow, cheery reign. At parties, I would watch eyebrows slacken and shoulders relax as the opening notes bounced into the room. “We haffi give thanks like we really supposed to,” Koffee advises nimbly; the song, about choosing optimism and practicing gratitude, is itself something to be thankful for.
“Toasting” also refers to a kind of vocal work—not quite singing, more like charismatic chanting over a beat, or “riddim”—that is deeply associated with mid-century Jamaican music. Koffee was born Mikayla Simpson and was raised in Spanish Town, outside of Kingston, Jamaica. She sang in the church choir, played guitar, and won a school talent show that she’d entered somewhat unwittingly. In 2017, an acoustic-guitar performance of a song called “Legend,” which she had written in honor of the Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, went viral after Bolt reposted the video on Instagram. Alongside artists like Protoje and Chronixx, Koffee has emerged as a modernizer of the roots-reggae philosophy practiced by artists such as Beres Hammond, Peter Tosh, and Bob Marley. On her EP “Rapture,” her sound seamlessly blends reggae and dancehall, socially conscious messaging and free-spirit liveliness. On the track “Raggamuffin,” with liquid agility, she offers a critique of the Jamaican government. On “Throne,” she praises her own song-writing prowess: “Lyrics put your very welfare / Pon the death row, pon the wet floor.”
“Toast” was an explosive début single. Earlier this year, Koffee won a prize for single of the year at the Jamaica Music Industry Association’s annual awards ceremony and performed on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”; it’s been rumored that she was courted by Rihanna to write on her upcoming reggae album. To understand both the history and the future of Jamaican music, listen to Koffee.
476 by James Frey
Best Fall Films – QUEEN & SLIM
The Best Movies of Fall 2019
From international spies to little women.
Teen Vogue is excited to debut its Fall Preview of shows and films that we’re obsessed with. We’re highlighting a diverse range of programming that touches on love, family, friendships, trauma, curiosity, and innovative perspectives about the world around us.
With fall comes cozy sweaters, brown leaves, and a number of fresh films for your viewing pleasure. Instead of spending another evening at home on the couch binging Netflix, consider heading to the nearest movie theater for the slew of premieres this season.
Queen & Slim
Premieres: November 27
Melina Matsoukas’ directorial debut does not spare emotions as she tells the tragic story of two people who forge a bond after getting into a deadly encounter with a police officer. No traditional love story in any form, Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) and Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) go from two strangers on a first date to fugitives, bound together by their situation.
Written by Lena Waithe (The Chi), we follow the pair across state lines in an uncomfortable, yet cinematically-stunning portrayal of being on the run. From Ohio down to Louisiana and eventually Florida, the melanin-enriched pseudo-Bonnie and Clyde narrowly escape obstacle after obstacle in the hopes of freedom.
“I wanted to give voice to all the nameless faceless men and women of color whose lives were taken unjustly and who didn’t make it home,” Lena told press at ESSENCE Fest in July. “I actually refer to them as fallen soldiers but unfortunately, they were fighting a war they didn’t know they were in. There is so much Black deaths surrounding us … I wanted to turn the tables where we could keep breathing and the opposer didn’t.”
The raw truth is that oppression of Black people in this country is so insidious and innate that every second of the film feels tension-filled. In addition to running from the law, the film is a beautiful love letter to African Americans’ solidarity, particularly in times of great need.
Conscious and convicting, Queen & Slim is by no means an easy watch — but it is a must-watch. — Danielle Kwateng-Clark
Charlie Hunnam Leads ‘Shantaram’ for Apple
Charlie Hunnam To Headline ‘Shantaram’, Apple Series Based On Novel
EXCLUSIVE: Former Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam is returning to television as the lead of Apple’s sweeping international drama Shantaram, which has been greenlighted to series by the streamer, I have learned.
Apple landed the project, based on Gregory David Roberts’ best-selling novel, more than a year ago in a competitive situation to develop for straight-to-series consideration.
Shantaram hails from Anonymous Content and Paramount Television, which in early 2018 won a monthlong bidding war for the rights to Roberts’ 2004 novel set in Australia and India that explores love, forgiveness, courage and redemption, as well as for Robert’s sequel novel, The Mountain Shadow.
Written by Eric Warren Singer (American Hustle), Shantaram tells the story of Lin (Hunnam), a man on the run from an Australian prison looking to get lost in the teeming city of Bombay. Cut off from family and friends by distance and fate, he finds a new life in the slums, bars and underworld of India.
New Greta Van Fleet for A MILLION LITTLE PIECES Soundtrack
Greta Van Fleet New Song “Always There” Revealed
Greta Van Fleet have reportedly recorded a new song titled “Always There” for the soundtrack of the film ‘A Million Littles Pieces.’ The film is set for release on December 6th, and is based on the 2005 book by James Frey. Greta Van Fleet singer Josh Kiszka squatted in a bathing suit photo yesterday, before later deleting it.
The book is described as, “At the age of 23, James Frey woke up on a plane to find his front teeth knocked out and his nose broken. He had no idea where the plane was headed nor any recollection of the past two weeks. An alcoholic for ten years and a crack addict for three, he checked into a treatment facility shortly after landing. There he was told he could either stop using or die before he reached age 24. This is Frey’s acclaimed account of his six weeks in rehab.” The film is starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Billy Bob Thornton, Odessa Young, Giovanni Ribisi, Juliette Lewis, and Charlie Hunnam. Sam Taylor-Johnson is the director of the film.
QUEEN & SLIM – Trailer 2
Dog Brains
from National Geographic
Centuries of breeding have reshaped dog brains—here’s how
The role for which a dog was bred—say retrieving birds—is reflected in their brain structure, according to a study of 33 breeds.
BY LIZ LANGLEY
There are hundreds of dog breeds around the world, from the teensy chihuahua to the massive Saint Bernard—all thanks to centuries of selective breeding by humans. With such a wide range of canine sizes and temperaments, it’s no surprise that, in the process, we have reshaped their brains as well as their bodies.
A new study performed MRI scans on 33 breeds and discovered how a dog was bred is reflected in their brain structure. (Read “How to build a dog” in National Geographic magazine.)
For instance, dogs bred to be small—say the lhasa apso—have round heads with similarly round brains that take up most of their skull. A larger breed like a golden retriever has a long, narrow head, and thus a more elongated brain that doesn’t fill all of the skull space.
“The biggest wow moment for me was just looking at the scans,” says study leader Erin E. Hecht, an evolutionary neuroscientist at Harvard University. “It’s really cool in science where you have a result where you don’t have to do any fancy statistics to be able to tell there’s something going on.” (Read more how humans have reordered dog brains.)
This fresh look inside the mind of dogs offers a better understanding of how breeds are hardwired, which in turn helps potential dog owners choose the right breed for their home, adds Hecht, whose study was published today in the journal Neurosci. (See our fun photo gallery of pet dogs.)
Apologies in advance…
Captain Spaulding Gone
Horror icon Sid Haig, actor from House of 1,000 Corpses, dies at 80
Haig also appeared in ‘Jackie Brown’ and blaxploitation films like ‘Coffy’ and ‘Foxy Brown’
By Nick Romano
Sid Haig, a legend of the horror genre from films like House of 1,000 Corpsesand The Devil’s Rejects, died Saturday following an unspecified “accident” two weeks earlier. He was 80.
In a statement shared on the actor’s Instagram account, wife Susan L. Oberg wrote, “My light, my heart, my true love, my King, the other half of my soul, Sidney, passed from this realm on to the next. He has returned to the Universe, a shining star in her heavens. He was my angel, my husband, my best friend and always will be.”
Haig got his start in horror with 1967’s Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told. He was then cast in Rob Zombie’s House of 1,000 Corpses as Captain Spaulding and its sequel The Devil’s Rejects. Haig was meant to have a larger role in this fall’s third installment, 3 From Hell, but Zombie told EW that health issues prevented him from doing so.
Charlie Hunnam – ‘Jungleland’
Charlie Hunnam & Jack O’Connell Evoke ’70s-Era Movies In Max Winkler’s 10-Year Passion Project ‘Jungleland’ – Toronto
EXCLUSIVE: “When a reluctant bare-knuckle boxer and his older brother rack up a hefty debt, they are forced to chaperone an unexpected travel companion cross-country for one last fight in search of their fortune.”
That is the simple one-liner description for Jungleland, which has its world premiere Thursday night at the Toronto Film Festival. It’s pretty accurate because that is the plot, but what really works about this compelling character study from director Max Winkler, who co-wrote the script with Theodore B. Bressman and David Branson Smith, is the journey of these three people in a movie that for me harkens back to some of the great actor-driven movies of the 1970s. It has smart dialogue, a terrific trio of stars and a familial sensibility that also makes you care deeply what happens to these three on their journey. Oh and their dog too. I see lots of movies, obviously, and I have seen a ton at this year’s TIFF, but this one — even viewed in rough-cut form in a screener, which is how I saw it — has stuck with me. Watch an exclusive clip above.
Leo’s Lion
Leonardo da Vinci’s mechanical lion goes on display in Paris
Paris (AFP) – Leonardo da Vinci’s famous mechanical lion on Wednesday went on display in Paris for a month, in a tribute to the Renaissance master 500 years after his death.
The lion, which is two metres (six feet, seven inches) high and three metres long and made of wood with a metal mechanism, is a reconstruction based on a rudimentary sketch left by da Vinci.
The original automaton, long since lost, was designed by da Vinci on a commission from Pope Leo X to amuse French king Francois I.
YSL Doc Finally Released
After 20 Years, Documentary about Mysterious Late Designer Yves St. Laurent and Partner Pierre Berge Finally Set for Release
Twenty one years ago, in 1998, French filmmaker Olivier Meyrou filmed Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Berge for a documentary that was never released.
Now “Celebration” is coming to New York’s Film Forum on October 2nd after much wrangling. It’s been shown twice in the last two decades, the last time in the fall of 2018. A version premiered at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival, but Berge shelved it.
In the interim two narrative films about Saint Laurent appeared, but neither one of them captured the mercurial designer. Some filmmakers have seen the documentary including Paul Thomas Anderson, whose “Phantom Thread” is said to have been greatly influenced by it. (There are said to be similar scenes.)
Getting closer…
Mystery object approaching us from interstellar space could be ALIEN spacecraft, top scientist admits
by Harry Pettit
That’s the shock claim made by one space scientist, who has exclusively revealed to The Sun that our incoming visitor could be piloted by hyper-intelligent beings.
Last week, scientists in Germany announced they were tracking a distant object heading in our direction.
Dubbed “C/2019 Q4”, the high-speed body appears to be on a path originating from another star system that will see it fire past Mars in October.
Despite numerous attempts to study C/2019, scientists remain clueless as to what it is. Many speculate the distant mass is a comet.
According to prominent astronomer Dr Seth Shostak, while this is the interstellar traveller’s most likely identity, we can’t say for sure it’s not a flying saucer.
Water, water, everywhere.
Strange alien world found to have water vapor and possibly rain clouds
Exoplanet K2-18 b lies in the habitable zone of its host star some 110 light-years from Earth.
By Chelsea Gohd, Space.com
In a major first, scientists have detected water vapor and possibly even liquid water clouds that rain in the atmosphere of a strange exoplanet that lies in the habitable zone of its host star about 110 light-years from Earth.
A new study focuses on K2-18 b, an exoplanet discovered in 2015, orbits a red dwarf star close enough to receive about the same amount of radiation from its star as Earth does from our sun.
Previously, scientists have discovered gas giants that have water vapor in their atmospheres, but this is the least massive planet ever to have water vapor detected in its atmosphere. This new paper even goes so far as to suggest that the planet hosts clouds that rain liquid water.
“The water vapor detection was quite clear to us relatively early on,” lead author Björn Benneke, a professor at the Institute for Research on Exoplanets at the Université de Montréal, told Space.com in an interview. So he and his colleagues developed new analysis techniques to provide evidence that clouds made up of liquid water droplets likely exist on K2-18 b. “That’s in some ways the ‘holy grail’ of studying extrasolar planets … evidence of liquid water,” he said.
We Shall Be Enslaved
Mind-reading AI may spell end to humanity as we know it, but not because it will enslave us – Zizek
Technologies linking human consciousness to any sort of a cloud computing service could not just open the way for totalitarian mind control, but destroy the very essence of human relations, philosopher Slavoj Zizek says.
A computer that can read the thoughts of many people at once would make normal human life impossible, the Slovenian cultural philosopher told RT in the wake of the World Artificial Intelligence (AI) Conference in Shanghai, which saw Alibaba’s chairman Jack Ma and Tesla CEO Elon Musk clashing over the future of AI.
While the two technopreneurs engaged in a heated discussion over the possibility of humans being controlled by machines in the future, the senior researcher at the Institute for Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana shared his thoughts on the issue with RT.
Our brain being connected to a machine is not a utopia
What I am studying now is the so-called phenomenon of wired brains, a possibility of our brains being connected with strong digital machines. And that is not a utopia. In the media lab at MIT, Massachusetts, they already have simple machines like that. It is like a helmet, nothing intrusive, they put it on your head.
And then something horrible happens – I saw the video – you think certain thoughts, you do not say anything, and the machine reproduces them either in writing or with artificial voice.
Almost…
Asteroid collision with Earth ruled out by NASA – breaks up in atmosphere above Caribbean
AN ASTEROID which came crashing into Earth and NASA had no idea it was coming reiterates the need to keep a closer eye on the sky in case a massive space rock comes hurtling towards our planet.
By SEAN MARTIN
“This was roughly the equivalent of spotting something the size of a gnat from a distance of 310 miles (500 kilometres).”
Davide Farnocchia, a scientist at NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object (NEO) Studies, said: “Asteroids this size are far smaller than what we’re tasked to track.
“They’re so small, they would not survive passing through our atmosphere to cause damage to Earth’s surface.”
The problem was, NASA said, the space agency could not determine where the space rock was heading.
NASA said: “The body had been spotted only four times in just under half an hour, which was not enough information to determine where the object came from or exactly where it was headed.”
The Mandela Effect
The Spelling of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Name Is Now the Subject of an Internet Conspiracy Theory About Parallel Universes
It’s an example of what is called the “Mandela Effect.”
by Ben Davis
Quick—what’s the correct spelling, “Georgia O’Keefe” or “Georgia O’Keeffe”? And before you say anything, know this: How you answer may literally depend on which reality you live in.
For the record, the art-historically correct answer is the one with two “F”s. Nevertheless, some people still really, really believe that the famed American painter, pioneer of abstraction, and icon of the Southwest is “Georgia O’Keefe.” And not only that: They believe that the co-existence of the two names is evidence of parallel dimensions, or a sinister conspiracy of mass mind-control. Or something.
The “O’Keefe/O’Keeffe” question has recently bubbled up in internet chatter as a cardinal example of the “Mandela Effect,” a term coined in 2009 by Fiona Broome, an author of several “how-to books about ghost hunting.” After a speaking engagement at the annual sci-fi convention Dragon Con, she realized that several people in her circle had similar memories of South African political leader Nelson Mandela having died in prison. He was, at that time, still very much alive. (He passed away in 2013.)
The “Mandela Effect” became, in Broome’s use, the name for “what happens when someone has a clear memory of something that never happened in this reality,” as her official website dedicated to the phenomenon puts it. Online communities have sprung up around documenting examples where collective memory seems to disagree with recorded fact.
Bowie’s Tintoretto
David Bowie’s Prized Tintoretto Masterpiece Will Go on View in Venice
By Helen Holmes
David Bowie‘s long and multifaceted career redefined how audiences interpreted the boundary between musical and visual art, so it stands to reason that The Man Who Fell to Earth cultivated a big collection of landmark works during his lifetime. Bowie was a prolific fan of contemporary art, but one of his most treasured pieces was much older: an altarpiece made by the dramatic Italian master Tintoretto entitled The Angel Foretelling Saint Catherine of Alexandria of Her Martyrdom, which Bowie bought from a dealer in London in 1987. This week, Saint Catherine is going on display in Venice after having recently been purchased by Marnix Neerman, a Belgian collector who elected to place the altarpiece in a show devoted to Flemish and Italian Old Masters that will open at the Palazzo Ducale on September 5.
The altarpiece was purchased by Neerman for 191,000 pounds at a record-breaking Sotheby’s auction held in 2016 that featured a vast array of Bowie’s collection. The musician had pieces by Winifred Nicholson, Peter Lanyon, David Bomberg, Frank Auerbach, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Alan Davie, Marcel Duchamp and many others; he even collaborated with some famous stars like Damien Hirst on original works that were both kaleidoscopic and psychedelic.
Tesla Serta Version
‘Bizarre’ Video Shows Tesla Driver Apparently Asleep On Mass Pike
by Tiffany Chan
NEWTON (CBS) – It was a frightening scene for one witness on the Mass Pike Sunday – a Tesla driver apparently asleep at the wheel. Video posted to Twitter seems to show the car on auto-pilot, without an alert person in the driver’s seat.
“It was just so strange and baffling” said Dakota Randall, who shot the video while driving through Newton on the highway. “I thought I saw somebody asleep at the wheel, but I wasn’t sure so I did a double-take. Sure enough there was somebody with his head right between his legs.”
In the video, the driver is hunched over and seemingly fast asleep. A person in the passenger seat doesn’t look to be awake either.
Randall said he tried to wake them up by honking his horn, but it didn’t work.
Books As Art
The art of traditional bookmaking lives on at the Book Club of California, a quiet paradise for bibliophiles
San Francisco’s century-old book club has more than 10,000 rare and letterpress-printed volumes on display
By Molly Fosco
When I pick up a new book, I try to decide if the story is worth reading. Are the characters relatable? Is the plot exciting? Typically, I’m not checking whether the book was printed on a letterpress or if the end papers are hand-tipped. At the Book Club of California, however, it’s a very different story.
No longer the exclusive members-only club it once was, the Book Club of California is a non-profit open to the public. It supports the art of bookmaking, typography, design, and literature about California history and the American West. Located in San Francisco’s bustling Union Square neighborhood, the club is housed inside the World Affairs Council Center, a place where people gather to discuss global issues.
The rather unassuming building facade is easy to miss, but walking through the entrance of the wooden double doors on the fifth floor transports visitors back to early 20th-century San Francisco.
Books as art
Thousands of books in glass-doored cabinets line the walls. Victorian-era couches, lamps, and dark wood tables decorate the room, and there’s even a working 19th-century Columbian printing press. A swanky bar that looks like it belongs on the Titanic sits in the corner. This isn’t a coincidence—the club was founded in 1912, the same year the ill-fated ship ended up at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Luckily, the Book Club of California has fared much better.
9/11
Prince
The Book of Prince
Prince had grand plans for his autobiography, but only a few months to live.
© The Prince Estate
On January 29, 2016, Prince summoned me to his home, Paisley Park, to tell me about a book he wanted to write. He was looking for a collaborator. Paisley Park is in Chanhassen, Minnesota, about forty minutes southwest of Minneapolis. Prince treasured the privacy it afforded him. He once said, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, that Minnesota is “so cold it keeps the bad people out.” Sure enough, when I landed, there was an entrenched layer of snow on the ground, and hardly anyone in sight.
Prince’s driver, Kim Pratt, picked me up at the airport in a black Cadillac Escalade. She was wearing a plastic diamond the size of a Ring Pop on her finger. “Sometimes you gotta femme it up,” she said. She dropped me off at the Country Inn & Suites, an unremarkable chain hotel in Chanhassen that served as a de-facto substation for Paisley. I was “on call” until further notice. A member of Prince’s team later told me that, over the years, Prince had paid for enough rooms there to have bought the place four times over.
My agent had put me up for the job but hadn’t refrained from telling me the obvious: at twenty-nine, I was extremely unlikely to get it. In my hotel room, I turned the television on. I turned the television off. I had a mint tea. I felt that I was joining a long and august line of people who’d been made to wait by Prince, people who had sat in rooms in this same hotel, maybe in this very room, quietly freaking out just as I was quietly freaking out.
A few weeks earlier, Prince had hosted editors from three publishing houses at Paisley, and declared his intention to write a memoir called “The Beautiful Ones,” after one of the most naked, aching songs in his catalogue. For as far back as he could remember, he told the group, he’d written music to imagine—and reimagine—himself. Being an artist was a constant evolution. Early on, he’d recognized the inherent mystery of this process. “ ‘Mystery’ is a word for a reason,” he’d said. “It has a purpose.” The right book would add new layers to his mystery even as it stripped others away. He offered only one formal guideline: it had to be the biggest music book of all time.
Captain Ketchup
Meet The Man Who Guards America’s Ketchup
by DAN CHARLES
My search for the secrets of American ketchup began in a sun-baked field near Los Banos, Calif.
The field didn’t look like much at first. Just a wide, pale-green carpet of vines. Then Ross Siragusa, the head of global agriculture for the company Kraft Heinz, bent over, lifted up some of the vines, and revealed a mass of small, red fruit, too many to count.
Each acre of this field, Siragusa tells me, will produce about 60 tons of tomatoes. That’s up from about 40 tons per acre just 15 years ago. The tomatoes themselves are a mix of tomato varieties that are specially bred to produce red, thick ketchup.
A mechanical harvester approaches at the pace of a brisk walk. It’s a giant machine, a factory on wheels. It collects a swath of tomato plants, shakes fruit loose from the vines, and sends a stream of bright red tomatoes into a big truck driving alongside. The scale and speed of the operation boggles the mind.
Within a day, a processing plant in Los Banos will turn these tomatoes into paste. Weeks or even months later, the paste will become the central ingredient in ketchup.