Donutverse
The consequences of traveling in a straight line forever
Is the Universe finite or infinite? Does it go on forever or loop back on itself? Here’s what would happen if you traveled forever.
The Universe is a vast, wondrous, and strange place. From our perspective within it, we can see out for some 46 billion light-years in all directions. Everywhere we look, we see a Universe filled with stars and galaxies, but are they all unique? Is it possible, perhaps, that if you look far enough in one direction and see a galaxy, that you’d also see that same galaxy, from a different perspective, in the opposite direction? Could the Universe actually loop back on itself? And if you traveled far enough in a straight line, would you eventually return to your starting point, just as if you traveled in any one direction for long enough on the surface of the Earth? Or would something stop you?
It’s a fascinating question to consider, and one that Bill Powers wants us to investigate, asking:
“Space and time are mind-boggling to me. It seems like if you traveled in a straight line, you could travel forever. What would stop you? A wall? [And if so,] what’s on the other side of the wall?”
Although it sounds nonsensical, the answer is both. You could travel forever, and also, something would stop you. The key lies in understanding the expanding Universe, which itself is one of the most mind-boggling concepts of all.
Spared. Amazing.
Stunning new Roman frescoes uncovered at Pompeii, the ancient Italian city frozen in time by a volcano
By Haley Ott
Stunning Roman frescoes have been uncovered by archeologists in Pompeii, the ancient city destroyed by an eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius in the year 79 AD. Experts say the newly discovered frescoes are among the finest ever to emerge at the renowned archeological site.
The works of art line the high walls of what was once a large banquet hall. The walls themselves were painted mostly black, and the figures on the frescoes appear to emerge from the shadows. Site director Dr. Gabriel Zuchtriegel told CBS News partner network BBC News that the dark color was likely used to hide stains from the lamps that lit the hall after the sun went down.
“In the shimmering light, the paintings would have almost come to life,” Zuchtriegel said.
Brave New BPM
Authorities in the Russian Republic of Chechnya have announced a ban on music that they consider too fast or slow.
Minister of Culture Musa Dadayev announced the decision to limit all musical, vocal and choreographic compositions to a tempo ranging from 80 to 116 beats per minute (BPM) at a meeting Friday, the Russian state new agency TASS reported.
“(I) have announced the final decision, agreed with the head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Akhmatovich Kadyrov, that from now on all musical, vocal and choreographic works must correspond to a tempo of 80 to 116 beats per minute,” Dadayev said, according to TASS.
Under Kadyrov’s directive, the region now ensures that Chechen musical and dance creations align with the “Chechen mentality and musical rhythm,” aiming to bring “to the people and to the future of our children the cultural heritage of the Chechen people,” Dadayev added.
Go Bogdanovich
50 Year Old Bob Marley, Reggae Archives Still On The Cards For Jamaica Says Joe Bogdanovich
Reggae Sumfest Boss, Josef Bogdanovich says that plans are still under way to acquire Roger Steffens’ extensive reggae archives, including rare Bob Marley images, concert materials, and memorabilia, which are currently domiciled in Steffens’ private basement in Los Angeles.
Bogdanovich who is heir to the StarKist tuna fortune, told World Music Views that plans are still afoot to integrate these archives into a larger plan to transform Montego Bay into a concert city, aiming to rival venues like Coachella in California.
“I think we are doing it, you will hear about that soon,” he said. While admitting the undertaking will cost a pretty penny. “it’s a big commitment to buy a building and build one for the archives, thats million of dollars,”
The collection includes a reported 12,000 vynil records and CDs, 10,000 posters and flyers and 12,000 hours of tapes, also tens of thousands of reggae photographs, 30,000 reggae fliers from all over the world, 2,000 reggae posters (many of them signed by the original artists), 140 cubic feet of alphabetized clippings, and an array of invaluable books and magazines.
The Sky’s Gone Out!
Jordan
Some of them eat raw hamburger… while on duty.
6 Badass Librarians Who Changed History
They will not be shushed.
BY APRIL WHITE
LIBRARIANS HAVE NEVER BEEN A quiet bunch: Information, after all, is power. To mark National Library Week—typically celebrated the second full week of April—Atlas Obscura, fittingly, went into the archives to find our favorite stories of librarians who have fostered cultural movements, protected national secrets, and fought criminals.
Transformer
Laurie Anderson is obsessed with resuscitating husband, Lou Reed, with AI
The avant-garde artist frequently converses with a chatbot designed to emulate the former Velvet Underground frontman
What is really curious, as well as disturbing, about the dystopian series Black Mirror is that technology is advancing at such a pace that it is increasingly difficult for any futuristic plot to surprise us. It has been a decade since the premiere of the first episode of its second season, Be Right Back, in which a woman uses artificial intelligence to replace her boyfriend after losing him in an accident. Ten years on, there are actually companies that offer a service known as ‘mourning technology’ or ‘digital necromancy’ which promises to keep the memories of their clients’ loved ones alive through AI.
There are AI applications such as HearAfter, which preserve the user’s memories via interviews on their life so that their loved ones can posthumously listen to their stories and chat with their virtual self. Even in more mainstream pop culture, we have seen cases like Kanye West’s 40th birthday gift to his then-wife Kim Kardashian of a hologram of her late father, the well-known lawyer, Robert Kardashian, in just one more example of how technology tries controversially to assuage grief.
But the musician, artist and thinker, Laurie Anderson, hasn’t needed to turn to Netflix, holograms or apps to do this for her partner, Lou Reed, who passed away in 2013. While many prefer to exercise this level of nostalgia in secret, Anderson has done so in public with I’ll Be Your Mirror, an exhibition, which shares its name with a song by The Velvet Underground, and which makes use of AI to invite reflection.
No shit.
There’s No Dark Matter? Shocking Study Upends Decades Of Consensus About Universe’s Composition
A new study is turning the scientific community upside-down. Researchers from the University of Ottawa suggest the universe might not contain dark matter, a component that has been a fundamental part of cosmological models for years.
Dark matter is a term used in cosmology to describe a type of matter that does not interact with light or the electromagnetic field, making it invisible and detectable only through its gravitational effects. Scientists have long believed that dark matter makes up about 27 percent of the universe, with ordinary matter constituting less than 5 percent, and the rest being dark energy. This understanding has helped explain the behavior of galaxies, stars, and planets.
God Bless The Crown Vic
LA Sheriff Still Has 429 Ford Crown Victorias in Service Because It Stockpiled Them
Hundreds of decade-old Crown Vic Interceptors roam southern California, though they’re getting more and more difficult to keep on the road.
BY JAMES GILBOY
ike the United States Postal Service’s Grumman LLV, the Ford Crown Victoria is a disappearing symbol of a time past. From taxi services to police departments, large operators like the California Highway Patrol have been retiring their fleets of the once ubiquitous sedan for years now. Even so, their numbers remain strong through 2023 at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, where hundreds are still in service. But even there, the herd is beginning to thin.
As one of the largest police forces in the country—and the largest sheriff’s department—the LASD has been one of the Crown Vic’s top users for decades. The department guaranteed it would remain so into the sedan’s twilight years with a huge last-minute order of 600 cars in 2011, the final year of production, as accountants reckoned it’d save money in the long run.
Photos of this last big batch survive online, showing hundreds of the cars around the time of their delivery. Surprisingly, the vast majority of these 600 remain in operation today, with 429 still on the roster according to Sergeant David M. Davis of the LASD Fleet Management Unit.
“The Crown Victoria is a rugged and durable platform that has held up great over the years,” Sergeant Davis told The Drive, stating that the Crown Victoria remains the top choice with older members of the force.
Private Endeavor
Endeavor Going Private In Deal Valued At $13 Billion
By Dade Hayes
Endeavor Group Holdings, parent of talent agency WME and controlling shareholder in combat sports powerhouse TKO Group, is going private.
Private equity firm Silver Lake Capital is leading the privatization, which the company describes Tuesday as the largest in media and entertainment history and the biggest in any sector over the past decade. The equity value of the acquisition is pegged at $13 billion, with the enterprise value nearly double that when the TKO interest is taken into account.
God Bless Weighted Blankets
How My Weekend Plans Changed After I Got a Weighted Blanket
Weekend No. 1
Plan: Visit well-reviewed Chinese Scholar’s Garden on Staten Island; return boots that don’t fit; bake lemon-ricotta scones for potluck brunch on Sunday.
Reality: Bought weighted blanket and cancelled plans with friends to try it out.
Weekend No. 2
Plan: Cook three of ten dishes that made Bobby Flay’s career; go see a movie; visit Grandma to record some of her incredible stories for posterity.
Reality: Spent forty-eight hours under blanket watching “Fox & Friends,” to test out blanket’s anxiety-reducing capabilities.
Weekend No. 3
Plan: Go to Becca’s birthday drinks, Elexa’s housewarming party, and Clare’s baby shower!
Reality: Lay under blanket playing Words with Friends with strangers while keeping every muscle except for thumb muscles perfectly still.
“Sedentary, solitary, anxious, and depressed”
Jonathan Haidt: Smartphones Rewired Childhood. Here’s How to Fix It.
Phones have made kids sedentary, solitary, anxious, and depressed. But, says the author and psychologist, we can reverse the damage.
Suppose a salesman in an electronics store told you he had a new product for your 11-year-old daughter that’s very entertaining—even more so than television—with no harmful side effects of any kind, but also no more than minimal benefits beyond the entertainment value. How much would this product be worth to you?
You can’t answer this question without knowing the opportunity cost. In Walden, his 1854 reflection on simple living, Henry David Thoreau wrote, “The cost of a thing is the amount of. . . life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”
What the smartphone user gives up is time. A huge amount of it.
Sam Taylor-Bond
from The New York Post
Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s director wife Sam finally responds to James Bond rumors
By Erin Keller
Sam Taylor-Johnson has addressed the rumors surrounding her husband Aaron Taylor-Johnson taking on the role as James Bond.
In an upcoming appearance on “The Jonathan Ross Show” set to air Saturday, the 57-year-old director stayed mum about her 33-year-old husband’s possible new gig.
“You mean that I might direct a Bond film? The first woman director,” Sam dodged Ross’ question about the speculation.
The couple, who faces criticism for their 23-year age gap, met in 2009 on the set of the John Lennon biopic “Nowhere Boy” which she directed and he starred in. They also worked together in a 2018 film adaptation of author James Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces.”
Sam told Ross about directing her hubby, “It’s really interesting. When I directed Nowhere Boy, he wasn’t my husband. When I directed ‘A Million Little Pieces’ he was.”
FRIGHT KREWE Interview
Interview: Eli Roth & James Frey Talk Fright Krewe Season 2
by Tyler Treese
ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Fright Krewe co-creators Eli Roth and James Frey about the horror series. The duo discussed making a horror series for teenagers and their love of 2D animation. The new season is set to debut on Hulu and Peacock on March 29, 202.
“As the threat of Belial looms large, the Fright Krewe and their newfound supernatural allies, the rougarous and vampires come together for an unprecedented battle to save the world,” reads the new season’s synopsis. “But with Belial resurrecting every demonic entity known to evil kind will the superpowers gifted to the teens by the loas prove stronger than the diabolical forces unleashed?”
Tyler Treese: Eli, I was very pleasantly surprised with how quickly Fright Krewe Season 2 came out. Talk to me about the production timeline. Did you guys know what you wanted to do to do already with Season 2? How was this such a quick endeavor?
Eli Roth: It actually was a decision that was made early on to make 20 episodes and split them into two seasons. They wanted to sort of wait to announce Season 2 and release them close together so that people knew that a second season was coming. Obviously, it’s not an anthology show where there are the different monsters of the week, but there’s this overall larger story that’s being told, and we wanted people to know that it’s okay to invest in it. We want you to invest in it because there’s more coming.
So when we broke out the stories and wrote the seasons, we wrote it as a 20-episode arc. Obviously, we would love to continue with further seasons, but we knew this story had to come to this portion. This character — the Belial story and the Fright Krewe — we had to resolve it by the end of Season 2. So that’s really what we were working towards.
James, you know, the first season of Fright Krewe is a great introduction to all the characters and really got the ball rolling. What was most exciting about having the second season to continue that story and have more freedom? Since you already have the introductions, you can just get into the meat of the story rather than establishing everybody.
James Frey: When Eli and I first came up with this, which is a whole bunch of years ago, we always imagined it as a multi-season, ongoing, serialized story. Obviously, we hope it keeps going, but the most exciting part of Season 2 was seeing what Eli and I had discussed … was it seven or eight years ago, Eli?
Roth: Nine.
Re-dignifying David’s Dick
A fight to protect the dignity of Michelangelo’s David raises questions about freedom of expression
BY COLLEEN BARRY
FLORENCE, Italy (AP) — Michelangelo’s David has been a towering figure in Italian culture since its completion in 1504. But in the current era of the quick buck, curators worry the marble statue’s religious and political significance is being diminished by the thousands of refrigerator magnets and other souvenirs sold around Florence focusing on David’s genitalia.
The Galleria dell’Accademia’s director, Cecilie Hollberg, has positioned herself as David’s defender since her arrival at the museum in 2015, taking swift aim at those profiteering from his image, often in ways she finds “debasing.”
In that way, she is a bit of a David herself against the Goliath of unfettered capitalism with its army of street vendors and souvenir shop operators hawking aprons of the statue’s nude figure, T-shirts of it engaged in obscene gestures, and ubiquitous figurines, often in Pop Art neon.
Bear Bloom 2024
from The Los Angeles Times via MSN
As hungry bears awaken from hibernation, a California mountain village braces for invasion
by Louis Sahagún
Led by a sense of smell 100 times keener than that of humans, the predators have crashed through windows, ripped tiles off roofs and torn solid wood doors off their hinges to get at leftover pizza in a refrigerator.
They have also defecated on counters, furniture and floors as a “calling card,” officials say.
In a region of Southern California that wildlife authorities call a human-black bear conflict zone, the impending arrival of spring in this small mountain village is met with dread and fear as the hungry giants emerge from their winter torpor to search for food.
“Bears are a major problem here — and it’s getting worse,” said Patrice Stimpson, patrol chief of Pine Mountain Club — a community of some 2,800 residents in the San Emigdio Mountains, about 75 miles north of Los Angeles.
“They’ve caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage,” Stimpson said. “Last year, a house caught fire after a bear climbed onto the gas stove and turned on the burners. A few cars were nearly totaled by bears rummaging for crushed cookies between the seats.”
Return Of The Armadillo
Fran Drescher, John Michael Higgins, Griffin Matthews & More Set For Roles In ‘This Is Spinal Tap’ Sequel
By Matt Grobar
EXCLUSIVE: After leading SAG-AFTRA through its latest round of negotiations with the AMPTP, guild President Fran Drescher (The Nanny) has been set to join the sequel to 1984 cult classic This Is Spinal Tap, reprising her role as publicist Bobbi Flekman.
Other new additions to the cast include Don Lake (The Bonnie Hunt Show), John Michael Higgins (Best in Show), Jason Acuña (Jackass), Nina Conti (Family Tree), Griffin Matthews (The Flight Attendant), Kerry Godliman (After Life), Chris Addison (Veep), comedian Brad Williams, and musician Paul Shaffer. Details as to the roles of these cast members are under wraps for now.
Also now aboard the project are Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and Lars Ulrich, Metallica’s co-founder and drummer, who will make cameos. Production is currently underway in New Orleans, with Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer reprising their roles as the legendary heavy metal band, Spinal Tap, under the direction of Rob Reiner.
Attack Of The Killer Cleveland Mushrooms
In Cleveland, mushrooms digest entire houses: How fungi can be used to clean up pollution
By Nick Hilden
In the struggle to combat pollution and fight climate change, a growing number of scientists are beginning to look to one of nature’s oldest biotechnologies: fungi.
The city of Cleveland faces an epidemic of abandoned houses. Crumbling homes number in the thousands. These ramshackle structures are riddled with toxins like lead and dilapidated to the point of no return. And if tearing down and safely disposing of the waste of one such home sounds daunting, imagine thousands of them.
Among the numerous issues that arise, one essential question involves waste. What do you do with the waste material from so many teardown structures, when so much of it is toxic?
“All of the material from demolition – the studs, the floors, cellulosic mass [the primary structural component of plants], and even things like ceiling tiles and asphalt material like roof shingles, can be mixed into substrate that then becomes good for growing fungus,” says Chris Maurer, founder of Cleveland-based architect firm Redhouse Studio. Through his firm, Maurer has been advocating for the use of substrate to address Cleveland’s housing crisis, which is also a health crisis for the city’s inhabitants.
No need to define – just ingest it.
Defining ‘Guisado’ Is Just as Messy as the Dish Itself
While the term is most commonly translated as “stew,” it’s not wholly accurate. Guisados are more of a feeling than anything else.
Tacos de guisado are—first and foremost—rule breakers. They so strongly resist identification that an umbrella category had to be created for them. The taqueros who make them don’t care for restrictions. Tacos de guisado are the morning tacos that lead into midday. They’re eaten by blue-collar workers and corporate yes-men, especially in Mexico City. “They’re practically the national breakfast food,” says Alejandro Escalante, author of La Tacopedia: Encyclopedia of the Taco and Acridofagia y Otros Insectos, and co-owner of La Casa de los Tacos in Mexico City’s Coyoacán neighborhood. They’re hefty and hearty and lovely. They’re also a source of confusion.
The trouble begins with the literal English translation of “guisado.” The word means “stew.” But just like “cold” can refer to more than temperature, “guisado” has more nuance than Google Translate is willing to offer. Even in the Phaidon edition of Escalante’s Tacopedia, the chapter on guisados is poorly translated to Stewed Tacos. Finding a completely accurate definition of guisado is a purist’s nightmare.
Cocktail Train
God Bless C-SPAN
The Gift of C-SPAN in an Era of Partisan Media
Forty-five years ago today, future vice president Albert Gore Jr. stood in the well of the House of Representatives to discuss an innovative development in television programming. There was nothing remarkable about that in itself: Al Gore had been a newspaperman before becoming a Tennessee congressman and had a genuine interest in both new technology and mass communication.
Except that there was something momentous about Gore’s speech that day. It was the first time that remarks delivered on the House floor by a member of Congress were televised. It was an event long envisioned by a 38-year-old Indiana-born, Purdue-educated, U.S. Navy veteran who had worked as a White House and Capitol Hill aide before returning to journalism. His name was Brian Lamb. As the Washington bureau chief of the trade publication Cablevision, Lamb had dreamed of creating a nonprofit cable network that would focus exclusively on public affairs, particularly Congress. It was called C-SPAN, and on March 19, 1979, that dream became reality.
Addressing an audience that Lamb later quipped was “in the thousands,” Al Gore said this: “The marriage of this medium and of our open debate have the potential, Mr. Speaker, to revitalize representative democracy.”
Precisely four and a half decades later, C-SPAN is still shining a spotlight on our nation’s elected representatives and our shared national history, even as the technology changes under the network’s feet (yet again.)
Kick Ass Nowhere Boy
The anti-James Bond: Why kale-growing Aaron Taylor-Johnson would be a 007 like no other
He loves baking, keeps chickens and is a regular on the school run. But could he really replace Daniel Craig?
by Liam Kelly
If the latest tabloid reports are to be believed, Aaron Taylor-Johnson is getting measured for his dinner jacket and learning how to handle a Walther PPK as he prepares to be cast as James Bond.
The Nowhere Boy and Kick-Ass star, 33, is hotly fancied to take over from Daniel Craig as MI6’s most famous secret agent in the 26th Bond film. “Bond is Aaron’s job, should he wish to accept it,” an anonymous source told The Sun. “The formal offer is on the table and they are waiting to hear back.”
Taylor-Johnson, for his part, has had to contend with such rumours for years and always plays a straight bat. “I find it charming and wonderful that people see me in that role,” he said in an interview last week. “I take it as a great compliment.”
Aaron Taylor-Bond
LICENCE TO KICK-ASS: British hunk formally offered role of James Bond and ‘will sign contract this week’ to take over from Daniel Craig
We first revealed in 2022 that the Marvel actor had emerged as a surprise frontrunner
by Howell Davies / Ellie Henman
BRIT actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson is taking his martinis shaken, not stirred, after being formally offered the job as the new James Bond.
Insiders said the Kick-Ass movie star is expected to accept the role as 007, taking over from Daniel Craig, who has played MI6’s most famous spy for 15 years.
Eon Productions, which makes the spy thriller films, is on course to start shooting this year.
A source said: “Bond is Aaron’s job, should he wish to accept it. The formal offer is on the table and they are waiting to hear back.
“As far as Eon is concerned, Aaron is going to sign his contract in the coming days and they can start preparing for the big announcement.”
The next Bond movie had been delayed because of last year’s Hollywood strikes.
M. Emmet Walsh Gone
M. Emmet Walsh Dies: Prolific Actor In ‘Blade Runner’, ‘Ordinary People’, Coen Brothers Pics & Hundreds More Was 88
M. Emmet Walsh, the familiar character actor in Blade Runner, Blood Simple, Best Picture Oscar winner Ordinary People, Knives Out, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Slap Shot and more than 200 other films and TV shows spanning a half-century, died Tuesday, his rep said. He was 88.
Walsh himself is quoted as saying: “I approach each job thinking it might be my last, so it better be the best work possible. I want to be remembered as a working actor. I’m being paid for what I’d do for nothing.”
Born on March 22, 1935, in Ogdensburg, NY, Walsh was raised in rural Vermont. He began his screen career guesting on late-1960s TV series before landing bit parts in films including Alice’s Restaurant, Little Big Man and Escape from the Planet of the Apes. He continued to guest-star in episodes of popular 1960s and ’70s series including Bonanza, All in the Family, Ironside, The Bob Newhart Show, McMillan & Wife, The Rockford Files, The Waltons, Starsky and Hutch, James at 16, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and many more.
He also appeared on the big screen in such ’70s hits as Serpico, The Jerk, They Might Be Giants, Straight Time, What’s Up, Doc? and Slap Shot, in which he played sportswriter Dickie Dunn, who was “Just trying to capture the spirit of the thing.”
He continued to work regularly into the 1980s up to the 2020s, appearing in popular pics including the Coen brothers’ 1984 debut Blood Simple, for which won the inaugural Independent Spirit Award, and their sophomore feature Raising Arizona (1987). He also appeared in the Robert Redford prison drama Brubaker (1980), Academy Award winner Ordinary People (1980), Best Picture Oscar nominee Reds (1981), Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic Blade Runner (1982), Chevy Chase comedy Fletch (1985), horror pic Critters (1986) and more.
The Fall Of The Fourth Estate
Over Three Decades, Tech Obliterated Media
My front-row seat to a slow-moving catastrophe.
By Kara Swisher
n the early 1990s, I was a reporter at the Washington Post. Having just turned 30, I was the “young” person in the newsroom, so when the digital-media start-ups appeared, I got what many reporters looked at as the short end of the beat. They had no interest in understanding the massive changes that were happening. As I learned more, it often fell to me to explain what this newfangled internet was as if I were trying to explain a tree to a child.
The Post did give me the space to report on a broad range of digital topics, largely because no one else would — including the many come-and-gone technologies, like CD-ROMs, that were heralded as “multimedia killers” but would soon be killed themselves.
During that period, I made one prediction that started coming true much more quickly than even I expected. This was about the end of old media, starting with the destruction of one of its most important economic pillars: the classified ads in newspapers.
Flamin’ Hot Deviance
Abcarian: Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and iPhones are ruining my kid and yours
by Robin Abcarian
With apologies to Allen Ginsberg:
I am seeing the best minds of our middle-school generation destroyed by Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and iPhones,
Teenagers on the cusp of young adulthood dragging themselves out of bed each day to mainline TikTok and Snapchat,
Measuring themselves by the yardstick of uber-filtered Kardashian perfection and falling short,
Getting expelled from school for sending AI-generated naked photos of classmates.
I want to howl about what’s happening to our kids. Between the negative brain effects of ultra-processed foods, and what can only be described as smartphone use disorder, something has gone terribly awry.
As it happens, you’ve caught me at a bad moment. In our home lately, the 13-year-old and I seem to be having daily conflicts over food and phones.
When she moved in with me at age 8, she had a smartphone, which I immediately put away. Her preference for ultra-processed food was already well-established; she’d been raised on a diet heavy on fast food and Lunchables.
Navy Seals?
from The Washington Post via Yahoo News!
How many dogs have government jobs? What about sea lions?
by Andrew Van Dam
Washington is going to the dogs – for real this time.
As of 2022, the federal government employed 5,159 German shepherds, Belgian Malinois, beagles, Jack Russell terriers and other forms of everyone’s favorite furry friend. Another 421 worked as canine contractors.
The job descriptions for these four-legged feds range from the sublime – 31 help “park rangers traverse Denali National Park in winter” – to the subprime: Others “detect waterfowl feces” infected with bird flu.
Director BEE
Bret Easton Ellis to Make Directorial Debut With L.A.-Set Horror Movie ‘Relapse,’ Starring Joseph Quinn (EXCLUSIVE)
“Less Than Zero” writer Bret Easton Ellis is set to make his directorial debut with “Relapse,” an elevated horror film he wrote starring “Stranger Things” breakout Joseph Quinn.
Paris-based SND has boarded the project as producer, alongside Adrian Guerra’s Nostromo (“Penny Dreadful”) and Simon Wallon’s Kiss & Kill (“Bonnie”). SND will handle worldwide sales on “Relapse,” as well as French distribution, and will tease the title at the EFM with a sizzle reel.
Quinn, who will next be seen in “Fantastic Four,” “A Quiet Place: Day One” and the “Gladiator” sequel, stars in ”Relapse” as Matt Cullen, who checks into rehab after witnessing a horrific death during a debauched party. Three months later, he is set to get his life back together, staying at his parent’s mansion in the hills of Los Angeles. But things have changed around Matt and everything seems off balance.
Cartoons Still Old-school
Newspaper Cartoonists Rely on Digital Tools, but Not as You’d Expect
I spent dozens of hours last fall interviewing newspaper cartoonists about how they draw their work, assuming that many would have adopted modern tools like a Wacom Cintiq tablet or at least a digital stylus paired with something like an iPad. Instead, I was surprised to find that many rely on traditional media, like ink, paint, and watercolor. Even more surprising? Many younger artists, who had the choice of whether to start in analog or digital, work on paper instead of on screen.
I expected that most artists producing daily cartoons would have made a partial or total conversion to drawing and producing their work digitally, thanks to the advantages in time and effort. Perhaps those who started working before the 1990s would largely stick to traditional media, but I reckoned even some percentage of them would have shifted over. But no. While they don’t draw digitally, they’re happy to leverage digital technologies in other ways.
The persistent use of liquid stuff on paper is partly because modern reproduction technology makes it just as easy to work in older media as with digital tools. The ease of scanning, or even taking high-resolution flat photos of analog work, outweighs the seeming advantages of an all-digital workflow for those who prefer the messy, unpredictable, and sometimes frustrating limitations of materials for the physical feedback, happy accidents, and familiarity they provide.
These interviews were part of my multi-year research for a book, How Comics Were Made: A Visual History from the Drawing Board to the Printed Page, that I’m currently crowdfunding with an anticipated ship date late in 2024. My book starts in the 1890s and follows North American newspaper comic production and reproduction to the modern days, focusing on how artists drew their strips and worked their way through the transformations necessary to get artwork onto a newsprint page or digital display.