La fantastica storia del Giappone, del Natale e del Kentucky Fried Chicken. Notevole.

Money quote: "After visiting a KFC test-store in the 1970 World Expo in Osaka, a young entrepreneur named Takeshi Okawara was smitten by the late-stage success of the company’s founder, Harland Sanders. A restless businessman himself, Okawara was humbled by the jovial American who job-hopped into his 60s before hitting the big time with his first KFC. When a recruiter offered Okawara an administrative position, he declined, opting instead to be the in-store manager of Japan’s very first KFC. “By doing that I can learn and study about how to make wonderful fried chicken, by myself, from scratch,” he told Business Insider’s podcast Household Name."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-japanese-christmas

Spigolature per capire la politica americana in un passaggio storico complesso e difficile da comprendere: un lungo ritratto di Brett Kavanaugh, ineffabile e inaffondabile giudice della Corte Suprema degli Stati Uniti (una posizione di enorme potere, per quanto molto tecnico).

Money quote: "In 1987, Judge Robert Bork, who sat on the DC circuit that Kavanaugh later served on, was the first originalist judge nominated to the Supreme Court. And though the Court was much less conservative than it is now, the Bork nomination and Bork’s philosophy became this flashpoint for conservatives and liberals. And he was ultimately defeated. For the first time, we were debating whether or not nominees’ judicial philosophy was legitimate to take into account –– which is taken as accepted reason now.

Eventually, Anthony Kennedy, another appeals court judge, was named to take his place. That created a much less conservative, much more moderate court than if Bork had been named."

https://longreads.com/2019/12/17/interview-with-ruth-marcus/

Preoccuparsi della propria mortalità come individui e di coppia. La miseria della vita messa in scena ovviamente in un lungo, lunghissimo articolo di quel genere memorialistico che contribuisce a fare del giornalismo americano una eccezione storica e planetaria.

Money quote: "My first husband is a traveling salesman and I live in constant fear he’ll die in a plane crash. It’s an anxiety exacerbated by my mother’s habit of phoning every single time she’s about to board a flight and reciting the same litany of worst-case information: her bank account numbers, who to call to cash out her life insurance policy, which jewelry I can expect to find in her safety deposit box."

https://longreads.com/2018/12/19/losing-the-plot/

A Portland, la città nell'Oregon che sta a metà fra San Francisco e Seattle, c'è la Nike e c'è una vivace scena di baracchini del cibo che sono diventati un fenomeno molto superiore a quello che si trova in una strada a Midtown, a Manhattan, o davanti al Politecnico a Milano. Lettura gustosa.

Money quote: "Over the years, food carts have served as launching pads for some of Portland’s best-known restaurants: Nong’s Khao Man Gai, outlandish sandwich shop Lardo, and the Salt & Straw ice cream behemoth all started as food carts. So it could be that the sandwich you’re eating from a compostable carton or the unexpected fusion dish you’re slurping in a gravel lot might be from the next James Beard Award-winning restaurant."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/inside-portlands-food-cart-culture

Una delle cose più affascinanti di Medium è l'assoluta medietà complessiva delle cose che vi si trovano. Il sito è costruito per premiare chi tra gli anonimi autori non professionisti (ma a cui piacerebbe molto diventarlo) viene più applaudito dai lettori e quindi non ci si può trovare l'eccellenza quanto la lusinga e la furbizia. In questo caso, un vecchio caso: le ragioni del cuore, in un tentativo di condividere le proprie miserie con le altrui. Ovviamente, nella sua nicchia, funziona. Anche se, bisogna dirlo, per arrivare ai livelli della televisione del pomeriggio, ce ne vuole.

Money quote: "I had left my husband for many reasons, but this man in front of me had been the crow bar I’d finally used to wedge myself out of that annihilating relationship.

I’d been a coward in not leaving years before, in not leaving as soon as I filed for divorce three months before, in waiting to leave until after this man got me alone in his office and pointed to the soft spot below his ear and said, “I love your short hair. It makes me want to touch you right here.”

The heart is an extremely forgiving muscle. It airbrushes defects when we love someone."

https://web.archive.org/web/20191216203332/https://psiloveyou.xyz/what-its-like-to-date-the-person-you-left-your-husband-for-7b5b35e99e41?gi=dd79db9ddaad

I problemi di leggere fumetti sul tablet - la mia nuova rubrica su Fumettologica

https://fumettologica.it/2023/03/leggere-fumetti-tablet/

La mia recensione di Apple Music Classical per Macity

Money quote 1: "Abbiamo detto che l’app consente di “pescare” da un catalogo sconfinato in maniera finalmente soddisfacente. Siamo andati a cercare alcune cose che abbiamo nel cuore per vedere se la potenza di ricerca di Apple Music Classical ci permette di trovarle visto che con Apple Music era praticamente impossibile."

Money quote 2: “Sostanzialmente abbiamo trovato tutto il piccolo tesoro della musica più cara di cui conserviamo CD o addirittura dischi di vinile, e altre cose che abbiamo cercato e ascoltato in momenti diversi. Non edizioni analoghe, remix o compilation. Abbiamo trovato esattamente l’edizione che volevamo, quando la volevamo e come la volevamo."

https://www.macitynet.it/apple-music-classical-recensione/

Una vita di successo senza avere un riscontro materiale (soldi, donne, etc). Ve lo spiega l'ultimo dei raccattati che ho trovato su Medium.

Money quote: "If you’re not careful you can chase the wrong goals for the wrong reasons.

Often people’s goals are associated with making money or achieving a high level of status, which are fine in an of themselves, but they don’t tell the whole story.

If money and fame weren’t part of the equation, how would you define success?"

https://web.archive.org/web/20191209131151/https://medium.com/@Chef_BoyarDEJI/8-signs-of-a-successful-life-that-have-nothing-to-do-with-money-or-fame-e1b6824355cf

Oggi, nel 1941, nasceva Bonvi, leggendario fumettista italiano creatore delle Sturmtruppen. Per l’occasione pubblichiamo un’intervista del 1974, piuttosto rara e mai più ripubblicata fino ad oggi, in cui Bonvi racconta il suo lavoro e il suo rapporto con i critici e la censura.
👉 https://bit.ly/3lZA77G

Grazie alle moderne tecnologie siamo in grado di leggere il passato e "vedere" i tatuaggi sulla pelle munmificata degli antichi egizi. Fantastico.

Money quote: "“One complication with the textual record is it biases our understanding of the past to what was recorded,” says Anne Austin, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis who studied the Deir el-Medina mummies for three years while working with the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology in Cairo. “These tattoos reveal new information that does not appear in the textual record and give us the potential to better understand women’s experiences in the village.”"

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/tattooed-egyptian-mummies-infrared

Qual è il senso della vita? Perché vivere? Qual è una vita degna di essere vissuta? Vivi o semplicemente esistenti? Una raffica di domande che hanno steso menti ben penetranti degli ultimi 5mila anni di storia (e pure di qualche migliaio di anni nella preistoria) vengono condensate partendo da un grande ponte sospeso su un fiume per arrivare a William James.

Money quote: "To my surprise and delight, the walkways on the bridge were empty. I’d have the view to myself. With a maximum height of 276 feet (84 metres), it was once regarded as one of the seven wonders of the industrial world. During its construction, 27 workers died, before it was completed in 1883; two years later, Robert Odlum became the first man to jump off the bridge. A swimming instructor who wanted to prove that descending through air at high speed was not necessarily fatal, he sadly died. In the next century, approximately 1,500 people have followed Odlum, for different reasons. I’m not sure how many people are saved by the sign, but I am inclined to think that it is highly ineffective."

https://aeon.co/essays/is-life-worth-living-the-pragmatic-maybe-of-william-james

Un manga che non è molto comune: Arte.

Money quote: "La storia è ambientata all’inizio del XVI secolo in una Firenze rinascimentale in pieno fermento culturale. La protagonista, che dà il nome al manga, è appunto Arte, palesemente ispirata ad Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1654), una delle figure più interessanti e carismatiche del panorama artistico di ogni tempo e luogo.

Non è sicuramente l’unica donna degna di nota che la storia dell'arte ci abbia consegnato, infatti di primo acchito non si può far a meno di citare Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), Tamara de Lempicka (1898-1980) o anche Sofonisba Anguissola (1532-1625), Camille Claudel (1864-1943) e Berthe Morisot (1841-1895). La vita e l’opera di Artemisia Gentileschi però suscitano particolare curiosità e ammirazione ancora oggi perché lei si fece protagonista di una conquista rivoluzionaria, riuscendo ad ottenere gli stessi diritti e la legittimità accademica dei suoi colleghi maschi, in un contesto estremamente ostile."

https://www.animeclick.it/news/79108-arte-recensione-del-piccolo-capolavoro-manga

Alcune foto spettacolari dei maestri giapponesi del bianco e nero

Money quote: "The Japanese Shōwa period, coinciding with the reign of Emperor Hirohito from 1926 to 1989, is noted as one of Japan’s most tumultuous and transformative eras. Over these many decades Japan went from a militaristic empire to a conquered, occupied nation – one that had experienced first-hand the horrors of atomic warfare. After WWII, it crawled out of the embers of defeat to metamorphose into a liberal democracy and an economic powerhouse. This rebirth opened Japan to a deluge of foreign ideas and influences.

Against this backdrop many Japanese photographers would emerge to document the profound changes in their nation with bare, raw realism. Others pushed the boundaries of long held societal norms and taboos.

I’ve taken on the daunting task of picking just five photographers from this long period. These five Shōwa era masters of light exemplify the blistering pace of life that was challenging the very foundations of the nation. They propelled Japanese photography down new pathways."

https://casualphotophile.com/2021/03/16/five-masters-of-light-from-japans-showa-era/

C'è uno strano, ambivalente rapporto tra i filosofi e l'immaginazione: dalla razionalità nata nel Settecento a oggi infatti l'immaginazione ha avuto molteplici ruoli, non sempre accolti in maniera positiva. Una esplorazione un po' classicheggiante/occidentale come scelta e profondità ma interessante.

Money quote: "Kant’s bifurcation hints at why philosophers treat the imagination with both despair and delight. Perhaps the kind of imagination we despise is totally different from its more useful cousin. But in accepting this subdivision, we give up on the possibility of seeing the imagination as a unified mental faculty – which is perhaps more how we experience it."

https://aeon.co/ideas/imagination-is-a-powerful-tool-why-is-philosophy-afraid-of-it

Manzanar era il campo di concentramento per gli americani di discendenza giapponese durante la Seconda guerra mondiale. Una delle storie vergognose che scompaiono quando chi le mette in essere risulta poi essere il vincitore. Le foto di Dorothea Lange mostrano una storia che è stata censurata fino al 2006.

Money quote: “A viper is nonetheless a viper wherever the egg is hatched—so a Japanese-American, born of Japanese parents—grows up to be a Japanese, not an American.”

https://anchoreditions.com/blog/dorothea-lange-censored-photographs

Una storia che prima o poi cercherò di raccontare anche io: l'aereo della Pan Am che fece il giro del mondo per sfuggire alla guerra scoppiata con Perl Harbour.

Money quote: "The morning of 6th January 1942 was going to be a cold one. Not that this was unusual for New York, mused the night-shift air controller at LaGuardia’s tower, but it did mean he’d have to wrap up extra warm when he headed home."

https://medium.com/s/story/the-long-way-round-the-plane-that-accidentally-circumnavigated-the-world-c04ca734c6bb

Cosa c'è dietro il comportamento dei repubblicani più radicali in America, in particolare a Nashville? Lo spiega benissimo Dan Rather.

Money Quote: "They are desperate measures from desperate people who fear they have already lost the future."

https://steady.substack.com/p/injustice-in-nashville

Inchiestona del New York Times sul futuro dei libri e delle librerie nell'epoca di Amazon. A questo articolo pre pandemia, che parla di contraffazione, ha risposto poi la stessa Amazon con un suo post

Money quote: "Antimicrobial Therapy, which publishes “The Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy,” bought 34 of its handbooks from Amazon and Amazon’s third-party sellers. At least 30 were counterfeits."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/23/technology/amazon-domination-bookstore-books.html

https://blog.aboutamazon.com/books-and-authors/our-response-to-the-new-york-times-story-on-book-counterfeiting

Auguri di una serena Pasqua a tutti gli iscritti a questo canale!

Le idee di business spesso sono balzane. Questa più di altre.

Money quote: "750 Words is a site that I built on a whim in 2009, and it's still going strong. It turns 10 years old this December! It's a site that allows you to practice a daily habit of private journaling (the opposite of every publishing platform out there). The words you write are saved and locked away, only for you to ever look at, so you can write whatever's really on your mind without fear of it getting out. It's basically a digital version of morning pages, an idea I learned about from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. If you write every day you get badges and analytics, etc. It costs $5/month after the free trial.
As of today, over 400,000 have signed up and over 5 billion words have been written. 968 people have written over 365 days in a row, 265 people have written 1,000 days in a row, and 68 people have written 2,000 days in a row."

https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/063525ef84

Dopo tanti anni Flight Simulator di Microsoft è tornato. È e sarà soprattutto un simulatore ed è e sarà per Windows e poi per Xbox One. Per me è (quasi) la killer app di Microsoft.

Money quote: "The culmination of time, effort, technology, and collaboration was edited into a 1:30 second video shown at the Microsoft Keynote presentation this year to kick off E3 2019.

On behalf of the entire Microsoft Flight Simulator team, we humbly and deeply express our gratitude for such an overwhelmingly positive response to our announce trailer! We recognize that without people like you, we don’t get to make experiences like this that span more than 35 years and maintain such a passionate following. Thank you for being patient enough to weather the turbulence caused by some of our previous missteps. Thank you for being willing to look to the possibilities of the future while asking us to be accountable for the past. We hear you, we value you, we want to make the next generation of Microsoft Flight Simulator for you, with you."

https://fsi.microsoftstudios.com/

https://www.flightsimulator.com