The Penumbra Of Mortality

Venkatesh Rao | Ribbonfarm | 20th April 2023

What a thoughtful, useful note; it reads like a letter from a friend who has things to say, but says them non-insistently, in observations rather than arguments. Having read this I shall read Greg Egan, and re-read J.G. Ballard, and see if I agree about their relative merits. I will understand better how Dickens achieved his dramatic effects, especially the combining of love with death for added pathos (1,860 words)

Ox

James Harbeck | Sesquiotica | 20th April 2023

If there is no ox in my oxtail soup, and no ox in Oxfam, and no ox in oxymoron ... well, you get the idea. Where have all the oxes gone, and should that be oxen, and, if so, when did anybody last say: Look! Oxen! But ox is a lovely word dating back to the Sanskrit uksa, so let's keep using it. Besides, there may yet be some ox in your oxtail soup if you cut the tail from an adult steer that pulled a plough (840 words)

The Origins Of Clothing

Ian Gilligan | Sapiens | 20th April 2023

We divide prehistory into Stone, Bronze and Iron ages because lots of things made of stone, bronze and iron survive from those times. We neglect the role of wood and cloth in prehistoric cultures because ancient things made of wood and cloth have mostly rotted away. When was clothing invented, for example? Judging from the tools which survive, perhaps a million or more years ago (2,600 words)

Open Questions

Gwern | 13th February 2023

Gwern has more curiosity and more knowledge about more things than anybody else on the Internet. Yet some things remain a mystery even to Gwern, and here is Gwern's scratch pad. Topics include: Why fur­ries? Why does microwaved tea taste bad? Why does red excite people? Why don't twins work together more often? Are people getting more beautiful? Who were the Metcalf snipers? (10,800 words)

The King Who Wasn't There

Thomas Collins | History Today | 18th April 2023

For centuries, medieval Europeans believed in the existence of a Christian monarch named Prester John — sometimes described as "a descendant of the Magi" — who ruled over a distant kingdom. It began with some 12C forged letters but soon became a powerful piece of propaganda turned to different uses, as states falsely claimed to have made contact with this imaginary figure (2,725 words)

You Have A New Memory

Merritt Tierce | Slate | 16th April 2023

Is the internet reading our minds? Perhaps not, but the uncanny replication of our ideas by targeted ads inspires doubt. "I don’t think we’ve evolved enough to handle being aware of as much as the internet makes it possible for us to be aware of, which is another circuit-breaker, as we have evolved enough to feel like it’s important to be aware of everything it’s possible to be aware of" (6,436 words)

Podcast: Unscrupulous Collection | Bad Seeds. Beginning of a promising new podcast series that answers the question "what if we made true crime, but about plants?". This first episode tells the story of the black market in stolen plants, using a 2020 raid in Italy that recovered 1,000 succulents stolen from the Atacama desert in Chile as the case study (31m 49s)

Video: The Rise & Fall Of The KeepCup | YouTube | Sustainably Vegan | 10m 57s

Thoughtful video essay about the triumph of marketing that is the KeepCup — a reusable, but not necessarily practical, glass travel mug that was first sold in Australia in 2009. It became the must-have symbol of the ethical consumer in the 2010s. "I was devoted to my KeepCup. It was the signal that I was single-handedly saving the planet."

Chronicle Of Revolutions Foretold

Branko Milanovic | Global Inequality | 13th April 2023

How increasing economic inequality leads almost inevitably to revolution. The trouble starts at the top. The greater the gains accruing to the very richest in any society, the greater the incentives for the rich, however rich they may already be, to compete for yet more riches. The result is in-fighting among the rich to capture public goods, and power over public goods, until the public revolts (1,540 words)

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How To Define Death

Al Roth et al | Market Design/JAMA | 13th April 2023

American law defines death as "irreversible cessation" of heart and lung functions or of all brain functions. But brain-dead patients can now be kept oxygenated on ventilators indefinitely if relatives so insist. Their bodies will continue to function. Redefining death as "irreversible loss of consciousness" would enable more organ transplants, saving more lives. But would public opinion stand for it? (750 words)

Greenland’s Misunderstood Winter Delicacy

Mark Hay | Atlas Obscura | 7th March 2023

Kiviaq, a traditional Inuit fermented meat dish from Greenland, is made by stuffing hundreds of tiny seabirds into the carcass of a seal, sealing it with fat and burying it for months. The flavour is affected by weather and landscape — it has a terroir, just like wine. One enthusiast compares the taste to blue cheese or Parma ham, but outsiders regularly decry it as disgusting. Who is right? (2,348 words)

Mystified by cryptic crosswords? We at The Browser are here to help. Pick up the ultimate guide, by Dan Feyer and Uri Bram, and let us guide you through the meaning of those clues - so you can get on with puzzling.

Chess Is A Game Of Perfect Information

Adrienne Raphel | JStor Daily | 12th April 2023

On chess and the poetry of Charles Simic. He was a chess prodigy who planned his movements through his lines of verse like the pieces across the board. Chess is utterly open: both players have access to all the information at every point. This makes it a "handy allegory" for many aspects of life, including writing, war, love and ageing. Chaucer, T.S. Eliot and Lewis Carroll were all fond of it (1,416 words)

The British Pilgrimage Problem

James Jeffrey | Critic | 9th April 2023

The UK has "so much pilgrimage potential", yet has no popular routes equivalent to the Camino de Santiago. Blame Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell: they banned pilgrimage in England in 1538 as part of the break with Rome, and the practice has been "taboo" ever since, with the British scorning such displays of religiosity. As a result, Britain is missing out on a lucrative slice of the tourist market (1,324 words)

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Barack Obama’s Reading Lists

Sophie Vershbow | Esquire | 10th April 2023

The former president has been publishing his annual list of favourite books since 2009, but it has long been theorised that the Obama selection is really made by consultants, or somehow stitched up between his staffers and publishing executives with book distributors alerted ahead of time so they can secure stock. Not so, apparently: Barack Obama just loves to read widely (1,948 words)

Sketches From Ukraine

Dave Eggers | Believer | 6th April 2023

For me, the best essay of the year to date. "I want to tell you about the wretched suffering that you have seen and read about, but if you will permit me, I’d also like to tell you that Ukraine is an almost fully functioning nation that defies one’s expectations for the conditions of life during wartime. If Ukraine is not the most resilient and defiant nation on Earth, please show me what is" (11,300 words)

Reckless Advice

Daniel Lavery | Literary Hub | 4th April 2023

How to give good advice. Lessons learned from a five-year stint as agony columnist for Slate. You decide what the person with the problem really wants to do, what they want to hear, what you think they should do, and from these you triangulate a compromise. "It’s difficult to remain impressed with one’s own opinion when that opinion must be reproduced to order throughout the week" (1,010 words)

Highway Star

Meg Bernhard | n+1 | 2nd March 2023

Tips from a trucker's life. Jess is the trucker, she lives in her cab, she loves her work, and she ships mostly food. “These apples are last year’s apples. The onions you buy in a grocery store have been in a warehouse for a year. Bananas are stored at 56 degrees if they’re green, 57 if yellow. Don't ask about the chicken in fast food. Drivers who ship syrup for Coca-Cola need a HAZMAT license" (3,400 words)

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Rhythms And Shapes

Nina Kraus | MIT Press | 3rd April 2023

The human brain apprehends rhythm at the same deep level as it understands space, time, and language. Rhythm is a common denominator of these domains. We sense regularities in spatial things, repetition in temporal things, metre in spoken things. Our bodies live by circadian rhythms. Our minds seek patterns and form expectations. Rhythm is central to our comfort and happiness (3,900 words)

Paris Kicked Out The Cars

Henry Grabar | Slate | 30th March 2023 | Code

Paris has radically reduced car usage in the last two decades: car trips within the city are down by almost 60 per cent. But opponents claim that a car-less lifestyle just highlights the city's inequalities. Property prices keep the less well off out in the suburbs, where car use is much higher. Poorly paid bicycle delivery jobs are mostly done by recent immigrants. Given this, "who is the city for?" (6,921 words)

Video: I’m Usually Pretty Good At Naming Things | Vimeo | Mac Promo | 4m 50s

Collage artist describes and demonstrates the process of forcing himself to make art from the vast quantities of paper he has accumulated. The temptation, he says, is to be always trying to say something with his work, but here he experiments with just putting images and patterns together that fit, and waiting for the meaning to catch up with him later.

The Glory Of Trams

Christopher Atamian & Aram Pachyan | LARB | 3rd April 2023

Two essays on the joy of trams. One looks at a childhood spent zooming around Geneva, the other at the demise of the tram system in Yerevan, Armenia. The Yerevan trams recall the heyday of Soviet optimism: "It’s as if the introduction of the tram was some kind of messiah, a maddening religious ecstasy, bringing order to the routine of a person’s work and meaning to their existence" (6,470 words)

Mystified by cryptic crosswords? We at The Browser are here to help. Pick up the ultimate guide, by Dan Feyer and Uri Bram, and let us guide you through the meaning of those clues - so you can get on with puzzling.

Marilyn Monroe's Psychoanalysis Notes

Jillian Hess | Noted | 13th March 2023

Marilyn Monroe was very keen on psychoanalysis. She read Freud at a young age and spent years documenting her analysis sessions in a series of notebooks. It was not a wholly successful pastime for her. In 1962, the year she died, she wrote: "I hope at some future time to be able to make a glowing report about the wonders that psychoanalysis can achieve. The time is not ripe" (1,682 words)

On Mary Wollstonecraft

Joanna Biggs | Paris Review | 3rd April 2023

Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, although flawed, "is philosophically substantial, even two centuries later". The questions that still preoccupy feminists today — a woman's role at home and how that impacts what she is able to do in the rest of the world — stem from the Vindication's argument "that women should above all be thought human, not other" (4,253 words)

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'That Car's Been In An Accident'

J. Allan Hobson | MIT Press Reader | 27th March 2023

Psychiatrist describes his experience of sudden amnesia after a car accident. His stationary car was struck hard from behind, causing an S-shaped deformation in his brain stem. He was otherwise unharmed, so that he was able to get out of the car and think "that car looks like it’s been in an accident" with no awareness that it was his car or that he had been inside it during the crash (2,385 words)