Mumbai, Famous People, Prince, Harriet Tubman, Dying Well

I Was Born On The Footpath

Tavleen Singh | Scroll | 16th April 2016

A glimpse of poverty in Mumbai. “Surekha was discharged three days after the baby was born. I brought her back to her home on the pavement behind the Air India building and told her she must make sure that all he was fed was breast milk. I told her husband how important it was for the baby to be kept in as clean an atmosphere as possible. But how clean can life be for those who live on the footpaths of Mumbai?” (1,400 words)

Why So Many Celebrities?

Laura Gray & Roland Hughes | BBC | 22nd April 2016

Does it seem as though a lot of famous people are dying all at once? Well they are. The BBC broadcast five times as many celebrity obituaries in the first quarter of 2016 as it did in the first quarter of 2012. The cause is partly the baby-boom demographic: There are more people of dying age. And it’s also the effect of television, which sharply increased the supply of famous people starting about 50 years ago (1,000 words)

I Am Your Conscious

Hilton Als | Harper's | 1st December 2012

R-rated for f- words and adult themes. A “paean to Prince” — outside the Harper’s paywall, as I write. “Before Prince, black popular music had been limited by its blackness, which is to say its fundamentally Christian, blues-inflected, conservative attitude … Unlike Little Richard (Prince’s forebear in black American androgyny), it was impossible to imagine Prince becoming a preacher as a way of renouncing his love affair with eyeline” (6,900 words)

About Harriet Tubman

Eli Lehrer | National Review | 21st April 2016

Does Harriet Tubman deserve her place on the new $20 bill? “Hell yeah”. She was a “black, Republican, gun-toting veterans’ activist, with ninja-like spy skills and strong Christian beliefs”. She escaped from slavery, led others to freedom, fought with the Union Army, and championed women’s suffrage in her retirement. A much better model than Andrew Jackson, whose “demotion to the back of the bill is long overdue” (780 words)

A Protocol For Dying

Pieter Hintjens | 22nd April 2016

“My kids are twelve, nine, five. Tragic, etc. etc. Growing up without a father. It is a fact. I’ve explained it to them slowly, and many times over the years, like this. One day, I will be gone. It may be long away, it may be soon. We all die, yes, even you little Gregor. It is part of life. We’re like Lego houses, and when we die our pieces get broken up and put back in the box. We die, and new babies can be born. It is the wheel of life” (1,990 words)

Video of the day: Earthworks In Motion

What to expect:

Stangely calming black-and-white stop-motion clips of trees, rivers, stones (1’14”)

Thought for the day

Everyone has talent at twenty-five. The difficulty is having it at fifty
Edgar Degas