Top Of The Week: Data, Berber, Beefheart, Forget, Lebowski
Nobody Here Wants The Data Centre
J.J. Anselmi | New Republic | 22nd June 2026 | B
Oral history, compiled from interviews with people across the USA who have had a data centre built in their neighbourhood. The companies and logistics were different in each case, while other aspects are similar across sites and states. Extreme secrecy during the construction phase, elected officials signing NDAs, issues with traffic, noise and water, and a sense of living in a dystopian landscape (4,100 words)
The Forgotten Castles Of The Garamantes
Giulio Aprin | Wild Man Life | 4th May 2026 | U
The Garamantes, an ancient Berber civilisation that flourished for nearly 16 centuries from 900 BC to 700 CE, went unremarked until satellite images showed the ruins of a hidden empire in a remote part of the Libyan Sahara. They were able to sustain entire cities in the unforgiving desert by digging subterranean channels called foggaras to mine fossil water sealed in aquifers from the time of a green Sahara (3,100 words)
The 100 Greatest Songs Of The 1960s
Paste | 19th June 2026 | U
Refreshingly original list, made more so by the requirement to choose only one song per artist (as per the headnote, this prevents it being "40% Beatles"). Broken up into three pages, so be sure to explore numbers 50-11 and 10-1 as well. There are plenty of well-known favourites here by big-time stars, as well as appearances by the likes of Jackie Shane, Doris Troy and Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band (19,500 words)
How Not To Forget What Matters
Henrik & Johanna Karlsson | Escaping Flatland | 22nd June 2026 | U
To offset “stultitia” or “the tendency to lose track of what matters in the cacophony of things that attract our attention”, the Romans had a notetaking system called hypomnēmata. The writer would store quotes from books. Each day, they would open their notebook and look for a passage relevant to what they were struggling with, and meditate on it. Over time, insight becomes character (3,100 words)
The Big Lebowskization Of California
Joe Mathews | Zócalo Public Square | 23rd June 2026 | U
Californians think of themselves as "young and diverse and hip", but they have more in common with the protagonist of the 1998 cult film The Big Lebowski, who is "an aging, bowling, cocktail-drinking, Creedence-loving, underemployed stoner". This condition, known as "Lebowskization", is "spreading faster than Ebola". Unemployment, marijuana usage and alcohol consumption are all up state-wide (1,100 words)
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Podcast: The Friendly Arctic | What To Carry, What To Burn. First in a new series about survival against impossible odds, as told by a dogsledder. Ada Blackjack embarks on an Arctic expedition with four others and becomes the only one of them to survive a brutal winter (1h 1m)
Video: What Makes Gaudí's Style So Unique? | YouTube | Dezeen | 4m 13s
Visual essay exploring why Gaudí's body of architectural work is much admired but rarely imitated.
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