The Birds and the Bees

Yesterday was unusually befouled by hate-reads so let’s take a deep breath here on the Friday of the civilized workweek with Laurel Schwulst’s soothing NYT meditation / craft recipe: “How to Build a Bird Kite.”

Isn’t that nice? If you don’t have a chunk of free time right now, save this for the weekend when you can take a half hour or whatever and just let it happen to you.

The Daily Beast tried to make it happen with a real mullet of a media article: Choire leaving Styles up front, and a shaggy attempt to stir up more Taylor Lorenz drama in the back. It is a hallucinatory reading experience, halfway through I wondered when I changed articles but no, it’s just one post that doesn’t make any sense.

Twitter opened up applications for blue checks, which my pal Bloomberg News points out, with admirable accuracy, “is actually a white check mark against a blue background.“ Details matter in @business. The Maricopa County recount was a shitshow writes observer Jennifer Morrell. Alexandra Petri: “I do not wish to learn anything more about my wealthy husband’s near demise (which would have been sad).” The world’s most stressful solo role-playing game “Hope is Not a Plan” invites you to manage an impossible engineering project before your stress-Jenga tower collapses. Also today in work: David Leonhardt makes the case that even by capitalist rules, there is no labor shortage. And please give a raise to whoever at Ford named the Mega Power Frunk.

Page Six: “Angelina Jolie gets covered in bees for 18 minutes on World Bee Day.”

[Reaches up out of frame and pulls a guitar apparently from thin air, strums familiar opening bars…]

Jolie, Jolie, Jolie, JolieI'm begging of you please don't take my bees.Jolie, Jolie, Jolie, JolieDon't hide them down the front of your chemise.

Her beauty is beyond compare,her thorax and her compound stare,with forelegs that keep her antennae clean.

Her mandibles and piercing sting,her pollen sacs with yellow grainsand I cannot hold bees like you, Jolie…

Speaking of Page Six, nothing shows an Intern’s true grit more than what they turn in when there’s no interesting news. So here’s Intern Tess with the weather:

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It was a slow news day over here in cozy Intern Corner. Here’s just how slow:

One of the benefits of being an intern is that I can be baby and demand that Rusty allow me to cover anything I want when nothing’s popping, and today that thing is Bob Seger weather:

Wednesday in New York was Bob Seger weather, with low humidity and a high of 86. Bob Seger weather is sweaty with a light breeze and it remains warm until some time after dark, when it dips just to the point where you need a denim jacket. In Los Angeles, you can find Bob Seger weather most often on the cooler days in July, but also sometimes in early October. This year may be different because we now live in an air fryer, which could mean that by August we’ll find ourselves stuck with Soundgarden weather. Soundgarden weather is a high-pressure system with occasional gusts and dry, hot nights. Chewy air. The sun is a red dot but somehow also a black hole.

Last year we had some great Kate Bush weather: thunderstorms with actual thunder and lightning, which is so rare it makes us loopy. People in LA love rain, but I think I love it most of all because I get to play my highlight reel of people from my high school hydroplaning in their flip flops. I don’t even like Kate Bush, sorry, but she has been assigned to LA thunderstorms by the weather-band gods and I can’t change the rules.

I heard there was a mega power cold frunk coming in, stay safe out there Tess.

Did you see what these racists are trying to do to Nikole Hannah-Jones now? When someone out there tries to pull the old “well let’s wait and see what the facts are before we rush to judgement…” do me a favor and send them this thread about what it takes to even get to the point where the board of trustees is called upon to confirm a tenure appointment. The UNC faculty are furious and looking for answers because it’s not even clear who made this decision yet, but don’t let anyone try to convince you it’s not exactly what it looks like.

Today’s Song: N.W.A. “Express Yourself”

~ The words, the style, the tabs, the records I spin ~

Tomorrow is Open Thread Friday, so subscribe and come chat, it’s the chillest vibe in `slettering. This weekend I’m taking my search and rescue certification test, so wish me luck on that! I’m gonna go study, so you can catch me procrastinating at @fka_tabs.