While You Read

The Cinematic Orchestra: Manhatta

Bread, Olive Oil, and Vinegar

21st Occasional, Empyrean Quotes From Your Recent Reading

Appetizer

How Silent Discos bring Us Together - Nautilus

It was a clear night, perfect for a stroll, but attendees weren’t interested in local shops and restaurants. They were too busy dancing silently to the music, tuning in—or tuning out—to a “silent disco.”

Soup

The Secrets of the Wave Pilots - New York Times Magazine

At 0400, three miles above the Pacific seafloor, the searchlight of a power boat swept through a warm June night last year, looking for a second boat, a sailing canoe. The captain of the canoe, Alson Kelen, potentially the world’s last-ever apprentice in the ancient art of wave-piloting, was trying to reach Aur, an atoll in the Marshall Islands, without the aid of a GPS device or any other way-finding instrument. If successful, he would prove that one of the most sophisticated navigational techniques ever developed still existed and, he hoped, inspire efforts to save it from extinction. Monitoring his progress from the power boat were an unlikely trio of Western scientists — an anthropologist, a physicist and an oceanographer — who were hoping his journey might help them explain how wave pilots, in defiance of the dizzying complexities of fluid dynamics, detect direction and proximity to land. More broadly, they wondered if watching him sail, in the context of growing concerns about the neurological effects of navigation-by-smartphone, would yield hints about how our orienteering skills influence our sense of place, our sense of home, even our sense of self.

Pasta

My Cousin, the Cowboy Poet - The New Yorker

Bone Pile Near The Creek

  Learn a lesson now from this poor old cow
  Whose bones are scattered here
  You stretched your luck when you shorted my chuck
  then kept me one more year.

Dessert

My Little Dandelion - The Atlantic Notes

Most of us don’t want dandelions in our lawns – they don’t fit there. But if you place a dandelion plant in your kitchen garden, and cultivate it, it can turn out to be one of your most valuable plants. Dandelions are used to make beer, wine, salads, and natural medicines. Quite simply, if you choose to cultivate dandelions, you will reap their rewards. So, is a dandelion a weed or an herb? You decide. The same can be said for individuals with autism. The value of what you see depends on your level of understanding and accommodation.

If You're Still Looking For A Little Something To Take Home

A Book Recommendation: Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

A New Project: albatrossian.xyz

Funnies

XKCD 1658