Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Horseshoe crabs are sometimes called “living fossils” because they have been around in some form for more than 450 million years. In this time, the Earth has gone through multiple major ice ages, a Great Dying, the formation and subsequent breaking up of Pangaea, and an asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs and most of…
There’s an episode in Season Four of the show Parks and Recreation called “The End of the World,” in which we meet a cult known as “The Reasonabilists.” Members of this cult believe that an alien god named “Zorp” will destroy the world. Every few years, the Reasonabilists predict that Zorp is about to come…
Photo: AP On Monday, reports emerged in Page Six, the tabloid New York Post’s gossip page, that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is dating none other than musician Grimes. At first, I didn’t know what to make of this, because—confession: I had absolutely no idea who Grimes is. But reader, after roughly 20 minutes…
I could only have seen it there, on the waxed hardwood floor of my elementary-school auditorium, because I was young then, barely 7 years old, and cable had not yet come to the city, and if it had, my father would not have believed in it. Yes, it had to have happened like this, like…
Kim K’s nude bod holds court in our office Image: Megan Reynolds Upon learning that Kim Kardashian West was making a perfume based on her idea of what her own nude, oiled bod smells like, I was skeptical. What did that even mean? But the audacity of confidence required to market and create a perfume…
Gabriel2052’s library of motor movements will know what I’m turned on by, his fingertips ghosting across the back of my neck with the right force-per-unit area. His motorized parts will know how to spread goosebumps across my skin, and his sensors will detect when my breath quickens in response. When we sleep, he will be…
close story-meta Photo Patrick and SpongeBob in “SpongeBob SquarePants.” Credit Nickelodeon When a yellow sponge in rectangular pants came to children’s TV in 1999, who could have guessed that it would lead to “SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical,” which was nominated this week for 12 Tony Awards? With the musical on a slate that includes…
In 1989, a man armed with a hunting rifle and a knife entered a Montreal university and systematically killed 14 women, before killing himself. “I have decided to send the feminists, who have always ruined my life, to their Maker … I have decided to put an end to those viragos,” he wrote in his…
Every morning I wake up to the same routine. I log into the Tinder account of a 45-year-old man from Texas—a client. I flirt with every woman in his queue for 10 minutes, sending their photos and locations to a central database of potential “Opportunities.” For every phone number I get, I make $1.75. I’m…
Graphic: Michael Harriot (The Root; photo via iStock) Every so often a new phrase emerges that encapsulates the cunning Caucasian ability to keep power and dominance within their clutches by painting themselves as the oppressed class. Whether it is “reverse racism,” “Make America great again” or “separate but equal,” coining catchphrases as a means of…