Kickoff For June 28, 2021
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Monday Kickoff, a collection of what I’ve found interesting, informative, and insightful on the web over the last seven days.
Let’s get this Monday started with these links:
Arts and Literature
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s Lost Album, Human Highway, wherein we learn how, in fits and starts, the supergroup tried to record what could have been a groundbreaking album but which, for a variety of reasons, never came together.
The King of the Geezer Teasers, wherein we learn about the career of prolific straight-to-video producer Randall Emmett, who’s one of the top creators of movies featuring action stars and leading men who once ruled Hollywood and now make very good money appearing in very bad movies.
Peter Sinfield: Bringing Words To King Crimson’s Court, wherein we go into the history of the singer, poet, and progressive rock lyricist and learn how he teamed up with bands like King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
Ideas
Dolphin intelligence and humanity’s cosmic future, wherein we learn how musings about the intelligence of cetaceans informed, in a small way, the search for extraterrestrial life.
Alphonse Bertillon and the Troubling Pursuit of Human Metrics, wherein Jessica Helfand looks at early efforts to measure and classify humans, and why such efforts fail because they try to capture something that by its very nature, impossible to capture, let alone deliver, on an index card.
How cities will fossilise, wherein David Farrier ponders what will happen to our cities once the human race is long gone.
Odds and Ends
The universal forces of sound and rhythm enhance thought and feeling, wherein Christina Rawls recounts her experience with aphantasia and how music helps her process information and deal with the problems that come with that cognitive issue.
Big Dog’s Backyard Ultra: The toughest, weirdest race you’ve never heard of, wherein we learn about a strange, challenging (to say the least!) and gruelling (that’s an understatement!) running race that puts higher profile events to shame.
Finding my Father Among the Astronauts, wherein Nicholas Schmidle recounts how he learned more about his father’s inner workings by shadowing, and befriending, a test pilot working for Virgin Galactic.
And that’s it for this Monday. Come back in seven days for another set of links to start off your week.