The kind of post inspired by too many hours of air travel

Night Lights by Beata 

The sun fell below the horizon long ago but still
along the mountains hangs a choking orange glow that
burns the sky with bands of blue remnants of day
last lingering on unwilling to succumb before the
sweeping creeping darkness
engines hum a steady cacophony drowning the simplest
thought smothering sense dulling mind to even
most jolting terror as she looks across
clouds to see light has gone diving into impending
blackness and fireflies dancing below
(Afterglow, author unknown)

Best Reads of the Week

Photo by Joe Raedle, Getty Images
Members of a Haitian Ministry of Health body-collection team unload 14 bodies of cholera victims

Death by Treacle: Are we overexposed to emotion?

A housing development experiment in Mumbai: What happens when the rich and the poor live next door to each other?

Who exactly are we fighting? Al Qaeda and the "War on Terror" in 2013

Negligence in Haiti: The United Nations and Cholera

What makes a charity? What sorts of organizations deserve tax exempt status?

The legacy of C. Everett Koop: Examining the impact of our most outspoken surgeon general

Sudden Death: When death comes for the unprepared

Domestic Witness: A photo essay unmasking domestic violence

Best Reads of the Week

Oh look! A new feature!

For those of you who don't know me well, to say I read quite a bit might be a bit of an understatement. Part of this voracious reading appetite comes from my area of study- when one studies international relations and civil conflict, one needs to stay up on what's happening in the world. The other part is most likely predisposed. When I was a kid, my mother discovered that the best motivation to get me to do my chores was to confiscate my books until they were done. (Seriously, I was the kid who didn't clean my room because I was too buried in a book. Grounding or banishment to my room wasn't an effective consequence in the least.) Anyways, I'll be posting a short list of my favorite articles and books that I've read each week on various topics. I'm sure my favorite news sources will become pretty obvious over time (Al Jazeera, The Economist, Slate, The New Yorker...), but I'll try to have a nice selection of well-written and interesting articles for you every week. 

Without further ado, here are some of my favorite finds this week:

The harmful consequences of the quinoa craze may be over-exaggerated

An interview with President Obama

Two wonderful articles on Jane Austen and her legacy: Piece 1, Piece 2,

Google's attempt to map North Korea

Nonviolence for White People

Favorite Reading: Liz Climo

Liz Climo draws pretty hilarious animal comics. She also draws charming Halloween comics. So I thought I'd share a few of my favorites. (I love the hedgehogs!) Oh, and you can buy her prints at her Society6 shop!

Gangnam Style

Impala

How we roll

Super squirrel

All images belong to Liz Climo

The Moby Dick Big-Read

Marcus Harvey: Albus, 2009
accompanying Ch. 1: "Loomings"

Moby Dick has been on my list of must-reads for such a long time, but with all the reading I do for my research, it has been relegated time and time again to the "maybe next summer..." stack. (Other unfortunate denizens of this stack include Anna Karenina and The Brothers Karimazov -- I'm such a terrible Russian student.)

But there is hope for Moby Dick yet-- Plymouth University has undertaken a project to record a reading of each of Moby Dick's 135 chapters. Arising out of the 2011 Peninsula Arts Whale Festival, the Moby Dick Big-Read Project has been created as a part of the Plymouth International Book Festival. Peter Donaldson introduces each chapter, which is read by one of an assortment of esteemed readers such as Tilda Swinton and accompanied by a beautiful piece of art. (And you can download the recording of each chapter for free each day!)

Listening to excellent readings of such a marvelous book has been a new experience for me. I love to read and consume books quite voraciously, but the spoken word has a quality quite unmatched by that of the written. I must confess I am generally a speed-reader and can fly through a good book in a matter of hours. Listening requires me to stop, be still, and savor the prose at hand. It's not a task suited to multi-tasking, and so far, it's been quite therapeutic. 

Thus I am greatly enjoying this creative reading collective. And if you so desire, you are welcome to partake in this listening experience with me. It seems suited to close with the description of the novel given by the creators of this project:

"Moby-Dick is the great American novel. But it is also the great unread American novel. Sprawling, magnificent, deliriously digressive, it stands over and above all other works of fiction, since it is barely a work of fiction itself. Rather, it is an explosive exposition of one man’s investigation into the world of the whale, and the way humans have related to it. Yet it is so much more than that. It is a representation of evil incarnate in an animal – and the utter perfidy of that notion. Of a nature transgressed and transgressive – and of one man’s demonic pursuit, a metaphorical crusade that even now is a shorthand for overweening ambition and delusion." 

Clara Drummond: Cape-Horner in a great hurricane, 2012
accompanying Ch. 2: "The Carpet-Bag"

And in case you would like a sneak peek, here's the first chapter "Loomings" read by Tilda Swinton:

Favorite Reading: XKCD

I know I'm not quite the typical reader of this comic (I'm in the social sciences rather than the hard sciences), but XKCD is still my most favorite webcomic. The humor is clever, I love the research involved, and every so often I learn something. And in case you haven't seen it, yesterday's comic is incredible. (Maybe because yesterday was my birthday?) Anways.. Go check it out!

P.S.  These are a few of my favorite comics

The Carriage

Control

Password Strength

 

All images belong to XKCD

Reading: Heart Home

Spread from Heart Home Autumn 2012

Heart Home's Autumn edition is out, and it's full of all sorts of lovely home inspiration. Heart Home is a British lifestyle magazine for interior design that features independent British designers and all sorts of home transformations and lifestyle tips. There are some amazing spaces in these quarter's edition, including an eclectic warehouse transformation and an LA loft.

P.S.   They have some awesome recipes (Chocolate Hazelnut Nutella tart, anyone?)


Check out their previous issues on the Heart Home website