I suppose it is submerged memories that give to dreams their curious air of hyper-reality. But perhaps there is something else as well, something nebulous, gauze-like, through which everything one sees in a dream seems, paradoxically, much clearer. A pond becomes a lake, a breeze becomes a storm, a handful of dust is a desert, a grain of sulphur in the blood is a volcanic inferno. What manner of theatre is it, in which we are at once playwright, actor, stage manager, scene painter and audience?
---W. G. Sebald
---from Rings of Saturn (1998)
exonym /EK-soh-nim/. noun. A place name or name given to a group of people by someone outside that place or group and not used by the place's inhabitants or the group themselves. For instance, Germany is an exonym for Deutschland. Often exonyms are pejorative, or come to be so---or are perceived so by the named group---such as the Romani preferring that name to (the originally Egyptian) exonym Gypsy. See also: xenonym and ethnonym.
Some commonly used exonyms (by English speakers): Moscow for Москва/Moskva, Turkey for Türkiye, India for Bharat, Prague for Praha, Lapp for Saami, and Mecca for Makkha.
Just your typical "inmate creates detailed golf course drawings, sends them to Golf Digest, who investigates and ultimately assists in getting his murder conviction vacated...after 27 years served" story.
I have to agree with Reader B., who shared this story about memory towns being built in strip malls to treat dementia and said, "What an idea..." && An earlier article about the intentions of the project.
Why do great white sharks migrate, en masse, from California to what appears to be an "empty, oceanic Sahara desert?" To dine at the White Shark Café, of course.
Relevant to me as I get ready to ghost the party that is my workplace next week → Is it the Irish Goodbye, the French Exit, or to Leave the "English Way"?
What if it turns out that Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong?
Discovery of Galileo's long-lost letter shows he edited his heretical ideas to fool the Inquisition
I don't have the book, but the faux-TV guide on the front page of NetGuide is good for some LOLs all by itself.
The Love Poems of Japan's Heian Court Were the Original Thirst Texts && A Modern History of Thirst && There's a Problem with the Term "Thirsty" That We Don't Talk About
This week in Weird Wikipedia: The Mariko-Aoki Phenomenon describes a very specific set of bookstore browsers. && Runner up: Jenny Haniver, the name sounds so nice...
Today in 1889, the Nintendo company is founded in Kyoto to produce Hanafuda cards (also known as Flower Cards). Along the way to becoming one of the largest video game companies in the world featuring Mario, Zelda and Pokémon on Game Boys and NES and Wii, the company dabbled in love hotels, taxi services, an instant rice company, and various other endeavors. The kanji phrase rendered as "Nintendo" has traditionally been translated as "leave luck to heaven" or "leave fate to heaven" but it might well (or also) mean "the temple of free hanafuda." Whatever the case, let's hope the company weathers the storm of recent comparisons involving Trump and the Mario mushrooms.
► Porcelain Unicorn, Grand Prize winner of the Philips Parallel Lines 'Tell It Your Way' international competition.
It's weirdly fascinating to listen to these ► imitations of languages by a non-English speaking comedian...
Reader R.: "I've been going through all the newsletters I've filed away for later and I just have to say thanks for your consistently interesting and various links. I don't know how you find so many links that I'd have otherwise missed. And I, like others I bet, should've written in a long time ago!"
Reader E.: "Listening to Young Adults and I found this absolutely freaking amazing ukulele version of The Cranberries' 'Zombie'. This maybe ten-year-old nails every bit of it!" -- Here's a "see also" link for you: 'Grace' by Lamb of God on the Hurdy Gurdy
Reader V.: "The first two links of the week [Open Culture's list of free art and art books & the reports on trends in art attendance and reading] should be a mood elevator. Why don't I feel more optimistic?"
Reader T.: "Dude! The Door of Perception is an endless amazing trippy rabbit-hole. Thanks (and thanks for nothing)!"
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