Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that might one day alphabetize the comics collection on its shelf MAYBE
You'll Like This
Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.
Instant Band Night Returns In May
I've had to come to the conclusion lately that there's just too much on my plate to continue managing Instant Band Night, but the good news for you the reader is that a new team of bright and capable people (led by an Instant Band Night volunteer who should be familiar to anyone who's been to one the last few years) is already working on putting the May installment together! I'm hoping for updates soon!!
Surprising and Unique Ceramics For YOU
I'm cooking up some new weird little guys for the shop already, but did you know there are now enough purchases for the reviews down at the bottom to constitute some lovely little reads? It's nice beyond description to know that these things I'm making have found homes with the right people. Go have a look; eagle-eyed viewers may notice a new bunny has snuck in there.
Idea Factory Giveaway
I think it's probably safe to say the podcast is on hiatus after four+ years of inactivity, but I'm putting a link to its evergreen Apple Podcasts presence here, which includes a back catalog over 150 episodes long chock-full of excellent ridiculousness, including an experimental tabletop RPG and a couple of Star Trek fantasy drafts that could almost be their own show if I had the time to make yet another podcast
Medium Ramble
Skippable if you're in a hurry.
A short little essay from Merrit K argues that we need to reckon with the fact that we lost the cultural war on this new Harry Potter series before it even started. (Other Strangeness) Read it first, then come back here.
I am not for even a yoctosecond asserting that Merritt's perspective gives you, me, or anyone else permission to watch this new Harry Potter thing. I am not going to do that. It doesn't even fucking look good, according to this single screenshot I've now seen because I haven't been paying the least bit of attention to it. On a good day I'm only about half plugged into What's Coming Up In Movies and TV, to say nothing of things I actively want to avoid. The scale of JK Rowling's literal fucking evil has poisoned this entire property for me so thoroughly that I've set up a cordon sanitaire around our household through which no Harry Potter will be permitted; it more or less worked for Paw Patrol and I'm hoping it'll hold for Potter. This does mean, and I apologize to the givers here publicly, that I dropped some lovingly gifted and lavishly illustrated editions of the first five books off at Goodwill.
And yet!! I know I know some people who've read Potter to their kids, or gave them the books to read themselves, and I haven't castigated them or subjected them to disappointed, finger-wagging lectures. The most I've done is make the 😬 face and look away. Because I also have felt what Merritt describes: I just can't engage on the level that I feel I ought to because it makes me look like a goddamn crank to people who I'm not sure will either know or care, even if I explain to them calmly. Rowling won this one, as maddening as it is to say, at least in this realm of artistic/sociopolitical overlap. But surely there are other arenas; let us gird ourselves accordingly.
#dadthoughts
Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.
Felix's preschool goes well into summer, but it's already somehow mid-April-ish: his last year at preschool is coming to a close?? Which means kindergarten(!!!!!) starts in just uhhhhh four months + change?? During the interregnum, we have him booked for a transitional summer day camp-type experience that will provide him with a conceptual bridge to kindergarten, which I brought up in the car today on the ride home. He's into it! Thank fuck!! Which I suppose I could've known; he likes school, because his preschool has done an amazing job. The teachers are nice! His friends are there! Of course he likes it! Quentin rode this wave successfully into school and continues to surf it, and I have high hopes based on this evidence that Felix will be able to follow suit. I hope I haven't jinxed something by saying it out loud??
Fascination Corner
I read a lot of newsletters; here are some links that caught my eye.
It should be deeply embarrassing to us as a nation that teaching doesn't pay enough to afford housing, but I guess in the meantime this is a good solution. (Oaklandside)
Legitimately much more fascinating than it sounds: a brief history of instant coffee. (Works in Progress)
Animals are hybridizing more out there; is that ............ good? (bioGraphic)
The Scientists argue persuasively that we need a moonshot-scale project to save the coral reefs, and we need it now. (Anthropocene)
It is now time to learn about the Artemis II zero gravity indicator stuffy, something every space flight has, which is goddamn delightful. (Supercluster)
Since the ancient Egyptians essentially wrote things down in stone even for casual notes and receipts, The Scientists have been grappling with a truly mind-boggling amount of information in a garbage heap uncovered about a decade ago. (Gizmodo)
About a third of what The Scientists call "linguistic universals" are actually true across more than 1700 languages, which is a fascinating sign that maybe there is something fundamental about how the human brain processes language. (Max Planck Inst for Evo Anthro) (Paper)
The Scientists theorize that distance from the sun isn't the only thing you have to get right in order for life to form: the amount of oxygen present during planet formation is also crucial, and not for the reason you think! (ETH Zurich) (Paper)
An exciting fossil site that may have captured the Ediacaran-Cambrian transition has been found in China!! Surely I can’t be the only one excited about this!!!! (U of Oxford via Science Daily)
Some Engineers have built a memory chip that can function at 1300F and possibly higher — that was just the temperature their testing equipment topped out at. (USC via Science Daily)
Here, have an absolutely goddamn fascinating longread with plenty of visuals about life on Tristan da Cunha, the world's most remote inhabited island. (NPR)
"Artemis II crew used modern photography to tell the visual story of their lunar journey – and update some classic Apollo images" (The Conversation)
War Among Chimps. No, for real. 😬😬😬 (Science Alert) (Paper)
An interesting essay argues that humanoid robots genuinely aren't worth it. (Siddharth Ramakrishnan)
The concept of the coin flip has been around for more than 12 millennia according to a new analysis of archaeological finds. (Hyperallergic)
Who doesn't love a good apple rebrand??? (It's Nice That)
The Scientists have released their analysis of an amazing drone video taken a few years ago of a sperm whale giving birth and the friends who came to help. (AP)
A Fictional Thing
Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.
A band and their album
Photo by Circling Sea on Unsplash
(I remembered a formula for making fake album covers that involves searching for a random appropriately licensed photo and then applying your best Graphic Design Skills to the result; let me know what you think this band/album sounds like, because your answers are always incredible)
New Music Roundup
Last week's band/album was:
Photo by Marina Nazina on Unsplash
No reader interpretations came in for this one, which I think is something I'm going to call "metal jazz" and kind of leave on the table and walk away whistling.
I still could use some more submissions to build out a notional Reader Submission Month for band/album/artwork combos! Feel free to send something in; just tell me how you want to be credited!
Thanks
If you've read this far, I thank you. Feel free to forward this to someone you like, or inflict upon someone you don't. If you received this as a forward and would like to subscribe yourself, you can do it at this page right here (which also has the archive)!
