an aural noise
word salad: Fairytale Forest by Romerium presents a captivating fusion of symphonic, cinematic, and dreamy elements. The album invites listeners into a realm where lush orchestral arrangements intertwine with ethereal soundscapes, evoking imagery of enchanted woodlands and mystical landscapes. Symphonic motifs sweep through each composition, carrying the listener on an immersive journey reminiscent of a grand cinematic adventure. Meanwhile, dreamy melodies and textures imbue the music with a sense of wonder and magic, painting vivid sonic portraits of whimsical tales and fantastical realms. Romerium’s masterful blending of these elements creates an enchanting musical experience that transports listeners to a realm where imagination knows no bounds.
some of the things I read in antisocial isolation
These Ants Protect the Colony by Blowing Themselves Up
The self-sacrificing insects explode, showering their enemies in killer goop.
C. explodens is aptly named. Embiggenable.
THE MORE THAN 13,000 ANT species around the globe have developed a diverse array of nest protection methods. Some spray toxic venoms; others erect rock blockades. Amid the lowland rainforests of Southeast Asia and India, however, there’s a group of ants with a particularly gutsy defensive technique: They explode, showering their enemies with killer goop and sacrificing their own lives in the process.
Experts are aware of at least 15 species of exploding ants, all members of the genus Colobopsis. The best-studied species, C. explodens, forms thousands-strong colonies in and around tropical trees. The workers spend their time grazing on lichen- and moss-covered tree bark, guarding the colony’s nest entrances, or patrolling and foraging way up in the canopy, often hundreds of feet off the ground.
Each worker is equipped with a pair of oversized, goo-producing glands, which extend from her head throughout her entire body. When confronted by a threat—another insect, or even an approaching scientist—she squeezes her abdomen until these glands rupture and her whole body pops open like a zit.
The ooze produced by C. explodens is booger yellow and has a spicy smell. (Scientists called the species “yellow goo” until 2018, when it received its much more respectable, and intimidating, scientific name.) While the gunk doesn’t appear to be especially poisonous, it is extra-sticky and stops opponents in their tracks like an on-demand liquid fly trap. It’s also antimicrobial, suggesting that the ants might have used it for keeping their nests clean before this deadlier function evolved. …
Stop Wasting Your Time
A Simple Framework for Making Better Decisions
Embiggenable.
I HAVE AN UNFINISHED ESSAY in my drafts folder called “Quitting is Underrated.” It’s been there since 2017. You can bet your ass I’m never completing it. Hold up a second while I delete it … because this is that essay’s ultimate form.
Today, we’re going to talk about giving up. Every day, we’re inundated with tales of people in films or on the news who gave it their all, never gave in, kept showing up, and persevered in the face of unimaginable rejection. I’m here to tell you that they’re exceptions rather than the rule, and if you strive to be one of those people, you’ll probably be wasting your time.
I hate to be the one to spill apple juice in your single-malt, but they’re not making a biopic about you, you don’t have a cheering section, and the news crew ain’t knocking on your door.
Your current crush won’t be your soulmate. You’re not repeatedly betting the house on green and coming away with fat stacks of cheddar. Your life will likely reside in the fat part of the great bell curve of human potential. I’m not saying that’s what you aim for. I’m managing your expectations.
However, you might be capable of rising to the top quintile in most of the key areas of life that matter: health, love, impact, wisdom, wealth, joy, and your vocation. You take care of that, and you’ll probably be just fine. I know a lot of folks who are earning solid B-plusses in everything.
The B-plusses are my brand of human. They’re content, witty, kind, and making a difference. Most of the folks I know who are at the very pinnacle in a select few areas, or pushing maniacally for perfect scores, are secretly miserable, sociopathic, or severely lacking in other key areas.
Why?
Well, let’s set aside the elephant-in-the-room answers of privilege or trauma for now (because that explains 95% of them).
Folks who aim for the stars tend to make life harder than it needs to be, stack their decks against them, and hold themselves to militant standards no mortal can reach. You kittens don’t need to do that. Your life’s not a GaryVee video. It’s C-SPAN IRL. Go easy on yourself. …
DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY: The year is half over. Use your time wisely.
Four Highly Confusing Publicity Stunts
It’s incredibly hard to generate interest in something when no one knows what you’re talking about.
They say all publicity is good publicity, and while “they” have clearly never faced down a social media mob, it’s true enough that even a stunt that backfires still gets people talking. It’s crucial that they know what to talk about, though. Some publicity stunts just leave people furrow-browed and mouths agape, asking questions like…
4. What Is That Thing on the Empire State Building?
To promote the new season of House of the Dragon, HBO wrapped a giant inflatable dragon around the Empire State Building because New Yorkers have only positive associations with attacks from the sky. That actually wasn’t the problem — it was that the Empire State Building is famously tall. The 54th tallest in the world, in fact. That meant nobody on the street or without iconic cityscape views could tell what that thing was. Best guesses included a demon or the Hulk. Too bad there are no Avengers movies to promote. …
The Pleasures of Procrastination
Wasting time can feel morally suspect—but it’s essential to the creative process.
For writers, especially ones working in deadline-based industries such as journalism, pushing due dates is as natural as breathing. Sometimes the resulting time pressure—I really must file this to my editor now—unlocks flashes of brilliance, turning the carbon grist of my thoughts into an unlikely diamond. (More often it inspires mediocre metaphors like that one.) I’m dissatisfied with this tendency to dillydally. In my idle dreams of a perfect world, I see myself upright and regimented at my desk, sipping wholesome black coffee, and pleasantly tapping at my keyboard as I chip away at different tasks. Wasting time—or letting time pass without squeezing productivity out of it—feels morally suspect; in an essay this week, Hillary Kelly describes procrastination as “a tic that people are desperate to dispel.” But, thankfully, she offers an antidote: Rosalind Brown’s new novel, Practice, “a welcome gift for those who dither about their dithering.”
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic’s Books section:
- “Eustasy,” a poem by Nikky Finney
- Don’t give up on tourism. Just do it better.
- The awful ferocity of midlife desire
The book is a long look into one Sunday in the life of Annabel, a young Oxford student whose task is to write a paper on Shakespeare. But, unsurprisingly to anyone who remembers their own school days, Annabel manages to put off the work with a brilliant list of important other things to get through. There are human needs to meet: She has to make tea, eat, use the bathroom, exercise. She’s also distracted by the many branching paths of her thoughts—she dwells on lovers, friends, family, bad memories, idle questions. Her goal is to make her mind into a minimalist palace, a clean and shiny Apple Store–style temple to literature; from there, she will be able to smoothly choose and assemble the items she needs to finish her assignment. Instead, her head is a jumbled hallway closet, full of all the rattling stuff of life.
But the truly creative mind requires this kind of clutter, Kelly argues. The act of rumination—of wending through competing streams of thought, examining long-forgotten memories, elliptically orbiting an idea again and again—is crucial to imagination, and a militant focus on getting work done eliminates the hours we need to indulge in these processes. Procrastination is productive, in its own way. More important, it reclaims the space our culture is ceding to an unrelenting work ethic. Annabel doesn’t finish her paper by the novel’s conclusion; she ends the day with just a few scattered notes on Shakespeare’s sonnets. But the time she spent thinking about it (and about other things) isn’t wasted—and neither is the reader’s. Ambling through a novel like this one inspires connections, epiphanies, excitement. These in-between moments when nothing tangible gets done are full of internal effort; rushing through them denies us one of the major delights of being alive.
…
CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.
Maru&Miri don’t mind a light rain. But Hana never wants to get wet. And Maru became a frog in the rainy season.
Ed. マルとミリは軽い雨を気にしないでください。しかし、ハナは決して濡れたくありません。雨の季節にマルはカエルになりました。
THE LAST TAB . . .
Exposure therapy
Nat Geo photographer prescribes discovery near and far to widen your world view.
Boulder locals Cedar Wright and Matt Segal climbing the Great Getu Arch in China.
One of the grittiest expeditions of Keith Ladzinski’s life was his first assignment for National Geographic.
In 2012, he journeyed to Antarctica on a team of four to find and climb untouched spires in the desolate Queen Maud Land region. Between plummeting temperatures, nearly losing his sail on a kite ski and slim-to-no chances of being rescued in the event of an accident, he says that trip had a fair amount of unpleasantness.
“This was a genuine icey desert hell,” he says.
Despite the ungodly conditions, Ladzinski, who grew up in Colorado Springs and now calls Boulder home, looks back on the 50-day trip fondly as more than just a career kickstart.
“One of the best parts about [expeditions], aside from the pictures I’m taking, is you learn a lot about yourself and what you’re capable of — and what you aren’t capable of as well.”
Ladzinski has made a career out of pressure cooker scenarios like this. Over the last two decades, he’s traveled to the farthest reaches of the seven continents documenting natural history, climate change and extreme sports that have culminated in multiple Emmy nominations and frequent contributions to national publications and brands like National Geographic, The New York Times, Red Bull and The North Face.
The impact of his work goes beyond reflections of his own capabilities while hanging from a 2,000-foot Antarctic cliff with a camera on his hip. He’s as motivated as ever to make stunning pictures and films with the goal of sharing new perspectives and sparking community conversation for global audiences. Some of his most recent work — and inspiration — he’s found right in Boulder’s backyard. …
Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Likely, if I find nothing more barely uninteresting at all to do.
Ed., etc. I didn’t have time to do this today.
ONE MORE THING:
— internet hall of fame (@InternetH0F) July 5, 2024
