You Might Like…

The New York Times Video Library – ‘Calamity Song’ – the Decemberists – Michael Schur, a co-creator of NBC’s “Parks and Recreation” does a music video based on a section of “Infinite Jest” by David Foster Wallace. Good tune, too.

The New Yorker – Hack Work: A tabloid culture runs amok – Anthony Lane – “[I]t was Murdoch’s genius, and also the cause of his current woes, to … give the people what they asked for. He reminded them of themselves.”

Wired – The Cutting-Edge Physics of a Crumpled Paper Ball – Brandon Keim – Just before you go paperless, here’s the explanation of what goes on when you scrunch up your drafts.

Vanity Fair – The Quaid Conspiracy – Nancy Jo Sales – From January, Randy and Evi Quaid talk about what they were running from when they came to Canada seeking asylum. [The Google “timeline” is useful here for laying out the saga, episode by episode.]

Public Radio International’s Studio 360 – Adventures in 3D Sound – Interview of Edgar Choueiri – This rocket scientist works on his days off to devise ways to produce proper 3D sound, which, it turns out, is not “surround sound” or even plain old stereo. [The related video and a brief written introduction are here.]

Metropolis Magazine on Vimeo – Lord Foster’s Dymaxion Car – Martin C. Pedersen – The architect of London’s gherkin demonstrates his reconstruction of a remarkably gherkin-like car designed by the architect of the geodesic dome. I love it. [There’s an associated print interview here.]

Salon – The evolution of the mistress – Elizabeth Abbott –
An excerpt from Abbot’s new book, A History of Mistresses: A History of Other Women. “The Other Woman has always been fundamental to our understanding of marriage. Now her role is changing.”

The New Yorker – Creation Myth: Xerox PARC, Apple, and the truth about innovation – Malcolm Gladwell – A look at exactly how some of the inventions we play with every day came about and the roles played by unsung people such as Hovey and Starkweather.

Poetry Foundation – Family – Josephine Miles – Swimming off Seal Rocks, potato salad, and a helicopter rescue; summer matters from the American poet, 1911-1985.

ribbonfarm – The Epic Story of Container Shipping – Venkatesh Rao – An epic review of a 2006 book, The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, by Marc Levinson. “This is an important story of the modern world, painstakingly researched, and masterfully narrated with the sort of balanced and detached passion one would expect from an Economist writer.”