You Might Like… a Few Divertissements on Octopi, Madonna, Tokyo, Winter, Bubbly and More

This is a post in a series to appear occasionally, setting out some articles, videos, podcasts and the like that contributors at Slaw are enjoying and that you might find interesting. The articles tend to be longer than blog posts and shorter than books, just right for that stolen half hour on the weekend. It’s also likely that most of them won’t be about law — just right for etc.

Please let us have your recommendations for what we and our readers might like.

Orion Magazine – Deep Intellect: Inside the mind of the octopus – Sy Montgomery – Another compelling piece on the smart cephalopod. Hard to know how to know if it really… knows.

Emma and Charlie’s Radio Podcast – Wikipedia Daily Challenge – Simple concept: they hit “random” on Wikipedia and then take 90 minutes to record a song about what turns up. Currently there are 22 on offer. All in all, quite impressive.

The New Yorker – Tenth of December – George Saunders – A short story: winter, ice, cold… you know.

Wine Review Online – England: The Next Champagne? – Tina Caputo – Blighty bubbly? Apparently it is not to laugh. But it sounds as though you’ll have to be there to give it a try.

New York Times – Murakami’s Tokyo – Sam Anderson – This is a series of brief recorded pieces by the writer, describing his attempt to find the Tokyo imagined as a result of reading the novelist Murakami (in translation).

Slate – Traces of Life: How Sherlock Holmes helped crack the case of a missing father – James Hughes – “A case of clutter and grief.” A man loses his father to death and hunts through what remains for clues as to who he was.

CBC Radio Quirks and Quarks – Sleeping with Neanderthals – Alanna Mitchell – A portion from a recent broadcast in which Mitchell explores the science of inter-species human breeding and its implications. [See also an accompanying print story.]

Retronaut – Evolution Of Madonna Magazine Covers, 1983-2011 – Robert Loch – 29 photos of Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone on covers of every single important US magazine. It’s one hell of an impressive biography, really.

The Boston Globe – On the menu, but not on your plate – Jenn Abelson and Beth Daley – The (other) Globe does some investigative reporting and finds that the catch of the day isn’t always, or even usually, what it purports to be. Though this is a Boston fish story, I’d be surprised if we’re not defrauded in the same way here.

The Annenberg Space for Photography: IRIS Nights Lecture Series – Goddess: An Exploration of the Divine and the Secular Forms of Beauty – Leonard Nimoy – Turns out that Shatner’s straight man wields a mean camera. He talks about discovering and loving photography in this video.