You Might Like… Diverse Diversions on Hogs, Jeeves, Tuktoyaktuk, Luftkrieg, a Murmuration 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.

The Awl – A Conspiracy of Hogs: The McRib as Arbitrage – Willy Staley – A fairly serious piece using the price of hogs to explain why this “mockery… of barbeque” comes and goes in the US market the way it does.

The Guardian – Book Review: PG Wodehouse: a life in letters – Sophie Ratcliffe – What ho! The reviewer reminds us of the endearing (and clever) aspects of the writing of the creator of Jeeves and Wooster, and touches as well on some of the less endearing parts of the master’s life.

NYTimes.com – Arvo Pärt, the Sound of Spirit – Arthur Lubow – A gentle mini-biography of this most popular composer of serious music and an overview of his oeuvre. As there should be in a web-based piece about music, there are excerpts from four of Pärt’s best-known works you can listen to.

Popular Mechanics – 10 Roads to the End of the Earth – Phil Berg – Proud to say that Canada’s ice road to Tuktoyaktuk made the number one spot in this slideshow and survey of many miles of bad road.

Design Observer – Above Grade: On the High Line – Phillip Lopate – From ten bad roads to one great route: the elevated parkway that runs for a mile and a half above Manhattan. Delightful.

Dwell – Floating House, Lake Huron – Alex Bozikovic – Memories of summer. A slideshow of a lovely cottage sited in one of the countries loveliest bodies of water, Georgian Bay.

Wired – One Millionth Tower – Katerina Cizek, Mike Robbins – Since we’re ricocheting, we might as well bounce from that upper-middleclass haven to a much grittier set of dwellings as portrayed in this innovative online documentary from the National Film Board and premiered on Wired. Be aware that you can only watch this on Firefox, as it takes advantage of certain features build in to that browser. (It was time to switch from IE anyway.)

Europa Film Treasures – Der Luftkrieg der Zukunft – 1909 (The Airship Destroyer) – Walter R. Booth – And so from the latest technology to some pretty adventurous stuff from more than a hundred years ago. Not only does Booth anticipate air warfare in this six minute film but the future of film as well in many respects. (You may wish to turn off the added music soundtrack.)

The Economist – Fear of flying: Welcome aboard – (unsigned) – An oldie but a goodie: here’s what in flight announcements might say if they were really truthful.

Vimeo – Murmuration – Sophie Windsor Clive – You’ve seen them, these massive gatherings of starlings that swoop and wheel as if one organism. Well Clive and a friend happened to have a camera with them, so now you can watch at your leisure as flocking does its thing. (“Murmuration” by the way is the collective noun for starlings.)