Notes on entrails

Via Anthony Grafton, Jeremy Bentham's prison menus.

Worlds of trouble

Alice Goffman's On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City really is extraordinary - a must-read. Now I just have to figure out whether I should buy it for various family members in hardcover or Kindle! The appendix in particular is quite amazing - the last book that had me so close to tears at the end, I think, was Ken Bruen's The Dramatist. It was also interesting finishing just after having read William Wells Brown's also rather amazing novel Clotel; the historical continuities are striking and disturbing, and really I think I need to read Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow now too.

Read another very sad book over the weekend, it made me feel mournful enough that I slightly regretted ever having embarked on reading the trilogy in the first place, though they are very good and I really do recommend them - that's Ben Winters' final installment in the series that began with The Last Policeman, World of Trouble.

Reboot

Pretty grumpy at this end, thus lack of blogging (my general policy is to stay offline if I'm down in the dumps) - I have been mostly horizontal with a dreadful cold!

(At the end of last week I was still able to persuade myself that I was just having raw lungs of some minor description, but really I spent the weekend almost entirely in bed; managed to get one set of grades in today, but it left me feeling the need for more horizontality. I think it will be Wednesday at the earliest before I can exercise, which has a strongly negative effect on morale....)

Closing tabs:

Cat stars of the new Coen brothers movie!

"It glows when you lick it."

Mike Tyson, philosopher.

Standardization of the "last meal."

Resurgence of the Presto direct-to-acetate audio recorder. (It is a very cool project, and the Rosanne Cash bit is especially worthwhile.)

What's your OED birthday word? (Via Anne F.)

Morning linkage

The last few days have been a little frustrating from the point of view of exercise: in short, I haven't done any, as I continued to feel completely knackered! (Didn't help that it was ninety degrees yesterday - after a morning spent doing interesting but demanding student meetings, and trekking around town all afternoon for a couple doctor's appointments [annual physical, allergist, nothing stressful], I realized I was due to go home and collapse rather than making it downtown for an evening spin class.) But I had a long sleep last night and now feel pretty much back to normal - looking forward to midday spin at Chelsea Piers.

Fascinating piece about similarities and differences between working at a tech start-up and a chocolate start-up. (Via BoingBoing.)

Rooms transformed into large-scale camera obscuras.

Photographic backdrops in prison waiting rooms.

Why Jordan Ellenberg has a quarter of a million friends of friends on Facebook.

The art of Houghton Hall comes home.

"Crocodile"

"We'd expect the collection, including denture moulds, to sell for £2,000 to £3,000."

Spud gun

There is a fantastic novel in this for somebody. (Not, alas, me.)

A currency of cigarettes

An amazing story about a British prisoner of war who broke into Auschwitz and survived. (Link courtesy of Brent, who got it here.)