odds and ends / 6.13.2019













Ruth Clark, Simple Group Dances for Use in Schools, via The Second Shelf.

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Madeline Weinrib quilt, ca. 2012.

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William B. Closson, Butterflies, ca. 1887.
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Pimlico House kitchen designed by Rose Uniacke.

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The Corleck head, a three-faced stone carving. Ireland, 1st-2nd century A.D.

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She describes herself as a messy reader, and a messy thinker, and she is stylishly disheveled, with a preference for comfy, colorful clothing with pockets and Birkenstocks with socks.
As a procession of speeches and toasts lauded her life’s work, Dr. Uhlenbeck stood to the side of the lectern and listened, eyes mostly closed. When it finally came time to make her own remarks (unprepared), she began by simply agreeing: “From the perspective of my late seventies, I find myself as a young mathematician sort of impressive, too.”

She went on to note that, for lack of mathematical candidates, her role model had been the chef Julia Child. “She knew how to pick the turkey up off the floor and serve it,” Dr. Uhlenbeck said.

Siobhan Roberts, "In Bubbles, She Sees a Mathematical Universe." NYT, 4/8/2019. A profile of Karen Uhlenbeck, winner of the Abel Prize.

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Also: 'Astrophysicists have long postulated, if only symbolically, that galaxy clusters have a soapsuds structure.'

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'She weighed about ninety pounds without her jewels, and when I met her she was ninety years old.'

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The children's book coverage in the New Yorker's Page-Turner is a platter of delicious treats: Jia Tolentino on Ellen Raskin's The Westing GameRivka Galchen on Curious GeorgeSarah Blackwood on Amelia BedeliaRumaan Alam on William Steig.

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Lyz Lenz attends Mom 2.0: 'We are preparing ourselves to perform motherhood with a hashtag.'

Related: a 14-year-old on her mom and sister's social media accounts: 'For my generation, being anonymous is no longer an option. For many of us, the decisions about our online presence are made before we can even speak.'

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Once the queue nears baggage control, despondent submission to contemporary travel proceedings gives way to a fluster of semi-autonomous acts that demonstrate to the persons behind you in the queue the ability to stay calm while efficiently slinging your suitcase into the grey tray and stuffing your hand luggage in another, along with your coat, your cardigan, your shoes, your belt, your mobile phone, your earplugs, your tablet, your battery, your keys, your wallet, your external hard drive, your umbrella, your loose change and your passport – in short, all the belongings that make you you barring your inner organs, crammed into these plastic open caskets that roll into the X-ray machine as into a furnace, ready to be incinerated. Surely, to travel should not cause such fear of discovery?

Astrid Albin, 'Eighteen Seconds to Impact.' The Times Literary Supplement, 3/27/2019.

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Speaking of bags for travel: I saw some totes by Epperson Mountaineering at Seven Sisters in Portland, Oregon, and am now coveting their backpacks.

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Strawberry dumpling (easy and delicious).

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Ordinary sex.