Tuesday reading: Carly Rae Jepsen's E•MO•TION and Over the Garden Wall, among other things

I don't think I'll find the time to watch some TED talks today. I did a couple of readings though and have a lot to share from the rest of my last long weekend. Links and snapshots on the jump.

Links:

• Carly Rae Jepsen's E•MO•TION is perfect, narrative-free pop music - a great Emily Yoshida piece on Carly Bae Jepsen's new album. Everyone on my Twitter/Facebook/Spotify feeds were buck-wild about its release. “But unlike Swift, Jepsen somehow manages to deflect the spotlight off herself, even though her expressive, persistently-kinda-hoarse voice is ever-present on the album. And that's both what makes these songs so universal, and perhaps what will keep her on the pop sidelines. Carly Rae Jepsen makes songs that are about you, not Carly Rae Jepsen. Lyrically, they're like Cosmopolitan horoscopes; evocative, yet general enough to feel like they are oh my god soooo accurate."
• Amazon and the Realities of the “New Economy” - John Cassidy wrote for the New Yorker about the latest massive and most controversial Times-published Amazon revelation.
• Gutted - An Economist article on the latest on Europe's poorest country, Moldova, and the $1 billion heist that jolted its financial crisis. This was one of our subjects of conversation last Sunday night at El Chupacabra with Jake and our South kid friend Philip.
• And some Vox card stacks! (Swear to god, I'm obsessed with these things.)

8 ways to be a more savvy science reader

The war on drugs, explained

• Some interesting stuff from Twitter: Tomine New Yorker covers and some serving of 8-bitfiction. I'm a huge fan of Adrian Tomine--Shortcomings is a long-time favorite.

Lesser known Tomine covers~ pic.twitter.com/Fo82jMSGpJ

— Carly Bae Jepsen (@pitradactyl) August 24, 2015

pic.twitter.com/DsrDow4E3D

— 8-bitfiction (@8bitfiction) August 25, 2015

• I have to tell you to watch this Cartoon Network animated miniseries: Over the Garden Wall. My boyfriend binge-watched this last week and obliged me to check it out. I'm glad he did. Over the Garden Wall centers on kid brothers Wirt and Greg who found themselves lost in a forest that only looms danger and creepy. I've linked all ten episodes below from a kind fan on YouTube. Hopefully, the video won't get taken down. This is such an endearing dark piece (ha, exactly fitting for my tastes). The plot seems simple but also kind of weird. I also agree with G when he said that the animation shows a lot of emotion and character, which helps a lot in the narrative. Enjoy!

• Sharing with you one of my current favorite Instagrams: @ldrin! I've known him for quite some time now on social media--way way back from when Tumblr was at its peak in 2008/2009. He's the biggest bookworm I know, and he's also got an impressive collection of titles in a wide variety of beautiful covers. See below snaps from his Instagram for the 57th anniversary of Lolita's publication, and H.P. Lovecraft's and Jorge Luis Borges's birthdays (the last one is G's idol! My, Borges was mentioned so frequently in our nightly conversations in the past two weeks--like almost every time).

“I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.” —the last lines (you all know what the first lines are) of Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita,” one of the greatest and most textually textured works of art in history, published 57 years ago, on August 18, 1958 (h/t @outofprint).

A photo posted by Aldrin (@ldrin) on Aug 18, 2015 at 6:41pm PDT

Happy birthday, H. P. Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937). “It was a scene from a vision of Fuseli, and over all the rest reigned that riot of luminous amorphousness, that alien and undimensioned rainbow of cryptic poison from the well — seething, feeling, lapping, reaching, scintillating, straining, and malignly bubbling in its cosmic and unrecognisable chromaticism.” —“The Colour Out of Space” • This edition, containing the title story along with “The Outsider” and “The Hound,” published in February 2011 by Penguin • Book No. 85 of 2015 • 5/5 stars • Notwithstanding the absence of Cthulhu, this collection of three tales of monsters from within, without, and beyond constitute a great taster for the deliciously weird world of Lovecraft.

A photo posted by Aldrin (@ldrin) on Aug 20, 2015 at 6:16am PDT

Feliz cumpleaños, Jorge Luis Borges (August 24, 1899 – June 14, 1986), the Blind Librarian of Babel (and probably the best writer never to receive the Nobel). ~ No one should read self-pity or reproach into this testament of the majesty of God, who with such splendid irony granted me books and blindness at one touch. […] In shadow, with a tentative stick, I try the hollow twilight, slow and imprecise— I, who had always thought of Paradise in form and image as a library. ~ —from “Poem of the Gifts” (translated from the Spanish by Alastair Reid)

A photo posted by Aldrin (@ldrin) on Aug 24, 2015 at 5:34am PDT

Snapshots (from the weekend):

Titas of Joya Drive

A photo posted by Laurene (@partyinthemouth) on Aug 22, 2015 at 9:59pm PDT

My friend Jan took this from the double birthday bash we went to in Eastwood last Saturday. “This is the most you photo I've ever taken," she iMessaged.

#🍣 #🎌 #🇯🇵

A photo posted by Laurene (@partyinthemouth) on Aug 23, 2015 at 8:17am PDT

Couple of hours of Elizabeth Warren and geopolitics with this boy. Glad to have you in town & till next time, south kid. (The carne asada + Brew Kettle were delicious too)

A photo posted by Laurene (@partyinthemouth) on Aug 24, 2015 at 2:14am PDT

Last week was a crazy challenge for me. This is exactly me the week succeeding:

I will end this post on a high note--with Carly Bae's Warm Blood (co-written by Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij):

I hope this week will be better than the last (so far, it has been). Keeping my fingers crossed. I'll be back during the long weekend. Until then, stay alive & try not to frame your husband for your murder.