Keep Calm and Face Palm On.
Good morning, darlings! Apologies for the missed missive yesterday morning: I spent much of the day playing digital sous chef to my badass cousin Laura Alvey Hindle as we worked with our family to pull together our Pappy’s memorial presentation for his Celebration of Life.
The process revealed to me that Laura is a working creative cyborg, with the ability to gracefully time music to photos in order to elicit maximum laugh-to-cry ratio, while also putting her nose to the grindstone after we lost three hours of work at the eleventh hour - I would have tossed the computer out the window and resorted to a memorial interpretive dance. Laura and her husband Jesse Hindle founded a boutique architecture firm in 2011, leaders in Calgary’s architectural style growth facing forward, with an eye to the past.
Needless to say, I was feeling nostalgic. But don’t worry, I opened up ye olde Internets and that warm, fuzzy feeling was promptly replaced by a furious face palm.
The library at the United Nations tweeted out its most-borrowed book on December 31st, and as much as we’d hope it’d be something on diplomacy, leadership, world peace, even picky christmas tree-eating goats, it was none of the above. The most borrowed book at the United Nations library was a doctoral thesis titled Immunity of Heads of State and State Officials for International Crimes, detailing how incumbent Heads of State are protected from foreign legal scrutiny. Awkward diplomatic turtle.
Aaron Hernandez, former tight-end and convicted murderer, procured himself a Bloods tattoo whilst in Prison. I find the whole prison tattoo process fascinating. As someone who practically passed out when she got her maple leaf tat at the age of 19, the idea of grabbing an adapted electric shaver, a mechanical pencil, then mixing scorched rubber mixed with urine and going to town sounds like a Dantean hell ring. That being said, some of the resulting art can be truly compelling - I direct your attention to Arkady Bronnikov’s photos of Russian criminal tattoos, a fascinating translation of iconography and prison code.
Speaking of Dantean hell rings, Florida Atlantic University has fired James Tracy, a professor of communications and mass media. When I started reading a headline, I worried it was another misguided understanding of the press and request for muscle, but oh no, it’s even worse. James Tracy claims that the Sandy Hook massacre is a hoax and has been accused of “badgering” parents of victims, "demanding proof” that the children ever lived in the first place. Seems like a nice guy, huh? BRB. off to reinforce my human-proof bunker in the mountains.
And finally, if you’re seeking someone to blame for True Detective Season 2, you’re in luck: HBO president Michael Lombardo blames himself for forcing series creator Nic Pizzolatto to stick to a deadline, as opposed to allowing the storyline to grow organically. Although, in your defense Michael, sometimes creators can’t be trusted to live on their own creative schedules.
Keep calm and face palm on, my sweets. Until tomorrow!