7x7

the man in the linen suit: a look at the iconic J. Peterman catalogue and how its attire is modeled, via Coudal Partners

kingpin: in-house board games of the US Central Intelligence Agency revealed thanks to a FOIA-filing

crystalline entity: tracing down the probable origins of an usual meteorite

a show about nothing: the theme music for Seinfeld was improvised for every episode

ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny: Charles Darwin’s children drew doodles on his original manuscript for the Origin of Species, via Everlasting Blört

👏: a look into the as-seen-on-tv marketeering and technology behind the Clapper, inculcating the population to the idea of domestic automation

containment field: a web browser offers to quarantine one’s social media presence from prying third-parties, via Waxy  

legendary creatures

Miss Cellania introduces us to a Japanese yōkai, a menagerie of supernatural monsters, called Ashiarai Yashiki who manifests herself as a hoovering apparition that appears in the form of a giant dirty disembodied foot that barnstorms her way inside and will stamp about the place unless appeased by a thorough washing.  Many Japanese monster stories are so singularly odd that it is sometimes hard to distinguish the stuff of legend and folklore from modern fables.  Apparently people were content to allow the nature and motive of this unwanted guest to pass without explanation as the dealings of the gods and spirits surpassed human understanding and most likely could never be adequately related. 

homer, i can honestly say that was the best episode of impy & chimpy i’ve ever seen

New to the Maximum Fun network of podcasts is the show Everything’s Coming Up Simpsons with weekly panel reminiscences among hosts Allie Goertz and Julia Prescott and writers, animators, voice-artists or generally Springfield-adjacent guests talk about the favourite episodes.
It’s always a funny and literate appreciation of the culture moments and influences both on stage and behind the scenes, and I would recommend, as an introduction, first listening to a March 2016 podcast (caution: autoplay) with television writer Josh Weinstein when they review The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show (which is twenty-one years old at the time of this taping), which debuted among other catch-phrases and tropes Comic Book Guy’s “Worse. Episode. Ever.”

6x6

coif: a collection of headshots of alpacas with good hair, via Everlasting Blört 

boring bricks: Elon Musk tunneling operation to sell interlocking building materials made out of excavated dirt

elevation: a documentary from architecture magazine Dezeen on how drones will change urban dwelling

whiter-than-white: chemists engineer a ultra-white non-toxic coating based on the scales of a ghostly scarab, which could make painting roofs and roads white environmentally sensible

pulp fiction: a digital archive of over eleven thousand vintage fantasy, science-fiction and true crime magazines

the fourth plinth: Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz recreates the winged bull-human chimera that guarded the ancient city of Nineveh destroyed by ISIS to be showcased in Trafalgar Square, via the always brilliant Nag on the Lake