Cynical Stranger Comets Love Ashes Thing
Ten Things You Don’t Know About Comets by Phil Plait (Bad Astronomy): I was born in 1982, so I was very young when Halley’s comet last visited, and will likely be very old when it next visits. But I still think comets are awesome, and Plait does not change my mind.
The Trust Gap: Why People Are So Cynical by Jeremy Dean (PsyBlog): We are less trusting of strangers than we ultimately should be because society rarely puts us in situations where we have to actively trust strangers (beyond, you know, the pilot flying your plane); so the ones that go wrong stand out. But most of the time, according to the research, people are trustable.
Mark Twain In Love by Ron Powers (Smithsonian): For much of his life, Samuel Clemens - the man with the pseudonym Mark Twain - harboured a sort-of-platonic fascination for a girl he met on a steamboat as a 14 year old. Fascinating, especially about the later history once he got famous and rich.
Confronting A Stranger, For Art by Jim Dwyer (New York Times): Perhaps one of the most confronting things for a New Yorker to do is to maintain eye contact with a stranger, which is why an art installation profiled in the piece is exactly that: people wait in a line to simply have a stare-out competition with artist Marina Abramovic. [via Kottke, who has lots more information on the exhibit, including on famous people who’ve been a part. Also, see Big Train]
Play’s The Thing by Benjamin Schwarz (The Atlantic): One of the things that separates humans from the animals is just how long we spend playing; play is one of the main things that makes us who we are.
Ashes To Ashes by Lee Billings (Seed): That Icelandic volcano you’re still hearing about has exposed to the world the fragility of the intricate networks we live our lives by.
