Still the hottest chuckle on radio.
A fantastic interview with Ira Glass. Yet unknown: is he a distant cousin of Ida Twahte?
One of the reasons I was interested in doing this interview is because I feel like being wrong is really important to doing decent work. To do any kind of creative work well, you have to run at stuff knowing that it’s usually going to fail. You have to take that into account and you have to make peace with it…
…I feel like this is a really weird example to bring up, but he interviews me and Errol Morris about interviewing. It’s a really funny chapter because I give all of these totally Pollyanna answers—I mean, things I really believe, but I’m like [here he goes into an earnest falsetto, like a very sincere Chipmunk] “I just think that people open up because they sense that somebody’s really interested. It’s just a natural human thing.” And Errol is like “I DOUBT WHETHER WE KNOW OURSELVES, AND THE ACT OF BEING INTERVIEWED IS AN ACT OF ASSERTING A SELF WHICH WE HOPE IS TRUE.” Seriously, every answer is like this. I’m like, “I just think it’s really swell being interviewed!” And he’s like “THERE IS NO SELF.”
How to Become a Writer
“First, try to be something, anything, else. A movie star/astronaut. A movie star/missionary. A movie star/kindergarten teacher. President of the World. Fail miserably. It is best if you fail at an early age–say, fourteen. Early, critical disillusionment is necessary so that at fifteen you can write long haiku sequences about thwarted desire. It is a pond, a cherry blossom, a wind brushing against sparrow wing leaving for mountain. Count the syllables. Show it to your mom. She is tough and practical. She has a son in Vietnam and a husband who may be having an affair. She believes in wearing brown because it hides spots. She’ll look briefly at your writing, then back up at you with a face blank as a doughnut. She’ll say: ‘How about emptying the dishwasher?’ Look away. Shove the forks in the fork drawer. Acccidentally break one of the freebie gas station glasses. This is the required pain and suffering. This is only for starters.”
(via GracefulFlavor)
Bird balls prevent urban cancer water
LA’s Ivanhoe Reservoir contains millions of gallons of drinking water for LA residents. In the summer, however, problem presents itself: the water can potentially become contaminated with bromate (depending on daily outbound flow rates, one would presume), which is a natural reaction between solar light, chlorine (a treatment chemical) and naturally-occurring bromide.
Seeing how chlorine is a necessary treatment additive and the bromide is a natural element within the water, Ivanhoe officials got creative and decided to keep sunlight away from the water by dropping over 3 million black spheres (called bird balls) into the reservoir. This effectively created an opaque layer atop the water that serves as a solar shield, which eliminates the solar component of the reaction. Problem solved. Yay, right?
Check out a video of the action here.
But allow me to think out loud for a second: Ivanhoe is preventing the formation of a carcinogen by interrupting the photochemical reaction that forms bromate, the threat in question. But is anyone thinking about the potential toxicity of millions of plastic balls leeching into the drinking water supply, especially millions of black balls that take the beating of the LA sun all summer? To me, this seems like you could be trading one problem for another.
A bunch more photos at Curbed.
(via Unfiltered)
