continuous line drawing of man and dog paddling on board

Saturday Multi-Slacking

Is the whole point of weekdays the weekend? Certainly it is in summer, and most certainly this summer because last summer was cancelled without notice. My advice. Get outside and stay there. At least until it’s dark and you can come inside and read this weekend’s Omnium-Gatherum. Or read it now, in the sun, on your phone, as you water-ski, over the Falls.

1. Apple in LA. The world’s largest company not only runs sleek, ultra-vogue stores, it restores old ones gloriously. Look what they’re doing with a 1920s theatre in downtown Los Angeles.

2. Six Very Scary Animal Encounters – Lesson One? Don’t go kayaking in an alligator-swamp in the Everglades.

3. Subscribe to Scott Galloway. He’s the NYU business professor and pundit whose weekly blog, No Mercy No Malice, reflects his clear-eyed view of tech and work and being human. Even if your inbox is heaving with commentary, invite him in – at no cost. His podcasts are a treat, too.

4. Not eight. Not twelve. Five. What’s the optimum number of hours you should work each day? This Wired article claims that five hours offer the apex of productivity and well-being.

5. Augmented Reality Sandboxes. Wouldn’t it be great to move sand around like you did as a kid and have all that tracked simultaneously like a moving topo map? If you build a “mountain”, the peak will appear red while the lower elevations show as cooler colors. So watch this.

6. Putting Things on Top of Other Things. That’s the title of a Monty Python skit worth upping in our minds, especially as we emerge from an age of “bullshit jobs.”

7. The magnetism of old photos. It’s hard to stay away from testing a bullet-proof vest, or the night they ended Prohibition, or the first Walmart store, or Anne Frank poking her head out of her Amsterdam flat.

8. A sex factory of a home. This crazy video, from Architectural Digest, of all places, reveals British actor and model Cara Delevingne in a most bizarre house tour of her mansion.

9. You’re a bird. Can you build a nest in 8 minutes? Actually, you’re a human with too little time. But you can see in 8 minutes what it takes a Blue Tit weeks to construct –- from empty nest to first egg. If you want to see those eggs hatching into chicks then into fledglings, it will take you another 21 minutes.

10. Love birds can dance. So can massive diggers. This lovely 3-minute performance film was directed by Newfoundlander Anne Troake and discovered by Sheena Macdonald who saw it on Barbara Walters 20/20 years ago and sold the Made-in-Canada production to broadcasters around the world.

If you would like to comment on this post, click here.

*****

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