Summer in southern Ontario is three months long. But in this very bad year, we’ve been blessed with the first five-month summer in many years. Remember back in May? Glorious. September so far?
Gorgeous. Time to count our blessings — and celebrate them just three weeks from now.
Meanwhile, here is this weekend’s Omnium-Gatherum.
1. The sound of bad blood. You recall the story of Elizabeth Holmes from Theranos who claimed to test all kinds of conditions from a single drop of blood. Her trial is on now in California. The Wall Street Journal’s John Carreyrou wrote the best-selling Bad Blood on her rise and fall, and now has a terrific podcast subtitled The Final Chapter on what’s happened since then, including Holmes “Svengali” defense. Taut and compelling.
2. The most daring surveillance sting in history. If you’re a drug lord and someone tells you about a new phone that can’t be tapped and whose messages can’t be read, don’t buy it.
3. How Leylah Fernandez lost the US Open and won New York. For a very tired 19-year-old, she sure knows how to win a crowd.
4. Perfect images of tiny things. Here are the winners of the 2021 Small World Photomicrography Competition. Not just pictures, but videos.
5. How to keep that hot streak going. When it hits, wow. But how to make the feeling last? Well, it seems luck isn’t everything. You can do things to extend your hot streak and “create bursts of high-impact works clustered together in close succession.”
6. The 15-minute city. The pandemic has given new life to the idea that we should live in places where we can access everything we need – from food and entertainment, to healthcare and police – within a 15-minute walk. It seems access, not mobility, should guide urban planning decisions.
7. Do you talk Zuckspeak? When Mark Zuckerberg speaks, he uses a speaking style “that asks for validation while bulldozing through almost any topic.” You don’t have to be a billionaire to use it yourself to…well, to get your way, of course.
8. Seven minutes of money. A rapid-fire collage of money from most every country, with their leaders’ faces staring insistently at us. No wonder it’s called The One True God.
9. Al Pacino breaks down four of his most important characters. From ‘Serpico,’ ‘Dog Day Afternoon,’ ‘The Godfather’ and ‘Scarface.’
10. A make-good on parkour. Last Saturday, I had an item about the best parkour artists anywhere. But the link was to the definition of “parkour.” Not nearly as exciting as this.
11. You’ll never walk alone. Kelli O’Harasings at the 9/11 Memorial last Saturday on 9/11.
Forbidden Words. The phrase you are no longer allowed to use in polite company is Paddy Wagon.
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Upcoming RamsayTalk Event
Helen Walsh will launch her propulsive Canadian thriller Pull Focus at the next RamsayTalk on Monday, September 27 from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. ET.
Admission to the talk is FREE and we encourage you to buy the book before, during or after the event. To register, click here.
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To order a copy of my book Love or Die Trying, click here for Canadian orders, click here for US orders, or visit your favourite bookstore.