“The Gömböc doesn’t have any power, and is a consistent weight all the way through. It has a wide curve on the bottom, surrounded by flat-ish sides and a ridged curve of a top. No matter how it’s placed on a flat surface, it will right itself. It’s what’s called a mono-monostatic shape, and was born of mathematical theory. The theory stated that a self-righting shape was possible, and that it had one stable point of balance, and one unstable point. Placing it on the curve on its top will let it pick itself up quickly. Placing on its flat side starts a slower process. It rolls back and forward slowly, then slows almost to a stop, then rolls back and forward quickly in a tiny vibrating motion, and then falls onto its stable point of balance, righting itself again.” (Esther Inglis-Arkell, Meet the Gömböc, one of the strangest shapes in the world, Gizmodo, June 15, 2011)

On perfect mornings like this instead of being in it’s perfection I think of how there must be perfect mornings like this every day in Shelter Island, only a couple of weeks ago. Why do I want to be somewhere else, every time?

Loneliness is the common ground of terror and extremism – Nabeelah Jaffer | Aeon Essays

if you sign up to the idea that class struggle, racial competition or civilisational conflict is absolute, then you can achieve meaning and kinship as part of a race, class or civilisation without ever requiring two-sided thought – the kind of thought that involves weighing competing imperatives and empathising with a range of people.

Pretty sure the woman sitting across from me on subway this morning all the way to work was St.Vincent.

newyorker:

On July 17th, former President Obama delivered the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture, in Johannesburg. The lecture came not long after Donald Trump’s press conference with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. The talk was Obama’s most extensive reflection so far on the current political climate, though it did not once mention Trump by name. The lecture is edited, but not much.—David Remnick

Read it here.

On Tuesday, when Barack Obama walked onto a stage in Johannesburg to deliver the 2018 Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture, commemorating the centenary of the former South African President’s birth, he offered the sharpest possible contrast between himself and his successor—between statesman and demagogue—and, crucially, the distinction between a man who grasps history as the living context of our lives and one unburdened by the knowledge of how we arrived at the present and what that means for the future.

Read Jelani Cobb on Barack Obama’s indictment of Trumpism.

very disappointed – asked my friend to come to Chile with me to see the eclipse (and I’d share the second observatory ticket that I got with him), and he said he’d go, but only “for a couple of days”, because to go for longer would be irresponsible towards obligations here. He was surprised that I would contemplate anything longer than that myself.

Of course, when his work (hedge fund that he hates) tells him to go to Asia for a quite a bit longer, he has no objections.

What happened to our priorities?

They have a TV in here, and Tour de France is on, which i see for the first time ever.
Why is France so beautiful?

nypl:

Beginning today, New York City’s museums and attractions are yours to explore with Culture Pass. You can reserve a pass with your NYC library card, and get free admission to dozens of cultural institutions.

Dreams that are hard to tell from reality. Both vivid and banal. Milk went bad. Did it really happen?

I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous spreading labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future and in some way involve the stars.

Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden of Forking Paths
(via inthenoosphere)