Gathered Scatter

-- If you have any love of blues music or a desire to learn about its place in 20th century American culture, you should check out the Blues Unlimited podcast. Hosted by Steve Franz in his persona of "Sleepy Boy Hawkins," it features an encyclopedic catalog and deep dives into almost every aspect of this quintessentially American style of music.

-- The idea of a municipality that keeps the doors open with speeding citations and parking tickets usually calls to mind some dot on a rural highway where all the locals know how to avoid the speedtraps and parking shenanigans. Or the city of Chicago, take your pick.

-- At the Utne Reader, Edward Slingerland explores the Chinese philosophy "wu-wei" in an excerpt from his book on the subject. The underlying premise of wu-wei is "don't try too hard," reasoning that sometimes, the harder we try to do something the more we get in our own way. The solution? Not trying as hard, which is itself a tough cookie to figure out. Although my undergraduate GPA proves that at certain times in my life, I have mastered this particular way of thinking.

-- Adam Sternbergh, writing at The Walrus, wonders how the loss of communal TV watching will affect the medium and the watchers. He notes how, when he binge-watched a particular series on Netflix and wanted to chat about it with someone, he had a very hard time finding another person who had seen the show and shared his enjoyment of it. The article may be the only time I have ever seen anyone refer to the Saturday morning cartoon Thundarr the Barbarian since I was a kid watching it myself.