¶ Songs — Memories: one day in late November, on I10 in Houston, in my nephew's Corvette, with Springsteen's Outlaw Pete on the stereo...
¶ 2009 in books — The best books of 2009 (Publishers Weekly) and 100 Notable Books of 2009 (New York Times).
¶ Technology — In Jane Austen days the mail in London and environs was very quick and delivered six times a day. For instance a letter send before 10am would be delivered at noon. Jane Austen and her sister wrote some 3000 letters in their lifetime, constantly sharing the minutiae of their life. Rings a bell? Actually it was a lot like e-mail or Twitter says Sarah Milstein and the human motivation was the same as today: "communicate instantly and let other people know what you ate for breakfast" and that "our human patterns are surprisingly consistent, and technology evolves to meet us. "! Fascinating stuff.
¶ Graphic design — 8 Jaw-Dropping Dental Logos: in France no dentist have logos! Those dental logos are elegant graphic design works.
¶ Cinema — Double-X Films (The Atlantic): the films of Nora Ephron and Nancy Meyers shows a better world where empathy is good stuff.
¶ US — The Fall of Mexico (The Atlantic): Philip Caputo writes report on the border towns of Mexico and the war on drug cartels there. This chaos claims some 14,000 people killed in three years. M. Caputo has a great report in The Atlantic.