Reading

Like many others, I left the United States because I wanted to get away from Trumpʼs America. But now that my only entertainment opportunities involve two men riding neon glow-in-the-dark motorcycles inside an enormous orb, I must ask myself if I made the right decision.

It wasn’t easy to move. But I consider myself an open person and felt compelled to leave a place that was becoming increasingly intolerant and closed off. Little did I know that this openness would bring me to this regional theater, with this man, whose thighs are covered with henna tattoos, and who’s rocking a loincloth that’s not really a diaper but also not quite a thong.

My friends back home say that they’re jealous of me. I understand why—they’re still there, which means they see terrible news every day. But it also means they’re not seeing this woman in a gold bikini pick up bamboo sticks with her toes and construct a tower for the peacocks.

It is widely believed (by me, just now) that William Shakespeare revised his plays constantly, fueled by ambition, self-doubt, and whatever they drank instead of coffee back then. Based on that and vibes alone, here is what he probably thought each time he tweaked the same scene again.

1. Ah! A fresh draft. This one shall be perfect and require no further changes.

2. What if the line were slightly sadder?

3. What if it were also a little funny?

4. Can something be tragic and funny? I shall invent this.

5. “To be, or not to be”—hmm. Feels wordy. Perhaps just “To be”?

6. No, no, no. Put the rest back. It was good. It was fine.

7. Actually, what if he says it while holding a skull?

8. Where would he get the skull?

9. I will simply give him one. The audience will not question it.

10. I am a genius.

11. Wait. What if the skull has a name?

12. Everyone loves it when objects have names.

13. Yorick. Yes. That feels right.

14. I should write that down.

15. I did not write that down.

16. Back to the top. “To be, or not to be”—still excellent.

McSweeney’s and Broadway Video present the official over-six-hundred-page comprehensive companion book to IFC’s Documentary Now!, made with the assistance of series directors Rhys Thomas and Alex Buono and including new writing by Seth Meyers, a foreword by Pulitzer Prize–finalist Matt Zoller Seitz, the complete sheet music for John Mulaney and Eli Bolin’s Co-op: The Musical, and much more.

The book is out today, and to celebrate, we’re sharing an excerpt featuring the show’s very first host, the legendary Burt Lancaster.

"The phrase ‘tax the rich’ can be ‘just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs,’ according to the New York City billionaire Steve Roth, who said that the top 1 percent should be ‘praised and thanked.’” — The Guardian

First they came for the pieds-à-terre, which they said were driving up the cost of housing.

And I did not speak out.

Because my pied-à-terre was in Greenwich, Connecticut, not Greenwich Village.

Then they came for the capital gains, which they said should be taxed as income.

And I did not speak out.

Because I had all of my company stock in a tax-sheltered backdoor Roth.

Then they came for the bad landlords, who they said were ripping off tenants.

And I did not speak out.

Because I was so wealthy I didn’t even bother renting out any of my investment properties.

Then they came for the 1031 exchanges, which they said were an unfair tax loophole the wealthy use to buy fancier vacation homes.

Early in President Trump’s first term, McSweeney’s editors began to catalog the head-spinning number of misdeeds coming from his administration. We called this list a collection of Trump’s cruelties, collusions, corruptions, and crimes, and it felt urgent to track them, to ensure these horrors—happening almost daily—would not be forgotten. Now that Trump has returned to office, amid civil rights, humanitarian, economic, and constitutional crises, we felt it critical to make an inventory of this new round of horrors. This list will be updated monthly between now and the end of Donald Trump’s second term.

Centuries-old newspaper clippings from Sweden

The post What’s Black and White and Reveals Historic Porpoise Distributions? appeared first on Nautilus.

Bright lights in a dark world

The post New NASA Graphic Captures Human Activity at Night appeared first on Nautilus.

The human family tree gets more complicated

The post Ancient Teeth Hint at Homo Erectus-Denisovan Interbreeding appeared first on Nautilus.

Its femur was larger than most people

The post Meet “The Last Titan,” Southeast Asia’s Most Massive Dinosaur appeared first on Nautilus.

After months sequestered in the Pagoda of Masculinity, which is beneath my parents’ house but is fair to consider my basement, I have emerged a new man. Through my relentless commitment to living the ascetic lifestyle of a monk who is allowed to play video games, I, the Angulord, have at long last fully maxximized my looks.

There is no length I have not gone to for the sake of cultivating my flawless aesthetic. I have smashed my jaw with a hammer to increase its definition. I have injected testosterone to enhance the capacity of my muscles. My abs are as firm as freshly quarried gravel thanks to peptides (which I take subcutaneously) and riptides (which I allow to carry me out to sea during thunderstorms, forcing me to swim ashore or die). So far, I’ve only been declared legally dead twice, and just for five or six minutes each time. My doctor says that the oxygen deficit has left me with the cognitive capacity of a police horse on the verge of retirement. I told him to suck my sharp dick.

We have a lot to learn about adaptability from a bird who evolved to swim

The post Why Penguins Don’t Fly appeared first on Nautilus.

Scientists keep knocking it down but it keeps roaring back

The post The Impossible Strength of the Testosterone Myth appeared first on Nautilus.

You’ve Always Been This Way is a column written by Taylor Harris, a late-diagnosed neurodivergent woman and 1980s preschool dropout, who identifies every moment from her past that filled her with shame, and mutters, “Yep, that tracks. I see it all now.”

Dearest Neurobaddies of the Finest Order,

I did a thing. No, not procuring a pint of Graeter’s ice cream before 9 a.m., though who am I to discount the diminutive glory of my former days? Just because I write to you from the summit of Midlife Desire and Acquisition, doesn’t mean I’m untouchable. It just means I trusted myself and didn’t ruin everything. In fact, I kind of nailed it. Did I question myself 13,000 times first? Think of every reason I should abandon the want lighting up my heart like a 1980s Glo Worm? Yes and yes. And then I proceeded to do the thing anyway. So pull up your stretchy pants and lift ye old breasts back into the cups of your threadbare brassieres, ladies. It’s story time.

“The United States Army has officially raised its enlistment age limit to 42.” — New York Times

Arrival

Once you step off the bus, basic training has begun. Recruits carrying ergonomic rolling luggage will be immediately singled out for punishment. Next, your bags will be inspected for contraband. Any attempts to smuggle in heating pads, lumbar-support braces, or Lactaid pills will cause your drill sergeant to go ballistic. Full-fat dairy is a big part of the warrior ethos.

Red Phase
(Weeks 1-3)

The goal of the Red Phase is to begin your transformation from soft, middle-aged weakling into an unstoppable, silver-fox warrior. During these first three weeks, you’ll get a thorough introduction to the following:

And it’s here to help

The post There’s Something Living in Fog appeared first on Nautilus.

For fifteen years or so, I’d been kicking around the idea of resurrecting the artist-apprentice model that reigned in the art world for hundreds of years.

Again and again, I’d heard from young people who lamented the astronomical and ever-rising cost of art school. For many college-level art programs, the total cost to undergraduates is now over $100,000 a year. I hope we can all agree that charging students $400,000 for a four-year degree in visual art is objectively absurd. And this prohibitive cost has priced tens of thousands of potential students out of even considering undertaking such an education.

For years, I mentioned this issue to friends in and out of the art world, and everyone, without exception, agreed that the system was broken. Even friends I know who teach at art schools agreed that the cost was out of control, and these spiraling costs were contributing to the implosion of many undergraduate and postgraduate art programs.

A generation of young people with ‘full hearts in an empty world’ sought hope in the face of insurmountable malaise

- by Emily Herring

Read on Aeon

Jessica Riskin’s three greatest revelations while writing Power of Life

The post What Lamarck’s Giraffe Got Right appeared first on Nautilus.