After a quick traverse...

St. James' Square, London, this morning.

Palo Alto this evening

Ooh, I had something for this - "The Alaskan Admin"?...no, no..."The Alaskan Salary Cap Maven"?...no...

New Orleans has agreed on deal with Brooklyn assistant general manager Trajan Langdon to make him the new GM working alongside David Griffin, league sources tell @TheAthleticNBA @Stadium.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) May 19, 2019

Banned in Switzerland, I bet

[T]he Konstantin Chaykin Joker is exceptionally well-made for its original price point of €6,990 — a fact its doubled resale value indicates, pricing it comfortably in the mid- to high-$10k range. It’s proportionate, comfortable, legible (I can say that after months of wearing it) and, again, beautifully made. These qualities, all on their own, would make it one of the must-haves for its original price point — but it is its inspired design and unique presentation that turn it, for me at least, into one of the greatest watches produced in the modern era of watchmaking. It really is that good.

(link)

The nice man across the street

Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Taylor spent the night before playing poker and dancing at the officers' club at Wheeler with fellow pilot George Welch, and did not go to sleep until 6:30 a.m. local time. Taylor and Welch awoke less than an hour and a half later at 7:55 a.m. to the sounds of low-flying planes, machine-gun fire, and explosions. Lt. Taylor quickly put on his tuxedo pants from the night before and called Haleiwa Auxiliary Air Field, where eighteen P-40B fighters were located. Without orders, he told the ground crews to get two P-40s armed and ready for takeoff. The new Buick he drove was strafed by Japanese aircraft as the two pilots sped the 10 miles (16 km) to Haleiwa; Taylor at times reached speeds of 100 mph (160 km/h). At the airstrip, they climbed into their Curtiss P-40B Warhawk fighters...

(link)


(He lived across from our house when I was a kid.)

Draymond Green in Portland tonight

The Portland Trail Blazers felt the full effect of Green’s breakneck style in Game 3 on Saturday, watching a 13-point halftime lead evaporate into a 110-99 loss that puts the Warriors one win away from their fifth consecutive NBA Finals.

Green finished with 20-points, 13 rebounds and 12 assists -- a gaudy triple-double that still doesn’t quite capture his game-changing impact. The Warriors outscored the Blazers by 16 points with Green on the court, while Portland outscored Golden State by five points in the 10 minutes Green spent on the bench.

(link)


In response to a flood of e-mails and tweets requesting information on this, Shaun Livingston was 2-3 on field goals, 2-2 from the line. So six points on three shots, +4 for the game.  So that was good, too.

Oh, now it's on

The lost master

Annunciate Madonna

There are several reasons why Antonello is not as well known today as artists like Leonardo, Michelangelo, or Caravaggio, though he is undoubtedly their equal. First of all, a frustratingly small sample of his work still exists, for his beautiful city, founded by Greeks in Homer's times (circa 730 BCE), sits on one of the Mediterranean's major fault lines and has paid the price for the precarious location many times over... Second, that paramount maker of early modern artistic reputations, Giorgio Vasari, never traveled to Sicily...[and] as a result Vasari's biography of the Sicilian is almost entirely made up...

(link)

Hey Dad, what is 'old man strength'?

This

Participants on the Kentucky Derby

(link)

I haven't been watching, but this really is compelling

Corn. The answer is corn.

• Vox: "A mysterious gut doctor is begging Americans to throw out 'this vegetable' now. But, like, which?" (link)

You're welcome, America

News outlets once again bury the lede as Shaun Livingston goes 4-6 and leads the team in plus/minus.

One in a lifetime

They got all the Bruegels together...

• NYRB:  "In Love with Multiplicity" - (link)

• Exhibition permanent website - (link)

Ender's Game

Golden State entered Game 6, and a possible Game 7, with Curry staring at his moment of truth: Either he was going to live up to the hype that began building in 2015, or he was going to embark on a new chapter of his career with critics wondering whether Harden, and other stars, had surpassed him and whether Durant was about to leave in free agency.

Steph Curry in the 1st half:

0 PTS
0-5 FG
0-2 3PT
0-0 FT
2 AST
3 PF pic.twitter.com/8HWjM5lXKr

— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) May 11, 2019

The after-halftime turnaround started slowly, with a missed three-pointer followed by a simple layup to get on the board. His confidence swelling, Curry hit a floater, and a corner three, and a lefty scoop. As a close game went deeper into the fourth quarter, he sensed the Rockets were staggering and kept ratcheting up his attacks. Another floater. A right angle three. A nifty run through an open paint for a banking layup. During a dead ball late in the fourth, he shook his injured left hand and winced in pain, doubling over at the waist.

Clinging to a two-point lead with 90 seconds left, Curry wielded the dagger. Blanketed by PJ Tucker — an experienced, physical and brilliant defender — he went behind-the-back twice in search of a rhythm. Feeling it, he crossed over from right-to-left, and then left-to-right, to generate some breathing room.

A quick stutter, a hop to his right and he was free, launching a three-pointer over Tucker’s right hand from the right angle. The ball swished through, and soon thousands of Rockets fans were headed to the exits, not waiting to see Curry seal the win from the free throw line.

(link)

How to Accumulate a Satisfying Collection of Fine Art

High Art or HeckBilly

Boeing's new legal czar

Mr. Luttig was appointed at age 37 to the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, after working as assistant counsel to former president Ronald Reagan and as a law clerk to Antonin Scalia before he joined the U.S. Supreme Court. He also served as a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger.

Among those who served as clerk for Mr. Luttig were Ted Cruz, who is now a U.S. Senator from Texas, and Joel Kaplan, now Facebook Inc.’s vice president of global public policy.

(link)


Sounds like a good, conservative, laissez faire airplane safety guy.

Twilight of the Edge People

I prefer the edge: the place where countries, communities, allegiances, affinities, and roots bump uncomfortably up against one another—where cosmopolitanism is not so much an identity as the normal condition of life. Such places once abounded. Well into the twentieth century there were many cities comprising multiple communities and languages—often mutually antagonistic, occasionally clashing, but somehow coexisting. Sarajevo was one, Alexandria another. Tangiers, Salonica, Odessa, Beirut, and Istanbul all qualified—as did smaller towns like Chernovitz and Uzhhorod. By the standards of American conformism, New York resembles aspects of these lost cosmopolitan cities: that is why I live here...

Unlike the late Edward Said, I believe I can understand and even empathize with those who know what it means to love a country. I don’t regard such sentiments as incomprehensible; I just don’t share them. But over the years these fierce unconditional loyalties—to a country, a God, an idea, or a man—have come to terrify me. The thin veneer of civilization rests upon what may well be an illusory faith in our common humanity. But illusory or not, we would do well to cling to it. Certainly, it is that faith—and the constraints it places upon human misbehavior—that is the first to go in times of war or civil unrest.

We are entering, I suspect, upon a time of troubles. It is not just the terrorists, the bankers, and the climate that are going to wreak havoc with our sense of security and stability. Globalization itself—the “flat” earth of so many irenic fantasies—will be a source of fear and uncertainty to billions of people who will turn to their leaders for protection. “Identities” will grow mean and tight, as the indigent and the uprooted beat upon the ever-rising walls of gated communities from Delhi to Dallas.

- Tony Judt, 2010

(link)

"My first love, my darling." - Brunel

Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol - opened 1864

(link)

I like the potential, let's write up a treatment and see if we can Sony interested

Ooh, ahh

One of the things you'll notice about the enamel dials is the three-dimensional effect that they create. You can see through the top layers of enamel and the printed markings appear to almost float over the dial itself. 

(link)

But who wants that?

It would be relatively easy to drastically reduce child poverty in America. And this will almost surely happen if Dems take the Senate and WH next year https://t.co/075d5Km0rC

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) May 3, 2019

Sir! Sir! SIR!

The Concise Vanishing Point