PicoBlog

'This is a mess': Masimo trade secrets trial reveals details of Apple Watch development Top executives with the world's first trillion-dollar company are expected to testify in the high-stakes civil trial underway in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California. ncG1vNJzZmirpZfAta3CpGWcp51kja6v1Kegn55fo7y1sY6cZGpsZGyEdYCQ

I’m a huge Erik Larson fan, having read a number of his narrative history books in recent years. On Churchill. The Lusitania. The horrific hurricane that destroyed Galveston. All page-turners. A few weeks ago, I had the honor of meeting Larson and hearing him speak. Over the course of his fascinating and humorous speech, I bought most of his remaining books I hadn’t already read. And somehow, the last one on my pile was “In the Garden of Beasts,” an eyewitness account of developments in Germany in the mid-1930s.

Welcome to the second installment of my Substack! (See here for Episode 1 about Sea Limited (NYSE: SE), the publicly traded multi-billion dollar gaming + ecomm company.) I’ve decided my beat is “insane companies no one talks about.” If you have suggestions for succinct/witty names, please send them my way. :) Today’s post is about MGA Entertainment, the privately-owned multi-billion dollar toy company located just outside of LA on this massive campus:

Is that all there is to a fire?  “If you give this song to anyone else, it’s your life,” Peggy Lee told Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller. She was still rightfully billed as the Queen of American Popular Standards, but by 1969, those standards weren’t nearly as popular. She was 49 and a lot had changed in pop music since she last had a hit with “Fever” in 1958. The reason she desired this song so strongly, however, is not that she heard a comeback hit in what the songwriters had presented.

PopPoetry is a poetry and pop culture Substack written by Caitlin Cowan. You can learn more about it here. Check out the archive to see other tv shows, movies, and films whose intersections with poetry I’ve covered. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, subscribe so you won’t miss a post! Let’s talk about six words in a Drake song. The opening lines of “Is There More,” from the 6 God’s 2018 double album, Scorpion, go like this:

“After a calm, there must be a storm” “Wake up every morning slaving for bread, sir,” Desmond Dekker’s glistening high-tenor calls out over the single strike of a guitar chord. A second swipe across the strings is met with “So that every mouth can be fed.”  “Israelites” was one of the first international reggae hits. It’s doubtful 1969 audiences who pushed the song to the top of the charts in the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands, or in the US, where it peaked at #9, were able to parse enough of Dekker’s Jamaican accent to follow the lyrics.

I’ve been thinking about Twitter, its strengths and weaknesses, and why something like Notes might be necessary. I explain here why there is potential for Notes to recreate some of the best of Twitter while avoiding the overwhelming negativity and plain stupidity that dominates that site. ncG1vNJzZmirpZfAta3CpGWcp51kjbO1wqGYq5yYlruiusiaZqenpJp8pHmQbW1ta2Rofg%3D%3D

I’ve had a few people ask me about why so many HAMAS fighters are being found with their shirts off most likely cut off with trauma shears- It’s a way of quickly searching a body for a suicide vest. The US Army does something similar, although we pull the shirt over the head and cross the arms to indicate the body has been searched. ncG1vNJzZmirpZfAta3CpGWcp51kjbPFwKeknJqVqbVwus6tnGibXWl%2Fc4GPaWxq

We begin with this chalkboard image, the origins of which I don’t know, as someone sent it to me. It’s a pithy way of capturing what many Israelis feel about this still-shrinking country: Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedMy great-grandfather told us that once, we could go traveling in Syria. My grandma told that once, we used to be able to travel in Lebanon. Mom tells me that once we could travel in the Galilee.