PicoBlog

"Kintsugi" by Lana Del Rey takes its name from the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, silver or platinum, creating a new and unique piece of art. The idea is that the repair isn't something to hide, but rather it is part of the story of the object. You could say that it actually makes the original piece more beautiful and interesting. Through brokenness comes new life. Below, is a photo of kintsugi from the 16th century.

Monday Reading is my weekly recommendation of something I’ve found thought-provoking or fascinating. Sometimes it is about something I have read. Sometimes it is about television or food or music or projects I care about supporting. Sometimes I do not send it on Monday. Please share with anyone who might like the vibes!! On New Year’s Eve Day, I took myself on a date to the Chicago History Museum for a special screening of some recently restored episodes of the NBC/ABC show Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, a live-action musical puppet sketch show that was almost entirely ad libbed.

A lot of things happened while I was on vacation last week. We learned the fate of an idiot “visionary” and his four victims at the bottom of the ocean floor (and thankfully for them that fate was quick). A new Indiana Jones movie came out 42 years after the first one (⭐ ⭐ ⭐, good fun but lacking a certain Spielbergian joie de vivre). Alan Arkin died after 89 rich, fulfilling years on earth.

I remember the exact moment this poem came into my life. One bright autumn afternoon during my senior year of college, one of my roommates came bursting into our apartment after class. She shouted in the direction of the bedrooms, “Guys! You HAVE to listen to this!”   We met her in the dining room. And then, with the afternoon light twinkling on the white walls of the apartment, she read us this poem: 

Peak: #3 on the Hot 100 Streams: 2.2 million I support any songwriter confident enough to name a song “Love Is.” The implication is that the tune has distilled the very essence of love into a verse-chorus-verse structure — that it has finally cracked the heart’s mysterious code. And frankly, if you don’t believe your pop tunes can solve at least one exist… ncG1vNJzZmikn6jBtLvNoKpnq6WXwLWtwqRlnKedZL1wuM6vnGaho2LDorrErKqaZaeeua21wKaqZpqinq6vecycoqehl53B

My daughter and I just finished watching season two of the Netflix reality show, “Love On The Spectrum.” We will now go back and watch season one. It's the most human, heartwarming reality show I've seen. It follows a cast made up of mostly young adults who are somewhere on the autism spectrum as they try to find love. Let me say right off that I am n… ncG1vNJzZmilkanBrbXEm5yrpZGje7TBwayrmpubY7CwuY6pZqWnppp6sLqMrZ%2BeZaOlsqTA0a6k

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedHello, my friend! Hello to you! I need to tell you something new! Hello, good sir! Hello, I say! Please tell me why you’re dressed this way! I am so glad we meet once more! You knew me as a man before. I changed my name! I changed my hair! I put on ladies’ underwear! You must not ever call me “sir.

I am delighted to announce that my book on the Söring case is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com. More outlets will follow soon, and I’m working on a German version. This book, the result of five years of research, is the first definitive English-language account of the case, from its beginnings in a twisted love affair to Söring’s campaign for a “media pardon” after his release and deportation to Germany in 2019.

Lesley Gore: She stands alone in the ‘60s girl group era as the only solo artist to be so identified with that happy, poppy, harmony-filled genre (with the exception of the wonderful Darlene Love, whose name was often kept off the label by Phil Spector, in lieu of his favored group names like The Blossoms and The Crystals). Amid all the three- and four-somes whose names began with “The” and inevitably ended in an “s,” Lesley Gore fully exemplified the ebullient bouffant-adorned coquettish deb-groups that routinely battled chart positions with the British Invasion boys.