Image © Dan Hill

I love this deep dive into Tokyo’s local scale infrastructure.

When visiting Tokyo, if you are attuned to eating the world with your eyes and particularly the layers of urban life bigger than a cellphone and smaller than a building, one of the first things you’ll notice is how comparatively small the vehicles seem to be. Then, the sheer variety of these small vehicles. And then, how these vehicles, by virtue of their humble and appropriate scale and speed, help produce the city’s often delightfully humane streets. And then finally, that these small vehicles are scurrying around the world’s largest city.

By way of comparison, the municipal and commercial vehicles blasting around Manhattan, for example, are more like hulking tanks, built for battle, apparently ready to face off against the army of gargantuan SUVs contesting the same spaces. But in Tokyo, a city three times larger, the small scale of the vehicles makes instinctive sense.

Small vehicles of Tokyo by Dan Hill

(via the always excellent Webcurios newsletter)

It’s important to know your history and where you’ve come from.

This is lovely.

An international game of Telephone through multiple art forms, seeded from a paragraph in Mike Shanahan’s book Ladders To Heaven (which is a cracking read).

More details on the project from Mike on his blog.

If your laptop and phone both got stolen – how easily could you conduct online life through the worst browser you have? If you have to file an insurance claim online – will you get sent a simple HTML form to fill in, or a DOCX which won’t render?

What vital information or services are forbidden to you due to being trapped in PDFs or horrendously complicated web sites?

[…]

Go sit in an uncomfortable chair, in an uncomfortable location, and stare at an uncomfortably small screen with an uncomfortably outdated web browser. How easy is it to use the websites you’ve created?

The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML - Terence Eden

Albums

• Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher
• beabadoobee - Fake It Flowers
• Black Casino and the Ghost - Farewell Marshal Brunswick
• Thee MVPs - Science Fiction
• Rose City Band - Summerlong
• Run The Jewels - RTJ4
• Sault - UNTITLED (Rise)
• L.A. Witch - Play With Fire
• Sorry - 925
• SPICE - SPICE

Films

(my full stats for 2020 can be seen on Letterboxd)

• Buffaloed
• Jojo Rabbit
• Little Women
• Portrait of a Lady on Fire
• Parasite
• Palm Springs
• Queen & Slim
• Rocks
• Lovers Rock
• Soul

Books

I read 46 books in 2020, thanks in part to a Pratchett re-read and a global pandemic.

Games

Virtual worlds were a fantastic way to shield myself from the state of the world in 2020. Some highlights were: Outer Wilds, Kentucky Route Zero, A Short Hike, Breath of the Wild, and of course, Animal Crossing.

The Black Music History Library

This digital library was born out of a need to make resources about Black music history as comprehensive and accessible as possible. It contains well over one thousand entries (and counting) in the form of books, articles, documentaries, series, radio segments, and podcasts about the Black origins of popular and traditional music, dating from the 18th century to the present day. These materials range from informal to scholarly, meaning there is something in the library for everyone.

There are many notable archives doing similar work, yet it isn’t uncommon for some to have a limited view of Black music—one which fuels US-centrism and a preference for vernacular music traditions. This collection considers the term “Black music” more widely, as it aims to address any instances in which Black participation led to the creation or innovation of music across the diaspora. Plainly speaking, that means just about every genre will be included here.

Black artists have often been minimized or omitted entirely when it comes to the discussion, practice, and research of many forms of music. This library seeks to correct that. It is time to reframe Black music history as foundational to American music history, Latinx music history, and popular music history at large.

via Kottke.org.

[…] if I make a website for a client, I don’t offer accessibility as a line item with a price tag attached. I build in accessibility by default because it’s the right thing to do. The only way to ensure that accessibility doesn’t get negotiated away is to make sure it’s not up for negotiation.

Accessibility - Jeremy Keith

(Content warning: rape)

I have rape-colored skin. My light-brown-blackness is a living testament to the rules, the practices, the causes of the Old South.

If there are those who want to remember the legacy of the Confederacy, if they want monuments, well, then, my body is a monument. My skin is a monument.

You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument - Caroline Randall Williams