Link Roundup! -The Toast

What if people told European history like they told Native American history?

Pre-contact Europeans wore clothing made of natural materials such as animal skin and plant and animal-based textiles. Women wore long dresses and covered their hair, and men wore tunics and leggings. Both men and women liked to wear jewelry made from precious stones and metals as a sign of status. Before contact, Europeans had very poor diets. Most people were farmers and grew wheat and vegetables and raised cows and sheep to eat. They rarely washed themselves, and had many diseases because they often let their animals live with them.

Cord Jefferson promises this is “the last time I’m gonna ever write about living in a place and then moving away from that place.”

This is Mallory adding a last-minute interjection to Nicole’s Link Roundup. I have never done this before; her work is her work and I consider it sacrosanct. Also, it is more than a little ridiculous to link to this, because it has nearly 7 million views and has presumably been seen by everyone in the nation. But it is the funniest thing that I have ever seen in my entire life. I have watched it every day this week at least three times a day, often just before bed, chortling heartily to myself until fat tears roll down my cheeks. I have no regrets. Please watch it full-screen and in high-definition. I can assure you the facial expressions are worth it.

I have made every member of my family watch this, except for my mother, who flies home tomorrow.

I will make my mother watch this tomorrow. Of this you can be sure.

As Waffle House goeth, so goeth the nation:

Nearly a decade ago, Florida’s emergency management chief, W. Craig Fugate, noticed that when information was scarce after a disaster, the status of a 24-hour Waffle House restaurant often indicated whether an area had electricity, gas, and passable roads. So he created a three-color rating: green (fully open), yellow (limited menu), and red (closed). Then he brought it with him to his current post as FEMA’s administrator.

Auditioning for the MET Orchestra:

“I love it.” That was Boris’ immediate reaction when asked how he feels about the fact that, in all MET Orchestra auditions, the screen (which divides the candidate from the committee) stays up through the very end. “I concentrate on my playing, not on how I look. Sometimes I sit with my legs crossed, and I prefer that! I play better like that! All four auditions I have won were screened [until the end].” In auditions in which the screen comes down, “I think about ‘looking good’ too much…I feel like I shouldn’t just play musically, I should look musical, too. They’re looking at you, not at the music.”

When vanilla was brown, and how we came to see it as white.

One of my friends who, like myself, is raising non-LDS kids in Utah was not super-duper-stoked to be notified that the 4th grade field trip at her daughter’s (public) school would be to, why, The Church History Museum. Now, you can point out, correctly, that the history of Utah is pretty indistinguishable from the history of the LDS church, but there are a BUNCH of fantastic non-affiliated-with-a-particular-religion museums in the area that have pioneers and local history and dinosaurs out the wahzoo, so it’s curious to me that the administration decided to make that call.

You’ll be hearing more about The Essential Ellen Willis from us, but here’s the book trailer in the meantime: