"In MacKaye’s original vision, the Appalachian Trail would aim to put back together the various parts of American life that were rapidly coming undone in the early 20th century. It would fuse leisure and industry, environment and labor, community development and wilderness preservation into an interrelated project."
https://placesjournal.org/article/an-appalachian-trail-a-project-in-regional-planning

But the Timms’ vast collection of roughly 1,800 artifacts, focused on items from the Johnson Smith catalogs from the early 20th century and beyond, is more than juvenile pranks—it includes cheap toys and quirky but practical inventions like flashlights, twirling spaghetti forks, and electric tie presses, as well as guides promising to teach valuable skills like detective work or jiu-jitsu. https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/worlds-foremost-experts-on-whoopee-cushions-and-silly-putty-tell-all/

Did you know the NYC MTA had an armored money train that ran from 1951 to 2006? I did not. https://www.6sqft.com/check-out-the-mtas-armored-money-train-that-ran-from-1951-to-2006/

You need this.

Trust me.
https://twitter.com/shockproofbeats/status/1313771808114475010

Two types of networks help women succeed: a tight-knit inner circle of women and a network of their outside contacts. https://women2.com/2020/10/08/building-your-entrepreneur-power-circle/

Do you skip the acknowledgements section in books? You’re missing out! https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2020/october/books-acknowledgements-thank-yous-authors-readers.html

A guy in a bar leans over to the guy next to him and says, “Wanna hear a “redneck” joke?”

The guy next to him replies, “Before you tell that joke you should know something. I’m 6′ tall, 200 lbs. and a redneck. The guy sitting next to me is 6’2″, 225 lbs. and a redneck. The fella next to him is 6’5″, 250 lbs. and a redneck. Do you still want to tell that joke?”

The first guy says, “Nah. I don’t want to have to explain it three times.”

What if Facebook could use regular people — people whose day job is not fact-checking — to fact-check articles instead? A new working paper from researchers at MIT suggests that it would be surprisingly effective, even if those people are only reading headlines.https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/10/crowds-of-regular-people-are-as-good-at-moderating-fake-news-on-facebook-as-professional-fact-checkers/

Do you work at or did you intern in a technology role at a company? If so, please take this survey developed by Telle Whitney, co-founder of the Grace Hopper Celebration, and former CEO of the Anita Borg Institute. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/companyculturefeedbacksurvey

RT @RBReich: Next time you hear Trump and his enablers touting the economy, remind them that more Americans have filed for unemployment this year than voted for Trump in 2016.

>> Collective action for a civic purpose? That is the greatest threat an authoritarian can imagine.

https://www.motherjones.com/media/2020/10/the-chaos-is-the-point/

"The Madman’s Library is an utterly joyous journey into the deepest eccentricities of the human mind."

Oh, y'all are gonna love this. I do. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/01/browsing-the-madmans-library-edward-brooke-hitching

Hollywood's smartest teen movies

This is a cool article. Not a fluffy listicle.

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200930-how-teen-movies-became-hooked-on-classic-literature

Venice has a plan to stay dry. Decades in the making, the sea walls had a successful debut. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/03/world/europe/venice-floodgates-flooding.html

A St. Louis chef is looking to revive 19th century Ozark cuisine, using records he found from an 1841 seed shop. He's enlisted the help of farmers to grow 23 heritage crops, and is hoping the initiative can be part of a movement to revive Black farming culture in Missouri. https://modernfarmer.com/2020/10/reviving-ozark-cuisine-through-seeds/

St. Ann's Warehouse is making three filmed performances of Shakespeare plays available online for free, all featuring all-women casts. https://stannswarehouse.org/show/donmar-trilogy/

Two former detention officers and their supervisor were charged after an investigation found inmates at the Oklahoma County jail were forced to listen to the popular children's song, Baby Shark, on a loop at loud volumes for extended periods of time. https://oklahoman.com/article/5673248/baby-shark-kids-song-used-to-bully-jail-inmates-da-says

A stolen poetry scroll written by Mao Zedong was found chopped in half. The $300 million artifact went missing last month, and was cut down the middle because someone deemed it too unwieldy. https://au.news.yahoo.com/stolen-300m-mao-scroll-found-114648903.html

'While the liberty cap’s “magic” properties seemed to go largely unacknowledged, the idea that fungi could provoke hallucinations did begin to percolate more widely in Europe during the nineteenth century — though it became attached to a quite different species of mushroom.' https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/fungi-folklore-and-fairyland

Lemons in progress.

(From our tree.)