From Slate: “Jan. 15 isn’t just National Bagel Day. It’s also National Strawberry Ice Cream Day, National Hat Day, and, of course, National Kombucha Day. Jan. 16, if you didn’t know, is National Nothing Day. May 9 is the eternally solemn National Lost Sock Memorial Day. And I hope you’re already practicing your iambic pentameter, because April 23 is National Talk Like Shakespeare Day. I know this because of the effort put forth by the National Day Calendar, a company based in Mandan, North Dakota, which has attempted to make a business out of mandatory celebration. There is a method to the madness, and a distinct curator of a January 15 filled with bagels, kombucha, and strawberry ice cream. His name is Marlo Anderson. He’s 62, and he describes himself as a serial entrepreneur. The National Day Calendar has been his baby since 2013.”
She saved his life when he was a child and seven years later he returned the favor
From NBC: “Kevin Stephan of Lancaster, N.Y., was a bat boy for his younger brother’s Little League baseball team. A player who was warming up accidentally hit him in the chest with a bat. Kevin’s heart stopped beating. Fortunately, a nurse whose son played on that team was able to revive him and save his life. Stephan’s mother said he was extremely fortunate. Penny Brown was supposed to be at work that night, but was given the day off at the last minute. Seven years later, Brown was eating at the Hillview Restaurant in Depew, N.Y., when she began to choke on her food. Witnesses say patrons were screaming for someone to help her. Restaurant employees yelled for Stephan, who worked at the restaurant, to come out and help because he was a volunteer firefighter. He did the Heimlich maneuver and she survived the potentially fatal incident.”
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No one saw this huge earthwork sculpture for 30 years until there was a drought
From Atlas Obscura: “Built in 1970 of mud, salt crystals, basalt, and dirt, the Spiral Jetty is 1,500 feet long and extends far out into the Great Salt Lake. However, no one saw this work for over 30 years. Built during a drought by Robert Smithson, once the water levels returned to normal the spiral was then submerged for three decades, reemerging during a drought in 2004. The black basalt rocks are now covered with white salt encrustations, and the water has a pink hue to it. The jetty disappears if the lake level is higher than 4,197 feet, and currently, the lake level is below its historical average. There is a plan to restore the jetty, but not everyone agrees with the plan. The sculptor, who died in a plane crash only three years after completing the jetty, expressed a love of the eroding powers of nature. His project is part of a ’60s movement known as land art.”
Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either through my Patreon or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. I also write a weekly newsletter of technology analysis called The Torment Nexus.
This year Portland will have competing Naked Bike Rides put on by two warring factions
From Williamette Week: “Starting in 2025, and for the foreseeable future, the Rose City will host rival World Naked Bike Rides. The first one, the Portland World Naked Bike Ride on July 26, is the original one in town. It started in 2004 and draws up to 10,000 participants. The second ride takes place two weeks later, on Aug. 9. The World Naked Bike Ride Portland is a smaller ride of about 1,000 with a more pointed political message, now in its second year. It includes a “die-in” in front of Zenith Energy fuel company downtown, a form of protest in which people lie down and play dead to bring attention to a cause. The confusing nude biking landscape is the result of a fracture in leadership that happened in 2024. In WW’s multiple interviews with sources behind both rides, a complex picture emerges of hurt feelings, backstabbing and stolen rides.”
She solved a problem that even Charles Darwin was puzzled by
From Nature: “Elisabeth Vrba’s meticulous studies of fossil and living mammals challenged the conventional view of evolution. Instead of a process of slow, continuous adaptive changes driven by natural selection, she linked episodes of rapid species extinction and formation to cataclysmic events in the environment. She is best known as a rigorous and creative contributor to the development of macroevolutionary theory — the origin and evolutionary fates of species and higher groups. Vrba solved a problem that had vexed Darwin: how could the great diversity of species over vast stretches on continental areas have occurred in the absence of obvious barriers that would cause reproductive isolation? Elisabeth’s answer was that environmental change not only drives species extinct, but also through the fragmentation and rearrangement of habitats, can cause isolation and create opportunity for rapid speciation.”
Sometimes it’s hard to believe that New York is a real place
Acknowledgements: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other newsletters that I rely on as “serendipity engines,” such as The Morning News from Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Jodi Ettenberg’s Curious About Everything, Dan Lewis’s Now I Know, Robert Cottrell and Caroline Crampton’s The Browser, Clive Thompson’s Linkfest, Noah Brier and Colin Nagy’s Why Is This Interesting, Maria Popova’s The Marginalian, Sheehan Quirke AKA The Cultural Tutor, the Smithsonian magazine, and JSTOR Daily. If you come across something interesting that you think should be included here, please feel free to email me at mathew @ mathewingram dot com