www.latimes.com

Congressman nominates 27 Latino films for National Film Registry

Films by and about Latinos have often been left out of historical conversations including the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. But Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), along with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, has been trying to change that.

Castro has been working for years to help increase Latino representation in multiple industries across the U.S., including entertainment. Last week he sent a letter to Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and the National Film Preservation Board listing 27 Latino films that should be considered for this year’s selection.

The goal of the registry is to select films that showcase a variety of range and diversity of American film heritage.

“This is my attempt and the Hispanic Caucus’ attempt to celebrate their contributions so that people will rightfully see us for something other than just the stereotypes,” Castro said. “As an industry that is purported to be incredibly culturally progressive in all kinds of causes, [the entertainment industry] has in fact been regressive and detrimental to the development of new voices, and the Latino community has paid the price of that exclusion.”

Castro said that the lack of representation on the registry is harmful not only to the Latino community, but also to other marginalized groups. He said he carefully selected films that break common stereotypes placed on the Latino community.

“Given the film industry’s continued exclusion of Latinos, we must make a special effort to ensure that Latino Americans’ contributions to American filmmaking are appropriately celebrated and included in the National Film Registry,” Castro said in his letter.

Every year the registry adds 25 films from the list of nominees and in recent years has increased emphasis on films by people of color and women. Even with this increase, out of the 850 titles on the registry, only 24 of them are Latino films.

Ana-Christina Ramón, the inaugural director of the Entertainment and Media Research Initiative at UCLA, has dedicated much of her work to researching access and equity in the entertainment industry. She said that including Latino films on the list of nominees and in the registry is crucial.

“Latinx people have been living here since before it was the United States and they are part of the American experience, and so for them not to be included, I think it would be a travesty,” Ramón said.

Ramón also said it is not only about the types of diverse stories that are being told, but also who is getting the jobs to play those roles.

“These films not only tell the story about Latin culture, but they influence American culture as well,” Ramón said.

Castro said the film industry seems to be more exclusive with the diversity of its lists than the music industry because it’s “layered with more gatekeepers.”

“That’s what this work is about. It’’s a celebration of the culture, but also a reminder to Hollywood that we’re here, that our contributions matter, and that they are worthy of recognition,” Castro said.

One of the films on the Library of Congress’ nomination list is “Sleep Dealer” by director Alex Rivera, which was released in 2008. The Sundance award-winning film is a sci-fi thriller about a young man, Memo Cruz, played by Luis Fernando Peña, in near-future Mexico who tries to survive a “misguided drone attack.”

Cruz tries to find safety near the U.S.-Mexico border but finds out migrant workers are unable to cross the border. He then tries to connect his body to a robot in the U.S. to help find a better future.

For over two decades, Rivera, who is a MacArthur “Genius Grant” winner and professor at Arizona State University, has dedicated his career to telling adventurous Latino stories. He said that Latino stories are not given adequate support to be successful. He said there is no shortage of Latino stories, but the problem is that there is not enough interest in Latino stories from decision makers.

“It’s so important that someone like Rep. Castro is using his platform and his power to highlight the simple reality of our community as part of this country,” Rivera said.

The official list of films added to the registry will be announced in December.

Here are the films nominated by Castro:

“... and the Earth Did Not Swallow Him” (1994)
“Blood In Blood Out” (1993)
“Raising Victor Vargas” (2002)
“Frida” (2002)
“I Like It Like That” (1994)
“Walkout” (2006)
“Mosquita y Mari” (2012)
“The Milagro Beanfield War” (1988)
“Under the Same Moon” (2007)
“American Me” (1992)
“Tortilla Soup” (2001)
“Mi Vida Loca” (1993)
“Instructions Not Included” (2013)
“Maria Full of Grace” (2004)
“Girlfight” (2000)
“La Mission” (2010)
“Sleep Dealer” (2008)
“Alambrista!” (1977)
“Our Latin Thing” (1972)
“Cheech & Chong’s Up in Smoke” (1978)
“A Better Life” (2011)
“Gun Hill Road” (2011)
“In the Time of the Butterflies” (2001)
“Roberto Clemente” (2008)
“The Longoria Affair” (2010)

https://irle.ucla.edu/emri/

latimes.com/genius-fellows-latinx-files

asu.edu/20221027-genius-grant-fellows-launch-latino-filmmaking-lab-asus-poitier-film-school

A new powerful antibiotic, isolated from bacteria that could not be studied before, seems capable to combat harmful bacteria and even multi-resistant 'superbugs'. Named Clovibactin, the antibiotic appears to kill bacteria in an unusual way, making it more difficult for bacteria to develop any resistance against it. Researchers from Utrecht University, Bonn University (Germany), the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), Northeastern University of Boston (USA), and the company NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, USA) now share the discovery of Clovibactin and its killing mechanism in the scientific journal Cell.

Urgent need for new antibiotics

Antimicrobial resistance is a major problem for human health and researchers worldwide are looking for new solutions. "We urgently need new antibiotics to combat bacteria that become increasingly resistant to most clinically used antibiotics," says Dr. Markus Weingarth, a researcher from the Chemistry Department of Utrecht University.

However, the discovery of new antibiotics is a challenge: few new antibiotics have been introduced into the clinics over the last decades, and then they often resemble older, already known antibiotics.

"Clovibactin is different," says Weingarth. "Since Clovibactin was isolated from bacteria that could not be grown before, pathogenic bacteria have not seen such an antibiotic before and had no time to develop resistance."

Antibiotic from bacterial dark matter

Clovibactin was discovered by NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals, a small US-based early-stage company, and microbiologist Prof. Kim Lewis from Northeastern University, Boston. Earlier, they developed a device that allows to grow 'bacterial dark matter', which are so-called unculturable bacteria. Intriguingly, 99% of all bacteria are 'unculturable' and could not be grown in laboratories previously, hence they could not be mined for novel antibiotics. Using the device, called iCHip, the US researchers discovered Clovibactin in a bacterium isolated from a sandy soil from North Carolina: E. terrae ssp. Carolina.

In the joint Cell publication, NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals shows that Clovibactin successfully attacks a broad spectrum of bacterial pathogens. It was also successfully used to treated mice infected with the superbug Staphylococcus aureus.

A broad target spectrum

Clovibactin appears to have an unusual killing mechanism. It targets not just one, but three different precursor molecules that are all essential for the construction of the cell wall, an envelope-like structure that surrounds bacteria. This was discovered by the group of Prof. Tanja Schneider from the University of Bonn in Germany, one of the Cell paper's co-authors.

Schneider: "The multi-target attack mechanism of Clovibactin blocks bacterial cell wall synthesis simultaneously at different positions. This improves the drug's activity and substantially increases its robustness to resistance development."

A cage-like structure

How exactly Clovibactin blocks the synthesis of the bacterial cell wall was unraveled by the team of Dr. Markus Weingarth from Utrecht University. They used a special technique called solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) that allows to study Clovibactin's mechanism under similar conditions as in bacteria.

"Clovibactin wraps around the pyrophosphate like a tightly sitting glove. Like a cage that encloses its target" says Weingarth. This is was gives Clovibactin its name, which is derived from Greek word "Klouvi," which means cage. The remarkable aspect of Clovibactin's mechanism is that it only binds to the immutable pyrophosphate that is common to cell wall precursors, but it ignores that variable sugar-peptide part of the targets. "As Clovibactin only binds to the immutable, conserved part of its targets, bacteria will have a much harder time developing any resistance against it. In fact, we did not observe any resistance to Clovibactin in our studies."

Fibrils capture the targets

Clovibactin can do even more. Upon binding the target molecules, it self-assembles into large fibrils on the surface of bacterial membranes. These fibrils are stable for a long time and thereby ensure that the target molecules remain sequestered for as long as necessary to kill bacteria.

"Since these fibrils only form on bacterial membranes and not on human membranes, they are presumably also the reason why Clovibactin selectively damages bacterial cells but is not toxic to human cells," says Weingarth. "Clovibactin hence has potential for the design of improved therapeutics that kill bacterial pathogens without resistance development.."

Sciencedaily.com

A paper recently published in Nature Energy based on pioneering research done at Illinois Institute of Technology reveals a promising breakthrough in green energy: an electrolyzer device capable of converting carbon dioxide into propane in a manner that is both scalable and economically viable.

As the United States races toward its target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, innovative methods to reduce the significant carbon dioxide emissions from electric power and industrial sectors are critical. Mohammad Asadi, assistant professor of chemical engineering at Illinois Tech, spearheaded this groundbreaking research.

"Making renewable chemical manufacturing is really important," says Asadi. "It's the best way to close the carbon cycle without losing the chemicals we currently use daily."

What sets Asadi's electrolyzer apart is its unique catalytic system. It uses inexpensive, readily available materials to produce tri-carbon molecules -- fundamental building blocks for fuels like propane, which is used for purposes ranging from home heating to aviation.

To ensure a deep understanding of the catalyst's operations, the team employed a combination of experimental and computational methods. This rigorous approach illuminated the crucial elements influencing the catalyst's reaction activity, selectivity, and stability.

A distinctive feature of this technology, lending to its commercial viability, is the implementation of a flow electrolyzer. This design permits continuous propane production, sidestepping the pitfalls of the more conventional batch processing methods.

"Designing and engineering this laboratory-scale flow electrolyzer prototype has demonstrated Illinois Tech's commitment to creating innovative technologies. Optimizing and scaling up this prototype will be an important step toward producing a sustainable, economically viable, and energy-efficient carbon capture and utilization process," says Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy Program Director Jack Lewnard.

This innovation is not Asadi's first venture into sustainable energy. He previously adapted a version of this catalyst to produce ethanol by harnessing carbon dioxide from industrial waste gas. Recognizing the potential of the green propane technology, Asadi has collaborated with global propane distributor SHV Energy to further scale and disseminate the system.

"This is an exciting development which opens up a new e-fuel pathway to on-purpose propane production for the benefit of global users of this essential fuel," says Keith Simons, head of research and development for sustainable fuels at SHV Energy.

Illinois Tech Duchossois Leadership Professor and Professor of Physics Carlo Segre, University of Pennsylvania Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Andrew Rappe, and University of Illinois Chicago Professor Reza Shahbazian-Yassar contributed to this work. Mohammadreza Esmaeilirad (Ph.D. CHE '22) was a lead author on the paper.

I was gonna submit a pull request, but I see they say no new feature request rn with big changes coming.

Just wanting to throw out there my wish for a new feature.

I like the current ability to switch from video to audio, so would like that to stay the same

But I'd love to be able to set it to a default codec option for each.

It's a pain to have to always have to switch it to those free as in freedom codecs everytime

stereogum

By gawd! OSEES, the frantic psychedelic punk band led by the endlessly prolific one-man underground rock institution John Dwyer, will drop their new LP Intercepted Message next month, and we’ve already posted the album’s title track. Today, the band once known as Thee Oh Sees has followed that track with a trebly and insistent synth/guitars/drum attack called “Stunner.”

“Stunner,” the opening track from Intercepted Message is a chaotic jumble that constantly threatens to fall apart but holds together through sheer velocity. The band’s energy and stop-start dynamics simply don’t exist anywhere else, and it’s always a blast to hear them in rocker mode. “Stunner” is the sort of song that might make you want to kick someone in the stomach, spin around, grab them in a headlock, and then violently sit down. In the video, director Matt Yoka captures the band, all wearing cameras, doing their double-drummer attack in a crowded practice space. Here’s what John Dwyer says about it.

they’re not so bad for you
all of those drugs you do
and in the future you, find something else to do

they’re looking up to you
you looks so beautiful
sick, fix up in the queue
so, now let’s all review’

Life is a short hot mess
take a breath in the moments when you’re not taking it right in the face
frenetic tunes for scattered times

Matt Yoka came up with the idea of filming us playing the song in our rehearsal space with as many people as we could fit
and as many formats as he could stomach.
Hi vis on all the kids
Constricted & claustrophobic just as contemporary routines can be
Noise, obstacle and pointless spectacle
There is no escape!
good luck

Check out the “Stunner” video here.

Intercepted Message is out 8/18 on In The Red. stereogum.osees-intercepted-message

gizmodo.com

If you’re not Google (or, to a much lesser extent, Apple), map apps are damned hard to make. Last year, several major heavy hitters in tech, including the likes of Meta, Microsoft, TomTom, and Amazon, decided to lay down their arms and meet under a flag of parlay held aloft by the Linux Foundation to make mapping just a little easier, cheaper, and less dominated by two companies. Alone, none could establish a big enough data pool to rival the likes of Google Maps, but with their individual hoards of business location data, satellite mapping tech, and more support from smaller tech firms, they could perhaps gather enough data together to help create a whole new series of up-to-date map apps.

On Wednesday, this pooled initiative, called the Overture Maps Foundation, shared its first alpha release for its mapping data. It contains millions of examples for buildings, roads, and geographic boundaries. It’s only the first large release for the planned massive dataset, but the hope is there will be much more to come as companies sign on.

Marc Prioleau, the executive director of the Overture Maps Foundation, was named as head of the project back in May. He’s been around mapping projects for many years, having worked in the start of the GPS market back in 1995, and later moved on to the likes of Meta and Uber for their location-based services. He said if there’s one thing that strikes at the difficulty of building a high-quality app with exacting road and place information, it’s the ephemeral nature of public infrastructure.

“The hardest thing in mapping is knowing what’s changed in the world,” Prioleau told Gizmodo in a video chat. Essentially, map apps are some of the hardest to design simply because of the massive amount of data required to build the systems. Not only do they need to be accurate, but they need to be constantly updated when businesses close and new ones open.

The first Overture release contains about 59 million points of interest that the group claims has not yet been released as open data before. A POI could be anything—a public landmark, a specific building, or a local business. Otherwise, the data contains about 750 million building footprints alongside road data that’s mostly collated from the crowdsourced OpenStreetMap project.

So how much of the world does this alpha release truly cover? Prioleau said the POI data makes up around 60 to 70% of a worldwide dataset. In his mind, a good number to shoot for is somewhere between 80 and 100 million places. It’s something of a Goldilocks problem. With around 200 million POIs, Prioleau said you’d likely be hoarding a lot of “junk,” but too little means you’re obviously missing out on locations, especially from less represented countries.

As far as the building data, he said that “feels pretty complete” as far as laying out worldwide structures, considering that the U.S. itself contains something around 100 million buildings. A good chunk of that data came from Meta through businesses listing their addresses on Facebook or Instagram. Microsoft also handed over some of its data through its work on Bing Maps, but the two sets combined included duplicates, which cut down on total numbers. The Overture director said the foundation has plans to add more datasets in the future from other sources centered on different continents.

The road data is a different beast entirely. The vast majority of it is based on the OpenStreetMap project, an open source, wiki-style resource compiled by internet users going on nearly 18 years. Prioleau said Overture has modified the project’s info to make it easier to attach new datapoints. The project has also worked to standardize and fact check the data contained on the project’s site. There’s also several benefits to using this Wikipedia-style map compared to how Google might spend billions maintaining its map data every year (or otherwise buying up the competition like it did with Waze). Users on the ground can archive and modify the map to note damage during a natural disaster.

“One of the things [OpenStreetMap] does incredibly well is build richness into the map, because what you map is no longer determined by what your commercial interest is, it’s what the community wants to map.”

Prioleau described himself as “the only full time employee” of the Linux Foundation-based group. Otherwise, the Foundation has depended on around 130 engineers from Meta, Microsoft, and more of the steering companies. As far as maintaining the data, the Overture head said that there’s no contractual agreement for companies to use the open source resources, but they’re still heavily encouraging all those who build upon their foundation to somehow give back to the data source with any new information they collect.

“The incentive is: if you want to fork [AKA build off] Overture, start building your own dataset and not give stuff back, then you’re on your own to maintain that dataset going forward.” Prioleau said. “So the incentive to giving back is that your data remains part of this consortium.”

What’s next is to create a “global entity reference system” for attaching data points to a map, which will then facilitate even more layers of information for new apps. Today’s map users aren’t just looking for ways to get from place to place, but from door to door. Delivery drivers need to know where they can pick up and drop off items. People with disabilities want to know where they can find ramp or elevator access.

“Maps are really digitization of things that are observable,” the Overture lead said. “We’re not mapping secret stuff. We’re mapping roads and addresses and places—things that are observable. And as the ways of capturing observable stuff gets better, the ability to build maps gets better.”

openstreetmap.org

Links: gizmodo.com/your-phones-navigation-app-is-probably-smarter-than-you

https://gizmodo.com/iphone-find-my-apple-maps-mistake-houston-house

gizmodo.com/linux-google-maps-meta-aws-microsoft-tomtom

prnewswire.com/news-releases/overture-maps-foundation-names-marc-prioleau-as-executive-director

gizmodo.com/why-google-buying-waze-will-keep-you-out-of-gridlock

latimes

I have not thought much about the Menendez brothers, Lyle and Erik, since they were convicted in 1996 of murdering their parents, Jose and Kitty, in their Beverly Hills mansion.

At the time of the killings, Lyle was 21 and Erik was 18.

The prosecution contended they were greedy, spoiled brats trying to get their hands on their parents’ fortune. The defense argued that they were severely abused by their father, who was enabled by their mother, and they were in fear for their lives.

The family’s awful story was one chapter of a particularly traumatic era in Los Angeles, where the criminal justice system seemed strained to its limits, where controversies about systemic racism, privilege, domestic violence and fairness raged over the airwaves, at dinner tables and around water coolers.

A year later, George Holliday videotaped the savage beating of motorist Rodney King by LAPD officers, and the officers’ acquittals sparked days of fires, looting and convulsive violence.

In 1994 — the same year two Menendez juries, one for each young man, deadlocked between manslaughter and murder convictions — Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were slashed to death in Brentwood. After a volatile trial, Simpson’s ex-husband, O.J. Simpson was acquitted of the slayings in 1995.

The second Menendez trial, this time with one jury, also began in 1995. The same judge who had earlier allowed the defense to call 50 witnesses and present evidence of abuse, restricted testimony that would have supported an “abuse excuse” in the second trial. That sealed the brothers’ fate. They were convicted of first-degree murder in March 1996 and have been in prison for 33 years.

I would maintain that this convulsive era came to an end the following year, when a civil jury in Santa Monica found Simpson liable for the deaths of his ex-wife and her friend.

I am telling you, it was an emotional and exhausting time in this city. Nothing any of us would want to relive.

But attitudes toward domestic violence and sex abuse have changed. New evidence about the Menendez family has come to light, and now, after resigning themselves to dying in prison, the brothers are hoping the case will be reopened.

A petition filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court in May describes two new pieces of relevant evidence that corroborate Lyle and Erik’s claims that their father was an abusive monster and their mother did nothing to stop him.

One is a letter written by 13-year-old Erik to his cousin discussing his father’s abuse. “I never know when it’s going to happen and it’s driving me crazy,” Erik wrote to his cousin, Andy Cano. “Every night I stay up thinking he might come in.”

The second is a claim by Roy Rosselló, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, that Jose Menendez, who was chief executive of RCA Records at the time, raped him when he was 13.

A judge has yet to rule on the brothers’ petition, which asks for either an evidentiary hearing or that the convictions and sentences be vacated.

(Rosselló has also alleged that Menudo’s founder, Edgardo Díaz, repeatedly raped him between 1983 and 1986, when he was a member of the group. The LAPD confirmed to my colleague Salvador Hernandez that Díaz is under investigation for an incident that Rosselló says took place at the Biltmore Hotel, where he says Díaz attacked him. Rosselló’s sordid story and Menudo’s connection to Jose Menendez is explored in a powerful new three-part docuseries “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed” by veteran journalists Robert Rand, author of “The Menendez Murders,” and Nery Ynclan. )

Rand has been writing about the Menendez case since the day after the murders, and has developed close ties with the brothers’ extended family, most of whom believe that Lyle and Erik have served long enough. It was Rand who discovered the letter, written by Erik, that may play a role in reopening the case.

“They would have been out a long time ago if they’d had a fair trial,” said Kitty Menendez’s older sister, Joan VanderMolen, 91, who lives in Ventura. In “Menendez + Menudo,” she and her daughter Diane discuss why Erik seemed bereft as a child when there were no lemons in the house. “It was to get the taste of semen out of his mouth,” Joan says, in one of the docuseries’ more shocking moments.

“I loved my sister dearly,” VanderMolen told me last week, “and it’s difficult to talk about her, but somehow she managed to let this husband of hers rule the roost and beat the kids. She had to know.”

She speaks to her nephews regularly by phone at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility near San Diego, where they were allowed to be together after 22 years apart. “They had a terrible childhood,” she said. “Money had nothing to do with it.”

Who wants to dip back into the malaise of L.A. in the 1990s? Not me. But all these years later, with insights from the #MeToo movement too fresh to ignore and new evidence at hand, reopening the case against Erik and Lyle Menendez seems like the right thing to do.

Links: latimes.com/menendez-19930721

latimes.com/archives/1995-04-18

latimes.com/local/la-me-menendez-19960321

www.latimes.com

Despite decades of colonial violence, extractive greed and invasive Mt. Rushmore tourism, South Dakota’s wondrous Black Hills are fixed in the hearts and minds of those they were taken from, the Očéti Šakówiŋ, a First Peoples alliance of the Lakota, Nakota and Dakota tribes.

Everyone agrees on the place’s stunning beauty and bounty. But the fight for who belongs on these millions of acres — the descendants of its original stewards, for whom the Black Hills are sacred, or the government-backed settlers who’ve exploited the land — is a drawn-out story rarely contextualized effectively. That corrective history is now front and center in Jesse Short Bull’s and Laura Tomaselli’s documentary “Lakota Nation vs. United States,” a lyrical, edifying and blistering plea for Indigenous justice.

Toggling between interviews, archival footage and graceful imagery of the region (underscored by evocative narration from award-winning poet Layli Long Soldier), the film charts a generational conflict that has shown the United States to be an untrustable partner, beginning with the Fort Laramie treaty of 1851. Protesters gather behind a banner

A scene from the documentary “Lakota Nation vs. United States.”

(IFC Films)

America’s routine encroachments in the years that followed — to mine gold, to expand property ownership or just to wipe out a perceived threat to Manifest Destiny — were only the physical violations. Just as pernicious were the spiritual and cultural erasures: the sadistic boarding schools designed to force Christian assimilation, and the racist Hollywood stereotyping in cartoons, movies and television (snippets of which the filmmakers thread in for appropriately queasy emphasis).

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George Armstrong Custer’s homicidal craziness, meanwhile, gets white-washed into a tragedy, while the carving of Mt. Rushmore, which required the spoiling of a treasured mountain known as Six Grandfathers, is rightly viewed as a shrine to white supremacy. The goal, journalist Nick Estes notes in the film, was to make the Indigenous a “phase” in American history.

The battle hasn’t always felt insurmountable, thanks to persistent legal challenges and the birth of the Red Power movement during the civil rights era. Even a 1980 Supreme Court decision in favor of the Great Sioux Nation laid bare the unconstitutional misdealings, and recognized the theft of the Black Hills from the Očéti Šakówiŋ. Three Indigenous persons in face makeup pose for the camera.

A scene from the documentary “Lakota Nation vs. United States.”

(IFC Films)

But the tribes have never accepted the awarded money, now totaling $2 billion. To them, the land can’t be bought, only returned. The modern campaign to restore Black Hills sovereignty for the tribes, as seen on the cap of interviewee Nick Tilsen, an activist, is called “Land Back.” Not to own, but to keep and respect.

Milo Yellow Hair, one of the film’s more eloquent elders, calls the Black Hills their “cradle of civilization.” That concept is bolstered by the interstitial photography of the landscape, woven in like a visual commentary throughout. Somehow avoiding the nature-film trap of being blandly picturesque, these images convey a sublime transcendence that binds us more deeply to a story of identity.

The timeline has always been grim. But this tableau of past wrongs and wretched consequences nonetheless feeds into what’s celebratory about our current progressive moment: a re-energized debate about stolen land and inequity, spurred by young people invigorated by the history they were never taught, and gaining traction with non-Natives to boot. Their inspiring actions against pipelines (another 1868 treaty violation) and further environmental harm give “Lakota Nation vs. United States” a well-earned third-act uplift. There’s no way to know what will happen with the Black Hills, but we get the idea that not only is the fight far from over, the legacy of resistance is in good hands.

'Lakota Nation vs. United States'

Rating: PG-13, for some strong language, violent images and thematic elements

Running time: 1 hour, 58 minutes

Playing: Starts July 21 at Laemmle Royal, West Los Angeles

Links: https://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-rushmoreside12aug12-story.html

https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-layli-long-soldier-20170426-story.html

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-apr-12-et-book12-story.html

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-21/landback-los-angeles-indigenous-school

I see https://lemmy.world/u/useless_modern_god@aussie.zone Tomahawk jam https://aussie.zone/post/524203 and raise it one God Hates a Coward, cause it's a Patton must!

www.stereogum.com

In 2021, Illuminati Hotties released their sophomore album, Let Me Do One More, which was our Album Of The Week when it came out. Since then, Sarah Tudzin has been working mostly behind the scenes, co-producing Boygenius’ The Record and producing Eliza McLamb’s Salt Circle EP. Tudzin has also been involved with producing the Armed’s upcoming Perfect Saviors LP and a single (“Ride The Vibe”) by Dim Wizard featuring Jeff Rosenstock. Tudzin has only released one new song — last year’s “Sandwich Sharer” — since Let Me Do One More, but that’s all about to change.

Tudzin is currently “putting the finishing touches” on a follow-up to Let Me Do One More. Ahead of a formal album announce, Tudzin is sharing a new song, “Truck.” Opening up about the new song, Tudzin says, “If mortality is a jolting, jagged highway exit, then heaven is a truck as it rumbles through the unknown. ‘Truck’ is a gentle affirmation that the dream can change at no deficit of dignity. For Tim.”

Listen to “Truck” below.

https://youtu.be/aG5p6R2MRBY

TOUR DATES:

• 07/23 – Chicago, IL @ Pitchfork Music Festival
• 07/29 – Quincy, WA @ Gorge Amphitheatre*
• 07/30 – Bend, OR @ Hayden Homes Amphitheater*
• 08/01 – Bonner, MT @ KettleHouse Amphitheater*
• 08/02 – Boise, ID @ Outlaw Field at the Idaho Botanical Garden*
• 08/03 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Library Square*
• 08/05 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre*
• 08/11 – Adelaide, AUS @ Lion Arts Factory Yeah #
• 08/12 – Perth, AUS @ Rosemount Hotel #
• 08/18 – Sydney, AUS @ Crow Bar #
• 08/19 – Melbourne, AUS @ Night Cat #
• 08/20 – Belgrave, AUS @ Sooki Lounge #

• w/ boygenius

w/ Alex Lahey

lifehacker.com

For a seemingly humble cleaning supply, there has been a lot of discussion about sponges over the years; more specifically, how to clean or sanitize them. Various studies, like the one published in Nature’s Scientific Reports in 2017, found that kitchen sponges were teeming with bacteria—362 different types, to be exact—making them “the biggest reservoirs of active bacteria in the whole house,” including toilets.

But beyond the bacteria, sponges also tend to disintegrate and develop a foul odor with use. Fortunately, there’s a way to revive a worn-out sponge using a few pantry staples. Here’s what to know. How to revive old sponges with salt

So, why salt? Table salt is hygroscopic, which means it attracts moisture from the atmosphere, and is also the reason it can become damp and clog salt shakers in humid weather.

According to an article in House Digest, salt can also draw moisture from a sponge, reducing the dampness that bacteria need to thrive, and, in turn, preventing the growth of mildew and mold, as well as that foul odor kitchen sponges develop over time. And that’s not all: Salt can make the sponge more efficient, absorbing oils and making it easier to tackle stains.

There are two simple ways to put salt to work on your sponges:

1. Saltwater soak

Rinse your sponge with warm water, then squeeze it out to get rid of any lingering crumbs or bits that may be sticking to it. Fill a container with warm water, and add 1/4 cup of salt (e.g. table salt, kosher salt, sea salt, etc). Stir the mixture until the salt is completely dissolved.

Next, place your sponge in the mixture, and make sure it’s fully submerged. Leave it there overnight, or at least for a few hours, then remove it, squeeze it out, and rinse it thoroughly with clean water.

2. Add some vinegar

This process is the same as the one described above, except the mixture consists of 1 cup hot water, ½ cup white vinegar, and 3 tablespoons salt.

To clarify, the aim of these methods is to get rid of (or at least lessen) odors, and help get the sponge back to looking more like it did when it was new. We didn’t come across any research indicating that this would sterilize your sponge, so when you’re done, you may want to pop it in the microwave.