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–The origin of wearing surgical masks in Asia is a surprisingly long-standing tradition.

-The author and artist, Franky Frances Cannon, analyzes and reflects on her relationship with her mother and mental illness in her beautiful book, The Highs & Lows of Shapeshift Ma and Big-Little Frank.

-Edward Gorey’s Victorian drama of library paste and throbblefooted specters: (video)

-So you want to hear a mbira, caxixi, talking drum, surdo, dumbek, and tabla all at once? You’re in luck! Check out “Hall of Mirrors,” composed by Rick Baitz, and featuring percussionists Christian Lundqvist, Jeremy Smith, and Brian Shankar Adler.

-Every artist needs their own Ink House. (P.S. I love this Apartment Theory article about the poet Morgan Parker’s  unique ink house!)

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-This list of words to describe the wind is great, but I’ve always been a fan of “scirocco.” Speaking of wind, have you seen this children’s book by Anne Herbauts? It’ll dazzle your senses.

-Need a jazz break? Might I suggest Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Jazz Impressions of Japan?

-Falling in love with the work of Francesca Woodman, Eikoh Hosoe, and Man Ray – seeing connections and departures in everything.

-“‘Wild Geese,’ and so many other poems, are about allowing ourselves the permission to be fully present in our bodies and their incumbent desires.” (A cracking essay on Mary Oliver’s poetry via Literary Hub) 

–The longing for Kyōto is endless…. 

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-The spirit-like existence of misaki.

-The imperfection of Schubert’s Sonata in D Major is just one of many favorite passages in Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore.

-When it’s chilly in the north, just pretend you’re on a sunny French beach listening to Françoise Hardy!

-Tim Kirkman’s moving documentary, Dear Jesse, is a must-see.

-Need a mood boost? This Twitter page should do it for you. Photos of the cutest foxes are uploaded every hour.

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-“Beefcake Paperdoll” is the name of the incredible painting by Xavier Schipani. You can find it on the cover of Thomas Page McBee’s memoir, Man Alive.

–It’s a pig meowing! It’s a giraffe barking! It’s….Nixon bleating! (From Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Series 1, Episode 12, “The Naked Ant”)

-It doesn’t have “whale” in the name, but Tilly and the Wall is a very cool band that features a tap dancer as the percussionist.

–Perhaps one day, I will be eaten by birds. 

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*Bonus points for anyone who writes a short short story using the details from this plot map! Leave it in the comments below! I’d love to see it!

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-Whose tradition (and history) are we celebrating (or ignoring) when we celebrate Thanksgiving? (Tommy Orange’s article via LA Times)

-I will never be able to think of a BB gun or a powder-blue suit the same, now that I’ve heard Alex Marzano-Lesnevich read from their award-winning book, The Fact of a Body.

-Why read today’s news when you can read Yesterday’s Print?

-In my class with James Scott, we’re thinking a lot about the inverted checkmark and how to structure a story.

-Some people call November 5th Bonfire Night, some call it Guy Fawkes’ Day, some people (like me) call it “Save John Watson” day (any Sherlock fans, here?)…here’s a refresher on The Gunpowder Plot.

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-If you hope to live for a long time, think twice about watching this video. According to Monty Python, the creator of this joke—the world’s funniest joke—died laughing at it.

-Need an icebreaker when you go to parties? Here’s one: Oedipus with Vegetables.

-The world would be a better place if we all just put our legs up the wall already.

-I’m a fangirl of words that don’t exist in the English language. Here’s a new one for me: Setsunai (切ない).

-All I’m listening to these days: “Spine” by Plume. Beautiful to listen to with eyes closed and in the rain. Full of yummy notes that will make you melancholic and nostalgic all at once.

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-Butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata was influenced by the Japanese oral literature: goze-uta (folk songs of blind female musicians). Learn more about the fascinating guild of goze here and here.

-A never-before-seen Sylvia Plath short story is slated to be published in January! (Article via The Guardian)

-While writing a new short story imagining a terrifying re-restriction of women’s rights in near-future America, I found myself enthralled by the stories of the Suffragettes – Alice Paul, Emmeline Pankhurst, Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells, Emily Wilding Davison. We must always remember their bravery.

-OMG…Diana Goetsch. Saw her read live this weekend. Fierce. Fabulous. Must read more.

-For someone who loves Monty Python so much, how had I never seen The Mighty Boosh until this week! Now everything is moon this and moon that, moonmoonmoon.

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-This past weekend, I saw Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo for the first time. I’m also really intrigued by this video essay on Hitchcock’s use of color in the film.

-It’s always been a dream of mine to dress up for Halloween like Scout Finch dressing up like a Ham. A sort of literary inception.

-View the entire PowerPoint chapter of Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad here. Click on “Great Rock and Roll Pauses” and make sure your sound is on!

–Do we code-switch our laughter depending on social contexts? (via Atlas Obscura)

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-“Navel and A Bomb” (Heso to genbaku): a modern jazz film directed by Eikoh Hosoe in 1960 (video)

–Poliça’s music is described as an electropop outfit. I’m all in. (Best listened to while dancing under an orange slice moon)

-Cracking lava. Bus horns. Lemurs. The rats of NYC. Hear the planet’s poetry here in this fabulous New York Times interactive article. (Make sure your sound is on!)

–How the word Americans most stray away from started out with feminist origins. (Naturally I had to research this for a poem I’m working on!)

-This Washington Post article explains how the atomic bomb is (or is not) taught in classrooms around the world…and it is appalling.

-The Blue Man Group started their own progressive, independent preschool in NYC!

-This is what 18 looks like for girls around the world.

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-Check out this fabulous conversation I had with the poet Elizabeth Schmuhl about her family’s fruit farm, abjection, the connotation of “premonitions,” synesthesia, and more. (Michigan Quarterly Review)

-In honor of the entire Monty Python catalog up on Netflix, we’ll be eating Spam for days. (video)

-I’ve been taking a Future Learn online course on the history of Butoh dance, particularly focusing on the perspective and aesthetics of Tatsumi Hijikata. In 1949, Tatsumi arrived in Tokyo and watched Kazuo Ohno dance for the first time, calling him “a poison dancer” or literally, “a powerful drug dancer.” Watch Hijikata dance here and here.

-I’m obsessed with these purposefully redacted poems by Solmaz Sharif.

About Sandbox Notes. Collections by Cameron Finch.