How to find new books to read:

• Ask your library staff.
• NoveList, a database probably available through your library, lets you get similar reads by author, title, series, narrator, and keyword.
• Fantastic Fiction offers a "Similar books by other authors" section at the bottom of each book page and a "Visitors to this page also looked at these authors” section at the bottom of each author's page.
• LibraryThing offers a "LibraryThing Recommendations" section on book pages. There are also tag clouds for books and authors.
• Literature-Map allows you to put in an author's name and get similar authors in return, and the effect they use is pretty nifty...like a constellation of authors.
• Whichbook offers searches by mood and emotion, world map, character and plot, and bestsellers.
• Goodreads offers a "Lists With This Book" section on book pages.

After Lutsen, what is the state of classic lodges in Minnesota?

Every Little Thing I Do by Soul for Real.

I think it's about the way we love each other today.

- Sweet the Banana, Sweet N' Juicy, Funk in the Forest 2023

(Don't miss Mary Mack's groovy Top the Tater tune.)

From the Star Tribune article:

For those unfamiliar with Top the Tater, Reddit is a useful primer. "It's called Minnesota crack for a reason," one commenter wrote. "I try not to buy it, otherwise I eat an entire box of chips with top the tater in one or two sittings," another admitted.

Online, fans share stories of TSA employees calling dibs on Top the Tater tubs they've confiscated from carry-ons. They warn others not to forget to bring it to the cabin ("my sister hasn't spoken to me since"). Or substitute an inferior brand at a family gathering ("one of her uncles threw a hissy fit and actually left to go find it somewhere. After he got back with it, he said it 'wasn't christmas' without top the tater.")

It's mostly eaten as a chip dip, with Minnesota's Old Dutch Ripples being the go-to. But some swear by Doritos, Fritos, Dot's Pretzels, Bugles and Flamin' Hot Cheetos.

The creamy spread pairs well with all forms of taters, from French fries to mashed potatoes. But fans also slap it on pizza rolls and bagels. They mix it into tuna salad, potato salad, mac & cheese and scrambled eggs. It can also sub in for cream cheese in a ham-pickle roll-up (aka Minnesota sushi).

"Not going to lie," a commenter admitted. "Sometimes I just dig in with a spoon."

- Top the Tater chip dip is Minnesota's favorite quirky condiment, Star Tribune

Pollinator friend.

Vid taken from a future Cthulhu detached-head aerial attack on the Oregon Coast.

Yes I do know how I survive
Yes I do know why I'm alive
To love and be with you
Day by day by day by day

- Moodswings featuring Chrissie Hynde, Spiritual High

She Bop by Cyndi Lauper.

Girls Talk by Garbage featuring Brody Dalle.

And Love, life's sweetest reward.
Let it flow, it floats back to you.

- Theme song, from The Love Boat

(Also, I am tickled by the fact that Abe Vigoda was on The Love Boat.)

Marsupial friend.

As per Francis' wishes, there will be no funeral nor memorial service. He simply asked that you be kind to each other as you travel the road of life together.

- Francis Franklin Baiocchi

Father!

Micro communities for the homeless sprout in US cities eager for small, quick and cheap solutions

The program represents an about-face from policies that for years focused on short-term group shelters and the ceaseless shuffle of encampments from one city block to the next. That system made it difficult to keep people who were scattered through the city connected to services and on the path to permanent housing.

Those services in Denver’s and Atlanta’s micro communities are largely centralized. They offer residents case management, counseling, mental health and substance abuse therapy, housing guidance and assistance obtaining anything from vocational skills training to a new pair of dentures.

“We’re able to meet every level of the hierarchy of needs — from security and shelter, all the way up to self-actualization and the sense of community,” said Peter Cumiskey, the Atlanta site clinician.

Pee Wee Herman Crack Cocaine PSA

Odonata Central ... Xerces ... Dragonfly Society of the Americas ... Dragonfly ID App

Dutch painter, Hieronymus Bosch's triptych, Garden of Earthly Delights (Museo del Prado site here. NTR site here.) is "probably the most famous scene of the underworld in all Western art". Amelia Hamrick has transcribed the demonic derriere ditty:

Luke and I were looking at Hieronymus Bosch’s painting The Garden of Earthly Delights and discovered, much to our amusement, music written upon the posterior of one of the many tortured denizens of the rightmost panel of the painting which is intended to represent Hell. I decided to transcribe it into modern notation, assuming the second line of the staff is C, as is common for chants of this era.

so yes this is LITERALLY the 600-years-old butt song from hell

Hear Amelia's rendition on her site. Hear a Gregorian chant version from wellmanicuredman. Hear Jim Spalink's rendition on the lute, harp, and hurdy-gurdy here.

Stay by Eternal. More of their music here. Wikipedia.

Frolic.

Gotta put in the miles.

Two widowed penguins comfort one another in Australia.

St Kilda Pier in Melbourne has a colony of around 1,400 fairy penguins, the smallest penguin species with an average height of just 33cm (13 inches). The colony is monitored by volunteers.

"A volunteer approached me and told me that the white one was an elderly lady who had lost her partner and apparently so did the younger male to the left," Mr Baumgaertner wrote on Instagram.

"Since then they meet regularly, comforting each other and standing together for hours watching the dancing lights of the nearby city."

Former Ann Arbor resident reflects on saving man from beating at KKK rally

Some moments have a way of defining us, Keshia Thomas said, whether we're ready for them or not. Thomas' moment came under unexpected circumstances - crouched over a white supremacist sympathizer, providing a human shield from anti-Ku Klux Klan protesters who began attacking him at a rally 20 years ago.

The image of Thomas, then an 18-year-old black teenager living in Ann Arbor, protecting the man decked in a confederate flag shirt and sporting an SS tattoo, has become an iconic symbol of peace and altruistic virtue for many over the past two decades.

"We all have a conscience and it was my responsibility to do what I felt was right," Thomas said in a phone interview on June 23, the day after the 20-year anniversary of the incident.

Thomas, who now resides in Houston, learned McKeel Jr. died a couple of months ago when McKeel's son called to inform her, putting his 12-year-old sister on the line to tell her she might not be alive if it hadn't been for Thomas' actions that day. "When I heard that, I thought this was the future and the past of what peace has created," Thomas said. "The real accomplishment of all this to me is to know that his son and daughter don't share the same views. History didn't repeat itself. That's what gives me hope that the world can get better from generation to generation."

"I think of my actions the same way I felt about them 20 years ago," she said. "You don't want to grow older and be bitter and more cynical. You want to keep those child-like ideals of innocence and justice. I still maintain those same views and I'm not jaded by the way things are now."

Watch 'Alone Together,' A 4-Part Remote Series Read By 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine' Actors In Character.

Still using Google for search? Get an AI/ad/knowledge panel -free version of search results by adding &udm=14 to your search. Wanna get verbatim search results? Throw &tbs=li:1 into your search to get rid of the fuzzy logic. This doubleplus groovy Google search is here.

Scientists Discover a 'Phonetic Alphabet' Used by Sperm Whales, Moving One Step Closer to Decoding Their Chatter

Researchers used artificial intelligence to spot patterns in recordings of the marine mammals' vocalizations, uncovering the "building blocks of whale language”"

Cure hiccups by getting a glass of water and a pen or pencil. Place the pen or pencil inside your mouth and lightly bite down on it. Drink the glass of water.

There was a kid I went to grade school and high school with who died of cancer in our junior year. In the fifth grade he told me, "The sound farts make comes from your butt cheeks flapping."

All I know, all I know, love will save the day.

- Des'ree, You Gotta Be

Two enormous HVAC units sit on pallets outside the library. They'll be installed on the roof tomorrow. Two maintenance workers roll a large cart filled with HVAC parts around the library, looking for a place to stash it for tomorrow's installation.

"Why don't we just put it in there?" asks the first maintenance worker, nodding toward the study rooms. "We'll ask if it's okay."

The second maintenenace worker glances at the study room and hesitates.

The first maintenance worker asks, "Afraid it'll be stolen?"

The second maintenance worker looks to the first maintenance worker and says, "I'm afraid someone will pee on it or something."