Monday Cup Of Links #19 - King Washington, Buffalo Races, Serial Audiobook Podcast
Addicted to buffalo race videos
Happy President’s Day!
And I hope you had a wonderful Valentine’s Day, as well as a Happy Anna Howard Shaw Day (Link to actual Ms. Anna Howard Shaw and her legacy).
Story has it that they offered George Washington to be king of the United States, but he refused. What if he hadn’t? American Royals is a romance novel whose main characters are the descendants of Washington, who still rule America!
I picked it up hoping for some fun alternative history, but it doesn’t have any history. The author just wants a romance between a princess and her bodyguard set in America, nothing more. No history, no what-ifs, and it could have been set in Narnia for all its high-concept. Not my favorite book (My review).I’m now obsessed with Kambala (buffalo racing), where you race a pair of water buffaloes through a slushy paddy field. There’s tournaments and prizes and everything. This kambala jockey, Srinivasa Gowda, did 143 meters in 13 seconds, and people are comparing his timing to Usain Bolt.
It isn’t apples to apples, but now the video of his win has gone viral, and everyone’s watching more kambala videos.
Here’s one compilation of an apparently legendary buffalo named Rocket Moda. I’m loving them, especially the commentary in the lilting Kannada of Udupi/Mangalore.Seamus Blackley, Egyptology enthusiast, amateur baker, and father of the XBox, baked some bread using ancient Egyptian yeast, using ancient Egyptian baking techniques. There’s so many things about this whole episode to love.
ICYMI: Episode 1 of Anandamath (or Abbey Of Bliss). I’m loving ending episodes on a cliffhanger. It was originally written in serial form, so there’s going to be more of that!
This piece on how Humboldt County has changed with the legalization of marijuana. I notice Humboldt County show up a lot in near-future solarpunk stories. Everything about it seems to intrigue Bay area residents.
I finally read The Incredible History Of India’s Geography by Sanjeev Sanyal. Dr. Sanyal is an endlessly inspiring polymath (India House is inspired by a talk he gave), and this book is such a nice, accessible introduction to the broad strokes of Indian history. I’ve always struggled to explain Indian history to my husband because “there’s so much of it, where do I even start?”, but Dr. Sanyal does a great job making it an extremely easy and enjoyable read. I highly recommend this book.
GIF of the week: Unreal basalt canyon.
Food Cinemagraph: