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Reverend James Lawson, an architect of the US Civil Rights Movement, whom Dr. King called “the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world,” has died. Lawson went to prison for refusing the draft during the Korean War, and upon release he went to study with Gandhi, only to be called home to the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement by Dr. King. He led lunch counter sit-ins in Nashville that led to his expulsion from Vanderbilt University, helped found the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, mentored the Freedom Riders in nonviolence and strategy, and was a leader in the 1968 sanitation workers' strike in Memphis (he is credited with the famous "I AM A MAN" slogan) where Dr. King was assassinated. He befriended and ministered to Dr. King's assassin, James Earl Ray. In his later years Rev. Lawson was the pastor at Holman United Methodist in Los Angeles, and led weekly nonviolence clinics there long after his retirement. His project was the civil rights of all people, and he advocated until the end for the rights of all people regardless of race, for the rights of workers, for LGBTQ people, and for reproductive rights. [more inside]
posted by kensington314 on Jun 10, 2024 - 35 comments

You could call them “sky flowers,” but that doesn’t really make sense either—after all, the faded blue behind each squiggle is water, not sky, and the squiggles themselves don’t represent solid objects in any tangible, meaningful way. But they look right. The reds and greens and yellows add life and color in a way that a flat blue might not. Those odd shapes, suspended motionless with no clear reason or value, establish a tone. There are a lot of things that don’t make sense on SpongeBob SquarePants. But there’s a clear and coherent vision that runs through the entire show, from the design of SpongeBob’s kitchen-sponge body down to the squeaky-balloon sound of his footsteps. It’s a perspective, and a warm, specific, crazy little world. Of course it has sky flowers in it. What else would be up there?

Today marks 25 years since the original broadcast of "Help Wanted" -- the pilot episode of marine biologist Stephen Hillenburg's educational comic that became a delightful romp of "relentless optimism and fundamental sweetness", a hothouse flower of inventive and absurdist imagination, a cultural touchstone for multiple generations, and one of the most iconic and beloved animated franchises of the 21st century. Are you ready, kids? [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi on May 1, 2024 - 22 comments

Paul Auster, the prolific novelist, memoirist and screenwriter who rose to fame in the 1980s with his postmodern reanimation of the noir novel and who endured to become one of the signature New York writers of his generation, died of complications from lung cancer at his home in Brooklyn on Tuesday evening. He was 77. [NY Times; ungated] [more inside]
posted by chavenet on May 1, 2024 - 33 comments

Mojo Nixon has passed away at 66, while on the Outlaw Country Cruise. [more inside]
posted by neilbert on Feb 7, 2024 - 78 comments