Welcome to thesupercurious newsletter - the first! It’s a monthly trail of internet breadcrumbs that’ll let you take a break from the routine and stretch your mind. Because we know you’re supercurious too.
Curious about thesupercurious? More at the end. Let’s get going.
💝 Love Hangover
Left: Salvador Dali’s The Royal Heart, an eerily beating heart made of 46 rubies, 42 diamonds, and two emeralds. Commissioned for millionaire Cummins Catherwood, whose sordid love life is google-worthy on its own.
Right: Andrew Riley hand-punched and cranked out ‘80s goodness on a music box. Inspired? Make your own tune.
Historian and theologian Michael Roberson tells thesupercurious that Diana Ross’s “Love Hangover” is an anthem for the House Ball Community, founded by Black Transwomen. Why? “If there’s a cure for this,” Michael quotes Ms. Ross, “I don’t want it.” Hear it in his own words:
✊🏿 ICYMI: It’s Black History Month
An unusual inauguration: the Howard University Showtime Marching band silently escorts its first alumna to the White House.
On January 29, Black Lives Matters was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. BLM organized 7,750 protests in 3.5 months in the U.S alone according to Time Magazine. ICYMI: Do protests actually work?
37 seconds of James Baldwin on the limits of our talents.
NASA is naming a spacecraft in honor of Kathrine Johnson, the mathematician who helped astronauts land on the moon. She died in February 2020, age 101.
CNN’s tribute to Black Americans who shaped your life, most without your realizing it.
💕 Get Your Heart Pumping
How are your fitness goals coming along? When landing on the moon, Neil Armstrong’s heart rate was a cool 75 bpm. Later, though, Mission Control freaked out when it spiked to 247 bpm. Listen to the Apollo 11 audio flight journal. At 157:53:37, Neil Armstrong calls Buzz Aldrin “out of shape!”
Left: MEAN GIRL ALERT! Anyone else giggle watching Apollo 17’s astronauts tripping on the Moon? Yeah, we thought so.
Right: Looking for a workout you can do in your home office? This 3-minute trampoline routine by a Britney Spears choreographer will leave your thighs burning in 3 minutes flat. See you on TikTok.
Below: While we’re at it, remember these exercise trends? Probably not quite like this. Watch HEART♥RATE, an original musical mediation by us, thesupercurious:
👯 Speaking of Heavenly Bodies...
According to MTV News, one-third of Gen Z decides who to date based on Zodiac sign.
Financial astrologists are becoming a thing, like @Crypto Damus. Just think of the original astronomers, potentially the world’s oldest “ology,” as the first quant jocks.
So you think you’re a Pisces? NASA says there’s a 13th Zodiac sign, called Ophiuchus. Astrologists are not happy about the implications for dating Geminis.
Listen… we don’t make this stuff up, we just find it for you.
🤓 Talk Nerdy to Me: Stuff to Listen to
Politically-curious? How liberals can think more productively about fighting fascism. If QAnon in Congress has you bothered, this is a good listen.
Science-curious? What’s healthy disagreement? E.O. Wilson protege Mark Moffett on how the math of rainforest canopies (and ants) help us understand a post-Trump society.
Travel-curious? Miss traveling? See you in Istanbul (not Constantinople). Not a podcast.
Culturally-curious? A short, deep dive into the folk archives of Alan Lomax before radio homogenized local music.
RIP Chick Corea. Long live his wonderful improv performance with Bobby McFerrin.
👵🏾 It’s Never Too Late
Elizabeth Cotten, self-taught left-handed guitarist, started recording her first album when she was nearly 60 years old. She’d put the guitar away 40 years before; but after a chance meeting in a department store she became a maid for the hypermusical Seeger family of folk music fame.
One day, she picked up a guitar to join the family in singing songs. She recorded this one in 1965, at the age of 70, playing the guitar upside-down.
🧐 Who are thesupercurious?
In our work together, we find and share stuff between ourselves every day. We want to let you in on the best of it. Because it’s a big, big internet out there.
So if you find something the rest of thesupercurious should know about, you know what to do! Send us your interesting, your cool, and your creepy.
Your Curators,
Lisa & Jordan
p.s. This post is public - feel free to share it! Did one of our breadcrumbs lead you somewhere curious? Comment and let us know.