Weekly Filet #202: Let's play. And more.
New month, new guest curator in residence: I'm very happy to welcome Sham Jaff, who will contribute one recommendation to each issue in April.
Sham Jaff is an Iraq-born journalist and author who lives in Germany. She's the editor of a weekly newsletter I've come to like a lot in recent months: It's called «What Happened Last Week» and gives you a concise summary of the week. Subscribe to it, you won't regret it. You can also follow Sham on Twitter, which is never a bad idea.
1. Cards Against Originality
Self-proclaimed «party game for horrible people» Cards Against Humanity has probably provided me with the hardest laughs of 2014. The only problem: Usually when you find yourself in company of a couple of wonderfully horrible people (and a drink or two), you don't have those cards with you. Until now. There's now an online version – which you still play while in the same room, but instead of the cards, you only need your smartphones. The perfect way to spend a totally blasphemous Easter weekend.
2. Why Jihadists can time-travel and we cannot (Abu Susu's Blog)
I learned something new from this short text.
3. The Grind: Whaling in the Faroe Islands (Motherboard)
Not for the faint-hearted, but worth watching: A documentary on the traditional whale hunt on the Faroe Islands, a clash of cultures.
4. Death, Redesigned (The California Sunday Magazine)
«Why can’t death feel more like life?» This is not yet another longread on some futurist aiming to overcome death, but the fascinating story of Paul Bennett who wanted to make death feel better.
5. Watching Them Turn Off the Rothkos (The New Yorker)
I can't exactly put my finger on it, but this story, to me, holds an universal truth about art and perception.
Recommended by Sham Jaff: Life in Baghdad: Joy Amid the Chaos of War (Frontline)
The 12th anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq passed quietly last month. The news coming out of Iraq has been relentlessly grim for a long, long time. And now, after five weeks of fighting, the army won back the strategic city of Tikrit from Islamic State militants. That’s why this four-minute short film of Iraqis still enjoying their lives is a perfect antidote.