Friday, February 23, 2024

This is a leap year, but because today is February 23, we're regrettably not going to have a Wolmania installment on leap day (February 29). Okay, too bad, not this year. But someday in the future leap day will be on a Friday, right? When will that be? To help get to the bottom of this mystery, I consulted the entity millions of people now use to make important decisions about stuff like hiring, child-rearing, and medical diagnoses.

So that's great news. It turns out February 29, 2024 is a Friday. And also, that's today.

Let's get into this special leap day edition!

Item 1: a link

I'm tired of this thing where a media company (usually Warner Brothers) makes a whole damn movie and then decides not to release it. The Ringer walked through a recent example, the cancelation of a Looney Tunes movie based on a New Yorker article based on a series of Looney Tunes shorts about an inept coyote. The added wrinkle here is that after an outpouring of public outrage from Will Forte fans, Warner Bros pretended to try to find a buyer who would take the film off their hands and then just basically refused to engage in an actual negotiation. And now the world is short one work of art.

The general theory is that this allows WB to take tax write-offs that cost them less than if they were to market and release what they think will be a dud, and that may be true. But if so, we really need to fix our tax code so corporations can only get that benefit in exchange for making the movie available somehow. (No, I don't know how this would work given copyrights, trademarks, union contracts, dark money campaign funds, and other aspects of capitalism. Someone else can hammer out the details.)

Tangentially related bonus link - Coyote vs. Acme star John Cena is scum.

Item 2: a list

Traditional Birthstones*, ranked

1. Opal (October)
2. Garnet (January)
3. Amethyst (February)
4. Sapphire (September)
5. Ruby (July)
6. Lapis Lazuli (December)
7. Emerald (May)
8. Pearl (June)
9. Topaz (November)
10. Bloodstone (March)
11. Sardonyx (August)
12. Turquoise (also December for some reason)
13. Diamond (April)

* According to The International Gem Society. To be honest and transparent, it sort of seems like everyone just makes up their own list.

Item 3: a media recommendation

I recommend the book Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel (who wrote Station Eleven, which I also highly recommend). I don't want to spoil anything, but structurally it's kind of a less intense version of Cloud Atlas (which I also also highly recommend, but it's not exactly a quick read).

Item 4: word of the week

Gurn

Stop gurning or your face will get stuck like that. And eat your cornflakes, junior.

Item 5: a photograph

See ya!

Thanks for reading. See you in the Month of the Bloodstone.