• For MashableAnna Iovane writes about the importance of memes in our love lives:

Why is it so important to share a sense of humor? “When we laugh, our brain releases a happy cocktail of hormones that boost our confidence levels, lower our stress levels, and make us feel more relaxed,” explained Logan Ury, director of relationship science at Hinge. “The dopamine hit of laughter reinforces our behavior and makes us want more.”

Our digital sense of humor has become an important part of who we are, Ury continued. If a potential date has a ho-hum reaction to your memes, remember that 36% of daters typically feel more interested after receiving a meme from someone — even if they don’t think it’s funny.

• write for ExtraJoseph Osmundson wants us to look “lower” for our culinary kicks, but I’m really sharing it for dialogue in the article on queer camp cooking – HAPPY PRIDE! :

“Chicken wings, baby,” I say to Devon as I walk out of the store. “That’s all they had.”

“Guess I won’t hit rock bottom tonight,” he says back. I know my own routine could handle the fatty dinner, but it was a Sunday, after all, and who’s got the energy for that?

An hour later, between the first and second frying of the wings, I find myself whisking cold butter in a pot of warm Frank’s RedHot Sauce over medium-low heat, until just over 50% of the liquid is butter and the sauce holds together in one go. perfect layer. As I explain to my biochemistry students a week or two later, it takes energy to keep water and fat in perfect emulsion, together in tiny particles and not separating into pure layers of non-fat. charged and partially charged water. One form of energy is heat, stove, and another is movement, my whip, and I whip until I feel it in my triceps, a slight burn, then I keep whipping.

“Bitch, you know what it is!” my muscles tell my brain. “Honey, you’ve been here before!” they shout.

“Buffalo sauce,” my brain says, catching up with my body movements, “is whipped butter.”

• In his newsletterKarim Zidan writes of the strange connection between Russian neo-Nazis, Ukraine and Putin:

White Rex was founded by Denis Kapustin, widely known by his pseudonym Denis Nikitin. Originally from Russia, Kapustin moved to Germany as a teenager where he was radicalized by the country’s far-right hooligan scene. After indulging himself with the white supremacist ideologue popular in far-right football circles in Europe, Kapustin returned to Russia, where he transformed from a thug into a businessman behind one of Russia’s infamous neo-Nazi groups.

For years, Kapustin has used White Rex to market his ideology to disenfranchised youth. The extremist brand used hyper-masculine men and attractive women with blonde hair and blue eyes to model its clothes to appeal to young white men inclined to join the cause.

• Them and the We Are the Youth photojournalism project captured portraits and shared the stories of trans youth who held a Trans Prom at the United States Capitol this spring:

Do you use a specific language to describe yourself?
Flamboyant. I identify as transmasc., non-binary, many genders… all genders. I think gender expression is not equal to gender as a whole. Same with pronouns. You can be transmasc. and you still want to wear a dress and that’s ok. And you should do whatever makes you feel good about yourself.

• Molly Templeton covers the search for the artist who illustrated the 1976 cover of A shortcut in time For Tor.comwhich remains an unsolved mystery:

The blog post Whelan is referring to is by author S. Elizabeth, who has done an impressive amount of research, ranging from a simple reverse image search to researching an assortment of sources. As she mentions, even the Internet Science Fiction Database doesn’t have the answer, though it does note the mystery. Between questions from Elizabeth and commenters, it was determined that the image is not by Charles Lilly, The Hildebrandt Brothers, Boris Vallejo, Enric Torres-Prat or Manuel Sanjulain.

• In an in-depth article for the New Yorkerauthor Rachel Aviv covers the heartbreaking story of Anthony Broadwater and pretty bones author Alice Sebold, who wrongly identified Broadwater as the person who raped her, which earned her 16 years in prison and 22 years as a registered sex offender:

She had trouble figuring out how to call Broadwater. She had avoided his name for forty years. “Broadwater” was too cold. “Anthony” felt like a level of closeness she didn’t deserve. And yet, their lives were linked. “The rapist came out of nowhere and shaped my whole life,” she said. “My rape came out of nowhere and shaped his whole life.”

Sebold and Broadwater had defined themselves through stories that conflicted. But Broadwater, too, felt they were connected, the same moments creating upheaval in their lives. “We both went through the fire,” he said. “You see rape movies and the young woman rubs herself in the shower over and over again. And I’m like, ‘Damn, I feel the same way.’ Will it disappear one day from my memory, from my mind, from my thoughts? No. And it’s not going away for her either.

• What is an “espresso parm martini” and where does it come from? A timeline by Punch explain :

Not content to simply exist as the cocktail world’s most notorious juggernaut, the Espresso Martini—a drink as ubiquitous as it is reviled– laughs at us, daring us to stop the madness. But we can’t.

Taking on its most alluring form yet, the drink is now served (on social media and in real bars) with a cool grating of parmesan cheese on top, like it’s a sensible thing to do.

• ABC News made a short but unmissable video about Indiana Bones, the very good cat who is now an employee of the Oklahoma City Museum of Osteology.

• Author Yasmine El Rashidi reflects on the life and creative work of the late Lebanese artist and writer Etel Adnan for the New York Revieww of books:

It was these tiny abstract canvases that also catapulted Adnan in the last decade of his life to lofty fame – his work has been exhibited widely, including at Documenta 13, the Serpentine Gallery in London, art museums modern San Francisco and New York. , and, just before his death, the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Although it never changed her (it was too late, she says, to even have a use for the money), art-world stardom has brought her into the canon of contemporary art. and, in turn, helped resituate art in the Levant and more broadly. Arab region. This celebrity also prompted the repeated question of Why Etel – of who she really was: a queer, extremely knowledgeable, incredibly productive, nearly century-old Arab woman who offered no excuses, no explanations, no coming out, no deference, no compromise, and simply a model of how one could exist by sheer will.