blessingx

The United States is going to be “very strongly involved” in Venezuela’s oil industry after the operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, President Donald Trump told Fox News on Saturday. He said: We have the greatest oil companies in the world, the biggest, the greatest, and we’re going to be very much involved in it. https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-explosions-venezuela-maduro-latest-news-updates-live The stolen oil… NYT

Any guess who we’re going to invade next? From a week ago: https://www.theguardian.com/law/ng-interactive/2025/dec/25/how-donald-trump-killed-international-law

Philippine Airlines inflight safety videos

... But her artistic mishap created an economic boon for Borja, a town of 5,000 inhabitants. Tourists flocked to see her efforts. Less than three years later, more than 150,000 visitors from Japan, Brazil, the United States and elsewhere had made a trip to Borja, paying one euro, about $1.20, to view her work under a protective clear cover. Local officials told The Times in 2014 that the tourism spike had stabilized the town’s restaurant industry and helped the area’s institutions. The nearby Museo de la Colegiata, which houses religious medieval art, experienced a rise in annual visits to 70,000, from 7,000. Vineyards in the region squabbled over the rights to put Mrs. Giménez’s Christ on their labels. In 2016, two Americans even staged an opera about the affair in the same church. Mrs. Giménez, once ridiculed, became a beloved figure, even handing out prizes for a competition of young artists who had painted their own “Ecce Homo” portraits. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/30/world/europe/spain-jesus-fresco-restoration-painter-gimenez-dead.html

RIP Cecilia Giménez, painting restorer https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/30/cecilia-gimenez-monkey-christ-mural-dies-spain

Browsing through the Decca catalog, including titles not on streaming services (at least outside YT and that I can find). PIOMBO – Italian Crime Soundtracks from the Years of Lead (1973-1981)

Just noticed https://shop.decca.com/products/john-coltrane-a-love-supreme-cassette

Why I Quit Streaming And Got Back Into Cassettes https://www.404media.co/why-i-quit-streaming-and-got-back-into-cassettes/

Plur1bus season finale

It tasted shockingly like the apple pie. 😜

Thank you everyone! Chill day with the in-laws. Whisky, apple pie and a rumored cake later. Hope everyone is having a Merry Midsommar!

Because of this song every year will be a little 2017.

Jon Caramanica, NYTimes Pop Critic, Best Album of 2025 1. Effie, ‘Pullup to Busan 4 More Hyper Summer It’s Gonna Be a Fuckin Movie’ The rising Korean hyperpop star Effie is a heretical innovator, and this six-song EP — her best music in a year of several releases — feels like a deeply logical eruption. Imbibing from the spirit of 100 gecs, the freedom of 2hollis, and the pop scramble that often defines the best K-pop (a scene Effie exists outside of), her approach adds up to the sound of right this second. And also, undoubtedly, of tomorrow. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/arts/music/best-albums-2025.html

Effie's pullup to busan 4 morE hypEr summEr it’s gonna be a fuckin moviE EP Full EP...

Tracey Thorn‘s Tinsel and Lights

50th Anniversary of Vince Guaraldi’s Jazz Mass at Grace Cathedral Part One Part Two

We caught up with one of the kids who sang on 'A Charlie Brown Christmas.' He's 72 now. https://www.npr.org/2025/12/19/nx-s1-5640171/a-charlie-brown-christmas-christmastime-is-here-peanuts-schulz

Not to put too much weight on two photographs And in Sept. (center)

With Martin Parr’s recent passing, articles have resurfaced, including on a single vote getting him in Magnum. See how angry/joking photographers can get. “The other person to avoid was Martin Parr. As he put it, he was photographing a Magnum Annual Party for the first and last time – using a flash with a thing like a Styrofoam coffee cup on the end of it. My penile extension, he explained hopefully (but unsuccessfully) to any lady who passed by. I mean if Magnum had to hire someone to do the party pictures, did it have to be Martin? He’s clearly not as successful as we all thought, if he needs to do birthday parties, Bar Mitzvahs and weddings. I sincerely hope the Magnum blogsite goes down before he has a chance to post. I mean, if Magnum wanted to hire a party photographer, why couldn’t they have selected a nice ‘concerned photographer’ like Philip Jones Griffiths or Ian Berry to do them – photographers who photograph you with dignity and humanism and make you look good – instead of the appallingly ‘cynical’ and ‘ironic’ Parr? Garry Winogrand and Diane Arbus did enough pictures at the MoMA of people looking demented without Parr adding to them.“

Marcus Gilmore - "Journey to the New" Drum Solo (Nublu Performance)

https://9to5mac.com/2025/12/09/even-as-a-liquid-glass-fan-im-looking-forward-to-a-new-apple-design-era/

Didn't want to embarrass those kids.