Johnny Sheffield, the actor who played Boy in Tarzan movies opposite Johnny Weissmuller 1939-41, retired to San Diego
“Reflecting on their partnership, Weissmuller later said, ‘He was a natural on set, fearless in the water, and always ready to jump into a scene.'”
After Tarzan, Sheffield took the lead in “Bomba the Jungle Boy,” starring in 12 adventure films from 1949-55.
By his mid-twenties, Sheffield retired from acting. He earned a business degree from UCLA, married Patricia Berg in 1959, and raised three children: Patrick, Stuart, and Regina. He worked in real estate, construction, and even lobster importing, quietly shaping a life in Chula Vista far removed from Hollywood’s spotlight.
Son Stuart, his wife, Elaine Lancaster, and their son Draygon Wylde Sheffield-Cassan still live on the family property. “Draygon shares a striking resemblance to his grandfather, including the iconic curly, golden hair.”
Mexican immigrants to Los Angeles made stars of formerly humble tuba players
People long associated the instrument with polkas, elephants, clowns, and players at the back of the band, imprisoned by conductors' preconceived notions of what the horn, and those who play it, were capable of. But today, tuba players have found freedom and, through hard work and focus, they dazzle, unconstrained by others' views.
Who Is the Dapper Louvre Heist ‘Detective’ And Is He Even Real
“‘Never gonna crack it with a detective who wears an actual fedora unironically,’ Melissa Chen, a tech executive based in London, wrote in an X post that has been viewed more than five million times. ‘To solve it, we need an unshaven, overweight, washed-out detective who’s in the middle of divorce. A functioning alcoholic who the rest of the department hates.'”
Alisha Haridasani Gupta at The New York Times
(This article ran on Thursday. This morning, French authorities arrested
suspects charged with being the Louvre thieves, according to headlines.)
The secret to happiness is finding life purpose and acting on it
Happiness is not achieved by pursuing happiness. Happiness is a byproduct of finding life purpose and pursuing that purpose.
Dana Milbank reports at The Washington Post:: The best way to achieve happiness is focus on others and how you can contribute to them and their well-being. We need to find meaningful ways to contribute, “and often that will lead to the happiness that you’re seeking,” says psychologist Kendall Cotton Bronk of Claremont Graduate University.
Ask yourself what “the world is missing” and how you uniquely “fill that gap a little bit,” says psychology professor Todd Kashdan, who runs the Well-Being Lab at George Mason University. “The specific purpose doesn’t matter; it’s just a question of ‘what lights you up. Then commit to make a specific regular contribution – particularly time – toward that purpose.”
The contribution doesn’t need to be “a major life-changing allocation of time or energy” but rather “things we can fit into our everyday routines,” says Cornell psychologist Anthony Burrow, who runs the university’s Purpose and Identity Processes Lab.
Milbank writes:
There’s no right or wrong purpose. It could be related to family or work or anything else that gives you meaning and helps you order your goals. It’s not necessarily altruistic (evil people can have purpose) but often is. Your purpose can change over time.
Man Alarmed to Discover His Smart Vacuum Was Broadcasting a Secret Map of His House. “Our homes are filled with cameras, microphones, and mobile sensors connected to companies we barely know, all capable of being weaponized with a single line of code.”
‘Things keep evolving into anteaters.’
Anteaters evolved independently at least 12 times in the 66 million years since nonavian dinosaurs went extinct.
Ants and termites are good eating and there are plenty of them. They outweigh all other insects, mammals, amphibians and birds combined in the rainforests of South and Central America. And globally, termites alone outweigh all wild mammals by a factor of 10.
The mad king's digital killswitch
Remember when we were all worried that Huawei had filled our telecoms infrastructure with listening devices and killswitches? It sure would be dangerous if a corporation beholden to a brutal autocrat became structurally essential to your country’s continued operations, huh?
In other, unrelated news, earlier this month, Trump’s DoJ ordered Apple and Google to remove apps that allowed users to report ICE’s roving gangs of masked thugs, who have kidnapped thousands of our neighbors and sent them to black sites.
There’s more: Decades of protectionist tech regulation gives the Trump government control of the world’s cloud applications, networks, tractors, phones, game consoles, medical implants, ventilators and more. “It’s well past time for a post-American internet.”
One of the benefits of using Amazon frequently is that we have a gallery of great photos of the front gate of our house.
ICE vs. NYC. Hamilton Nolan: “As dark as these times are, we can all take a tiny bit of comfort in the knowledge that ICE agents are going to have a terrible fucking time in New York City.”
Brilliant advice for any aspiring creative person, from an art teacher critiquing a student’s work:
My biggest critique is, I only merely dislike this piece. I want you to make me HATE it. Go crazy with the things that you like. Don’t hold back trying to make it palatable to people like me. Because I am NEVER going to like it. And if the audience does not like it, it should drive them crazy seeing how much YOU love it.
Heather Cox Richardson: “The president is establishing the principle that he can order the murder of anyone he deems a threat. And Congress is letting it happen.”
Oddly shaped emotional spaces
Pierce is one of my favorite tech journalists and podcasters, and it’s not just because he does great work and because of his winning, upbeat personality. It’s also because his mental processes and work style are similar enough to mine that I find it useful and enjoyable when he nerds out about his tools and work style.
He talks about the style of podcast where the hosts are friends and talk about a subject they love. The Vergecast, which he co-hosts is a great example. He and Mike Hurley praise two podcasts in that style: The Rest is History and Rewatchables. Those two podcasts and The Vergecast are three of my favorite podcasts. Locally, here in San Diego, the Voice of San Diego podcast is yet another great example I love of that type of podcast.
David says the friendships the audience feels for podcast hosts are real, that we spend more time with our favorite podcast hosts than we do with nearly all of our real-life family, friends and co-workers.
I definitely feel those feelings, but I am skeptical whether those friendships are real. I sometimes refer to my favorite podcast hosts as “imaginary friends.” I don’t know whether those feelings are mentally healthy.
I do occasionally write to my favorite podcast hosts (I just sent a quick note to Pierce), and I always keep in mind when I do that these people don’t actually know me. The relationship is 99.95% in one direction.
Further complicating things: I currently have two favorite podcast hosts and writers who are also real-life friends. I have met up with them many times in person, and they have been to my house. However, I only see one of them every few years, and the other one is someone I have not seen in more than 40 years. These two people occupy very oddly-shaped emotional spaces in my head.
David and Myke also nerd out about productivity tools. They both agree that they would love to be the kinds of people who sit down and do a weekly review of their plans every Sunday, and that they never do it. Same here.
“WordPress co-founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg called the company’s Tumblr acquisition his biggest failure — but one he hasn’t given up on yet." I continue to love Tumblr, and I am so very far from its target demographic. I’m basically the Tumblr creepy old guy.
Hey, I’m going to add that to my Tumblr profile.
“Even Oedipus is like, ‘whoa, that sounds overly incestuous.'" Newsletter editor Dave Pell on “circular financing” in AI, where a company — like, recently, AMD — pays another company — like, recently, OpenAI, to buy the first company’s products.
We finished watching The Diplomat Season 3, a fantasy series where the United States is run by competent, intelligent adults who have the best interests of the country and world at heart. It stars Keri Russell, Rufus Sewell and a whole lot of fabulous wallpaper. 🍿
I’m still reading “Lord of the Rings.” Blorbo is getting ready to peace-out from Bag End. He’s got this souvenir ring that he means to leave behind for his nephew, whose name is Froyo I think. But Blorbo can’t stand to give up the ring and he’s being super-weird about it. I’m sure this will not be a problem for the rest of the book.
I hated "Lord of the Rings" but I'm giving it another try
Currently reading: The Lord of the Rings by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien 📚
I read Lord of the Rings when I was in my 20s and did not like it, but I’ve become a fan of The Rest Is History podcast and the hosts there love it. I’m intrigued by their comments that the book is, weirdly, a realistic portrait of medieval European history.
The podcast covered the life of JRR Tolkien, and how it likely influenced the Lord of the Rings, in particular his experience growing up in rural England, threatened by industrialization, and his later experience in World War I. Although, if I recall correctly, Tolkien himself denied the influences.
The podcast has talked a good deal about medieval European history, and British history in particular, and it is fascinating.
So I figured I’d give Lord of the Rings another go and see if I like it better.
I’ve barely started.
The books start with a long introduction or foreword about Hobbit history and major works of Hobbit scholarship, which is excruciatingly dry and is an odd creative choice by Tolkien. If I were picking up the book when it was first published in 1954, and knew nothing about it, I would have read no further.
Oddly, I’m reminded of the opening chapter of Snow Crash, which deals with the adventures of a cyberpunk pizza delivery driver. I found that childish when I first read the book. A couple of years later, I mentioned this opinion to a friend, and he said, yeah, the first chapter is dumb, but push through. You’ll be glad you did. And I did, and my friend was right — Snow Crash is brilliant. But the first chapter is dumb.
I pushed through with Lord of the Rings, and am now reading the first chapter, about Bilbo Baggins’s birthday party. When I first read the book, I found that section unbearably twee, but I took myself a lot more seriously then, and I’m enjoying this chapter now.