I can fucking whistle again!

And so can you.

I was never a great whistler, but I could do it. I didn’t aspire to Hollywood whistles like hailing a cab or joining in with the cool kids. My whistle goal was a Piccolo Pete, the sound of a firework we used to set off at the beach on the Fourth of July back when you could do shit like that. My dad, at his most dad, would stand behind the other dads and do Piccolo Pete to make them jump, something he and I considered the height of comedy. But I didn’t inherit the Piccolo genes and I never walked in his Piccolo shoes. At my best I sounded like a robust kettle hitting the boil.

Didn’t matter. I enjoyed whistling immensely. I used the basic method: purse lips, make sure your top lip is curled over your top teeth, curve your tongue up, and blow. This modest skill was entertaining to children and cats, and that was enough for me.

Until I lost my gift. 

My whistle probably degraded gradually, but to me it felt as if it was gone overnight. Chatting with a stray cat one day, I realized I no longer sounded like a kettle. What I sounded like was someone trying to whistle.

I thought maybe the issue was tongue control. As a youth I was diagnosed as a “thruster” and sent to a tongue therapist to train my tongue out of pushing against my front teeth. This was a real thing!!! I must have been in third or fourth grade. 

The tongue therapist would put tiny chiclets or pieces of celery on the tip of my tongue and then have me try to touch the roof of my mouth with them. Like a tongue doing sit-ups, I guess. When my whistle went, I started doing tongue sit-ups whenever I thought of it, but it never really came back. 

These days we don’t talk about whistles much, except for dog whistles. Dog-whistling used to mean using coded language that only other racists and TERFs would understand, like “sex based rights” or “family values,” but in these unsubtle days, bigots use coded language more like a bullhorn. I don’t think JK Rowling thinks she is fooling anyone—she knows she’s straight-up posting hate and promoting violence. She just doesn’t care. 

Well, fuck JK Rowling, obviously. And fuck tongue therapy because I learned how to really whistle and so can you. My basic whistle hasn’t come back, but it turns out that the two-finger whistle, which always seemed too complicated to even try, is not that hard to do. Why didn’t the tongue therapist teach me this???

I was able to get a clear sound almost instantly, and it took me about an hour to really perfect it, but I’ll be adding this skill to my LinkedIn page, so it was absolutely an investment in my future. I HIGHLY recommend everyone try it. How often do you do something you’ve never ever done before?

Warning: Your fingers will get wet. 

Before you begin, do a little prep. Hydrate. Wash your hands. They are going in your mouth. Find somewhere private.

See step four.

1. Cover your teeth with your lips. This prevents air from escaping between them. 

2. Make an OK sign with your hand by touching your thumb and index finger together. 

3. Stick out your tongue.

4. With the OK sign slightly tilted upward, touch it to the tip of your tongue.

5. With your fingers still touching it, pull your tongue back into your mouth.

6. At the same time, fold the tip of your tongue backwards and press it against itself.

7. Keep your tongue bunched up.

8. Extend your lower jaw so it’s further out than your top.

9. Close your mouth around your fingers so you have a complete seal.

10. Blow!!!!!

The folding back your tongue part is the hardest, but I swear it works and I haven’t felt this good about myself in a long time. Next step, Piccolo Pete.

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Movie of the week

I love movies about art heists. The Painter and the Thief is a documentary about Barbora Kysilkova, an artist who was on the verge of a big break when her paintings stolen from an Oslo gallery, and Karl-Bertil Nordland, one of the men who stole them. It’s got compelling footage, including courtroom proceedings and the cctv of the robbery, but the meat of the film is three years of conversations between Kysilkova and Nordland, who met when she asked him why he had stolen her work. “Because it was beautiful,” he replied, and agreed to sit for her.

To embark on an experiment in trust and intimacy is an extraordinary response to crime. As they chat, and as Kysilkova paints, the two explore notions of justice, beauty, and forgiveness with honesty and respect. Turn out it’s possible to do “true crime” with compassion, in art and in life.

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r/place

Reddit is often a dystopian nightmare, but it is also the place on the internet that regularly gives me the most hope. This week marked the third iteration of r/place, a community-building art experiment that basically consists of reddit providing a blank slate and some pixels to their user base:  

There is an empty canvas. You may place a pixel upon it, but you must wait to place another. Individually you can create something. Together you can create something more.

It’s exciting, and dramatic, and petty, and weird, and there are so many sweet moments of people doing things like helping to defend a little piece of art against a streamer or joining together to do an animation. Britain and Argentina were initially fighting for space on the the canvas until they declared a truce and built a Falklands War Memorial instead.

The time lapse for this year’s r/place is here. Notice all the “Fuck Spez” artworks, including a guillotine the admins shut down—they are all referring to the CEO of Reddit and what he’s been up to. Doing r/place at all was an obvious ploy to distract investors, users, and advertisers from his disastrous policies, but I’m not sure he was prepared for what happened. You can see more of the canvas if you use this slider, and there is an annotated version in progress here.

Streamers trying to disrupt the project were infuriating, as was the widespread use of bots, although the most pristine and beautiful art was made by humans, like this Bad Apple animation. I was in the r/placeukraine server, dedicated to the Ukrainian flag, Ukrainian artwork, and a link to donate. Though our mission was noble, at times our conversation devolved into delirious tomato jokes and cat chat which was obviously my favorite part.

There’s lots more to say about r/place, but I will end with my absolute favorite thing other than a bunch of strangers meowing together which was this person posting their high school project about r/place and everyone on reddit collectively agreeing they deserved a better grade.

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Girl Blunt

“I thought the world was ready for a good female drug dealer” is the only girlboss narrative I accept. Also I am DEEPLY offended that substack tried to capitalize “girlboss” when it doesn’t even try to capitalize “Substack!” WTF!

Please enjoy this brilliant short from Clemmie, who also made Black Tupelo and does meticulous video essays, she should be getting all the attention.

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RIP Kevin Mitnick

Kevin Mitnick died last week. At one point he was probably the most famous hacker in America, if not the world—so famous that when he was finally allowed to use a computer again after five years in prison and three years on probation, it was carried live on television. When he’d gone into the system, the internet was mostly text; in 2003, when he logged back in, everything had changed. Steve Wozniak had to help him download the Flash plug in. 

I’m not a huge fan of stealing people’s personal data, but Mitnick was a bad ass. He hacked a McDonald’s drive through when he was a teenager. While he was on the run, he managed to evade the FBI for two years, and trolled them at every opportunity. He even managed to hack from prison, despite being held in solitary confinement.  

I had almost forgotten about him until last year when I had security training for a freelance job and the person leading the training was him! It wasn’t supposed to be funny, but I had to laugh, especially when he dropped tips like “Don’t share your password.” I immediately changed mine to “Mitnick.” Go ahead, come for me!

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Deep links

I am absolutely LIVING for this casual warlock making a cardboard whistle aboard his spaceship.

I’m not sure anyone enjoys whistles as much as this guy.

This cat whistle seems to work? WTF? All I know is every time I play the clip my little man comes running.

I am an uptight prude but I can see where this f—-whistle would cause mayhem, and I do love mayhem.

See you Friday!!!