[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer notes the possibility that red dwarf exoplanets might, as AU Microscopii suggests, be made deserts. Centauri Dreams also examines the possibility that red dwarf exoplanets might be starved of volatiles.


• The Crux notes the extent to which the formation of our solar system was marked by chaos, planets careening about, looking at other planetary systems for guidance.


• D-Brief takes a look at the latest from the endangered Ross Ice Shelf of Antarctica.


• Joe. My. God. notes that, in the home of the Danforth shooter in Toronto, DVDs from Alex Jones' Infowars were found along with more guns and ammunition.


• JSTOR Daily links to a paper suggesting that organic agriculture contributes to a greater extent to climate change than regular agricultural systems.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money takes a look at the evolution of the Chinese air force.


• Jason Davis at the Planetary Society Blog notes that the Hayabusa2 probe is looking for touchdown sites on asteroid Ryugu for sampling.


• Roads and Kingdoms considers the humble sabich of Tel Aviv.


• Drew Rowsome reviews the Robert Leleux memoir The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy.


• Strange Company shares an old news clipping reporting on the murderous ghost that, in 1914, seems to have haunted the Croguennec family of Brittany.


• Window on Eurasia looks at the prospects for a hypothetical future Belarusian Orthodox Church.


• At Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, Nick Rowe takes a look at the relationship between inflation and the debt/GDP ratio.


• Arnold Zwicky looks at the picturesque community of Mollis, in mountainous central Switzerland.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Scarborough, E Condos, Downtown Relief, AirPod, Sully's

• John Michael McGrath writes at TVO about how the perennial delays behind the Scarborough subway extension are product of the indecision of everyone involved.


• Urban Toronto looks inside the E Condos tower nearing completion at Yonge and Eglinton. The building is remarkable, and the views are superb!


• Mayor John Tory would like to accelerate construction of the Downtown Relief Line by two years, at an estimated extra cost of $C 162 million. CBC Toronto reports.


• Narcity notes that protests for and against the AirPod are scheduled for Yonge-Dundas Square at noon on the 30th of March.


• This NOW Toronto review of a hip-hop concert held at Sully's Boxing Gym this weekend past, mere dozens of metres from my home, is illuminating. Sounds like it was fun!

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Québec City, Atlantic City, Wood Buffalo, London, Copenhagen

• CityLab looks at the fight to resist the low-density urban sprawl of Québec City into surrounding farmland at Beauport.


• CityLab looks at the vanished history of African-American tourism in Atlantic City.


• The population of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in northern Alberta, around Fort McMurray, has fallen by 11% in the past few years. Global News reports.


• Guardian Cities looks at how placemaking, the creation of innovation clusters attracting attention, is undermining social housing in London.


• CityLab looks at the challenges faced by Copenhagen, with a questionable model of urban redevelopment set to climax in the production of artificial islands.

[MUSIC] Five music links: minority languages, country music, Corey Hart, Britney Spears, Troye Sivan

• This Chaka Grier article on NOW Toronto looks at how activists for different endangered languages--Wolastoqey, Yiddish, Garifuna--use music to try to keep them alive.


• Hornet Stories takes a look at some gay-themed country music.


• This year, 1980s pop star Corey Hart will be inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. CBC reports.


• Sarah MacDonald at Noisey takes a look at the prescience of Britney Spears' 1999 song "E-Mail My Heart".


• At Wired, Jason Parham praises the new Troye Sivan single, "Lucky Strike", for its profound curiosity in and empathy for other people.

[MUSIC] Troye Sivan, "Lucky Strike"

My attention this week was caught by Jason Parham's article at Wired about the new Troye Sivan single, "Lucky Strike", and its associated video.

Not to make this about politics or walls or borders or displacement, but Australian pop balladeer Troye Sivan’s “Lucky Strike” is all about politics and walls and borders and displacement. More specifically, it is about the negation of those thorny, unkind configurations. At first blush, the song is a cool, coy slowburner with pure intentions. “I wanna tiptoe through your bliss, get lost the more I find you,” Sivian coos over producer Alex Hope’s garden of ambrosial synths. Later on the chorus, he implores: “Tell me all the ways to love you.”

“Lucky Strike” is about queer desire, sure, about the feeling of summertime infatuation; in its just-released video, Sivan’s pursuit of another man unfolds during a day at the beach. But much of the song is about the unsaid, about the power and refuge we find in another person. The song, then, becomes something much more: a paean to a world that doesn’t just unite us across cultural and bodily borders, but whose lifesource depends on that exchange.

"Troye Sivan - Lucky Strike" (Watch on YouTube)

Making this song about politics, mind, I remain somewhat amazed by the extent to which Troye Sivan is not only an out celebrity but viable as said. As I write this, the "Lucky Strike" video just one week old has 2,355,700 views. He scores multiple international hits on the pop and dance charts--Sivan is not a one-hit wonder--and he has successful international tours, and his star shows no sign of fading. Sivan's career is hugely political, all the more so because he does not have to be. He can just be in a way that other artists, other people, in the LGBTQ community have until recently not been able to enjoy.