How the founder of a hip-hop band became a spy

From Variety: "It was a scene ripped from a John le Carré novel. A man is told to go to the front desk of the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Manhattan and say the phrase “banana peel.” The concierge then hands him an envelope with orders to circle the block twice before receiving further instructions. He returns, is shuffled into a secret elevator — one that isn’t even used for celebrities, only visiting dignitaries deemed assassination risks — and brought to the penthouse suite. After 15 minutes, Sun Lijun enters the room and lights a cigarette. The man recognizes Sun, not merely because he is the third-highest-ranking official in China. here’s the part that le Carré’s editors would have rejected as wildly implausible. The man is Pras Michél, founder of the legendary hip-hop band the Fugees."

Nigel Richards is the world's best Scrabble player and it's not even close

From Wikipedia: "Nigel Richards is a New Zealand and Malaysian Scrabble player who is widely regarded as the greatest tournament-level player of all time. Born and raised in New Zealand, Richards became World Champion in 2007, and repeated the feat in 2011, 2013, 2018, and 2019. Richards is also a five-time U.S. national champion, an eight-time UK Open champion, an 11-time champion of the Singapore Open Scrabble Championship and a 15-time winner of the King's Cup. In 2015, despite not speaking French, Richards won the French World Scrabble Championships. In 2024, Richards accomplished a similar feat by winning the Spanish-language World Championships."

Newly discovered deep-sea creature hid its identity from scientists for 25 years

From the New York Times: "Bruce Robison, a marine biologist, has long used robotic vehicles to explore the Monterey Canyon off California — a gargantuan rift of the Pacific seabed that descends rapidly from coastal shallows to a depth of more than two miles. In early 2000, he stumbled on a strange creature he had never seen before. The gelatinous blob had a giant hood at one end, fingerlike projections at the other and colorful internal organs in between. Baffled, Dr. Robison and a colleague at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute set out to discover what it was. Now, a quarter-century later, the two scientists report that the creature turns out to represent a whole new family of things in the deep ocean — the least explored part of the biosphere."

Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either through my Patreon or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. And I appreciate it, believe me!

Ancient Mesopotamian people felt love in their liver and anger in their feet

From Discover: "In literature and song lyrics, the writer often associates certain emotions with body parts. If a person sees a crush, they may feel ”butterflies in their stomach.” If a person is experiencing a moment of pure happiness, they may say that their ”heart is full.” The same can be said if the person is experiencing heartbreak or a “churning in their stomach” if they’re feeling nervous or angry. But what if someone said that their “liver was full” or that they felt “anger in their feet?” Emotions and the body are nothing new, but they may have felt different for ancient humans like the Ancient Mesopotamians. After analyzing ancient cuneiform writings, an international research team believes that earlier humans may have felt emotions differently than we do today."

This castle in the Czech Republic was originally built to cover up a portal to hell

From Neatorama: "Houska Castle is in the city of Blatce in the Czech Republic. It was built sometime between the years of 1253 and 1278 under the reign of Ottokar II of Bohemia as a sort of headquarters for the administration of his estates. No one lived there for a few hundred years until it was renovated in the 16th century. Why would such a castle be built in the middle of nowhere, on a mountain side where there was no water supply? And why were the fortification walls built facing inward, so that defenders could shoot into the compound? Because the castle was built over a "bottomless" pit, said to be the gateway to hell. The castle was meant to keep the demons enclosed, and so what used to be the castle's chapel was built directly over the pit."

Simone Giertz built a chair that's also a lazy susan for your clothes

Acknowledgements: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other newsletters that I rely on as "serendipity engines," such as The Morning News from Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Jodi Ettenberg's Curious About Everything, Dan Lewis's Now I Know, Robert Cottrell and Caroline Crampton's The Browser, Clive Thompson's Linkfest, Noah Brier and Colin Nagy's Why Is This Interesting, Maria Popova's The Marginalian, Sheehan Quirke AKA The Cultural Tutor, the Smithsonian magazine, and JSTOR Daily. If you come across something interesting that you think should be included here, please feel free to email me at mathew @ mathewingram dot com