13 Great Stories That Have Nothing to Do With Politics

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/nytnow/zubaz-connectome-new-yorker-poetry-bot.html

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Welcome to Our Picks, a guide to the best stuff to read, watch and listen to from around the internet. Check this space for the must-read long-form article, the next great podcast for your commute, the news-making tweetstorm. And yes, we’re also tooting our own horn here. We’ll share can’t-miss Times stories from the week and reveal some gems you might have overlooked.

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• Get to know the world’s (potentially) first celebrity chef: Bartolomeo Scappi. In the mid-16th century, Scappi cooked for popes and cardinals; he also wrote the world’s first illustrated cookbook. [The Paris Review]

• People in the military know how to pack a bag efficiently. Here are their tips on how to compose your suitcase. [Thrillist]

• Portland, Me., is testing out a 36-week work program that pays the city’s panhandlers $10.68 an hour to clean up parks and other public spaces. [Portland Press Herald]

• Here’s one way to elevate the discourse in your social media feed: Sign up for The New Yorker’s new Poetry Bot, which sends you one poem a day through Twitter or Facebook Messenger. [The New Yorker]

• “It’s your neighborhood lemonade stand on steroids.” Schools that teach entrepreneurship to children as young as 5 are cropping up across the country. [Inc.]

• We’ll keep this short: What’s the secret to happiness? Doing less. [Outside]

• You can always rely on death, taxes and the return of hideous sartorial trends from cultural obsolescence. If you’ve noticed sports fans donning loudly patterned baggy pants, you already know that Zubaz are back. Here’s the story of the rise, fall and return of these polarizing pants. [Vocativ]

• Welcome to the “hotel with the worst view in the world.” Please be mindful of the million-dollar Banksy art on the walls.

• “Aperitivo time is among the most civilized drinking traditions I’ve ever witnessed.” Learn the ropes of Roman cocktail hour from Rosie Schaap, then let Melissa Clark hypnotize you into completely rethinking your staid dinner traditions.

• At The Times, we regularly live-stream exclusive sets from musicians and performers like Erykah Badu, Wyclef Jean, Leslie Odom Jr. and more. Here are more than 30 of those performances; binge away.

• There’s been a lot of hype around recent advances in microbe research. The Upshot offers a sobering dose of reality … and a pretty crazy animation at the top of the page too.

• It’s dating time for the blue-footed booby of the Galápagos Islands. Here’s a delightful deep dive into their courtship rituals.

• The Connectome is a diagram of the neural pathways in the brain. It’s also a complicated concept you might not understand at first. That’s why we’re loving this video of the neuroscientist Bobby Kasthuri explaining what a Connectome is and why it’s important to five different people: a 5-year-old, a 13-year-old, a college student, a neuroscience grad student and a neuroscientist. [Wired]

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