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Daily Bafflements

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• On the side effects of an addiction: “Coloring”—that’s right, coloring—“is not for cowards. Three months since Jones began, the calluses on her fingers are just the surface symptoms of her devotion to her hobby.” But fear not:

Colorers have become creative with solutions. Aside from fortifying their wrists with splints, braces and sports tape, some soak their hands in hot wax or Epsom salts. Annette Clyde, who colors for up to 10 hours a day, gets hand massages at a manicure salon and does exercises before and after coloring.

David Graeber wrote about cowardice (which is by this point proven to be unrelated to coloring) in the current issue of The Baffler.

• Last week we brought you the news that terrorists act before they think. Apparently those we designate as “heroes” do the same. 

• The tedium of waiting in the Ecuadorian embassy in London has only intensified Julian Assange’s predilection for the dramatic, and he’s hatching getaway plans ranging from the predictable (fancy dress, getting lost in a crowd) to the cinematic (escaping across the rooftops, all Dick Van Dyke-like).

• Today in bespoke fashion: the tailor weaving phone-activating touch-panels into suit sleeves explains that “Bespoke apparently comes from ‘been spoken for’”—very romantic. “There’s something amazing about your cloth now being that personal.” But are you wedded to your technology, or is it wrapping around you like a boa constrictor?  “How could it get any more so than your own technology with you, on you?”