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Luke Waltner

Luke Waltner is a custodian, not a janitor. He regularly writes oral histories.
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    Luke Waltner

    Online Politics

    “So what happens here is that we have a normative understanding that we should treat [the web] like public space—that you should have rights to speak, that no one should constrain your rights—but then you discover that, basically, you’re holding…

  • Luke Waltner

    Vladimir Nabokov, Butterfly Expert

    Nabokov once wrote “Genius is an African who dreams up snow.” Now, about 40 years after he dreamed up an evolutionary history for a species of butterflies, gene sequencing has proved the author right.

  • Luke Waltner

    Cows!

    So, check out this interactive map of factory farms in the U.S. It shows the population density of farm animals by county.

  • Luke Waltner

    Odd Crime

    There are a number of reasons to enjoy stupid criminal stories. There is guilt-free shadenfruede. There is evidence on which to tell yourself that you were right not to take certain risks, that if you had actually flipped your second…

  • Luke Waltner

    An Epic, Three Year Prank to Try to Convince a Young Man That he is Destined to Save the Human Race

    Piero Manzoni once canned his own shit, called it art, and sold it for its weight in gold. It was part of an early sixties backlash against the art market.

  • Luke Waltner

    Luke’s Caveman Link List

    There are many theories about how man is separate from the animals. The most recent one is that fire was the difference—not in a Ringo Starr fights the other tribe way, but in a new way: cooked food. Cooking let…

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    Luke Waltner

    The Rumpus Oral History Project — Harry Ricker, Alaskan

    It is -7º F outside. In his kitchen, Harry makes me tea. He is a broad-shouldered man with a prominent chin and a deep, smooth voice. He has been remodeling this house for the better part of a decade, after…