Web Reads: We're all human

This week’s selection of interesting reads from around the web:

Human. The website of 29-year-old photographer Brandon Stanton, who has talked to and photographed 10,000 New Yorkers since 2010. His Humans of New York (HONY) series catalogs the variety of people who live in New York City, treating with dignity often-overlooked people. The website includes similar photos taken during a 2012 trip to Iran. A video about Brandon Stanton is on Mashable.

Baby names. A U.S. map of the most popular girl baby names by state, from 1960 to the present. You get an at-a-glance sense of year-by-year state differences and yet see the incredible uniformity in baby name popularity across the states.

Say cheese. Fabulous photographs documenting a season with fifth-generation Swiss cheesemaker, Jacques Murith, who makes Gruyere cheese the old-fashioned way.

Hiding tiger. Snippets from a recent interview conducted by Mental Floss magazine with Bill Watterson, the press-shy creator of Calvin and Hobbes.

Faith, work, and art. A wide ranging interview with poet and former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, Dana Gioia, and his younger brother, writer and jazz musician Ted Gioia. The brothers discuss their Catholic faith, work, and the role of art.