man on the street

We enjoyed reading this bit of reporting on the news genre of “Florida Man,” derivatives of an archetypal incident from 2015 that involved a launching an alligator through the window of a drive-thru fast food joint which share a few common traits to the trope—alcohol and drugs, animals, theme parks, etc.
The frequency of occurrence prompted one Miami business, the Injury Claim Coach (not a spoof name), to conduct a scientific meta-study and developed a scoring system, the backronym Firearms, Locations, Objects, Reason for Arrest, Injuries Drugs and Alcohol, and Animals, to rank the finest examples. Check out some of the textbook crimes and misdemeanours at NPR at the link up top.

parcours du combatant

Building on the training regime developed by French naval officer Georges Hébert at the turn of the last century, which espoused people be above all limber and spry—as indigenous tribes hunting in Africa he observed whilst stationed there—father and son Raymond and David Belle codified a range of movements to overcome obstacles by the path of least resistance during the 1980s before proliferating into popular culture as parkour.
The philosophical component of reclaiming spaces and individual humility in practise and challenge surpass the athleticism of leaping (pylometrics are study of jumping and the like) and vaulting of the participants—a traceur or traceuse, as they trace a path through the course. It’s of course something that takes a lot of slow, deliberate training and not something one just dives into without risking injury, so be careful out there but it’s certainly something to fantasise about and work towards bouncing off walls and scaling buildings like a stunt-double.

textilkunst

Born 5 March 1897, Swiss textile artist Gunta Slölzl (†1983) had a formative and fundamental role in leading the Bauhaus school’s weaving workshop.  Find more posts about the movement and its principals here, here, here and here.
Having joined the movement just after its inception, she became a full master (the first female to achieve this level though the atmosphere was rather lacking in collegiality with most of the directors dismissing fabrics as craft and women’s work) in 1928 and revitalised the weaving and dyeing studios, mentoring many students and experimented with synthetic materials. A gallery of Stölzl’s works can be found here along with other Bauhaus disciplines cab be found at the link here.

+44

Installed at the beginning of the month and in place for twenty-eight more days until the UK’s scheduled departure from the European Union, the always brilliant Nag on the Lake informs that artist Joe Sweeney has placed a telephone booth on Dungeness beach on the south east coast of England that invites public comment and for a forum (telephones can be intimate and powerful props and prompts indeed) for people to share their feelings on Brexit. Designed to be weathered by the elements over the following span of just weeks, the project’s title (one can see it live and leave a message here too) refers to the international dialling code for the UK and the Crown Dependencies.

houtblazer

Via the always outstanding Everlasting Blört, we are regaled with a musical performance from medievalist and musician Jim Spalink on lute, harp and hurdy-gurdy playing the composition branded onto the buttocks of one the unfortunate, tortured souls condemned to the infernal flames of Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych (previously) The Garden of Earthly Delights. Spalink had to clean up the notation a bit and got a bit imaginative with the introduction and the end, employing appropriately what’s known as the devil’s interval, a dissonant triton that traditional rules of composition referred to as diabolus in musica, a modality to be eschewed and avoided. Another example of this sort of forbidden chord is in Jimi Hendrix’ opening to Purple Haze.

chiuso or venetian blinds

The always stunning Present /&/ Correct directs our attention to a photography stream focused on closed Italian shops and stalls, Chiuso di Domenica (Closed Sundays, new additions appearing on Sundays)—which when the display windows are protected behind the roll-down metal security slats (la serranda), the typography of the signage—of all vintages and eras—is really teased out of the background. Explore a whole gallery of storefronts after hours at the links above.