8x8

into the bantaverse: a bot ghost-writes a Star Wars story—see also  

green guerrillas: the role that radical gardeners play in fostering community out of urban blight  

earth, wind and fire: combine basic elements and create new substancesas an alchemist—via Waxy  

fourth world: celebrating the life and career of trumpeter and electronic music pioneer Jon Hassell (*1937)

in frame: see the untrimmed, original version of Rembrandt’s Night Watch (previously) thanks to the help of a curating algorithm   

homo longi: recently discovered ‘dragon man’ skull may be a transitional species from Neanderthal to modern humans  

ine bay: hidden, historic boathouses (伊根の舟屋, funaya) in Kyoto—via Nag on the Lake’s always excellent Sunday Links 

the skeleton crew: our friendly artificial intelligencer (previously) trains a neural network to write a horror story

local flavour

Though again not a fan of ubiquitous coffee giant and what impact it has had on independent ventures, we can support this other jimoto-oriented initiative planned to mark a quarter of a century’s presence in Japan by the company later this summer in August by making every surprising, palette-pleasing local lait frappé drink available in every outlet across the forty-seven prefectures. The province of Aichi has red bean paste coffee, Yamaguchi has green tea with sesame and matcha, and Hokkaido has creamed corn flavour.

spirit of the games

Featured in part in Leni Riefenstahl’s documentary Olympia, we learn from Futility Closet second-place winner of the 1932 Los Angeles pole vault competition for the Japanese national team, Shuhei Nishida (西田 修平) repeated the feat during the 1936 games held in Berlin but tying by overall scores with his teammate and friend Sueo Ōe (大江 季雄). When the two declined to compete further against one another to end the stalemate, the decision was up to the team, who awarded Nishida the silver and Ōe the bronze (see also) as the former cleared the height, an impressive and record-setting four metres and fifteen centimetres, in fewer attempts. Once back home, the pair had their medals cut in half and then spliced together by a jeweller as unique friendship medals, alloyed half bronze, half silver.

the rashomon effect

Via friend of the blog Nag on the Lake, we are introduced to eponymous phenomenon named after the one of the greatest films ever made in Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 masterpiece, based on Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s short story “In a Grove.” The framing narrative has various relatable, archetypal characters whose contradicting testimony speak to the inherent unreliability of eyewitness accounts (see also) and the malleability of memory, clouded by motive, mechanism, interpretation and the act of remembering itself changes a memory. Much more to explore at the link up top.

6x6

lp: an over-sized mural of well-used record sleeves adorns a corner of a Reno brewery

it’s impolite to point: helpfully finding one’s cursor with an array of candid photos—via Things Magazine

kokedama: an installation of a floating forest (根洗い, root wash—no pot) by Nomad Studio 

zeckenalarm: Ze Frank (previously) delivers true facts on the dangerous little tick 

the amusement park: a long-lost 1973 public service announcement from Dawn of the Dead creator George Romero about the nightmare of ageing in America  

bierdeckel: various graphic designers create coasters capturing historic moments from the UEFA European Football Championship

high fidelity

Via the always serendipitous Present /&/ Correct, we found ourselves quite taken with these extensive archives of vintage catalogues of Japanese gadgets and accessories—Walkmans (which were manufactured up to 2010, with over two-hundred million cassette-playing units produced, ubiquitous and causing a minor safety furore with some municipalities banning them over distracted, inattentive pedestrians—the eponymous effect sometimes interpreted as isolating, early models had a “hotline” switch to facilitate conversation without removing headphones but was not well received but allowed individuals to define their surrounds through their personal soundscape and is applied to successor technologies), boom-boxes and other portable media players—see also. Much more to explore at the links above.

shadow-casting

Though previous acquainted with the ukiyo-e master Utagawa Hiroshige (安藤 広重, 1797 – 1858), we were unfamiliar with this form of expression in his repertoire in the form of these “play prints” (omocha-e, 玩具絵—see also) in this series of diagrams on making shadows puppets—quite superior to these, which prefigured the magic lantern and all the development and exchange (many of the incremental steps superseded and quite forgotten despite the intermediate value of the artefacts, fashions and temporary obsessions) of technologies that led to film, animation and animé and whatever is to come. Much more to explore at the links above.

gom jabbar

What’s in the box? Pain. Boing Boing directs us to a years’ long collecting campaign that’s recently netted a complete set of the Duniverse in graphic novel editions from Hayawaka Publishing, following the literary saga of Frank Herbert rather than the cinematic adaptations of the series. 

Click through for a lengthy thread on Matt Caron’s progress through the franchise and explore how pivotal scenes are reinterpreted and characters represented—see also. The mantra, the Litany—Fear is the mind-killer; fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration...—recited before the test and by many others  is inspired from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar “A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once.”

� or code point blank

Specials or replacement characters are shunted to the very end of Unicode allocations to act as a substitute for an otherwise unrepresentable glyph (see previously here and here). The garbled text that can result from bad decoding and false rendering is referred to mojibake (文字化け). Though the effects are most catastrophic across different writing systems, languages that use the extended Latin alphabet assigned the character set “Western” or ISO-8859-1 encounter problems as well with the Icelandic praise for outstanding hospitality þjóðlöð transmitted as the unintelligible mess þjóðlöð or some other character string likely to break one’s computer.

7x7

triangulate your influences: maps of the USA and UK with cities and towns represented by their most prominent or notorious natives—via Things Magazine  

don’t go jason waterfalls: a medley of misquotations, a lot of which are new to us too—see also

unbranded: gorgeous images of Tokyo digitally denuded of cables and signage by Rumi Ando—via Present /&/ Correct  

map app: create custom vintage style maps of anywhere at any historical period—via Web Curios 

 *: a historical style symbol (previously)—via Stan Carey  

princeself: an affirming survey and guide to neo-pronouns—via ibīdem  

muchmusic: a fun, nationally sourced soundtrack for the Canadian census

6x6

sounds to me like someone’s got a cases of the s’posedas: an interesting look at wanna, gunna, gotta  

gable top: Japanese milk carton graphic art  

jim jordan is a scary twit whose scandals are quite crass: Bette Midler performs an homage to Mary Poppins with her “GOPs a Cult for Scammer, Liars, Thugs and Traitors” 

 yacht boy problems: Jeff Bezos’ super yacht requires its own support ship  

the green knight: the cinematic adaptation of Sir Gawain’s tale to be released this summer  

recto-verso: a look at early printing and pagination standards and practises

rotating snakes

Always worth checking out, Things Magazine, refers us to an absolute treasury of optical illusions (previously) from Professor Akiyoshi Kitaoka, 北岡 明佳 of the psychology department of the College of Letters, Ritsumeikan University, best known for his modern interpretations of Gestalt theory and peripheral drift observations and intervention. The pictured is an example of a colour swamp whose apparent inset seems to move upon scrolling. The anomalous motions can cause disorientation, especially when presented serially, and viewer discretion is advised.

sffd

Via Super Punch, we are directed to a joyful and pure interview a San Francisco Chronicler reporter conducted with a gentleman who bought a tiny, retired Japanese fire truck (see also) during the pandemic at auction and had it shipped to the city—where it has become a welcome sight on the streets, like an exchange student. Bringing the fully-functional vehicle called Kiri overseas seems like it would have presented several expensive logistical hurdles, but the adoptive owner assures that the intimidating factors dissolve once one actually embarks on such an acquisition and would encourage others to do the same.

tragically hip

Though without the spectacle and international audiences and whether it can even be safely executed even with the most stringent health and hygiene precautions, some fashionistas are citing the planned apparel that the Canadian national team will don for the Closing Ceremony in Tokyo as an overpowering reason to cancel the Olympics. I endorse these bespoke, graffiti clad jean jackets and think it’s going to be a statement that we’ll later pretend to have always been behind—like a twist on the so called Canadian Tuxedo—if not not at least remember. One can peruse the rest of the uniform and kit-up from Hudson’s Bay here.

capsule house k

Though familiar with his iconic Nakagin capsule hotel in Tokyo, which was also happily conserved and revitalised, until learning about efforts to save Kisho Kurokawa’s (黒川 紀章) retreat in the woods of Karuizawa completed in 1974 we had not appreciated the philosophy behind the movement called Metabolism (新陳代謝, shinchintaisha—a literal translation of the biological process of a more poetic concept of the exchange of energy between the interior and exterior world) that attempts to harmonize skyscrapers and other monumental architecture and civil engineering with organic growth, embracing the principles of sustainability, human-clustering, modularity, mobility and transience. Learn more at the links above.

7x7

tsugite: software that generates traditional Japanese joinery (previously) that can be 3D printed or precision cut

prince albert in a can: a collection of fish tin labels from a digital museum dedicated to the Portuguese canning industry 

cosmic nature: artist Yayoi Kusama exhibits at New York’s Botanical Garden  

tune-dex: the real-fake book of jazz standards, essential to musicians in the 1970s 

dingbat: thirty select works of Mid-Century Modern print for inspiration 

beer is proof god loves us and wants us to be happy: brew theorems post US National New Beers’ Eve ahead of the anniversary of rescinding parts of the Volstead Act that allowed for consumption of higher proof beer 

ukiyo-e: the unintentional ASMR of a master printmaker at work

under the sea

Informed by the futuristic pavilions constructed for the World Expo in Osaka (previously here, here and here), we were delighted to pay a virtual visit to the Ashizuri Underwater Observation Tower (see also) built in 1971 by architect Yoshikatsu Tsuboi (坪井善勝). Seven metres under the waves, submerged guests can view fish, coral and other marine life in this reserve along the Tatsukushi coast in Kochi prefecture. More at Design Boom at the link up top.

puramo

The world’s plastic model capital west of Tokyo, Shizuko City is sponsoring the installation of monuments that reference the industry (the title プラモ, see previously). Home to Bandai and Tamiya, eighty percent of model kits are sourced and supplied from this area.

snapshot

Via their excellencies Nag on the Lake and Everlasting Blört, we are directed to a profound and touching curation and salvage operation a decade on launched by local photographer Munemasa Takahashi in the Lost & Found project, wherein volunteers gathered and conserved photographs scattered among the destruction caused by the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant disaster that struck Japan on 11 March 2011. Ranging from candid snapshots, vacation photos, wedding portraits and class pictures, over seventy hundred and fifty thousand pictures have been preserved and digitised with almost half-a-million reunited with those who lost them along with everything else in the catastrophe. Prints and framed photos are of course fragile things exposed but the damage that they sustained and personal connections they represent in whatever form speak to how this disaster upended lives.

8x8

zaouli: a traditional dance of the of the Guro people of central Côte d’Ivoire 

line-dry only: experimental living apparel sequesters carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and produces oxygen  

everydays—the first five-thousand days: the digital artist better known as Beeple sold an artwork as a non-fungible token (previously) for nearly seventy million dollars at auction, more here  

⏯: Lou Ottens, the inventor of the cassette, passes away, aged ninety-four 

 upward mobility: theory that Flintstones and Jetsons take place simultaneously with an elite technocracy and a post-apocalyptic underclass—see also  

ikebana: a vintage guide to the art of Japanese flower arranging, previously  

life finds a way: using parallel processing and stochastic algorithms, one programmer generates Mona Lisa from John Horton Conway’s game  

personæ: short documentary Beyond Noh filters through thousands of colourful and evocative ceremonial masks from cultures around the world