en nat pรฅ bloksbjerg: the incredible art work of Dutch illustrator Kay Nielsen—see previously, whom contributed to Fantasia but Disney let go
band camp: an overlooked and not unlistenable resource: Can This Even Be Called Music?—via Kicks Condor
theire soe admirable herbe: English colonist discover what the natives have been smoking in seventeenth century India
winter stations: interactive installations of Toronto’s beach to encourage outdoor play in the cold months
cabin-crew: the JFK retro TWA terminal hotel (previously) turns the body of a vintage jet into a bar and museum space
salon d’automne: a neural network trained on cubist art produces an infinite stream of paintings, via Waxy
a parade of earthly delights: scenes from recent annual aquatic celebrations of Jheronimus Bosch (previously) held on the waters of ‘s-Herogenbosch—the next event begins in mid-June
Friday 21 February 2020
7x7
Sunday 15 December 2019
8x8
it putteth away dumpishness & sadness, and bringeth mirth: a 1559 recipe for mulled wine
fox and liberty forever: the chaotic General Election of 1790, the polling and purdah lasting from 16 June to 28 July, via Strange Company
the power of youth: the photographer Evgenia Arbugaeva behind the iconic image of Greta Thunberg’s TIME cover—we personally found this honour to be pretty moving as well
link in bio: the insidious nature of Walled Gardens (see previously) and social media’s attempts to corral the free Internet
the land of the asuras: a Buddhist monk leads a solemn ceremony to eulogise untaken time off from work in Japan—hardly done despite legislation that all workers take a minimum of five paid vacation days per year
๐: this feline face filter underscores how poorly we understand our cats’ cognition
flight and blight: a survey of some of the historic character lost in New York City over the past decade
your branches green delight us: a tour of London’s Christmas trees
catagories: ๐ซ๐ฎ, ๐ฌ๐ง, ๐น, ๐, ๐ท, architecture, environment, labour, networking and blogging
Saturday 2 November 2019
gilded age or singapore sling
Though a beautifully brooding building, Parkview Square of downtown Singapore, the office complex that hosts embassies and art galleries on its twenty-four storeys, also boasts a multi-level bar at its core, complete with a “library” of some thirteen-hundred varieties of gin from around the globe (the signature cocktail was invented at the venerable, nearby and more authentically Art Deco Raffles Hotel on Beach Road). Prior to acquiring its current theme—which offers no less of an experience, the space hosted a wine bar with the sommelier on duty magically hoisted up and down by a wire to retrieve bottles from the high stack of shelves.
catagories: ๐ธ๐ฌ, ๐, ๐น, architecture
Friday 29 March 2019
8x8
von neumann probes: perhaps autonomous, self-replicating interstellar explorers are destroying each other, accounting for their lack of evidence
bahnhofsuhr: the iconic Swiss train station clock designed by Hans Hilfiker
dactylography: an interesting survey of ancient latent fingerprints and the scientific rigour of forensics
incidental music: a cocktail party version of the main Star Trek theme exists in the Star Trek universe
parclo interchange: the elegant engineering of Japanese freeway junctions from above
a rabbit’s revenge: a further study of the prevalence of bunnies committing violence on humans (previously) in medieval marginalia
breakfast at mondrian’s: studio Brani & Desi translate the Dutch artist’s geometric works to floors and furnishings in a concept apartment
aerography: huge rivers coursed across the Martian surface for billions of years, via Slashdot
Thursday 6 December 2018
5x5
betamax xmas: we get reintroduced to a nostalgic, internet classic—via Waxy
optician sans: a sleek free font from ANTI Hamar and Fรกbio Duarte Martins
i heard you on the wireless back in ‘sixty-two: a whole universe of pre-MTV music videos
premiรจre arabesque: guitarist Kyle Schaefer arranges and performs Claude Debussy’s early masterpiece in progressive rock style
modernistmas: an updated gallery (previously) of Brutalist and Post Modernism gingerbread houses for the holidays
Friday 12 October 2018
7x7
val-eri, val-dera: a fantasy map that put the world’s tallest peaks side by side
downside up: excerpts from a 1984 film that shifts perspectives
still life: a podcast from NPR producer Ian Chillag whose guests are all inanimate objects, via Waxy
postdictive processing: an audio-visual illusion from Caltech researchers
theatrical properties: stories behind an assortment of iconic film props, via Miss Cellania
feet dragging: a look at America’s despicable inaction on climate change
petunias: a range of cocktails inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings
Wednesday 3 October 2018
moscow mueller
None of these Trump cocktails from McSweeney’s contributors Wendy Aarons and Mariana Olenko seem for anyone but your sturdiest of drinkers and may not be so effective for drowning one’s sorrows but the menu (both instalments) is certainly worth checking out. We especially liked The Harvey Wallbuilder: vodka, orange juice and Galliano l’Autentico, garnished with an IOU from Mexico—though now we’ve graduated to Impeachment & Cream.
Tuesday 8 May 2018
state of inebriation
We are treated to another example of persuasive cartography (previously) in this 1931 map of the Isle of Pleasure published by Houston, Texas draughtsman and architect H. J. Lawrence, two years before the experiment with Prohibition in the United States (1920-1933).
Friday 17 November 2017
shirley temple or taste/ip
Via the always discerning Nag on the Lake, we are introduced to a clever gadget—a virtual cocktail glass—that uses a combination of lights, wafting aromas and most importantly a mild electric stimulation to the tongue and taste buds to convince us we are experiencing flavours that aren’t really there. What do you think? This gustatory hallucination apparently can transform a glass of plain water into a fine scotch, and I suppose as the technique becomes more refined and shared widely, it will be able to recreate the most subtle notes and expressions for those who cannot or should not partake of adult-beverages and seems like a better substitute than having a mocktail.
Sunday 19 March 2017
burn after reading
To honour the conclusion of Sunshine Week, our intrepid friends at Muckrock—serial freedom of information act (FOIA) filers are kicking back the with the second best disinfectants—provocatively named cocktails to take the edge of redaction and glomarisation, like the Shirley Temple (Herbert Hoover style), Deep State, Intelligence Report, and We Were Never Here. I’d add Mistakes Were Made, and just need to figure out the ingredients.
The infuriating “Glomar response” is when the government declares its refusal to speculate on an ongoing investigation or address matters of national security and comes from the name of a salvage vessel that the Central Intelligence Agency commissioned to recover a sunken Soviet submarine in 1975. The plausibly deniable boilerplate that would go on to preface many more secrets went, “We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of the information requested but, hypothetically, if such data were to exist, the subject matter would be classified, and could not be disclosed.”
Saturday 19 March 2016
green fairy, ruby slippers
Nag on the Lake beckons to us to join her on the hunt for Italy’s answer to absinthe served up in a ruby red concoction called Tamango by a mysterious bar in Turin of the same name.
Just as one has to have reverence and respect for the Green Fairy, one also has to drink this signature cocktail very gingerly or face hallucinatory consequences. The travelogue is fraught with rather terrifying tales of patrons who failed to choose wisely. These poor souls could not straightaway click their heels together to go home. Cin cin!—but an abundance of caution is advised.
Friday 10 July 2015
5x5
vapour-lock: intoxicating atmosphere of the breathable cocktail chamber
loving-cup: whimsical, personal hand-crafted trophies (not pictured)
shiver ye timbers: EU Pirate Partei representatives save freedom of panorama
dot-dash-diss: in 1903 a white-hat hacker disrupts Marconi’s telegraph demonstration, via Kottke
Saturday 14 December 2013
valance or tinley bar
Food Beast presents this brilliant and systematic presentation of classic cocktails arranged in Periodic Table form by designer Mayra Artes.