don’t know much geology, don’t know much psychology

In Chichibu Japan there is a lovingly curated collection of stones that resemble faces—and not just your usual run-of-the-mill pareidolia either but specific celebrities—amassed over a half a century.
I know that the forces that shape evolution and stuff that looks like things is very different and human agency is limited—though bias is magnified—in both, but taking a brief tour of this museum made me think of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos and his particularly convincing though gentle as one arrives at the conclusion all on one’s own of the fishermen and the samurai crabs of the Heike clan. Haunted by superstition and ancient lore, people were compelled to toss back any of their catch whose shell resembled a human face and over the centuries, human intervention helped select for this trait. What do you think? It’s interesting how we will automatically prise out patterns.

first we take manhattan, then we take berlin

The Local’s Spanish edition has a nice tribute for Leonard Cohen that explores the extent to which Spanish poetry and music influenced his own.
Radical futurist poet and playwright (Salvador Dalí was his set designer) Federico García Lorca who was executed for sedition at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War lends Cohen’s daughter her given name and made a strong, lasting impression on the artist. Seminal so too was Cohen’s fated encounter with a flamenco guitarist in Montreal who taught him a few chords and awakened something inside. Be sure to visit the link above for more of the story and see Cohen honoured with the prestigious Prince Asturias Award for literature in 2011.

sic transit gloria mundi

Avid photographer and friendly neighbourhood paramedic Chris Porsz of Cambridge- shire sampled much of the local colour nearly four decades hence and framed a sizable collection of stunningly candid images of the people he’d encounter. Amazingly, in these last few years, Porsz has started tracking down his subjects from way back then and convinced them to pose one more time for a new anthology that bridges the intervening decades called “Reunions.”

pill-bug

Via the Awesomer, we learn about this delightfully, rollie-pollie pedestrian bridge installed in Paddington back in 2004. Distinct from a draw-bridge, the design is called a rolling one technically though it looks more like curling. The perhaps unnecessary but wonderful articulation makes me think of the Paternostra elevators I’ve yet to ride in. The footbridge was designed by Thomas Heatherwick, who is also working to realise the “garden bridge” to brook the Thames.