major arcana or juju guru

The absolutely brilliant Dangerous Minds shares this nifty gallery of Haitian artists recreating the classic, esoteric iconography of tarot cards in their neighbourhood slum. The intent behind this project is to highlight the beauty amid the squalor of where they live and dispel some of the preconceptions that outsiders may apply. See the whole suite and find out more at the link.

fun with family photos

During our Spring Break, I was able to devote some time to sifting through a few family photo albums that I had not seen in a long time but remembered well and took the chance to scan in a lot of pictures. It’s funny how it’s the patterns on bedspreads, the fabric of sofas and the pile of carpet that’s nearly as memorable as the different homes, holidays and vacations and how they stand out even though film and developing time and expense usually precluded candid shots of one’s dinner.
I think photography was a little more artful when some measure of restraint was required, though we were no professionals when it came to framing a shot.  No matter because such a treasury defies documentation and the bounds of sentiment are more lithe and supple. I did rather enjoy coming across a few images of myself and viewing them through a contemporary lens. Against that background, I look like a meme character about to offer possibly questionable advice.
If I remember right, I was in the process of auditioning for television commercials with a talent-scout.  I also like me mugging like a little gangster with that floppy hat. And I recall well that Star Wars Christmas bonanza when I got the entire fleet of battle-craft, but looked to be pretty sleepy and fighting exhaustion. What family photos, vaguely recalled hither and yon and not keepsakes adiabatically kept in some cloud, do you wish you had ready access to?

mikronárod

Earlier this month, on a small but serviceably large (bigger than the Vatican and Monaco) patch of terra nullius, a disputed area along the borderlands of Serbia and Croatia, an enterprising Czech politician founded a new micronation called Liberland.
Although the fledgling nation is not officially recognised by any traditional legitimising authority yet, the boundaries are already on the map thanks to a concerted marketing and branding offensive that rivals those of many well established countries. The profile from Quartz Magazine features links to Liberland’s extensive virtual presence with designs to have a permanent, physical presence in the near future. Given the successful organising charter and faith of volunteers and aspiring citizens, it makes one wonder what constitutes a state and who else might be able to pull it off.  Do the trappings and symbols of state confer statehood alone?  What do you think?

apple-core, baltimore

Quartz Magazine, punctuated with the hashtag #History-Matters, presents, I think, an important respectful overview of the dynamics behind urban decay and the general neglect and disdain of white-flight and corporate-flight that has led to the creation of this tense situation, simmering out of mind for decades. Just as onlookers find it incredulous that residents would burn and loot their only grocery outlet in their neighbourhood, no one is asking the more fundamental question why there was only an overpriced drug store and not a grocery market available to them and no one asks why the world is now captivated but hardly concerned with the long history of the city’s decline and the decisions that undermined its institutions and infrastructure.

five-by-five

street-legal: a look at Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion

submitted for your approval: Futility Closet’s clever podcast episodes

escourt-service: pretend to be whisked along by a mysterious companion with the Selfie Arm

blank-on-blank: rediscovered 1972 animated interview with Ray Bradbury

backpedalling: learning to ride a backwards bicycle requires one to unlearn how to ride a normal one

casual dining

Heard on National Public Radio, I learnt of this quirky and humourous blog project to document the demographic shift in fast-food culture by charting the demise and repurposing of one of the more recognisable architectural follies of a certain franchise. The standard blue-print of a Pizza Hut with its distinctive mansard roof is hard to hide once the former proprietors vacate the building and it is masked by new tenants, ranging from other fast-food restaurants, chapels, car-rentals, to mortuaries.

It’s certainly strange to consider how the failure of one market can be mapped due to the figure it limns—though most new franchises are installed in non-custom places now, and in part, I guess the lovely ruins are testament to the shift in diners’ taste, preferring to order-in rather than dining out. Also, while the popularity of pizza is not exactly on the wane, I suppose people are more health conscious—or at least make the requisite noise to pretend to be—what with the campaign against gluten or the reversal on fats, eschewing buffets, etc. and that’s a factor as well. Though it’s far too late for these transformed huts, with charging awareness and created taboos, there also seems (of late at least) a certain degree of fetishising the forbidden that one sees in the deep-fried anything and everything, the glutinous portmanteau of the cronut or making vaping something fashionable but maybe such fixations will make for a neo-classic revival for such red roofs.