mos eisley or in popular culture

While there are far more serious and bedeviled threats to cultural heritage in the region with the purging of ancient Persian and Assyrian archaeological sites by ISIL and civil wars, and none need convincing of how the world will be the poorer for their loss for the undiscovered, under-appreciated and the suffering of the people under this marauding terror, maybe there is trivially a new hope in a dedicated, cult fan-base.

There’s already mounting awareness and concern over the set of the Skywalker Ranch in Tunisia, the moisture farm being threatened by increased desertification and local conflicts—and next in the cross-hairs of the Caliphate are the ruins of Hatra. This temple, under threat of the bulldozer and wrecking-ball was the backdrop of the opening scenes of the 1976 British film The Omen, with Ambassador Gregory Peck unwittingly adopting Damien, the Anti-Christ. UNESCO has already significantly levied accusations of crimes against humanity for this wanton destruction, but maybe the sentimentality of cinema-buffs (Petra/the resting place of the Holy Grail, Palmyra, Krak des Chevaliers, Hama, Apamea, Homs) can lend some volume to the outcry.

bathwater or hearty and hale

A strange twaining of two articles that I read about cultural norms—well the first is more an ageless tradition while the second is maybe a marketing gimmick.

In Iceland, not even the most fretful first time parent would bat an eye about leaving their babies, safely cocooned out of doors to doze in sub-zero temperatures while at home or on the go, strollers left seemingly unattended, but the Icelanders and all the Nordic peoples having assuredly developed—out of custom, extra-sensory perception to know baby’s comfortable and safe, lining the sidewalks in front of shops and cafes. Of course, this fuss-adverse method and exposing the infants to the elements is happily spartan, better equipping them to handle the cold and dark winters through their lives. The other example, a US patent for a baby-cage, came at a time before helicopter-parenting, and while I suppose it never caught on, I bet home-makers liked the little bit of extra space. I imagine that the air outside, however, in the areas where high-rise apartment dwellers lived was not the best quality and nowadays only window unit air-conditioners are perched precariously on the sides of buildings.

five-by-five

callin’ oates: a hotline for your Hall and Oates needs

noachian deluge: fully one hemisphere of the red planet may have been covered by a vast ocean

thrilla in manila: the city with the distinction of being the selfie-capital of the world has a new museum exhibition that puts visitors in the art

acme: some cartoon rules of etiquette from animator Chuck Jones

product-placement: creative illustrations seen in every day, random objects as they lay

nave and apse

Globe-trotting photographer Richard Silver has developed and perfected a technique to capture the panoramic sweep of the beauty and majesty of the ceilings of churches and cathedrals. Too big to be contained in one image by the usual methods, these vertical wide-angle shots certainly don’t diminish the scope and grandeur of the architecture (to a much greater affect than pictured here and maybe a little better behaved than crawling around on the floor vying for the right position—places of worship are meant for another type of crawling around on the floor), with a dizzying quality that feels almost circular but they are certainly places all to visit in person.

maison du bœuf

I don’t know if this herd of happy, drunk cows still roams the prairies of Canada, and I don’t think its experiment whose conclusions I’d care to try, but apparently cattle served red wine are not only more contented and healthy, produce higher quality beef, but also release less methane—a greenhouse gas whose contribution to climate change is nothing to sniff at.

five-by-five

pantheon: murals of Greek gods superimposed against chaotic graffiti

fourth wall: a look at the pilot of Daddy-O from 1961, a sitcom that would have broken the fourth wall

sharper image: due to popular demand, Sky Mall catalogs are returning

these kids today and their y2k: classic countdown to Armageddon

the flower of battle: a beautifully illustrated fifteenth century guide to marshal arts

backmasking and beelzebub

From the Red Scare to recovered memories (with all the cringe-worthy hysteria of satanic sacrifice, subliminal song lyrics, and the general hallmarks that typify the industry of scaring the privileged classes), Alternet presents an outline that covers in brief the eruption of successive social panics in the US. Even though some of these terrors passed in the main as quickly as they came, their formative causes that appealed to the mass imagination and insecurities on a resounding level and their knock-on effects are still lingering and primed to champion the next. These assaults are not only against science, understandably fuelled by businesses outside of public-purview whose own privilege is fail-safe, but can be rallied against reason itself. This does not seem to bode well for the world at large, who's now even more closely committed to the rage
and mania of Americans.

duktig or arts and crafts

Daily Beast features a nice chart and timeline of the Bauhaus movement.

The design school that sought to create the harmonious and practical—durable and affordable too—which rose out of the rubble and ruin of Germany after the Great War, was dismissed as degenerate and subversive but those principles of design and economy certainly did win out in the end. It’s easy to take for granted how those founding visions of simplicity and democratisation have endured and sustained our sense of style and environment, sometimes reflected imperfectly but still without distortion, but the movement is very vibrant in terms of typography and elements of presentation—and of course in the Swedish furniture giant that dominates domiciles the world around.