postcards from the edge

Boing Boing shares a gallery of lobby cards on offer from the brain-trust behind Liartown, USA, Sean Tejaratchi. My favourites are still the falconry-paraphernalia from the Falcon Hive but there’s quite a bit of spindled brilliance besides to uncover.

the dubliners

In anticipation of Saint Patrick’s Day, Kuriositas treats us to a fine whistle-stop tour through Dublin to visit the statues and public monuments that people the capital. As fond and committed city commissioners are for honouring local sons and daughters, residents are just as keen to bestow affectionate monikers on these silent neighbours. Read more about the “Tart with the Cart” or the “Hags with Bags” and other choice nicknames for the street urchins of Dublin and sight-see during your next visit with native knowledge.

tycho magnetic anomaly-1

Having just written about another, older film that helped inspired some of Kubrick’s most memorable montages, I thought it was a nice coincidence that the always brilliant Dangerous Minds served up this engrossing appreciation of the development and divergence of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The article, with more to explore, discusses the difference between the storytelling devices of the director and the writer, Arthur C. Clark, and how the different media access the imagination, mystery and a cosmos fraught with either enfeeblement or indifference, but it also reveals another homage, influence Kubrick had in Russian film-maker Pavel Klushantsev’s 1957 The Road to the Stars that debuted a decade earlier—which is far too full of artistry and vision to be labelled as propaganda but did coincide with the launch of Sputnik.

slipping the surly bonds

Via the esteemed Everlasting Blört comes the latest work of information design from Pop Chart Labs that reveals nearly six decades of space exploration on one dashboard, that cleverly organizes the missions—from Luna II to the climate survey missions of last year. The trajectory of every exploratory craft is featured on this vast astronomical orrery with further details about each satellite, probe and rover.

bread-line or maître d'hôtel

A soup kitchen in Kansas City is fighting the usual stigmatisation associated with such charitable operations by having all the trappings of a formal dining experience, as Bad Ethnography reports. Volunteers act as hosts and servers and patrons are seated and given menus of the day’s offerings to consult. These small dignities are surely rare for the homeless and destitute and the chance to be treated instead of just handled probably returns in spades for the community. A local culinary institute has also joined with this project to give diners who also want to help out in the restaurant training that might lead to gainful employment at some of the city’s other fine establishments. I suspect the measure of satisfied customers—taking pictures of one’s meal—have already been surpassed.  Everything’s up-to-date in Kansas City and I hope that this model spreads.

the overlook

While iconic producer and director Stanley Kubrick’s staging and ensemble could never be labelled derivative, having inspired countless other homages, and nothing less could be ascribed to The Shining, there is nonetheless than some point for point correspondence that Kubrick himself attributes to a much earlier inspiration.
The Swedish film called Körkarlen, the Wagoner, was presented to British and American audiences a year after its debut under the title of Thy Soul shall bear Witness or The Phantom Carriage in 1922. Both films have to address the torture of alcoholism and the resulting missteps in family life, although the silent version had more ledgend to draw upon than the local lore of hotel staff with a sort of Flying Dutchman curse of the street urchins and dissolute of the town of Landskrona that holds the last person to die in the previous year is charged with acting as the Grim Reaper and collects the souls of those to die in the next. A departed drinking buddy who led the protagionist astray in life tries to make amends in death by arranging encounters with people who can help him get his life back in order. One can view the film in its entireity at this link, and appreciate its pioneering use of special effects and complex storytelling which makes use of flashbacks within flashbacks.