block party

Lukas Valiauga, designer of interactive installations and digital interfaces, pays a playful homage, we learn via Present /&/ Correct to the game of Tetris, but instead of the traditional tetrominoes, the geometric pieces are composed of the façades of Brutalist apartment towers. Players are invited to demolish or build up blocs as they see fit.

6x6

the fable of the dragon-tyrant: a parable from philosopher Nick Bostrom—humans have many perched on the mountaintops

as was the fashion at the time: à la mode is one of the last remnants on American menus of a once rich Francophone culinary code, via Nag on the Lake

we are the laughing morticians of the present: Dangerous Minds takes a look at the short-lived satirical magazine Americana that lampooned geopolitics of the early 1930s

great glavin in a glass: Simpsons’ meme generator, the Frinkiac (previously), has a random-feature

patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel: Trump regime challenges dissenters to love their country more than they hate the leadership

stellar cartography: the European Space Agency’s on-going Gaia project updates its map of the Cosmos

mockbuster

After two years of restoration of the last known reel of the movie in existence and digital conversion, the atrociously campy cult film that’s better known by the moniker “Turkish Star Wars,” the 1982 Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (previously) or The Man Who Saved the World will be enjoying a limited theatre run in London and Glasgow later this summer (May the Fourth be with you).
The movie—hitherto only watchable on bootlegged video cassette copies—gained notoriety for its unauthorised use of footage from the actual Star Wars, with other science fiction films and space programme scenes spliced in, has quite an incoherent plot and was roundly panned by critics at the time. Despite its poor reception, a sequel was produced in 2006, Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam'ın Oğlu (The Son of the Man who Saved the World—otherwise “Turks in Space”) but audiences (never easily satisfied) were also critical of the second movie for having professional actors and special effects and was no longer true to the original. Visit the link above to see a video of a few scenes.  I think it’s fun that there’s a revival of such an unambiguously bad movie, but I also hope that the attention it garners directs more people to the finer side of Turkish cinema and film-making, as well.

because i was not a trade-unionist

Contemptibly, the American people seem to have grown tolerant, inured to the reprehensible language that the dangerous and doltish Trump broadcasts and that his complicit and cowardly regime of apologists defend and excuses.
The latest hateful rant was a pointed attack on the defenders of “sanctuary cities,” municipal jurisdictions that limit cooperation with the national immigration authorities to enforce racist policies so that people residing there in contravention of the law (or perceived to be) are less fearful of deportation and are more civically engaged, characterising the programme as “crime infested” and a “breeding concept.” Modern day presidential. Aspirational allusions that take the tack towards fascism are of course alarmist and for good reason—the word have the terrifying echo of justifying marginalisation and murder by stripping others of their humanity.

❤

Spoon & Tamago helps us step outside of our hardwired iconography with a trip to Shojuim Buddhist temple to contemplate the heart-shaped window of one of the guest quarters.
No less auspicious than true romance and with a longer attested provenance, this ideogram is the inome (猪目) meaning ‘boar’s eye’ and is often found adorning hunting implements and weapons in general, signifying unwavering resolve. In modern times, the symbol has softened its edge somewhat and is now treated as a talisman, like the evil eye, and a good luck charm. Be sure to visit the link up top to see more examples and to learn more about the inome sign and its further meanings.