6x6

el diablo: a ghoulish gallery of the comic and pulp art of Mexican publications of the 50s and 60s

和菓子: Edo period illustrations of Japanese confections called wagashi

in memoriam: ten stunning structures designed by recently departed architect Will Alsop

red carpet: Star Wars actress dazzles with a Vivienne Westwood original that celebrates increasing diversity in science fiction

landlines: an assortment of vintage telephones from Western Electric, via Weird Universe

from bauhaus to our house: celebrating the wide-ranging contributions and influence of author and journalist Tom Wolfe

trennung von staat und kirche

Controversially (but one is forgiven for not glomming on to this particular problematic mandate since there are so many others to choose from) Bavaria’s new Minister-President has decreed that crosses must hang in all state government buildings from 1 June on wards. Every city hall I’ve been in already has a crucifix hanging non-obtrusively in an office corner but I think that was out of a personal choice and affirmation, rather than something regulated as explicit symbolic value and a way to show solidarity and “commitment to Bavarian identity and culture.” The president went on to explain that the crosses are not in violation of the principle of government neutrality in religious matters because they are specifically agnostic and instead represent the universal values of charity, human dignity and tolerance. No word if there are to be standard-issue crosses to be displayed or if the manner of participation will be left up to individual municipalities or how compliance will be monitored.
Kontrovers (aber man verzeiht, dass man sich nicht auf dieses spezielle Problem berufen hat, weil so viele andere zur Auswahl stehen) der neue bayerische Ministerpräsident hat angeordnet, dass ab dem 1. Juni in allen Regierungsgebäuden Kreuze hängen müssen. Jedes Rathaus, in dem ich schon war, hat ein Kruzifix, das nicht aufdringlich in einer Büroecke hängt, aber ich denke, das war eine persönliche Entscheidung und Bestätigung, anstatt etwas als ausdrücklichen symbolischen Wert und eine Art Solidarität und ,,Engagement zu regeln zur bayerischen Identität und Kultur.” Der Präsident erklärte weiter, dass die Kreuze nicht gegen das Prinzip der Regierungsneutralität in religiösen Angelegenheiten verstoßen, weil sie spezifisch agnostisch sind und stattdessen die universellen Werte der Nächstenliebe, Menschenwürde und Toleranz darstellen. Aber keine Angabe, ob Standardkreuzungen angezeigt werden sollen oder ob die Art der Beteiligung den einzelnen Gemeinden überlassen bleibt oder wie die Einhaltung überwacht wird.

kobe hyakkei

Rummaging through the archives of Present /&/ Correct, we discover latter day reprisal of One Hundred Scenes of Kobe (Kobe Hyakkei, 百景 digging how there is a concise way of saying one hundred views of something) by woodblock print artist Hide Kawanishi.  His first edition depicted his native city as it appeared between 1933 and 1936, and later in the early 1950s Kawanishi produced a second collection, reflecting on post-war Japan.
The municipal website hosting Kawanishi’s renderings and accompanying essays (also available in English) on each location also matches each artistic impression with a photograph of the site, viewed from the same vantage point.

top priority

Despite having yet to formulate a clear and comprehensive divorce settlement from the European Union with crucial deadlines approaching, law-makers in the UK have devised a somewhat elegant solution to another crisis of their own making: namely, to prevent underage people from accessing on-line pornography, as Gizmodo reports, by enlisting kiosks and corner shops to sell passes for £10 (cheaper than identity-theft but still a strange, arbitrary sort of surcharge) with a sixteen digit code that will allow the bearer to access adult websites.
The newsstand agent (previously), purveyors of all sorts of vices, will verify that the purchaser is of majority age and is a filthy, raunchy deviant. While this method seems far preferable to having the government maintain a database on all of its porn-lookers (primed to fall into the hands of extortionists and opportunists) or demanding credit card information as a means of authentication with the exchange being essentially anonymous, it is still the lesser of two evils to implement and enforce a rather needless, ridiculous and unenforceable response to the latest moral panic.

deaccessioned

Via Hyperallergic, we learn that the Victoria and Albert Museum recently published the sole known complete copy of the catalogue inventorying of the works of art and the artists considered degenerate (entartete) by the Nazi regime’s Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, which meticulously catalogued of sixteen thousand works in 1942 as a final record after the sale and disposals of the confiscated works.
There’s no comprehensive gallery of the pieces, many of which leave no trace afterwards (and many others that were thought lost to history until the trove of paintings was found in a Munich apartment of the son of one of the curators whose name pops up again and again), but with a little triangulation and desire to further the story of these ostracised objects and their blacklisted creators, like the author, one can access a Berlin reference library’s database and enter the catalogue numbers to retrieve a record. You should research and champion one of these once rejected pieces of art yourself, like this 1912 woodcut by Franz Marc (EN/DE) of Springing Horses, Entartete Kunst (EK) number 1847. A founding member of the German Expressionism movement and contributor to the influential art journal Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Knight) at the turn of the century, the iconic artist died in the Battle of Verdun in 1916 at age thirty-six but having already produced a body of nearly a thousand prints. A 1936 exhibition marking twenty years since the artist’s passing attracted negative attention and were declared subversive with the Gestapo seizing works from public and private collections around Germany and selling them to buyers abroad.

saor ó dhleacht

Having passed through the gates of Shannon Airport ourselves a few times, we found it quite fascinating to learn that the terminal in western Ireland on the river’s estuary was home to the world’s first duty free shop and will be sure to make special notice of it next time around.  Planet Money fills us in on the life and times of consummate hospitality professional and marketing expert Brendan O’Regan (1917* - 2008 †) whose talents intersected with the limitations of early trans-Atlantic air travel and recognised a business opportunity.
After realising the popularity of Irish Coffee (his first contribution to the world), O’Regan catered to regular arrivals of weary, battered travellers whom had just made the rather arduous hop from North America to Europe and had to land at the first opportunity or were outbound for the same daunting journey, since early planes lacked modern amenities and range and had to make landfall at the first and last opportunity for re-fuelling—which Ireland geographically availed herself of—and saw that his rather captive consumers, elite jet-setters to a person, whose money was burning holes in their pockets, and O’Regan wanted to alleviate their boredom on this layover leg of their trip. Referencing an ancient custom still codified in the law books of allowing sailors to purchase booze without taxes if it was for export and personal consumption, O’Regan successfully pled his case to the Irish government in 1947 to allow him to experiment with an exercise that undercut the government itself by not collecting taxes and losing out on revenue with the promise that by showcasing local items, keepsakes and souvenirs including speciality Irish whiskeys—and manufacturing provenance after a fashion—at a discount, the scheme would encourage local tourism and more than make up for lost revenue on the trinkets.

The model was an instant success and proliferated quickly to airports worldwide—then cruise ships, border-crossings, etc. with some products, like Toblerone (previously) owing its cosmopolitan success to careful product-placement in duty-free stores. O’Regan’s third act was as peace ambassador, helping to end the strife in Northern Ireland and promoting cooperation between Ireland and the UK.