keitora

Kei class trucks (軽トラ) were first popularised in 1949 and have been since enlisted for all sorts of heavy-duty jobs including agriculture, construction and firefighting, and now thanks to Spoon & Tamago, that this tough little vehicles have of late also become a showcase for an annual landscaping contest sponsored by the Japanese federation of contractors.

The entries are really fantastically detailed and capture the elements of traditional Japanese gardening arts, called Nihon Teien (日本庭園) and incorporate plants, water elements and distressed materials to invoke the idea of far off lands and signal resistance to the march of time and entropy.

journée des tuiles

The causes of the French Revolution are myriad and included financial hardship exacerbated by debts incurred in the proxy war that the country had just finished waging with England via the matter of the United States of America’s push for independence but one important juncture that may have precipitated protests and unrest across the kingdom occurred on this date back in 1788 in the south-eastern city of Grenoble.
Despite poor harvests, taxes were collected a-pace with additional ones levied, and the regional appellate courts (called Parlements) that had jurisdiction over tax regimes were suspended. Referred to as the Day of the Tiles for rioters resorting to showering soldiers with roof shingles, merchants closed their shops up early on Saturday morning, market day, when they saw groups of rioters gather who proceeded to seize local officials as they attempted to flee the city and took control of the cathedral. In response, the royal navy was sent into quell the protests but matters quickly escalated. The riots subsided after four days and led to the reinstatement of the court’s authority and the right to refuse payments on levies not approved by that body, but problems with France and the relation of the monarchy to the people was fraught with systemic irreconcilable complications and the revolution fomented the following year.

writers and the leviathan or duty to warn

At a time when athletes, actors, astronomers and others are told to stick to their day-jobs and not wade into the political fray, many of us expect writers and academics to uphold values and defend truth and justice in trying times. One author, recognised across the partisan spectrum, as the quintessential bellwether who warned lucidly and presciently about the rise of totalitarianism, George Orwell, however, took some exception with this onerous duty, arguing it was the responsibility of every last one of us to stay informed. Culture, in any form, is not impervious to the prevailing political climate.

electronic arts

Market saturation and the introduction of home computers back in 1983 precipitated a crash for the video game industry that unseated the dominance of Atari and the arcade as a third place.
In turn, this disruption informed Nintendo’s rather aggressive campaign of licensing and cross-branding. Some years ago, as Dangerous Minds reminds, Retrovania imagined video game start screens for some of the titles that the company secured the rights to but for one reason or another, failed to pursue. While it’s easy to imagine the rules of play for some of the company’s tie-ins, it’s a fun challenge to puzzle out how one might have engaged others.

bakemono zukushi

Via Public Domain Review, we discover an anonymous Edo-era scroll of a certain classification of yōkai (previously here, here and here) called bakemono (化け物), which are distinguished from other super natural beasts and ghouls by their ability to shape-shift and are associated with the liminal world, both physical and figurative—especially tunnels and thresholds.

 Be sure to visit Public Domain Review at the link up top to learn more about this veritable rogues’ gallery of creatures to haunt one’s nightmares

hifi

On the thirty-fifth anniversary since its debut with Return of the Jedi on 25 May, 1983, THX released the score of its “Deep Note” audio trademark for the first time, prompting a talented vocalist named Mach Kobayashi to intone the thirty voices across three octaves to recreate to signature choral strike to perfection.

an inconvenient truth

The always captivating Kottke re-acquaints us with an important and resounding contribution that Bertrand Russell made to the New York Times magazine (subscription required) in 1951 called “The Best Answer to Fanaticism – Liberalism: Its calm search for truth, viewed as dangerous in many places, remains the hope of humanity.” The eminent British philosopher, mathematician and political activist concluded his article with ten succinct and lucid points of advice (the probable namesake of Al Gore’s PowerPoint presentation) to uphold his civic antidote:

• Do not feel absolutely certain of anything. 
• Do not think it worthwhile to produce belief by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light. 
• Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed. 
• When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory. 
• Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
• Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you. 
• Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. 
• Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter. 
• Be scrupulously truthful, even when the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it. 
• Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

außenpolitische beziehungen

Stoking further incredulity by granting an interview to a far-right news outlet and expressing rather undiplomatically his ambitions to empower conservatives across Europe and the announcement inviting the conservative Austrian prime-minster for a luncheon, there are increasingly vocal calls for the expulsion of the newly-credentialed US ambassador to Germany.
Describing such outreach and partisanship as further undermining already strained trans-Atlantic relationship, Germany knows that harbouring such political sentiments would not be tolerated in Washington and should neither be suffered kindly in Berlin. Embassies are diplomatic missions, whereas consulates—in the traditional sense, were outposts to promote the sending country’s business interests and while consular services have become an extension of the diplomatic mission itself, corporate and ideological concerns were generally kept at a distance from statecraft. Now compromise and conciliation have been removed briskly from the hands of master negotiators and deal-makers and thrust into the hamfisted realm of senseless and destructive barriers to trade—to which the rest of the world is responding with targeted, retaliatory tariffs that are designed to punish constituencies allied with the Trump regime, possibly influencing the course of elections over jobs-security.