Monday 3 June 2019

6x6

someday my prince will come: life lessons gleaned at the Princess Academy

decolonise this place: a collection of maps presented from an aboriginal perspective, via Nag on the Lake

bathyscope: a ten-hour montage of mesmerising ocean footage

if you just smiled more: an epic discussion thread uses classical paintings to illustrate everyday sexism

the master and margarita: a compelling reading recommendation for Mikhail Bulgakov’s Soviet satire

берёзка: the floating step of a ballet ensemble founded by choreographer Nadezhda Nadezhdina 

performance triad

Goals and milestones are important and something to focus our efforts but sometimes marketing or marketing ennobled as a rule of thumb can establish norms that make the underlying mission of well-being more opaque—rather than a positive and progressive marker.
One such metric is the adage of getting in one’s ten-thousand steps daily—something that I ascribe to and challenge myself to surpass, but it turns out that the origins of the idea go back to a 1965 campaign by a Japanese pedometer manufacturer (see also), capitalising on the fact that the ideogram, character for ten-thousand (pronounced man or ichi-man) resembles a person taking a stride: 方.

Sunday 2 June 2019

googie

Curbed’s Los Angeles bureau introduces us to the Chinese-American architect that helped establish and inform the Atomic Age style of vernacular architecture that originated in Southern California and manifested itself as Streamline Moderne and populuxe elsewhere in the pioneering personality Helen Liu Fong (*1927 – †2005).
Iconic works including Norms restaurants, Pann’s coffee shops and Bob’s Big Boy among other roadside attractions, many casualties of progress, Fong’s most celebrated and culturally significant project, helping a community on its recovery from internment and ostracizing treatment was the Holiday Bowl in the diverse Crenshaw neighbourhood of the segregated city, the lanes serving as a civic anchor for four decades. Much more to explore at the link above.

non molto bene

The self-promoting human haemorrhoid, Steve Bannon, despite a recent session of speaking of truth regarding his former client’s (lack of) wealth, business acumen and candour that’s nothing terribly insightful and the conclusions that we haven’t reached by ourselves, will have to look elsewhere for a campus for his planned “gladiator school for cultural warriors” other than the for thirteenth century former Carthusian monastery outside Rome.
The Italian government did not dash the plans of the disgraced ex-propaganda minister out of ideological reasons (and to be a legitimate businessman in Italy, I’d imagine there’s more requirements for aplomb and a stricter dress-code), but rather that this grifter took a page from the playbook of his real estate mogul past boss (maybe it was Bannon’s idea in the first place) and tried to short-circuit bidding process for receivership of the state-offering, the property, and attempted to secure his first year’s lease using forged banking documents. Let’s hope that the financial world has learned the lessons from Trump’s enablers Deutsche Bank and tells these hucksters and carnival barkers vada via.

Saturday 1 June 2019

maskinåldern

In a noble and hopefully not misguided attempt to remove human biases though we consistently see how technology amplifies our worst instincts, the city council of Upplands-Bro is experimenting with a robot interviewer that will screen candidates and hopefully determine the best qualified fit for their municipal coordinator of on-line media services.
What do you think? I wonder if having a robot interlocutor has a calming effect or is more like focusing a rather unforgiving camera on the subject. This community outside of Stockholm has demographically one of the highest concentrations of people of non-Swedish heritage and the city government is hoping to signal through this experiment its willingness to combat discrimination in the jobs market and corporate culture that is not inclusive.

flagellation, regulation, integrations, meditations, united nations, congratulations

Referred by Messy Nessy Chic, we are afforded a chance to spend some time in the Montreal hotel honeymoon suite (Room #1742) of John and Yoko Ono Lennon refurbished ahead of the fiftieth anniversary of the Bed-Ins for peace that began in late March 1969 in Amsterdam with a two-weeks intervention. The next iteration was planned for New York but Lennon was barred entry into the US over a previous marijuana possession charge and so moved to Canada. Having arrived on 26 May and inviting guests over the ensuing week like Timothy Leary, Dick Gregory, Allen Ginsburg, Tommy Smothers and others, all took part in a recorded chorus of the anthem “Give Peace a Chance” in the suite on this day.

inō mononoke roku

Located in the city of Miyoshi, near Hiroshima, where the protagonist of the titular Edo-era saga faced a gauntlet of thirty yōkai (previously) over thirty days, Japan has opened its first museum dedicated to the country’s rich folklore tradition, seeded with an endowment of over five thousand manuscripts and artefacts donated by the estate of an ethnographer and researcher named Koichi Yumoto. Learn more and receive a guided tour of the latest addition to an ensemble of collections in the area from Open Culture at the link above.

off the shelf

As part of an advertising campaign that encourages people to make their own living spaces just as iconic and reflective of their signature style, IKEA in the United Arab Emirates is running a “Real Life” series showcasing famous living rooms recreated using only store furniture and accessories. Much more to explore at the links above.