Saturday 2 November 2019

shadow cards

Via the venerable Card House, we’re not only acquainted with the pantomime entertainment of casting shadow-puppetry but moreover that the characters were intellectual property and subject to rather vicious copyright battles from the house of E K Dunbar & Co. “I am Such a Dorg!”
It’s as if the creative urge itself were dependent on subscribing and contentious commodification, sort of like ubiquitous watermarking, the fights erupting over a proprietary palette of eye-shadow, dance moves or the favoured way to promote a loyal viewership to watch one play arcade games. I’m not one to talk but it seems that the less actual talent at stake, the more accelerated and pitched the hostilities for the stakeholders.

gilded age or singapore sling

Though a beautifully brooding building, Parkview Square of downtown Singapore, the office complex that hosts embassies and art galleries on its twenty-four storeys, also boasts a multi-level bar at its core, complete with a “library” of some thirteen-hundred varieties of gin from around the globe (the signature cocktail was invented at the venerable, nearby and more authentically Art Deco Raffles Hotel on Beach Road). Prior to acquiring its current theme—which offers no less of an experience, the space hosted a wine bar with the sommelier on duty magically hoisted up and down by a wire to retrieve bottles from the high stack of shelves.

two-thousand zero zero

Apropos of finding ourselves presently bumping up against epochs (depressingly, see also) of science-fiction and science-fantasy that once seemed impossibly distant and removed, Austin Kleon directs our attention to a lengthy list of remembrances of futures past.
A lot of these stories set in a future now passing we have encountered beforehand (all vehicles, all genres) though we’d somehow been spared the 1991 made-for-television Knight Rider 2000 when US President Dan Quayle wages war on the UK over Bermuda and criminals are cryogenically frozen for future generations to deal with (which is seeming a rather preferably time-line now), but had our world a bit shaken when early on in that catalogue it included 1999 (Song), referring to Prince’s 1982 hit that predicts a forthcoming nuclear apocalypse. Wikipedia even classifies it as an anti-war anthem. I had to re-watch the video while facing the lyrics but I still didn’t find myself wholly convinced that the song had any sort of doomsday narrative. What do you think?  You can judge for yourselves. 

Everybody’s got a bomb
We could all die any day, Oh
But before I’ll let that happen
I’ll dance my life away!

Friday 1 November 2019

the future is now


pilzfund ii

Having had less success up until this point and a bit envious of neighbours who return after foraging with mushrooms by the crateload, H and I went exploring in the forest again and had some fortune gathering some edible specimens.
Careful to collect discriminately and not spoil the woodland ecology (responsible, surgical removal affords the chance for the fruiting body to regrow) and more careful research so as not to end up poisoning ourselves, we were able to identify, along with the usual fare, Goldrรถhrling (Suillus grevillea, the larch bolete—for the root of the tree it is often found), Steinpilze (previously) and Birkenpilze (Leccinum sabrum, the birch bolete) mostly.
Though by no means is this rule-of-thumb universal or not without exceptions but broadly, mushrooms with stalks and a spongy, porous underside of its cap, called boletes, literally from the Latin for edible mushroom—as opposed to gills underneath—can signify that it is safe for human consumption.  Please, however, consult the experts before trying to harvest wild mushrooms and know how to contact poison-control, just in case.

We were pretty selective and not more adventurous than is advisable and once H sautรฉed the mushrooms, that bucket reduced down to a small but very flavourful portion.

world vegan day

In honour of the anniversary of the founding of the animal rights society and publication of the movement’s first newsletter with its first coinage of the term in November of 1944 by English activist and advocate Donald Watson (*1910 – †2005), this day amidst the harvesting (and slaughter), feasting and revelry of this transitional time of year is set aside for education and outreach on living without exploiting fellow animals.
We’re getting there slowly and really admire and respect those who questioned our imagined station and dominion all those decades hence and how easily many of us have it now with the luxury of choice and mainstream alternatives. This older event poster, directly inspired by the banner of Nineteen Eighty-Four’s Ingsoc (Newspeak for English Socialism) Party, strikes me as deliciously ironic, especially for those who seek and attribute cultish overtones to the lifestyle choice out of fear. One party slogan is after all, “Proles and Animals are free.” Do read some of the literature and lean into the science and come to your own conclusions.  

thus spake zarathustra

We had missed this rather significant directorial choice regarding Stanley Kubrick’s timeless and iconic adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey (see previously) and are grateful to the emendation from Open Culture.
Before deciding on scoring his film with the orchestral classics of Strauss (the above tone poem, fanfare was also used as walk-on music by Elvis Presley from 1971 until his death in 1977), Mozart and Brahms, Kubrick had commissioned composer Alex North (*1910 – †1991) to write a full soundtrack (listen to the playlist in its entirety at the link above) which was ultimately rejected. What do you think about the decision? Of course we are used to the setting as produced but North’s tracks have a different connection and emotional response. North, who had received accolades and Oscar nominations for his music in such films as Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Cleopatra, The Misfits, Death of a Salesman, and Spartacus did not take the rejection well—especially having put so much effort into it and not discovering the fact he was cut out of the picture until its New York preview—but was able to incorporate some of the music into later projects, like the score for The Shoes of the Fisherman and Dragon Slayer.