May 31, 2014
Mirvish+Gehry 2.0
With the new design, Frank Gehry is "concerned with producing a silhouette that would be dignified on Toronto's skyline, unique to the city, and convey humanity, something they feel is essential but difficult to achieve."
May 30, 2014
Le sommeil et les reves
"Few people would say they smell in their dreams, but Francesca Faruolo talks vividly about her own experiences. Her dreams are often fragrant, she says."
"Olfactory dreamers do exist," she insists. "They are people who, in their everyday lives are either very sensitive to smells or have a highly trained sense of smell."
Bastille - Things We Lost In The Fire (Live From Queens' College Cambridge)
May 29, 2014
Australian Sub defeats US Navy in exercise
"HMAS Rankin, a Australian Collins class submarine, absolutely destroys the US navy in an exercise."
May 28, 2014
Sir Ken Robinson - Do schools kill creativity?
Four years ago, somebody told me to watch this. If he had suggested it, I probably would have got round to it before now.
Kintsugi
"Kintsugi (Japanese: golden joinery) or Kintsukuroi (Japanese: golden repair) is the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with lacquer resin dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum a method similar to the maki-e technique. As a philosophy it speaks to breakage and repair becoming part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise."
May 27, 2014
The Golem: How He Came Into the World (1920)
"The Golem: How He Came Into the World (original German title: Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam) is a 1920 silent horror film co-directed by and starring Paul Wegener. The picture was directed by Carl Boese and Wegener, written by Wegener and Henrik Galeen, and stars Wegener as the golem. The script was adapted from the 1915 novel The Golem by Gustav Meyrink."
Solving the puzzle of Henry VIII
"The precise number of miscarriages endured by Henry's reproductive partners is difficult to determine, especially when various mistresses are factored in, but the king's partners had a total of at least 11 and possibly 13 or more pregnancies. Only four of the eleven known pregnancies survived infancy. Whitley and Kramer call the high rate of spontaneous late-term abortion, stillbirth, or rapid neonatal death suffered by Henry's first two queens 'an atypical reproductive pattern' because, even in an age of high child mortality, most women carried their pregnancies to term, and their infants usually lived long enough to be christened.
"The authors explain that if a Kell positive father impregnates a Kell negative mother, each pregnancy has a 50-50 chance of being Kell positive. The first pregnancy typically carries to term and produces a healthy infant, even if the infant is Kell positive and the mother is Kell negative. But the mother's subsequent Kell positive pregnancies are at risk because the mother's antibodies will attack the Kell positive fetus as a foreign body."
May 26, 2014
TIFF - Andrea Martin Master Class
"Award-winning actress and comedy legend Andrea Martin discusses her expansive and diverse career: from the zaniness of SCTV's improv to her performances in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Breaking Upwards. This Higher Learning event was held on July 5, 2012 at TIFF Bell Lightbox."
News sense
"That’s what most American journalists care about — winning prizes that affirm just what noble tribunes of democracy they are. In Britain, we have less lofty ambitions. For us, it’s all about selling newspapers and — pathetic hacks that we are — producing stories that people actually want to read. Our Yankee counterparts preen about, congratulating themselves on upholding the highest ideals of the fourth estate, whereas we focus on the bottom line and pride ourselves on keeping our papers afloat."
Valerie June - Pushing Against A Stone
Full performance, Live on KEXP.
May 25, 2014
The Wizard of Mars (1965)
"In 1974, four astronauts, silver shoe-clad Dorothy, overweight Doc, goofy Charlie, and wooden Steve, crash land on Mars when taking readings, with only four days of supplies. They must try to survive on the surface, which is barren except for some canals with huge maggots with fins. After embarking through a golden igneous cavern, braving a storm and finding an unmanned Earth vessel, they discover a golden road which leads them to the unchanging ruins of what was once a beautiful Martian city. The Martians are modeled on the Flatheads of Oz, and their collective consciousness, the 'Wizard,' forbids them to leave until they perform a very small task..."
May 24, 2014
Felicia Day - Board Game Reccs!
"I thought about working out a LOT this week, which means next week I'll probably work my way up to wearing yoga pants everywhere, even to business meetings, and then, MAYBE the week after, I might drive to the gym. Or, you know, drive BY it on the way to getting a green tea matcha latte in the morning. Yes i'm the biggest pain in the ass at the coffee shop because I can't have coffee anymore, and my 4 dollar drink of choice is a "matcha green tea latte with almond milk, no sugar added, children's temp." I'm the worst citizen in the world, let's all agree on that. If you were behind me in line you'd roll your eyes, I get it. But I always tip a dollar, which is pretty much 25% tip, so there. I absolve myself. This weekend I'm planning on catching up with DLCs of a bunch of games i missed, Last of Us, Shadowrun, Bioshock, even ME3 Citadel which I hear was great but I dunno if the wound of Thane dying is too fresh to revisit, it has only been a year or so. Maybe 2015. Also Finished Transistor. I forget if I put that in the video. I have Alzheimer's probably. My grandma had it, and I forgot my keys twice last week, so basically I'll be in a home come Christmas. Hey, I'm super excited to clean my house this weekend! I even bought rubber gloves so I need to find something to do with THAT accessory. Maybe a musical theatre dance by myself. Woo I be crazy, yo. Word of the week is punt. Because it sounds like another word I wanna say a lot when I think of Alzheimer's and my super filled-out yoga pants, but it's not polite. Hehe. "I'll punt you in the punt." FELICIA GET CLASSIER SHEESH"
Kwan Tse - Time
"If you were to stand in one spot in downtown Toronto for the past one hundred years, what would you experience? Journey through the architectural history of Toronto. See familiar landmarks from the first days of photography transform to full-colour modern day. Some things change, some things stay the same.
"A simulated time-lapse created with elements from thousands of pictures, each scene starts with a historical photograph from the Toronto Archives."
May 23, 2014
Sophie Fiennes - The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (2013)
"The Pervert's Guide to Ideology is a 2012 British documentary film directed by Sophie Fiennes and written and presented by Slovene philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek. It is a sequel to Fiennes's 2006 documentary The Pervert's Guide to Cinema. Though the film follows the frameworks of its predecessor, this time the emphasis is more on ideology itself. Through psychoanalysis Žižek explores "the mechanisms that shape what we believe and how we behave". Among the films that are explored are Full Metal Jacket, Taxi Driver etc. The film was released in the United States by Zeitgeist Films in November 2013."
Integrated Information Theory
"So, I want to explain why I don’t think IIT solves even the problem that it 'plausibly could have' solved. But before I can do that, I need to do some philosophical ground-clearing. Broadly speaking, what is it that a 'mathematical theory of consciousness' is supposed to do? What questions should it answer, and how should we judge whether it’s succeeded?"
May 22, 2014
Hysterical Literature: Session Two: Alicia (Official)
"Alicia visits the studio and reads from 'Leaves of Grass' by Walt Whitman. Directed by Clayton Cubitt."
Method and device
Sam Lavigne's Patent Generator transforms literary and philosophical texts into patent applications.
Jennifer Lawrence & Jimmy Fallon - The J-Lo Incident
"Jimmy talks to Jennifer Lawrence about leaving the Oscar-winner hanging during a party prank on Jennifer Lopez."
May 21, 2014
Mattias Klum - Oasi Zegna, An Autumn Tale
"Oasi Zegna was founded in 1993 as a project to promote the work of Ermenegildo Zegna who since 1930 designed and financed a massive reforestation of the mountains near the Zegna Wool Mill in Trivero, a province of Biella.
"A passion for nature was always present in the territory and this was extended in many parts of the world through the creation and promotion of international projects of environmental protection and landscape.
"Mattias Klum, photographer of National Geographic, has captured the soul of Oasi Zegna through photos and short films: landscapes, photos of an unspoilt nature and spectaculars views."
Inoltre: Behind the scenes.
"Mattias Klum is one of the most important natural history photographers of our time and has been a filmmaker since 1994. His advocacy on behalf of biodiversity earned him a medal from the King of Sweden and designation as a 2008 Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. In 2010 he was named Senior Fellow of the Stockholm Resilience Centre and National Geographic Fellow, in which role he supports National Geographic Mission Programs efforts on critical biodiversity and conservation issues. He was appointed Goodwill Ambassador for IUCN in 2011. Beside being the testimonial of the Ermenegildo Zegna timepieces, he photographed and filmed Oasi Zegna to create A Spring Tale and An Autumn Tale.
"An Autumn Tale was filmed when Mattias Klum explored for the second time the vast area of Oasi Zegna (100sq km), protected since 1993 on the Italian Alps surrounding the Ermenegildo Zegna Wool Mill. The eye of Mattias well captures the passage of the seasons from the late autumn to the early winter and shows the diverse nature of Oasi Zegna that, developing along the Panoramica Zegna road, stands as a transition land between the inhabited plains and the wilderness of the mountains."
Hero-rhetoric & god-king protocol
Randall Collins: So, what made Alexander great?
May 20, 2014
Louis Vuitton Cruise 2015 Fashion Show
"'Once in a lifetime — it’s never to be repeated. You blink, you miss it.' So said Michael Burke, chief executive officer of Louis Vuitton, of the house’s cruise collection shown on Saturday night."
Aussi: Imran Amed with Louis Vuitton chief executive and artistic director Nicolas Ghesquière on the "push into ready-to-wear."
Gagosian Catskills
"In case you hadn’t heard, upstate New York is the art world’s latest hotspot. First it was the artists who, priced out of the city, decamped from Williamsburg and the East Village for the Hudson Valley’s low rents and Rockwellian charms. Now, the gallerists have followed."
May 19, 2014
The Abramovic Method practiced by Lady Gaga
"At a three-day retreat in upstate New York, Marina instructed Lady Gaga in the Abramovic Method--a series of exercises designed to heighten participants' awareness of their physical and mental experience in the present moment.
"Marina Abramovic Institute (MAI) will be the first space dedicated to practicing the Abramovic Method, which prepares participants to both perform and observe long durational work."
(nsfw: brief nudity, Gaga)
Jean Baudrillard - The Precession of Simulacra
Translated from English into American.
“The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth—it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true.”
Ecclesiastes
BOOM. Fucking truth bomb.
Vast Active Living Intelligence System
"Philip K. Dick’s mind was invaded in 1974."
May 18, 2014
I'm not rude, I'm just honest
"She stays in touch with many of her ex-students. 'Oh yes, I quite like seeing them. Not that they produce any handbags that I can have - I did think I should have had a garment made for me [by them] every season and then have a big sale on my deathbed. No, I like a lot of them: Jonathan [Saunders], Christopher [Kane], Louise [Gray]. I mean it is a privilege - I like more than those three by the way - it's a privilege to be around youth. It keeps you young in your thinking.'
"She shows me 10 or so place cards from a Topshop dinner where almost all the designers in attendance were her ex-students. Was she proud? 'No. Not proud. Greedy would be a word. Greedy. Show-offy I could sometimes be accused of.'"
Sadly>: Director of the Fashion MA, Central Saint Martins, Louise Wilson, RIP.
May 17, 2014
Christian Dior Cruise 2015
Inspiration: "America is a constant inspiration for me," says Raf Simons. "The pop culture, the energy, the fluidity… there is just something so alive here. What I always like in America is that there is such a melting pot of styles. But there is always a look – a strong look. Whether it is uptown or downtown, East or West coast, there is always a strength and reality to how women dress here."
May 16, 2014
The Real Blade Runner: A Conversation with Futurist Syd Mead
"He started out drawing cars and became a Hollywood sensation. Syd Mead, the inspiration behind the futurist world of the film 'Blade Runner' as well as many other hit films, makes a return visit to the Autoline studios to talk about everything from autonomy to 'the electronic herd.' Joining John McElroy on his panel are Jim Hall from 2953 Analytics and John Manoogian from the College for Creative Studies."
Gulf Futurism
"It’s not exactly surprising that cities throughout the Middle East look like they’ve been inspired by a less-dystopian version of the Blade Runner universe. In 2005, the film’s 'futurist designer' Syd Mead visited the region and met with Bahraini royal Sheik Abdullah Hamad Khalifa to discuss building projects."
Lófaszt! Nehogy már!
"Alcon Entertainment has an offer out to Harrison Ford to reprise his role as Rick Deckard in its sequel to 'Blade Runner,' to be directed by the original’s helmer, Ridley Scott."
Hat tip to Mr. Percifield.
May 15, 2014
Betteridge's law of headlines
"Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
May 14, 2014
H.R. Giger - Art in Motion (2010)
"It is the first time you will be able to see Giger's paintings processed digitally in high resolution quality, 3D animated and together with original film music and surround sound. Watch ten moving image collages, where we used over 200 diapositives which cover the most important periods of his work. Each of those collages will be presented in an abstract story, which will tell us more about Giger's life and artistic work."
New Master
"Dino Valls is a Spanish painter born in 1959 in Zaragoza. Since 1988, he has lived and worked in Madrid."
May 13, 2014
David Benioff on Writing: Game of Thrones, City of Thieves and Telling Lies for Grown Ups
"In this interview with Rich Fahle of Bibliostar.TV, writer, screenwriter, and Producer David Benioff explains how the Game of Thrones books helped him rediscover his fantasy roots, his love of the New York filmmakers of his 1970s youth, the story behind his own successful novels, and the challenges of adapting beloved stories for the big screen."
The Analytic Turn
Dungeons & Dragons & Philosophers II.
Related: Dungeons and Discourse.
May 12, 2014
Business of Fashion - Michael Kors in Conversation with Imran Amed
"Designer and CEO Michael Kors in conversation with Imran Amed, filmed in front of a live audience in Shanghai, on Thursday 8 May, 2014."
"Harriknidas dedicated (this) to the goddess white-armed Hera
Ring dedicated to Hera, Greek, ca. 575 B.C. Gilded silver. Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, 85.AM.264.
May 10, 2014
David Simon - The Audacity of Despair
"David Simon presented his lecture as part of the Townsend Center for the Humanities' Forum on the Humanities and the Public World. Simon is a Baltimore-based author, journalist and writer-producer of television, specializing in criminal justice and urban issues. He is the creator, executive producer and head writer of the critically acclaimed original HBO series The Wire."
On the run
"Alice Goffman is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison whose book, On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City
May 09, 2014
Usable wisdom
"Something unprecedented has occurred in the last couple of decades in the social sciences. Overlaid on the usual academic incentives of tenure, advancement, grants, and prizes are the glittering rewards of celebrity, best-selling books, magazine profiles, TED talks, and TV appearances."
May 08, 2014
The best things in life are free
"As Lily Allen claims pop stars don’t get paid enough, we examine the economics of today’s music industry."
Cover letter (template)
"In October 1958, a pre-fame Hunter S. Thompson applied for a job at the Vancouver Sun."
May 07, 2014
Ukraine Fashion Week - Revolution on the Runway
"Following the Euromaidan protests, Charlet heads to Kiev to see what Ukrainian Fashion Week has to offer. The capital is still reeling from months of revolutionary turmoil which has only started to die down days before the fashion week is scheduled to take place.
"Ukraine's fashion industry has grown rapidly in recent years. Despite the seriously unstable security situation which means many high profile attendees have cancelled their visit, fashion week organisers insist on going ahead with a unique, post-apocalyptic event which simultaneously confronts and buries the troubles."
Shades of the Atari 2600
"It’s not uncommon to find portable devices covered in wood veneer for protection and as a fashion accessory. But German tech accessorizer Balolo has ventured into an unusual category, warming up the latest video game consoles from Sony and Microsoft with a luxurious layer of genuine wood."
A deliberately difficult Turner Prize shortlist
"This is a more dour list than usual, with unfamiliar names and few concessions to visual pleasure."
See also: The comments at the first link. This is The Guardian too, mind.
This is what it sounds like when you put tree rings on a record player
"This is an excerpt from the record Years, created by Bartholomäus Traubeck, which features seven recordings from different Austrian trees including Oak, Maple, Walnut, and Beech. What you are hearing is an Ash tree’s year ring data. Every tree sounds vastly unique due to varying characteristics of the rings, such as strength, thickness and rate of growth."
May 06, 2014
Annalisa Hartlaub - Counter // Culture
"For my photography class I did series of self-portraits in which I attempted to portray culture and counterculture for the past 10 decades."
May 05, 2014
Capricornus
"Augustus' sun sign was Libra. We don't know why he selected the Capricorn as his emblem. Perhaps Capricorn was either his rising sign or his Moon sign. Popular astrology, of the newspaper kind, is sun sign astrology. The ancients tended to attach more importance to the Moon sign and rising sign. Perhaps Augustus selected the Capricorn because it is associated with stern moral authority."
Exempli gratia: Gemma Augustea.
Capricorn rising
From David Wray's, "Astrology in Ancient Rome: Poetry, Prophecy and Power."
May 03, 2014
Sincerely, F. Scott Fitzgerald (2013)
"Novelist Jay McInerney explores the life and writing of F Scott Fitzgerald, whose masterwork The Great Gatsby has just been filmed for the fifth time. Fitzgerald captured the reckless spirit of New York life in the roaring twenties - the flappers, the parties, the bootleg liquor, the inevitable reckoning, and the hangover to come. In Gatsby, he created a character who reinvented himself for love - just as Fitzgerald would, not once, but twice. Fitzgerald never wrote an autobiography. He left us something better - letters. Romantic, arrogant, humble letters; letters to editors, publishers, lovers, or friends. These letters reveal the inner thoughts of a man whose real life was never far from the fiction he wrote."
F. Scott Fitzgerald, uncensored
"A new edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s fourth collection of short stories, Taps at Reveille, will present the tales as Fitzgerald intended them to be read, instead of how the editors of The Saturday Evening Post thought their audience wanted them to be."