June 30, 2014
Deadlier Than the Male (1967)
It's the pity the aspect ratio is off; this may be the greatest unsung film of the 1960s.
"Richard Johnson (director Terence Young's original preference to play James Bond) stars as Bulldog Drummond, updated to a suave Korean War veteran, now an insurance investigator, trailing a pair of sexy assassins (Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina) who kill for sport and profit. Drummond's American nephew, Robert Drummond (Steve Carlson, then a Universal Pictures contract star), becomes involved in the intrigue when he comes to visit."
Unselfconscious camaraderie
"In My Buddy: World War II Laid Bare, a fascinating new book available from Taschen next month, editor Dian Hanson assembles images of Allied soldiers and sailors at their most unguarded."
Hat tip to Ms. Ricci.
June 28, 2014
Trevor Undi for V Magazine
"Here's a little horror-inspired fashion viewing for your Monday morning! Directed by Trevor Undi and styled by Takafumi Kawasaki, the film follows model Jun (Image Tokyo) as she haunts her own doppelgänger through the streets, cemeteries and undergrounds of Tokyo Metro wearing bold looks by Lanvin and Tom Ford."
Serf's up!
Tyler Cowen "sees the rise of a new servile class of motivators and coaches to motivate the one percent to 'achieve' even more, along with educational tutors, personal chefs, personal trainers, event planners, and other assorted toadies to the new aristocracy as a major job growth field for the new underclass - just like Downton Abbey, except you live alone and have to pay for everything yourself."
June 27, 2014
Restoration
"Among the works featured in the Carnegie Museum's exhibit Faked, Forgotten, Found is a portrait of Isabella de'Medici, the spirited favorite daughter of Cosimo de'Medici, the first Grand Duke of Florence, whose face hadn't seen the light of day in almost 200 years."
June 26, 2014
Sam Scoggins - The Unlimited Dream Company (1983)
“The British science fiction writer J.G. Ballard talks about his life and work. Meanwhile a crashed pilot stalks the landscapes of his dreams. The film is concerned with what constitutes an adequate picture of a person, the role of the imagination in transforming the world.”
Playing a girl
"Soon after starting a website called The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft, Angela Washko began her performance piece 'Playing A Girl,' in which she travels the highly-successful fantasy landscape, asking players what they think feminism is. She doesn’t lead discussions, she only starts them or seeks to maintain them. Nothing makes her feel the piece is going better than when orcs, trolls, blood elves and kung-fu pandas get into a group conversation about patriarchy."
June 25, 2014
Montaigne par Dali
"In 1946, more than twenty years before his little-known and lovely illustrations for Alice in Wonderland, iconic surrealist artist Salvador Dalí was commissioned by the creatively ambitious Doubleday publishing house (who also released a number of books with stunning cover art by Edward Gorey and enlisted young Andy Warhol as a freelance artist) to illustrate The Essays of Michel De Montaigne in a special limited edition of 1,000 copies."
Becoming Freud
"One of the first casualties of psychoanalysis, once the facts of our lives are seen as complicated in the Freudian way, is the traditional biography."
June 24, 2014
Message in a bottle
Luca Turin reveiws Guerlain's La Petite Robe Noire Couture and Karl Lagerfeld's Karl Lagerfeld.
June 23, 2014
June 21, 2014
It is probably just as well I am not in charge
If I were, Jack Cottle would have a knighthood. If he'd won, I'd have made him a life peer.
June 20, 2014
The Botany of Desire (2009)
"Featuring Michael Pollan and based on his best-selling book, this special takes viewers on an eye-opening exploration of the human relationship with the plant world, seen from the plants' point of view. The program shows how four familiar species -- the apple, the tulip, cannabis and the potato -- evolved to satisfy our yearnings for sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control."
Gasoline and flatulence
"NASA scientists have recreated interplanetary smells right here on Earth, starting with Saturn’s moon Titan. Using spectrometry data collected from the Cassini spacecraft, scientists mixed and matched various gases and hydrocarbons in the lab until they found a recipe that matched the unique spectral signature of Titan’s smoggy atmosphere."
June 19, 2014
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from science
"It's no secret that a whole lot of money and effort goes into visual effects these days, with film studios constantly pushing the limits of what's possible and how realistic CGI can look."
Hat tip to Mr. Percifield.
June 18, 2014
Arthur Brooks - The secret to happiness
"How much control do you really have over your happiness, and how effectively are you pursuing it? American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks distills 40 years of social science research into a surprising set of answers."
June 17, 2014
Dark Dungeons Teaser Trailer
Dark Dungeons brings Jack Chick's 1984 masterpiece to the silver screen.
Gucci Oud
"Take a voyage of discovery into the unknown with Gucci Oud, a new unisex fragrance that is glamorous, opulent and mysterious."
Miley Cyrus - Look what they've done to my song (The Backyard Sessions)
June 16, 2014
Sally Wolff - William Faulkner & the Ledgers of History (August 9, 2011)
"Two years ago, an important literary discovery was revealed -- the existence of a wealthy plantation owner's mid-1800s diary that had been read by William Faulkner and served as the great author's source for names, incidents and details in his prize-winning novels. Sally Wolff uncovered the connection between the diary and Faulkner when she was working on a book about the people who knew Faulkner.
"Sally Wolff is a Southern literature professor at Emory University and author of the book Ledgers of History: William Faulkner, an Almost Forgotten Friendship, and an Antebellum Plantation Diary
Fragrance industrical complex
"No matter what the label on the perfume bottle might lead you to believe, many times a perfume – whether mainstream, prestige or niche – originates with one of these companies. We perfumistas often kid ourselves that perfumes are discontinued due to IFRA regulations, but it is just as often due not to restrictions or the cost-effectiveness of materials, but to expiring patents of perfume formulae..."
Petition: "We, the undersigned consumers, hereby voice our objection to the amendment currently proposed, which would render colourless the range of European perfumery."
The Sea, please
"Imagine if you lived at the beach all year long or could escape there anytime you wanted in one of these 12 swoon-worthy beach houses?"
To elaborate: The Sea.
June 15, 2014
Rik Mayall's Noble England
Hat tip to Mr. Percifield. And, the lyrics:
Come on you Eng-er-land, you noble Englishmen
Once more onto the pitch dear friends once more
to raise up these walls with our English cheer.
When the whistle blast blows in our ears
then imitate the ashen of the tiger
stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood
disguise fair nature with hard favoured force
Then lend the eye a skillful aspect
Set the teeth, oh gentle men in England
bend up every spirit to its full height
On, on you noble English
Those men of grosser blood, teach them how to play
you good players whose limbs were made in England
Show us here the mettle of your footwork
Let us swear that you are worth your breeding
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips
Straining upon the start, the game's afoot
Follow your spirit upon this charge
Cry God and win for England and St George
June 14, 2014
BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Aristotle's Poetics
“Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Aristotle’s Poetics.
“The Poetics is, as far as we know, the first ever work of literary theory. Written in the 4th century BC, it is the work of a scholar who was also a biologist, and treats literary works with the detached analytical eye of a scientist. Aristotle examines drama and epic poetry, and how they achieve their effects; he analyses tragedy and the ways in which it plays on our emotions. Many of the ideas he articulates, such as catharsis, have remained in our critical vocabulary ever since. The book also contains an impassioned defence of poetry, which had been attacked by other thinkers, including Aristotle’s own teacher Plato.
“Translated by medieval Arab scholars, the Poetics was rediscovered in Europe during the Renaissance and became a playwriting manual for many dramatists of the era. Today it remains a standard text for would-be Hollywood screenwriters.”
Æthelberht II of East Anglia
"A rare silver coin has fetched £78,000 at auction – because it could be a clue to a 1,200-year-old murder. It was struck in the reign of East Anglian ruler Aethelberht II and describes him as king – the only time this title has been found on a coin of his. His ambition may explain his beheading in 794 on the orders of Offa, the more powerful king of Mercia."
This is how my neighborhood sounds
"When Brazil scores in the World Cup."
June 13, 2014
Ghost bikes
"Many of the cycling activists who installed a ghost bike memorial at Spadina south of Dundas last fall didn’t know Carla Warrilow. She was struck and dragged under a truck while cycling on October 16, 2013. It took firefighters 15 minutes to free her, and she died a week later from her injuries.
"Ghost bikes are seen by family members as sad tributes to lost loved ones, and by cycling advocates as reminders to bike safe. The fate of the bikes has become an issue for the Public Works Committee since City Hall started receiving inquiries from cyclists and families opposed to their removal last year."
June 12, 2014
Dior Addict Fragrance - The film
"Discover the new Dior Addict fragrance film, an invitation on a sensorial journey at wonDiorland."
Dedicated followers
"There’s nothing uniform about British fashion schools, as evidenced by the talent on show at Graduate Fashion Week 2014. Alexander Fury salutes the best – but wonders if student debt is already stunting the industry’s future."
While hyperbole is one of my favourite words
I would not describe these bookstores as literally life changing. Some do appear attractive and interesting nonetheless.
June 11, 2014
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End Trailer E3 2014
PlayStation.Blog interviews Naughty Dog's Bruce Straley and Neil Druckmann about Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and The Last of Us Remastered at PlayStation's E3 2014 Live Coverage show.
La bande-dessinée, est-ce un genre littéraire?
La question présuppose une connotation négative. Mais vraiment, ce n'est pas un genre, mais un milieu littéraire.
June 10, 2014
Learn Russian with Nastya Sten
"Good morning class, please turn to chapters 3 & 4: An Introduction to Russian. For our latest episode of Model Mother Tongue, elfin beauty and self-confessed bookworm Nastya Sten gives us a lesson in Russian elocution, directed by Daniel Brereton and styled by Stella Greenspan."
Lost highway
Archaeologists have discovered a new section of Inca Road leading to Machu Picchu.
June 09, 2014
The New Sound of Music (1979)
"The New Sound of Music is a fascinating BBC historical documentary from the year 1979. It charts the development of recorded music from the first barrel organs, pianolas, the phonograph, the magnetic tape recorder and onto the concepts of musique concrete and electronic music development with voltage-controlled oscillators making up the analogue synthesizers of the day."
Whitewashing Godzilla
"Now that Hollywood has, for the second time, spent hundreds of millions of dollars to refashion Japan’s celebrated low-tech monster in its own image (an ironic proposition to begin with), it’s clear that America is incapable of making an honest Godzilla."
Hat tip to Mr. Rushdy.
June 07, 2014
The Dior Gardens - Rose de Granville
"A pioneer in ethnobotany for over 20 years, Dior identifies in nature the rarest and most powerful flowers and cultivates them in soils most favorable to their growth. This has resulted in dedicated Gardens around the world. The Loire Valley Garden in France is dedicated to Rose de Granville, the prodigious flower of Dior Prestige range. This garden perfectly embodies the Dior Gardens' philosophy: ultimate performance, complete traceability and absolute respect."
June 06, 2014
Behind The Scenes of Palo Alto: A film by Jacqui Getty
"Jacqui Getty's behind-the-scenes look at Gia Coppola's directorial debut 'Palo Alto', starring Emma Roberts, James Franco, Jack Kilmer, Nat Wolff, and Val Kilmer. The film is based on James Franco's novel 'Palo Alto Stories'."
Christopher Smith - Gang of Pricks
Now is the time at the Flea when we dance.
June 04, 2014
Chvrches - Recover/Gun/The Mother We Share (NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert)
June 03, 2014
Chris Harris On Cars - First Drive: BMW i8
"Chris Harris takes a 24 hour trip to Los Angeles to drive the new BMW i8. He hated the flight, but the i8 left a positive impression on the team. Capable of 23 miles all electric before the 3-cylinder turbocharged motor kicks in to recharge the batteries. This is one of the closest production cars we've ever seen that looks almost identical to the concept car it's based on."
Trade secrets
"The United States emerged as the world’s industrial leader by illicitly appropriating mechanical and scientific innovations from Europe."
In Spain, punctuality messes up schedules
"Spaniards, Italians and Arabs will ignore the passing of time if it means that conversations will be left unfinished. For them, completing a human transaction is the best way they can invest their time. For an Italian, time considerations will usually be subjected to human feelings. 'Why are you so angry because I came at 9:30?' he asks his German colleague. 'Because it says 9:00 in my diary,' says the German. 'Then why don’t you write 9:30 and then we’ll both be happy?' is a logical Italian response."
Grace Jones - Warm Leatherette / Walking in the Rain (Live)
"A One Man Show is a long-form music video collection featuring American singer Grace Jones, released in 1982."
June 02, 2014
Tom Ford's Project Upgrade: Suave Grooming
"The world's best-dressed man takes his sartorial eye to manager David Voyle, showing the transformative power of a well-groomed brow."
Featuring: Facial Architecture!
Binary opposition
"In Bill Cunningham's latest video, women adapt the biker jacket for evening wear."
Anna Calvi & David Byrne - Strange Weather
Hat tip to Mr. :Percifield.