November 30, 2021
November 28, 2021
Philip Hensher - The importance of Freddie Mercury
"I think most gay men of my generation remember where they were when they heard that Freddie Mercury had died. It was 30 years ago today and I had been Out, as we used to say, since 1980, more or less (I was 15: I told a girl who I knew could be relied on to tell everyone, saving me some legwork). It was a peculiar period of retreat in my life. I was working as a Clerk in the House of Commons, and for that moment was no longer Out. For some reason, I was sharing a flat in the only conspicuously non-gay bit of London I’ve ever lived in, Parson’s Green. A long-term relationship was not working out. I was not having the best time; and then I caught flu."
November 27, 2021
Coalcracker Bushcraft - Learn the Trick this Survivalist uses to stay warm!
November 25, 2021
Arthur Koestler - The Nightmare that is Reality (January 9, 1944)
"For, after all, you are the crowd who walk past laughing on the road; and there are a few of us, escaped victims or eyewitnesses of the things which happen in the thicket and who, haunted by our memories, go on screaming on the wireless, yelling at you in newspapers and in public meetings, theatres and cinemas. Now and then we succeed in reaching your ear for a minute. I know it each time it happens by a certain dumb wonder on your faces, a faint glassy stare entering your eye; and I tell myself: Now you have got them, now hold them, bold them, so that they will remain awake; but it only lasts a minute. You shake yourself like puppies who have got their fur wet; then the transparent screen descends again and you walk on, protected by the dream-barrier which stifles all sound."
November 24, 2021
Giger's Necronomicon (1976)
"Another artist documentary only this time the artist concerned is a full participant and co-creator. Giger’s Necronomicon was filmed from 1972 to 1976 and functions as a taster for the first book collection of the artist’s work, also called Giger’s Necronomicon, which was published a year later."
November 23, 2021
November 21, 2021
November 20, 2021
Jodorowsky & Lynch comment on Denis Villeneuve's Dune (2021)
Posting for the direct quotes rather than the analysis, completely ignorant of Jodorowsky's work beyond the Netflix documentary.
November 19, 2021
Anna Khachiyan - Art in the Cloud (October 26, 2018)
"Anna Khachiyan presents a talk which functions as a companion piece to her essay Art Won’t Save Us (Open Space, 2018), in which she critiqued the self-congratulatory and ineffectual attempts at 'resistance' coming out of the art world and argued that we have more to fear from the uncontested cultural and economic hegemony of tech firms than from any sort of political administration, however unpopular and reactionary it may be. Khachiyan will pick up where she left off, examining the stakes of art’s infatuation with digital platforms and information technologies and asking what part, if any, does art have in posing a political challenge to platform capitalism?"
November 18, 2021
Center for Health Security - Dark Winter (2001)
"The Dark Winter exercise portrayed a fictional scenario depicting a covert smallpox attack on U.S. citizens. The scenario is set in 3 successive National Security Council (NSC) meetings which take place over 2 weeks. Former senior government officials played the roles of NSC members; media representatives were among the observers and played journalists during the mock press conferences. The exercise was held at Andrews Air Force Base, Washington, DC"
November 16, 2021
November 14, 2021
SovietWave, Doomer, Post-Soviet Synthpop, Russian Post Punk
"A new mixtape including the best Post Punk and Synthpop bands from Russia and Post-Soviet states. A doomer soundtrack about nihilistic philosophy and disillusioned life to explore post-Soviet aesthetic and abandoned panel buildings in Eastern European industrial spaces."
Track list at the link.
November 11, 2021
Marc Scott Zicree - This Is What Many Artists Don't Realize Until They Are Older
November 08, 2021
The Limits of Legalism
"Years ago, a friend asked me to read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s 1978 Harvard commencement address, a task I only recently got around to completing. Like Orwell’s 1984, Solzhenitsyn’s message is bound to resonate no matter the historical circumstance of one’s reading, but perhaps now more than ever."
November 07, 2021
November 05, 2021
November 03, 2021
November 02, 2021
Erik Kaare Andersen - Navy Oaks and Agile Planning
"I enjoy biking in the forests of North Zeeland, especially in the areas with Navy Oaks. This is their history:"
...
In the wake of the overwhelming defeat, the Danish King decided to rebuild the fleet and ordered the planting of 90.000 oak trees - the Navy Oaks. 200 years later, the forester called the Minister of Defense: "Honorable Minister of War, your trees are ready."
Uffe Nisbeth has an interesting counter-point in the comments.