Cultrface – a blog dedicated to culture and how it enriches our lives.

When life doesn't give your garden water, try xeriscaping

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Something I found out about recently: xeriscaping is a form of gardening that doesn’t use irrigation, usually in places where fresh water isn’t available. It’s also good if you want some low-maintenance greenery. But there can be drawbacks:

A recent study by a pair of Arizona State University researchers, however, revealed that xeriscaped yards contain higher levels of nitrate than turf yards. Downstream, as irrigation transports nitrate into the soil, those levels could affect water quality, leading to algal blooms and wreaking havoc with aquatic ecosystems.

When a homeowner decides to xeriscape and rips out the lawn, either the turf is killed and removed or killed and tilled into the soil. If it’s tilled into the soil, organic material left behind decomposes and nitrates build up.

via ASU

And if you’re thinking all xeriscaping means no water, think again:

While some xeriscapes may require no added water, some may use more. “It’s about getting water to plants when they actually need it,” Bone says, “not because there’s a clock or timer that says they need it.”

Further reading

Luke O’Sullivan on Centre Point, London's empty Brutalist skycraper

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Why London’s ‘ghost skyscraper’ is still empty

Luke O’Sullivan made a concise video on Centre Point, a Brutalist skyscraper in Central London. Completed in 1966, it has a pretty chequered past and its present and future look all centre (lol) on one thing: emptiness. This is my favourite Brutalist building but I had no idea of its history so this was an interesting watch.

Perhaps the only good thing to come out of it—although the inspiration could have been avoided—is a homeless charity called Centrepoint, ironically named after the building in response to it being empty while people lived on the street.

Nöl Collective is a Palestinian women’s fashion collective centred on cooperatives, family-run sewing workshops, weavers, and embroiders who come together in the name of garments and fashion. Our garments are dedicated to illuminating the extremely human nature of fashion. We hope that through our garments you can see a story of craft, tradition, community, and land in Palestine, picturing the hands which made them.

This Cool Link was published 3 days ago. (#)

Mashed on Salt Bae's rise, apparent fall but actually a shift of power to other places

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For Mashed, Charlotte Pointing chronicled Salt Bae’s weird and wonderful career journey to butcher’s apprentice to egotistical restauranteur (to put it very mildly):

Nusret Gökçe has a phenomenal social media presence. If you take a look at his Instagram account, for example, he boasts around 53 million followers. If you simply search for his nickname “Salt Bae” on TikTok, you’ll come across more than 147,000 posts of the steakhouse chef and restaurateur. In most of them, he is wearing sunglasses, sporting his signature ponytail, and performing his signature salt sprinkle (more on that later).

But while Gökçe’s social media presence tends to be fun and entertaining, the reality for his employees seems to be far from it. The businessman has been the subject of multiple allegations and lawsuits, and former workers have accused him of everything from racial discrimination to tip misuse.

His restaurants are notably bad for many reasons, including the fundamental ones (expensive and mediocre food, bad service, and inhumane treatment of staff). And yet he got propped up by celebrities and social media and despite all of these criticisms and downturns, he’s looking to keep it going in Central and South America. Given those regions’ historical association with corruption by the rich and famous at the literal expense of the people, I’m not surprised.

The Kuleshov effect

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Kuleshov Effect / Effetto Kuleshov

The Kuleshov effect is a phenomenon where viewers interpret two sequential shots differently compared to a single one. It was named after Russian filmmaker and theorist Lev Kuleshov who conducted an experiment by editing a short film showing the expressionless face of actor Ivan Mosjoukine between shots of a bowl of soup, a girl in a coffin, and a woman laying on a divan. While his reaction was always the same, the idea was to suggest that he was hungry after the soup, sad after the girl in the coffin, and perhaps lustful after the woman on the divan.

The experiment tried to demonstrate the power of editing on a viewer’s reactions and emotional responses to scenes.

It’s a concept that stuck with me since I was introduced to it at university and I always forget its name so I wrote it down here. So next time you and someone else watch a movie scene or even read a body of text and you both get two different reactions, think of the Kuleshov effect.

Today is Nakba Day

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Today is Nakba Day (ذكرى النكبة, in Arabic), a day to commemorate Palestinian displacement before and after the State of Israel declared its independence (on 14th May 1948) and began claiming Palestinian land for itself.

The day often involves protests and marches and now more than ever we must support the plight of the Palestinian people as they continue to become displaced via an ongoing genocide. If any of that bothers you, close your tab.

Links about Nakba Day

The Lagos Studio Archives is an artist-run project by Karl Ohiri & Riikka Kassinen that resurrects studio archives documenting life in Lagos from the 1970s to post millennium. This looks so cool! (via Colossal)

This Cool Link was published 6 days ago. (#)

Nob Ogasawara on animal-themed idioms in Japanese

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You may not know Nob Ogasawara by name (unless you’re into Pokémon) but if you ever played the early games, you’ll know his work as he translated the text of every game in the core series up until Pokémon Platinum1.

On Bluesky, he wrote about some cool animal-themed idioms in Japanese, similar to ones found in English (e.g. crocodile tears, dog-eared, hen-pecked). Here’s the opening post from his thread:

There are words with animal names in ENG: Dog-tired, crocodile tears, scaredy cat, etc., right?
They also exist in JP.
Like:
狼狽 ろうばい　rou-bai (wolf + mythical wolf) = panic
猫舌 ねこじた　neko-jita (cat + tongue) = Tongue sensitive to heat (temp)
犬死 いぬじに　inu-jini (dog + death) = Meaningless death in war

  1. via https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Nob_Ogasawara ↩︎

The Kennedy family and its historical link to magic and the occult

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For JSTOR Daily, Livia Gershon examined the unusual history of the Kennedys and the occult:

[Ellie] Crookes writes that Kennedy’s presidency came at a time when a fascination with the occult, the medieval period, and, specifically, the legends of King Arthur’s court was well-established in the American psyche. In 1960, the year he was elected, Camelot debuted on Broadway and became a favorite of the president.

In an interview shortly after JFK’s assassination in 1963, his widow, Jacqueline Kennedy, cited a line from the musical: “Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.” The comparison of the Kennedy administration to King Arthur’s reign resonated with many Americans.

Erm, okay? If there’s one thing Americans are gonna do, it’s align themselves with wild conspiracy theories and the occult (“grand wizards” anyone?) Sadly, a member of the family is now an important member of the current administration and he’s all about mis/disinformation.

See also: the Kennedy curse, JFK assassination theories, and the satanic-influenced plot to kill Ted Kennedy