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

Blue rinse

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As people get old, their hair starts to go grey but there’s also a yellowing.

That’s because with pigments in hair follicles dying with old age, the melanin levels decrease and they become transparent, giving a silvery-grey colour. But then water containing minerals like calcium and magnesium (what you may call tap water in the UK) turns it yellow. So how can this be combatted? A blue rinse.

A blue rinse involves washing the yellow-grey hair with blue shampoo which replaces the yellow (fortunately not making green if you remember your colour wheel). The trend of blue rinse grew in the 30s thanks to the movie, Hell’s Angels, staring Jean Harlow who used it.

“Some women, having observed the lavender effect and decided that it heightens rather than lowers their standing in the beauty scale, go in for it deliberately,” a columnist wrote in The Baltimore Sun in 1939. “At this particular moment, it appears, the ladies are on the verge of forgetting the original intention of the blue rinse and are using it for its own sake.”

via Mental Floss

Some of the most famous people to give their locks a blue rinse include The Queen Mother and allegedly Benjamin Netanyahu, according to some Israeli hairdressers. Nowadays, blue rinses are more colloquially associated with old Conservatives, perhaps due to the colour (the Conservative Party in the UK uses blue as its primary colour) and the notion of vanity and looking more respectable.

More on blue rinse

Blue related: the blue cows of Latvia, the Ancient Greeks and their relationship with the colour blue, and Easy Klein: an ‘Incredibly Kleinish Blue’ paint for everyone to use

Toy Galaxy on the history of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM)

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That Time In The 90's When There Were 2 Sonic Cartoons On At The Same Time

In 1993, there were not one but two Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons on air with awkwardly similar titles. Sonic the Hedgehog (known by fans as “SatAM” to differentiate itself from the other series and referencing the Saturday morning slot it found a home in) featured Sonic alongside the likes of Princess Sally, Bunnie Rabbot, and Antoine Depardieu as freedom fighters against Robotnik and his tyrannous rule of Mobius. In Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic is partnered with Tails like the original games and the tone is much more light-hearted.

Toy Galaxy chronicled the rise and fall of both cartoons and how SEGA eventually fell apart after their peak during this era.

'Dunkaccino?' 'Don't mind if I do!'

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Singing and Dancing AL PACINO in DUNKACCINO Commercial in Jack and Jill (2011)

This pops into my head every so often. For context, Al Pacino starred in 2011 comedy film Jack and Jill as himself and appeared in an in-film Dunkin’ Donuts commercial, promoting a new coffee called the “Dunkaccino.” If that sounds weird, just watch the commercial and how the wildness continues.

What this commercial also does is make me want coffee and donuts.

A documentary on Sammy Stephens, the Flea Market Montgomery meme guy

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The Flea Market Montgomery Story (Sammy Stephens Documentary)

I loved the Flea Market Montgomery meme back in the day, and still revisit it when I need a laugh. But I knew very little about the man behind it. Well, the above documentary is all about him and his name is Sammy Stephens. He started his career as a radio DJ before working at Flea Market Montgomery. One day, he was asked to sing in a commercial for the store. However, he wasn’t keen on the stylistic direction and switched it up into a rap… and the rest is Internet history.

Jim and his handcrafted US Burgers

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Secrets of Japan's TOP Hamburger Joint: American Handcrafted Burgers

Jim is the owner of US Burger, an American hamburger restaurant in Fukuoka, Japan. The video above shows how he makes those burgers, build the authentic ambience, and why he chooses not to deliver. It’s all about the freshness and experience and seeing how he does things, I think that’s a great idea. Everything is made from scratch and despite the fear of seeming gimmicky, it never comes across that way in the video.

According to Reddit, he also makes Thanksgiving turkey and breakfast burritos. Arigato, Jim-san!

Follow him on Instagram and check out his reviews on Tripadvisor.

What are you looking at, Jack?

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Overlooked! A detail in The Shining that you’ve never seen

Jason Kottke blogged about a Twitter thread examining a weird quirk in The Shining: Jack Nicholson constantly breaking the fourth wall for brief moments. Then he posted a video essay (above) by the thread’s author, Stanley Kubrick expert Filippo Ulivieri, which looks at this in more detail.

There’s something odd happening in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, a detail you probably didn’t notice. But it’s there, and it’s puzzling, and most of all creepy. What does it mean?

I’ve only seen the film once so I, too, overlooked this recurring detail. It definitely adds to the fear and suspense when you clock it.

The Shining related: What if Jim Carrey was in The Shining?

(via Kottke.org)

Some thoughts and links on Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse

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So I went to see Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse on Sunday and it was DOPE, and also Black AF (I wanted to emphasise that because it meant a lot to me). It was easily the best looking animated movie I’ve ever seen and therefore the best. Apparently, it took 4 years to make one of the chase scenes and I’m not surprised. I enjoyed the story and how things were twisted and augmented across the Spider-Verse (as to be expected) and all the voice actors were stellar, including Daniel Kaluuya as Spider-Punk (how is he that effortlessly good?) I need to screenshot like every second of that movie for desktop backgrounds when I get a copy. The only let down was how the film ended on a cliffhanger, without enough of a build-up for it not to disappoint me. But I can wait—not like I have a choice—and I can revisit Across The Spider-Verse and take in the visual majesty of it all.

In terms of other people’s links, Dom Griffin made a video review of the film which is worth your time (as always) and here’s the Chinese poster for the movie, which is stunning.

Spider-Man related: a trailer for ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ and why Spider-Man is one of my favourite superheroes.

Hiking and climbing mountains in Slovakia

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A friend of mine works for Much Better Adventures and recently went on a trip to Slovakia to climb mountains, ladders, and gorges. Her colleague Dani Redd chronicled the journey:

The first ladder we encountered was a horizontal one, spanning the river that ran through the gorge. My head swam slightly as I looked down at the water flowing underneath me.

“Don’t look down – just look at the next rung. Always look at the next rung,” our guide Patrik advised from behind me.

I did what he advised, concentrating on where I needed to place my feet. But even so, I felt slightly dizzy when I stepped back onto the path. A body is at its most vulnerable when there’s nothing to hold onto.

We were in Slovakia, traversing Suchá Belá Gorge in Slovak Paradise National Park – a landscape which was, so far, living up to its name. Trees bedecked with the tender leaves of spring rustled gently on either side of the path. The river running alongside the path was crystal clear, gleaming gently in the dappled light. Sometimes the path even crossed the river, meaning we had to hop from one boulder or fallen log to another. Let’s just say it’s a good thing my hiking boots were waterproof.

(This wasn’t sponsored btw!)

Hiking related: Liam Brown hiking 156 miles in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland and backpacking through Britain, from John O’Groats to Land’s End

The B1M on the Flatiron Building's chequered past—and present

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The Shocking Story of New York’s Strangest Tower

The Flatiron Building is a 22-story building in the Flatiron District of Manhattan, New York. It is best known for its triangular shape, which is where its name came from, and was designed by Daniel Burnham and Frederick P. Dinkelberg. The building was completed in 1902 but has had a difficult history in terms of ownership and periods where it has remained empty.

The B1M chronicled its past and its uncertain future, involving a very controversial auction. You’ll have to watch to find out what happened and what could happen with the “winning” bid.

“In 1990, a Canadian man named Peter Lalonde released a VHS tape about the dangers of sorcery in fiction. It was embarrassing. Not in hindsight, but very much at the time […] Peter was only 29 when he filmed this, but he had the media literacy and misplaced resentment of a man four times his age.”

This Cool Link was published 11 months ago. (#)

JSTOR Daily on 'segregation by eminent domain'

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I’m not up on my US constitution so I had no idea about the Takings Clause in the Fifth Amendment, which “allows the federal government to take private property for public use if the government provides ‘just compensation'”. That sounds nice in theory but the reality is much darker (pun intended?):

Residential segregation isn’t just the work of homeowners, real estate agents, and bankers. Local, state, and federal government governments have also played a major roles in enforcing segregated housing. This history was documented on an intimate scale by scholar Mara Cherkasky and family descendant Athena V. Scott, who detail how the Scotts of Washington, DC, lost five homes to eminent domain between 1912 and 1948 while the government enabled white gentrification and maintained segregated schools in the nation’s capital.

The ending of the article is saddening but not surprising and definitely not a rarity. I implore you to read the full JSTOR Daily article and then read “They Want Us Out of This Place”: How One DC Family Lost Five Homes to Eminent Domain, the journal article that spawned it.

Related: JSTOR’s Black History Month article picks and the gentrification of Black Lives Matter