Prince in autumn
That’s it—that’s the post.
Cultrface – a blog dedicated to culture and how it enriches our lives.
The Amish Funeral Pie
For Atlas Obscura, Sam O’Brien examined the history of Pennsylvania’s forgotten baked good, the Amish funeral pie:
Of all the parties to crash, a funeral in the traditionally parsimonious Mennonite community doesn’t seem like an obvious choice. But the funerary feast was a rare opportunity for extravagance among Pennsylvania Germans. Instead of the usual cabbage and dumplings, there was beef, ham, or chicken. Instead of the usual coarse rye bread, there was white or wheat. The fixation on funeral food even made its way into slang: In 1907, a grandmother recounted how “thoughtless youngsters” called funerals weissbrot-frolics, or “white bread frolics.”
But the sweet star of the funeral banquet was raisin pie, a dish so tied to the event that it became a euphemism for death itself. When an ailing member of the community took a turn for the worse, it was not uncommon to hear someone solemnly declare, “There will be raisin pie soon.”
Raisin pie itself isn’t particularly foreboding. But in 19th-century Pennsylvania German homes, it meant one thing: Death was near. Once it arrived, so too would friends and neighbors, coming to “redd up” the bereaved family’s home for the funeral. This meant cooking, cleaning, and baking raisin pie. The treat was such a common sight at post-memorial meals, it also became known as funeral pie (or, in Pennsylvania German, leicht-boi).
There a plenty of recipes out there such as this one from Amish 365. I could go for some raisin pie right now. You know, to honour the Que— kidding.
Pastry related: a split decision pie pan, an emerald marine chocolate mint tart, and have you tried the water pie?
The oral history of Face/Off
Inverse took a deep dive into the surreal history of Face/Off, speaking to various cast and crew (but notably not John Woo, Nicolas Cage, or John Travolta) about their experiences of the 1997 blockbuster:
MICHAEL COLLEARY, SCREENWRITER: Face/Off was always a pleasure.
MIKE WERB, SCREENWRITER: We were aiming to pay off our student loans. It was the decade of the big spec sales. We initially set out to write a piece set in prison. We were very influenced by James Cagney’s last great gangster movie, White Heat, and the sequence that takes place in prison.
MICHAEL COLLEARY: I did a little research in the library, back in those pre-historic days, about the Attica Riot. What if a guy goes undercover into a prison and there’s this huge riot? He’s a law enforcement officer and he’s stuck in there under a fake identity. How about a prison in the future?
MIKE WERB: Once we said, Why can’t the good guy be the bad guy and why can’t the bad guy be the good guy?, then we were trying to figure out how to make that work without doing things that had been done before: good and evil identical twins, some sort of voodoo, personality swap. Melding that with the futuristic prison, we thought, Well, facial surgery. I had been frightened as a child when my aunt Sunny used to announce that she had to go “take her face off.” To a 7-year-old, it was terrifying.
I love Face/Off because it’s buckwild, full of nonsensical action, and I loved seeing John Travolta do a Nicolas Cage impression for most of the film. It’s so 90’s it hurts and all for the better. I also love that it’s part of the Disney conglomerate universe; it’s one of the least “Disney” movie you can think of.
Similar world flags
John D. Cook used Mathematica’s CountryData database to find similar world flag designs and I’m shocked at how many are practically identical bar slightly darker/lighter shades of colour:
A week ago I posted some pairs of similar flags on Twitter, and later I found that Mathematica’s CountryData database contains flag descriptions. So I thought I’d use the flag descriptions to see which flags Mathematica things are similar.
I had Mathematica output a list of countries and flag descriptions, then searched the output for the word “similar.” I then made the following groupings based on the output [1].
While some of countries that share a similar flag are close in proximity and culture, Indonesia and Monaco isn’t as similar and not very close together, geographically:
Geography related: How many countries can you name in Europe? (QUIZ)
Lean like a smooth criminal with these Michael Jackson leaning shoes
When I first saw the video for Smooth Criminal, like everyone, I was mesmerised by the spectacle and That Lean. How did he do it? Well, a quick Google search will tell you if you don’t already know (a patented anti-gravity illusion). Not that a some machinery can take away from the magic. But if you want to replicate it, you can with a pair of Michael Jackson leaning shoes from The Jacket Shop. They’ve been reduced to $249.99 if that’s within your budget and they’re made of real leather with a super high quality finish.
Michael Jackson shoes related: MJ vs. MJ and the fall of LA Gear
Trailer for Netflix series, 'Wednesday'
Wednesday Addams | Official Teaser | Netflix
I’ve always had a passing interest in The Addams Family, with Christina Ricci’s portrayal of Wednesday Addams being especially iconic. And after seeing the trailer for the upcoming Netflix series centred on the character, I’m even more invested.
Jenna Ortega will be playing Wednesday alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia, Luis Guzman as Gomez, Christina Ricci making a return, and as it’s a Tim Burton adaptation, expect… Tim Burton stuff.
A Japanese blog about batteries
Yes, I’m actually blogging about a Japanese blog about batteries. This is what it has come to. I should buy an anorak to complete the look. But seriously, battery collection blog is a showcase of Japanese batteries in all their design glory. Compared to the batteries you get now, these actually look cool. For batteries.
My review of Nope: in tweet form
I just got back from watching Nope at the cinema. Here are some of my thoughts in tweet form as I no longer have the motivation to write long form reviews (unless I’m paid). And spoiler free! Enjoy!
- Hoe. Lee. Shit.
- 5 stars. I nearly cried. Fucking masterpiece.
- Won’t be looking at the clouds for at least a week. Nope.
- Dope AF, wild AF, Black AF. Jordan Peele is a fucking DON. And Daniel Kaluuya’s character? Fucking HERO. Idol shit.
- As I didn’t 100% get it all (obviously didn’t impede my enjoyment), I looked it up and found some very helpful explainers with quotes from Peele and it filled the knowledge gaps and made me appreciate it even more.
- Folks are gonna be confused and not like it (and some of them will watch again to give it another chance, which I recommend) and that’s fine. I loved it and it gave me what I needed and more.
- What I will say: the monkey subplot was eerily similar to a creepypasta I read about in the 00s. I can’t imagine they’re linked but that was jarring to watch (and, well, it was fucked up)
Summary
Nope genuinely blew me away. The cinematography, the dialogue, everything. Loved Keke Palmer’s character and that [REDACTED ANIME REFERENCE SPOILER] was extra nice.
Jordan Peele related: Get Out: Black Solidarity and Knowing the Code
Death Wish 3 but it's condensed into 10 minutes
I’ve featured CDTCrew on the blog before (see: A Weird AF RoboCop Video Collage and RELAXATION TAPE NO. 2: the opposite of ASMR). For this one, they squashed Death Wish 3 into about 10 minutes and honestly, you don’t miss anything from the 82 minutes that’s been cut out. And that’s why I logged it on Letterboxd after watching and I don’t care what you say.
Due to age restrictions, I can’t embed the video so go watch it on YouTube.
Bristol Zoo closes after 186 years
Sad day for zoo lovers: Bristol Zoo has closed after 186 years.
Due to the pandemic, and a new focus on The Wild Place Project, also owned by the charity, the zoo closed for the final time on Saturday.
The zoo said it had welcomed about 90 million visitors since it opened and its conservation programmes had helped save many species from extinction.
Scores of people queued up on Saturday morning to visit the Victorian-era zoo before it closed for good.
via BBC
I never visited Bristol Zoo but I appreciate the sadness of it closing (it is being relocated). Here are some more articles on its closure and some from “the archives”:
Articles about Bristol Zoo
Yesterworld on the history of The Disney Channel
The Rise & Fall of The Disney Channel
Another great episode from Yesterworld, this time examining the rise and fall of The Disney Channel (now just ‘Disney Channel’). My favourite part was the list of movies, shown on the channel, reeled off by the narrator. Attention to detail and accidentally funny.
Just your average weekend in Chicago. Absurdist Twitter comedy at it’s finest, which I highly recommend. Also, how many marg towers?!
'Please give yourselves grace.'
An evergreen reminder from Samantha Vincenty:
You’ve lived through a lot, with the mass-scale isolation and loss of the COVID-19 pandemic intersecting with an overdue focus on racial justice, the loss of reproductive freedom across many US states, deepening economic inequalities, an insurrection, and a daily onslaught of devastating global news, for starters. And that’s not even counting the increasingly frightening political tumult in the US that began a few years before March 2020.
And from my friend Keidra who tweeted the article:
So for MANY of us, just being here, alive is enough. Please give yourselves grace.
A montage of 20 live action Superman portrayals
Get to know all 20 live-action SUPERMAN | v1.1
There were quite a few Supermen (Supermans?) I didn’t know existed in some form or other. Nicolas Cage is in the mix which I’ll allow, even though his portrayal of the Man of Steel never got off the ground. Nothing touches Christopher Reeve’s Superman though.
Superman related: Laura Kelly on Superman IV, ‘DC’s worst movie ever’, a unified theory of Superman’s powers, and Superman as Clark Kent as Superman
'Let's split up and look for clues!'
A word from Sherronda J Brown on Twitter about white people and their decision-making skills, particularly in horror:
white people generally make bad decisions in dangerous situations, especially ones that require the work/support of community to get through, because they have grown up on the lessons of white supremacy and individualism. it’s true in horror narratives and it’s true in real life.
it’s always, “let’s split up.” it’s always, “let’s explore/dig up this thing the Indigenous people left buried for a reason.” it’s always, “that man who is native to this area and told us to turn back is crazy.” it’s always undue confidence that they can survive anything.
Also, pre-order her book, ‘Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture‘, on Bookshop!