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

The 12 million possible combos of bubble tea

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I haven’t had a bubble tea in over 10 years but I still remember the flavour (chocolate and ginger). Apparently that’s one of about 12 million options according to Julia Janicki and Daisy Chung who created some brilliant data viz for Taiwan Data Stories:

As two Taiwanese people living abroad, bubble tea runs in our blood. For the uninitiated, bubble tea is a Taiwanese tea-based drink with tapioca balls also commonly known as “boba.” Although bubble tea can be made with other liquids and toppings, many people often order the standard: milk tea with boba. However, in Taiwan, the birthplace of boba (depending on which origin story you believe), locals often customize their drinks as if they own the shop! In fact, there are countless more flavors and toppings in Taiwan than we ever see abroad.

This made us curious: exactly how many unique boba drinks are there in Taiwan? And after living away from home for more than 10 years, are we missing out on any new developments in the boba scene? To answer these questions, we analyzed drink menus from the top 5 most popular stores as of Feb 2021 according to YouTuber Data66’s Google Trends data.

With this page, you can make your own bubble tea and download the result. Something to note before you visit a bubble tea shop and can’t decide what to get.

More on Taiwan: How to make a Taiwanese Castella

Chris Burkard new book 'Wayward' features amazing photography and personal stories from his life and career

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Book cover of Wayward by Chris Burkard

Renowned surf and nature photographer Chris Burkard has published a new book titled Wayward, containing stunning shots and candid commentary about his career and life.

With never-before-seen images and the stories behind them, Burkard crafts an original narrative that combines the page-turning drama of a great explorer’s adventure story and the immediacy and power of unforgettable photographs. Chronicling both the failures and the successes he has experienced in building a career, Burkard shares an infectious passion for photography, surfing, and chasing dreams in some of the world’s most awe-inspiring places.

Grab a copy on Amazon, Bookshop, or Abrams.

Surf photography related: The amazing photography of Roger “Sharpy” Sharp

Black Film Archive's Black History Month film list

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Whether you need some audiovisual content to complement the books you’re reading during Black History Month or you’d prefer films as a replacement for books, Black Film Archive’s 28 Black Films for the 28 Days of Black History Month has you covered:

[…] In building the second edition of 28 films for 28 days of Black History Month (the first predates Black Film Archive and is here) I thought a lot about Black refusal in film. When I watch a movie, I often ponder the space where the script (or Hollywood idea of what the film is) ends, and Black stars and directors use their instincts to bring subtle (and non-subtle) gestures and life to a world that would not have it otherwise. The films selected here are constructing worlds that embody pain, joy, love, and laughter to bring the fullness of Black life to us all.

Black History Month is a serious business to me. However you choose to celebrate this season, I hope it brings you peace, joy, and an abundance of great cinema.

Maya Cade

It’s another case of “some you’ll know and some you won’t” but they’re all worth a watch if you make the time.

Espresso-chocolate chunk cookie cake

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I regularly put (decaf) coffee in my hot chocolate drinks (and vice versa) but altogether in a cookie cake? Sounds like heaven to me. Joy Cho kindly published a recipe for Eater:

Think of this easy recipe as a edgier, caffeine-spiked version of your classic chocolate chip cookie. Brown a stick of butter until it smells nutty and toasty, then whisk in brown sugar, granulated sugar, and a tablespoon of instant espresso powder. Mix in an egg and a splash of vanilla extract, then add the dry ingredients. Chop up a bar of good-quality dark chocolate (chunks over chips, forever and always) and a generous handful of chocolate-covered espresso beans (they’re easier to find than you may think) and fold those in to finish. Spread the dough into a cake pan and voilà, have a wonderfully decadent, espresso-laced cookie cake ready to serve (or savor on your own) in under half an hour.

The double-dose of espresso does double duty here: the espresso powder infuses the cookie with subtle coffee notes and tempers its sweetness, while the chocolate-covered espresso beans provide pops of concentrated flavor. Taken together, they’re a reminder that just a few ingredients can go a long way in transforming a classic into something new and unexpected. Consider sending a cookie care package their way if you’re looking to surprise someone with a thoughtful gesture.

There’s a reason the Cookie Monster is my favourite character from Sesame Street.

Chocolate related: Hot chocolate with added spice and emerald marine chocolate mint tart

JSTOR's Black History Month article picks

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We’re past halfway through Black History Month in the US but there’s never a bad time to get educated. On January 31st, JSTOR Daily editors picked their favourite stories for BHM, covering the lives and experiences of Kwame Ture, Carter G. Woodson, Black cowboys (which we’ve covered too) and ’15 Black Women Who Should Be (More) Famous’.

Here’s an excerpt from the piece on Kwame Ture, formerly known as Stokely Carmichael:

[…] Carmichael prompted his students to see African American Vernacular English (AAVE) as a “counterlanguage” representing resistance to racist oppression. As Carmichael later said in his 1968 speech “Free Huey,” “We have never spoken English perfectly. And that is because our people consciously resisted a language that did not belong to us.”

Young In Hong: We Where

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“Ishmael: Even the Gorilla Needs a Flower” and “One Gate between Two Worlds” by Hong Young-in (PKM Gallery)

UK-based artist Hong Young-in currently has her debut solo exhibition, “Young In Hong: We Where”, on display at PKM Gallery in Seoul, South Korea. She told The Korea Herald:

“I am interested in history. I never knew when I was in South Korea that I was living in an oppressive society in the 1970s and 1980s. Then I started to realize it was a suppressed and male-dominated society as I look back on the times from a distance, living abroad.”

“Collaboration is not about simply joining in to work together. I always think about the process of how my work could change by working with performers and master craftsmen.”

The exhibition runs until 26th February.

(via The Korea Herald)

Related to South Korean art: The polystyrene art of Chun Kwang Young

Culture can affect how you feel when you listen to music

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Research by the Durham University Music and Science Lab has suggested that “the emotional perception of music may be influenced by the listeners’ cultural background“. From there, they also wanted to examine whether this was a universal concept.

The team travelled to the Kalash valleys of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa region in Pakistan to help their hypothesis:

For the Kalash, music is not a pastime; it is a cultural identifier. It is an inseparable aspect of both ritual and non-ritual practice, of birth and of life. When someone dies, they are sent off to the sounds of music and dancing, as their life story and deeds are retold.

More on music, Pakistan, and academia: Caked Alaska, a thesis on Tyler, The Creator, and Madison Moore’s lectures on “How to be Beyoncé”.

Homer²

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Homer vs. Homer by Eike König. Hand pulled screen print on canvas. All rights reserved.

Filed under “why didn’t I think of that?”. Eike König is a German artist who specialises in what he calls “König-style anti-aestheticization”.

For all the modern performers who see creativity as a good assistance system for planned business success in the branding coordinates system of international communication, he remains an unfathomable puzzle.

Buy Homer vs. Homer canvas on Eike König’s website.

Homer related: Homer’s brain and his impressive economics

Ejatu Shaw on Black joy and her work of representation and authenticity

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Photographer Ejatu Shaw spoke to It’s Nice That about her work and process. She was recently received a commission from the Adobe Stock Artist Development Fund and created a collection centred on Black people and their joy in everyday life:

In Ejatu’s commissioned work, you’ll see Black children and families enjoying their time together — playing basketball, roller skating, laughing, hugging. Not only is the work celebratory and relatable, it’s also helping to address the lack of representation in media. “It’s so important to myself and many other Black visual artists that we continue to represent ourselves in a way that is relatable, ethical and inspirational,” she explains. “We want to positively contribute to visual history and bypass traditional modes of representation that were often voyeuristic or fetishising.”

When approaching her commission, Ejatu found guidance in Adobe Stock Advocates creative briefs — including Identity and Gender, Celebration of Self and Beliefs and Rituals — all of which were crafted to support artists like her, help them become more culturally aware and help them portray individuals and communities accurately. She says the briefs also helped her push her practice into the realms of lifestyle and documentary photography. “I’ve really enjoyed photographing people in their homes, artists in their studies and in general capturing the pride that individuals have in their spaces.”

More on Black love, joy, and positive representation: I’ve loved seeing Black people rollerskating everywhere and love from a Black perspective.

The Valentine's Day post

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It’s Valentine’s Day today and while I won’t be partaking per se, I thought I’d put together a list of blogs and articles dedicated to this hypercapitalist day of love (don’t worry, I won’t preach—you can enjoy your things!) or just love in general.

Cultrface posts

Other people’s posts

Morning Moments by Rikesh Chauhan

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Back in August 2020, I featured my good friend Rikesh Chauhan aka RKZ and his stylish photography and creativity. I also explained how Cultrface was thought up initially as a joke, “to showcase his photography”. Well, now I’m back to do it again but this time he has a print series.

Morning Moments is Rikesh’s first print collection, comprising of photos taken over the last few years in the UK, New Zealand, India and Singapore.

These photos encapsulate the beauty of morning time, where the world is just beginning to wake up.

The prints are on a limited run until 1st May 2022 and are available in A4 and A3 sizes with international shipping. Once they’re gone, they’re gone!

(featured image credit: Rikesh Chauhan, all rights reserved, steal it and I’ll come for you)

The Marginalian on James Baldwin and long distance love

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As someone who has experienced love from a long-distance, this retrospective from The Marginalian resonated with me. Maria Popova looked back at some passages from James Baldwin’s book, Nothing Personal:

One discovers the light in darkness, that is what darkness is for; but everything in our lives depends on how we bear the light. It is necessary, while in darkness, to know that there is a light somewhere, to know that in oneself, waiting to be found, there is a light.

[…]

What a journey this life is! Dependent, entirely, on things unseen. If your lover lives in Hong Kong and cannot get to Chicago, it will be necessary for you to go to Hong Kong. Perhaps you will spend your life there, and never see Chicago again. And you will, I assure you, as long as space and time divide you from anyone you love, discover a great deal about shipping routes, airlines, earth quake, famine, disease, and war. And you will always know what time it is in Hong Kong, for you love someone who lives there. And love will simply have no choice but to go into battle with space and time and, furthermore, to win.

And closing words from Maria:

All love bridges the immense expanse between lonelinesses, becomes the telescope that brings another life closer and, in consequence, also magnifies the significance of their entire world.

All love is light’s battle against the entropy continually inclining spacetime toward nothingness, against the hard fact that you will die, and I will die, and everyone we love will die, and what will survive of us are only shoreless seeds and stardust.

More from James Baldwin: Never Aired: Profile on James Baldwin ABC’s 20/20 (1979), James Baldwin on the meaning of liberty, and James Baldwin on the American Negro image

Cumbre Vieja: an erupting volcano in 4K

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CUMBRE VIEJA - THE BIRTH OF A VOLCANO (4K)

The Cumbre Vieja is a volcanic ridge on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, Spain. More specifically, it’s an active volcanic ridge and the video above shows it erupting in 4K quality. Bruno Gonçalves filmed the experience last year.

A situation of great contrast, between the beautiful and impressive images that the volcano can provide, and the destruction caused by that same volcano, with a very big impact on the lives of many people.

It was the first volcanic eruption on the island since the 1971 and the longest known eruption, lasting 85 days. It was bad enough that lockdown was lifted due to poor air quality.

More on the eruption: La erupción del volcán en La Palma obliga a una evacuación masiva (in Spanish) and the moment it stopped.

An interview with Simpsons writing legend John Swartzwelder

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Last week, I read an interesting interview with Simpsons writing legend John Swartzwelder in The New Yorker:

Swartzwelder has been deemed “one of the greatest comedy minds of all time.” He is famously private and never grants interviews. Few photos of him exist, although he did make some animated cameos as background “Simpsons” characters—once as a patient in a psychiatric hospital. His voice can be heard on only one “Simpsons” DVD writers’ commentary, for “The Cartridge Family” (Season 9, Episode 5). Ambushed by phone, while at home cooking a steak, he sounds pleasant and courteous but eager to finish up the encounter, which lasts all of a minute and twenty-four seconds.

A few facts seem certain. Swartzwelder was born in 1949 in Seattle. He worked a few years as an advertising copywriter in Chicago. He applied for, but never got, a job at “Late Night,” and had an uncomfortable interview with its host, David Letterman. He worked at “Saturday Night Live,” in 1985, for one particularly rocky season, before being hired four years later at “The Simpsons,” based partly on his contributions to a little-known comedy zine. He went on to write fifty-nine episodes, more than any other writer in the show’s history.

He was the guy responsible for one of the most ubiquitous Simpsons quotes of all time:

“To alcohol. The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.”

And a sage piece of writing advice:

Since writing is very hard and rewriting is comparatively easy and rather fun, I always write my scripts all the way through as fast as I can, the first day, if possible, putting in crap jokes and pattern dialogue—“Homer, I don’t want you to do that.” “Then I won’t do it.” Then the next day, when I get up, the script’s been written. It’s lousy, but it’s a script. The hard part is done. It’s like a crappy little elf has snuck into my office and badly done all my work for me, and then left with a tip of his crappy hat. All I have to do from that point on is fix it. So I’ve taken a very hard job, writing, and turned it into an easy one, rewriting, overnight. I advise all writers to do their scripts and other writing this way. And be sure to send me a small royalty every time you do it.