We do it #ForTheCultrs
A while back, I found an awesome Instagram account called LogoArchive.Africa. The account displays logos from a variety of African countries and, having followed the other LogoArchive accounts in the past, it was refreshing to see some non-European/American logos for a change. Its creator, ab.des1gn, also runs a Moroccan offshoot called LogoArchive.Morocco which you should check out.
bell hooks has passed away at the age of 69. It’s a tragic loss to the world and she will be sorely missed but her work in writing, feminism, and activism lives on. I remember reading her essay ‘Plantation Mistress or Soul Sister‘ for my dissertation and how it changed a lot of my perspectives on Black music, Madonna, and Blackness as well as giving me new ones.
Below are some links to obituaries, dedications, and essential reading for those unfamiliar with her work. In the words of Raquel Willis:
If you’re just learning about bell hooks, there’s no shame. You can always read her words and meet her on the page.
Atlas Obscura spoke to Guy Shrubsole about his conversation project aiming to map the rainforests of Britain:
Woodland conservationists consider the few fragments of ancient temperate rainforests that survive in Britain to be in more danger than their tropical counterparts, says Shrubsole, who describes himself as a “very amateur, but very enthusiastic naturalist.” “Knowing where the rainforests are is a crucial part of knowing how to save them,” he says. So Shrubsole, using crowdsourced information collected through his Lost Rainforests of Britain website, has begun plotting Britain’s first comprehensive rainforest map.
I had no idea Britain had rainforests but, after reading, these aren’t the same kind as you find in the Amazon. Due to the wet and mild conditions, Britain has temperate rainforests where plants called epiphytes can grow on other plants. It’s an interesting project and I wish Guy the best of luck.
The Woodland Trust has a great page on temperate rainforests, noting that they’re possibly more threatened than tropical rainforests like the Amazon. But I think we need to save them all regardless of priority. Damn humans and their pollution and expediting of climate change.
Ryan Calo, Chris Coward, Emma S. Spiro, Kate Starbird, and Jevin D. West wrote a piece for Science Advances journal about the difference between misinformation and disinformation and how understanding the distinction will improve and expand policy-making and research:
The pandemic was planned. Climate change is a hoax. Joe Biden lost the election.
Trying to navigate misinformation about COVID, climate change, politics, and countless other topics can be overwhelming. This is true for the public, researchers, journalists, and policy-makers alike. As researchers dedicated to the study and resistance of misinformation, we often find ourselves in conversation with government officials and others trying to understand and address the phenomenon. To help illuminate the complexities of misinformation and to guide policy, we find three distinctions helpful: misinformation versus disinformation, speech versus action, and mistaken belief versus conviction (Fig. 1). Failing to appreciate these distinctions can lead to unproductive dead ends; understanding them is the first step toward recognizing misinformation and hopefully addressing it.
Everyone goes on about freedom of speech but when it comes to harmful propaganda (and there’s been a lot in the last few years), who is really free and who is really trapped in that cacophony of hate? Misinformation plays a significant role in COVID-19 vaccination rates—it could be a lot higher if not for rumours and incorrect reports about what’s in them. There are, of course, other factors such as distrust amongst Black populations due to systemic racism in science and medicine, but little has been done to combat that.
The final key distinction relates to the nature of belief itself, specifically, the difference between a mistaken belief and a conviction. We recognize that the distinction between belief and behavior is a subject of enduring interest in the social sciences. Indeed, one of our team’s primary research questions examines how exposure to misinformation translates into both belief and behavior. Yet, the distinction between beliefs held out of mistake and beliefs held out of conviction remains undertheorized in both the research literature and within policy circles.
Vaccine hesitation offers a strong example of this distinction (4, 5). Misinformation abounds, but we know that some people sincerely believe that vaccines are more harmful than helpful and oppose them on this basis. At the same time, it is possible that misinformation spread during the COVID-19 pandemic, like many of the claims in the Plandemic video, could recruit people that are not necessarily dogmatic in their views of vaccines initially but instead convinced by the falsehoods and persuasive storytelling.
Type is more than fancy serifs, sans-serifs, ligatures, and Helvetica everywhere. Women in Type is a brilliant interactive site that highlights the contributions of women in the type industry since the last century. There are a host of photos of women in printing studios and type drawing offices alongside links exploring feminism, technology, and their own stories. There’s also a reading list should you want to go further down the type rabbit hole.
I did notice a lack of Black women or women of colour at all amongst the photos (I maybe saw one woman of Far Eastern descent?) and while I’m sure there was sexism and racism within the industry—as with any—there must have been more than one or two that had a significant influence on type. Maybe there were more WoC in type outside of Europe but that might have taken this research project outside of its scope (head to the Credits section for the source of the photos).
To read more about the research project, head over to the University of Reading’s official page.
When I think of the word “cool“, I think of Miles Davis. But I don’t know many people with even a microgram of that coolness today. Vox examined the idea of coolness and whether it means the same thing now as it did in the 20th century:
In America, we have had 30 Under 30 lists, award shows, and an industry of so-called tastemakers for the same reason: to tell us who or what is objectively important and worthy of our attention and money, hierarchizing the tastes of full-grown adults. But now the “status-symbolic power” of cool that used to facilitate snobbery — as Carl Wilson, the author of Let’s Talk About Love: Why Other People Have Bad Taste, calls it — is in dwindling supply because of the internet’s democratization of ideas. The great American cool is nearly dead, slipping out of the grasp of Gen Z, who seem too busy being themselves to care.
[…] Where Gen X and millennials were rolled into one category — the NPR tote bag and/or band T-shirt-wearing “hipster” — Gen Z has identified infinite, disparate, and chaotic combinations of tastes and consumer choices, mining from a limitless array of niche subcultures and milieus. Their eclecticism is more far-reaching and complicated than ’90s or 2000s young people, even more omnivorous, so it’s harder for corporate executives to market a one-size-fits-all youth culture to, or for so-called cool hunters to narc on them. As Naomi Klein writes in her seminal work, No Logo, cool hunters were a new industry, born in the ’90s, that promised “to cool the companies from the outside in.” “The major corporate cool consultancies — Sputnik, The L Report, Bureau de Style — were all founded between 1994 and 1996, just in time to present themselves as the brands’ personal cool shoppers,” she writes. “The idea was simple: they would search out pockets of cutting-edge lifestyle, capture them on videotape and return to clients like Reebok, Absolut Vodka, and Levi’s with such bold pronouncements as ‘Monks are cool.’”
What’s cool now, won’t be in the future unless people bring it back to be cool again. It’s all subjective but we all knew that already. The important thing is whether you think that ‘thing’ is cool and whether you actually enjoy it for what it is and what it gives you rather than its appeal to fairweather individuals. But I like to think the coolness of Miles Davis is eternal. It is to me anyway.
Related to coolness: Cool word oddities and miscellany, the cool doodles of Lei Melendres, and Los Angeles’ super cool new tourism logo
Dan Nosowitz wrote about the word jawn for Atlas Obscura and its linguistic ubiquity:
The word “jawn” is unlike any other English word. In fact, according to the experts that I spoke to, it’s unlike any other word in any other language. It is an all-purpose noun, a stand-in for inanimate objects, abstract concepts, events, places, individual people, and groups of people. It is a completely acceptable statement in Philadelphia to ask someone to “remember to bring that jawn to the jawn.”
It is a word without boundaries or limits. Growing up in the suburbs just west of the city, I heard it used mostly to refer to objects and events. In the 2015 movie Creed, a character asks a sandwich maker to “put some onions on that jawn.” But it can get much more complex. It can refer to abstract nouns such as theories; a colleague of Jones routinely refers to “Marxist jawn.” It can also refer to people or groups of people. “Side-jawn,” meaning a someone with whom the speaker cheats on his or her significant other, “is a uniquely Philly thing as far as I can tell,” says Jones. “And not something you want to be.”
The only time I’ve ever heard the word ‘jawn’ or used it was in context to a song or beat. Here are some articles where I’ve used the word:
It is versatile!
For The Guardian, art curator and critic Rianna Jade Parker examined the renewed interest in Black British artists:
In more recent times, the hugely popular exhibitions Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power (2017), The Place Is Here (2017), and Get Up, Stand Up Now: Generations of Black Creative Pioneers (2019) have galvanised a new audience, generating an overwhelming interest in art by Black artists from the general public, students, institutions and the private art sector. The value and necessity of Black art should, by now, be a moot point, and instead the weight and responsibility should remain on those who ignore Black artists and are reluctant to engage with charged personal histories that are uncomfortable to them.
These overdue advancements aggregate the possibilities and implications of Black British art created in the 20th and 21st centuries. Accessible digital technology, image- and text-based social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram, and growing creative capital have provided a much-needed revamp to the unwritten rulebook of the largest unregulated market in the world. Our culturally meaningful experiences appear in multiple forms, and visual content and codes migrate from one to another.
I went to Soul of a Nation at the Tate and thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m glad more Black art is being seen but the circumstances that sparked this renewed interest aren’t ideal, at least from a non-Black perspective. The ideal situation is Black viewers feeling inspired to express themselves and their surroundings in similar or unique ways and that is all we can really hope for.
Related to Black British art: ‘Bold Black British’, curated by Aindrea Emelife,
I loved the first Sonic movie. It was the last film I saw before the pandemic and I still carry around the ticket stub as a sentimental reminder of the film and a time before my life was changed by this horrible virus. But Sonic 2 is coming in April 2022 (please?) and Paramount dropped a new trailer earlier today.
Verdict: I am hyped!
It features Sonic (of course) alongside Dr Robotnik in his “new” bald-headed/wild moustachioed style and the introduction of Tails. Oh, and that other character. You know, the red one with the knuckles. I think he’s called Punchy or something…
When this comes out, it will be the next film I see in the cinema. And I’ll keep that ticket stub too. Did I say I was hyped?
I found these articles in October and thought I’d share them.
The first one, from Vogue, is an interview with a Japanese kimono culture expert and she shares her beauty and wellness secrets some of which had been followed by “Geishas and Japanese women over 100 years ago”:
On her detailed skincare routine
“In the morning, firstly, I wipe my face with cotton soaked in plenty of rose water. Secondly I apply a serum, toner, and the Kyoto Secrets’ Beni Balm on the lip, around the eyes and smile lines to reduce the appearance of fine wrinkles. Lastly, I apply an oil and sunscreen. At night, when I wash my face with fluffy soap foam, I use a silk puff to gently caress the foam away. Fine Japanese silk helps to smooth the skin. From the aristocrats of 1100 years ago to the Geishas of 100 years ago, it is understandable that they used to wash their faces with silk cloth to keep their smooth fair skin. Other than sunscreen, it’s almost the same routine as in the morning but I put on a face mask regularly. The neck and the backs of the hands show our age easily, so I take the same care of my face. I use a silk puff to cleanse my body and slather body lotion all over.”
On home remedies
“I apply Sakekasu (white liquor solids produced during the process of making Sake) that is used to make a face mask. The hands of Sake craftsmen, even men in their sixties, are white and beautiful, and many of them look like women in their twenties! Kyoto is the best place in Japan to make Sake, so we can get a lot of good quality Sakekasu. Women in Kyoto have been using face masks with Sakekasu for a long time, which makes their skin look moist.
For my hair mask, I use a mixture of eggs, coconut oil, olive oil, avocado, honey, etc., depending on the conditions at the time. Especially for the special hairstyles I do for Kimono, I use more oil or spray than usual. Applying this hair pack before shampooing my hair will loosen up the hardened hair smoothly.”
The second one looks at the “Niigata Geigi”, a group of geishas from Furumachi in Niigata City, far from the more commonly known region of geishas (Kyoto):
Niigata’s geisha tradition dates back more than 200 years to the Edo era (1603-1867) when the city was a major port on the Kitamaebune (literally, “north-bound ships”) shipping route that connected Osaka with Hokkaido. Thousands of cargo vessels made this journey each year. As the capital of Japan’s largest rice producing area, Niigata became the busiest port on the Sea of Japan coast. By the early Meiji Era (1868-1912), Niigata was among the wealthiest, most populous parts of the nation.
A thriving entertainment district grew up in the Furumachi neighbourhoood of the city to cater for the countless wealthy merchants and other visitors. Geishas (or geigis, in the local dialect) began performing at Furumachi’s many teahouses, ozashiki (banqueting halls) and ryotei (luxury restaurants). Politicians and even members of the Imperial family figured among the clientele. By 1884, nearly 400 geigis were performing in Furumachi.
Related to kimonos and Japanese female culture: Chiso is a 466-year old Japanese kimono house and Seitō, a 1911 Japanese magazine exclusively for women.
Jyni Ong profiled Stephane Cornille and his expansive collection of Soviet art posters, which he has named Comrade Kiev:
With a background in business where Stephane spent eight years working for technology companies, the design enthusiast’s return to art reignited unexpectedly in 2018 on a visit to Ukraine. There, he bought a poster from a flea market in Kiev and slowly started to build up a collection of vintage posters, first for himself then for friends and eventually, selling them too. Years past and with it, Stephane journeyed to many other countries that made up the former Eastern bloc. From the frozen villages of Kazakhstan to the backstreet bazaars of Georgia, Stephane’s collection continued to grow, gathering steam until he finally had an archive big enough to launch Comrade Kiev.
This website, which houses Stephane’s mighty poster collection, is testament to the originality of Soviet art as seen through the disposable posters put up as a means of communication throughout the Soviet occupancy. Stephane tells us more on the uniqueness of the collection, “artists in the Soviet Union weren’t allowed to leave, and could only work for the state,” he says. “Because they lived in a closed society, the art they created wasn’t influenced by western style, and was also heavy in propaganda.” During the time of their creation, the posters weren’t appreciated as an art form, merely regarded as propaganda, and part of Stephane’s goal today is to raise awareness on the artistic merit of these delights.
The collection is split into different categories, including:
It’s an eye-opening collection so check it out.
Soviet related: James Bond villains and their love of post-Soviet architecture, Soviet modernism, brutalism, and post-modernism, and Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948-1980
For JSTOR, Jonah Goldman Kay examined the preferences of James Bond villains for post-Soviet architecture and it came from Sir Ian Fleming and his disdain for modernism:
In particular, Fleming objected to modernism’s obsession with utopia, which was antithetical to his conservative ideology. Fleming saw the ideal world as existing in the past, within an already-existing power structure. Modernists like Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe believed that architecture could be used to create a better, more ideal world, full of new conceptions of power. The Western world ran with modernism as a way to remove inefficiencies, construct a more prosperous society, and generally live out the principles of capitalism. In the USSR, modernism came to represent the goals of the communist project: leveling, equality, and a strong presence of the state.
Fleming’s distrust of modernism and utopia played out in the ideologies of Bond villains, which tend to be grounded in a distinctly modernist idea that technology and utilitarianism can radically improve humanity. Part of the reason that modernists were so drawn to utopia was that they shared a twin interest in the end of history. In creating the villains of the Bond franchise, Fleming took this theoretical idea and made it quite literal: nearly all of them harbor an obsession with ending history, usually through mass destruction.
For more on post-Soviet buildings, check out Frank Herfort’s “surreal photos” and, if you want to branch out to general pop culture, NSS Mag published an article in January about the evolution of post-Soviet aesthetics.
Ray is a Gunpla model builder and scale modeller and in the above video, he transforms a Braun Series 9 shaver into War Machine (James Rhodes). The shaver is already a great-looking piece of technology but seeing it become a robot model is a joy to behold.
Related to building cool stuff: Ekow Nimako’s Afrofuturistic LEGO® universes, Arndt Schlaudraff, the LEGO® brutalist, and How to make a Star Wars TIE Advanced grill
Kosperry created this impressive animation of a scene from Seinfeld where Jerry and George argue over food in a bin and whether it’s trash or not. George ate it and said no. Jerry said yes (I agree). The scene was already funny but the animation made it funnier thanks to superb expressions from both characters (George as a corgi is genius and Jerry as a hyena is a masterstroke).
Suddenly, I want a remake of Seinfeld with cats and dogs. Or even The Lion King but with Seinfeld characters.
Seinfeld animation-related: Steamed Hams but in the style of Seinfeld
Stephen Moss compiled a list of the 13 birds most associated with Christmas. Most of them are from The Twelve Days of Christmas with a bonus bird:
Like many ancient rhymes, stories and songs, The Twelve Days of Christmas has been the subject of countless explanations of its ‘real meaning’. Some have suggested that it is an ancient version of a wedding list – a series of increasingly lavish gifts presented to a married couple, from a humble partridge to an entire drumming band.
Others have seen a more sinister meaning in the verse, speculating that it was originally written in code during the Protestant Reformation, to teach Catholic children their faith. In this interpretation, three French hens represent the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; four colly birds, the gospels; 12 drummers drumming the Apostles, and so on.
As a lifelong birder, I have another suggestion: that each of the carol’s 12 lines represents a bird. Given that the first four lines, along with the sixth and seventh, are explicitly avian, I suggest that the whole verse was originally written to celebrate 12 different birds.
Spoiler alert: the 13th bird of Christmas is the robin but the reasons Moss gave for why this is are particularly interesting, from biblical robins to 19th-century postmen.