In case you missed it, Simon Doonan wrote a biography on Keith Haring which came out in February. It’s part of a series of pocket-sized biographies about great artists called Lives of the Artists and examines Haring’s inspiring life and work during the 1980s:
Revolutionary and renegade, Keith Haring was an artist for the people, creating an instantly recognisable repertoire of symbols – barking dogs, space-ships, crawling babies, clambering faceless people – which became synonymous with the volatile culture of 1980s. Like a careening, preening pinball, Keith Haring playfully slammed into all aspects of this decade – hip-hop, new-wave, graffiti, funk, art, style, gay culture – and brought them together.
I saw this on Twitter today and thought it was hilarious and oddly poignant, from a modern political perspective.
In the panels, Popeye asks Rough House where J. Wellington Wimpy was to which RH replied “I ain’t seen him and I don’t want to see him—he hasn’t been around today.” Popeye calls Wimpy “arful” before showing pity for him, although RH didn’t share the sentiment:
Well, I don’t. Why, say—that fellow would commit a crime for a hamburger.
We then spot Wimpy taking out razor of some kind as he starts cutting through a barred window into a jail where incarcerated people are eating from a plate full of hamburgers. He sits down to their disbelief and says:
Ah, good evening, gentlemen. Pleasant weather, isnt it, we’re having?
Wimpy literally broke into jail, not to free the people incarcerated there, but to get some of his favourite delicacies, thus breaking the law that could have extended his voluntary visit. It reminded me of how we have the power to abolish jails or and attempt to dismantle the system behind it all but only show glimpses of that for moments that benefit us (i.e. how I’ve seen a lot of performative activism since last year’s BLM protests)
I’m probably reaching but so was Wimpy—behind bars, for another hamburger.
I love LEGO® and I love brutalism so this is a match made in heaven for me.
Arndt Schlaudraff is a self-proclaimed “Berlinist, Brutalist, Modernist, and Legoist” and his Instagram account is filled with wonderful constructions all real and no 3D renderings. His buildings come with beautiful lighting inside and out, creating an atmosphere not often associated with the harshness of brutalism.
Charismatic clownfish, the coral reef fish made famous by the film Finding Nemo, are instantly recognizable by their white stripes. These stripes, which scientists call bars, appear as clownfish mature from larvae into adults in a process called metamorphosis, but how these distinctive patterns form has long remained a mystery.
Now, a new study has found that the speed at which these white bars form depends on the species of sea anemone in which the clownfish live. The scientists also discovered that thyroid hormones, which play a key role in metamorphosis, drive how quickly their stripes appear, through changes in the activity of a gene called duox.
Anemonefish are sequential hermaphrodites, meaning they develop into males first, and when they mature, they become females. If the female anemonefish is removed from the group, such as by death, one of the largest and most dominant males becomes a female. The remaining males move up a rank in the hierarchy.
identify any food purely by the location of structural starch
Compelling arguments are made for a variety of foods including pizza (toast), sushi (also toast), toast (which is actually a sandwich), and hot dogs (which are, apparently, tacos). The logic behind it all would make a philosopher weep with hunger but it’s very interesting to think about *hits blunt*
An enterprising gentleman in Guatemala decided to put a fiery volcano to work for him, and bake his pizza. It’s an idea that probably shouldn’t be copied, but it sure is adventurous, and if we’re to believe chef David Garcia, the intense heat of the (very active) Pacaya volcano lends the pizza a delicious flavor.
Originally launched in 2013 as a digital hub for cultural conversations, Saint Heron’s mission has been to preserve, collect, and uplift stories, works, and archives that amplify Black and brown voices. Now, in its next phase, it will release a dossier of literary and visual retrospectives of Black family and artist lineages through a series of temporary digital exhibitions, viewable on the Saint Heron website. Available for seven to 10 days, they will offer an in-depth look at emerging talent across art, sculpture, photography, design, and artisanship.
Memes like this are why I love the internet so much. Jokes aside, I can see Disney and Pixar rinsing out the Toy Story franchise until the 2040s. It’d tie in with Buzz Lightyear and whatever advanced technology we’ll have by then.
Marijn van Hoorn has an ongoing list of really cool words, ranging from semi-common words like ‘zenith’ and ‘iridescent’ to obsolete terms like ‘zenzizenzizenzic’ and ‘psychopomp’.
Some of my favourites:
cephalophore (n) – A Christian saint depicted in artworks as carrying their own severed head.
eggcorn (n) – A reanalysis of a word or phrase for another that sounds similar and could be taken to have a similar meaning.
kakistocracy (n) – Rule by the worst and least qualified people.
nychthemeron (n) – A period of 24 hours, a day and a night.
Alas, I have only seen 4 of them and heard of 6 which means I have a lot of catching up to do. I like that the list has films from all but one decade since the 70s (nothing from the 80s). I’m sure you can guess what the #1 was and I’m in full agreement.
Do you need a unique and interesting BBQ-come-fire-pit for your garden? Then this fantastic build is something you really need to see.
But wait, there is more. This particular burner/BBQ just happens to also be in the shape of Darth Vader’s Tie Advanced from Star Wars! What is not to love?
Since Césaire’s death in 2008 at age 94, as democracies devolve into autocracies and wealthy nations sidestep poorer ones on our endangered planet, Discourse on Colonialism remains prescient about the barbarity that informs civilization. In literary terms, its enduring relevance tends to overshadow Césaire’s standing as the most influential Modernist poet in Caribbean literature, an imaginative writer who molded the French language to make a personal poetry characterized by hypnotic physicality, ritualized anguish, and metaphorical exorcisms.
About Aimé Césaire
Césaire was born in Basse-Pointe, Martinique, in 1913. After moving to the capital, Fort-de-France, to attend the only secondary school on the island, he moved to Paris to attend the Lycée Louis-le-Grand on a scholarship. There, he passed the entrance exam for the École Normale Supérieure, co-created a literary review called L’Étudiant noir (The Black Student) and helped to start the Négritude movement.
Film Spaced explored the infamous “Lost Cut” of Star Wars: A New Hope. I say infamous because, as Jason Weisberger said, it was a “steaming piece of trash that bored people”. Then Marcia Lou Lucas (née Griffin), acclaimed film editor and George’s wife, worked her magic and won herself the Academy Award for Best Film Editing in 1977 for her efforts.
The breakdown examines clips and interesting facts about the early cuts including rare footage, audio and behind-the-scenes info.
When you need a quick translation, you turn to Google Translate. But it doesn’t always work the way it should. But there’s an alternative that TechCrunch claims is “as quick as the outsized competition, but more accurate and nuanced” than any they’d tried. It’s called DeepL.
What is DeepL?
DeepL Translator is a translation service that uses neural machine translation (NMT). It launched in August 2017, is privately owned, and based in Cologne, Germany.
Ever since the launch of DeepL Translator in August 2017, DeepL has been setting records for machine translation quality.
DeepL Pro, released in March of 2018, allows subscribers to unlock the full capacity of DeepL’s AI translation technology. DeepL Pro subscribers can benefit from an optimized web translator, integrate our algorithms into translation software, or build new apps and services with the DeepL API.
Let’s test an example. I’ve taken an original poem called Círculo Vicioso by Machado de Assis:
Bailando no ar, gemia inquieto vaga-lume: – Quem me dera que fosse aquela loura estrela, que arde no eterno azul, como uma eterna vela! Mas a estrela, fitando a lua, com ciúme: – Pudesse eu copiar o transparente lume, que, da grega coluna á gótica janela, contemplou, suspirosa, a fronte amada e bela ! Mas a lua, fitando o sol, com azedume: – Misera ! tivesse eu aquela enorme, aquela claridade imortal, que toda a luz resume ! Mas o sol, inclinando a rutila capela: – Pesa-me esta brilhante aureola de nume… Enfara-me esta azul e desmedida umbela… Porque não nasci eu um simples vaga-lume?
Google Translate
DeepL Translator
English translation
Dancing in the air, an uneasy firefly moaned: I wish it were that blond star, that burns in the eternal blue, like an eternal candle! But the star, looking at the moon, with jealousy: I could copy the transparent fire, that from the greek column to the gothic window, she gazed, sighingly, at the beloved and beautiful forehead! But the moon, staring at the sun, with bitterness: Misera! had I that huge, that immortal clarity, which all light sums up! But the sun, tilting the rutile chapel: This brilliant number aureole weighs me… Put on this blue and immeasurable umbilicus … Why am I not born a simple firefly?
Dancing in the air, a restless firefly moaned: I wish it were that blond star That burns in the eternal blue, like an eternal candle! But the star, staring at the moon, jealous If I could copy the transparent light, That from the Greek column to the Gothic window from the Greek column to the Gothic window, gazed, sighing, upon the beloved and beautiful brow! But the moon, staring at the sun, with bitterness: Misera! had I that enormous, that immortal immortal clarity, which all light sums up! But the sun, inclining the ruddy chapel: This bright aureole of nume weighs me down… Pities me this blue and unmeasured umbrella? Why was I not born a simple firefly?
Dancing in the air, the firefly moaned restlessly: – How I wish I was that blonde star, That burns in the eternal blue, live an infinite candle! But the star, gazing at the moon jealously: – Who am I to copy the transparent light, That from the Greek column to the gothic window, Contemplated, sighing, forehead beloved and beautiful! But the moon, gazing at the sun, sourly: – Misery! Had I that huge, that Immortal brightness, in which all live is summarized! But the sun, tilting its shining chapel: – This bright halo weighs down upon me… This blue and unmeasurable umbrella sickens me… Why wasn’t I born a simple firefly?
While neither translator could emulate the original English translation (which likely had its own artistic flair), they both did a good job. DeepL picked up “restless” in the first verse compared to Google Translate’s “uneasy” and in the word fitando, DeepL goes for “staring”, which is closer to the original “gazing”, while Google Translate chooses “looking” which doesn’t have the same feeling.
That said, there were some glitches with DeepL, for example duplicating the line “from the Greek column to the Gothic window”, and neither picked up the word misera translated to “misery” but that’s not the traditional translation so that makes sense.
L’heure de la réconciliation entre la France et le Rwanda est-elle arrivée ? Vingt-sept ans après le génocide des Tutsi, qui a fait près de 1 million de morts entre avril et juillet 1994, on veut le croire au sommet de l’Etat français. Emmanuel Macron reçoit son homologue rwandais, Paul Kagame, lundi 17 mai, à Paris, en marge d’une conférence sur le Soudan et à la veille d’un sommet sur le financement des économies africaines. Les deux hommes « ont pris l’habitude d’échanger en anglais dans un climat de confiance, de sincérité et de respect »,précise un membre de l’entourage du chef de l’Etat. Au cours de sa visite, Paul Kagame doit aussi s’entretenir avec d’anciens officiers de l’armée française, dont le général Jean Varret, responsable de la mission de coopération de 1990 à 1993, qui s’était opposé à sa hiérarchie lors de la tragédie.
Google Translate
DeepL Translator
Has the time come for reconciliation between France and Rwanda? Twenty-seven years after the genocide of the Tutsi, which killed nearly 1 million people between April and July 1994, we believe him at the top of the French state. Emmanuel Macron receives his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame, on Monday, May 17, in Paris, on the sidelines of a conference on Sudan and on the eve of a summit on the financing of African economies. The two men “have become accustomed to speaking in English in an atmosphere of trust, sincerity and respect,” said a member of the head of state’s entourage. During his visit, Paul Kagame must also meet with former officers of the French army, including General Jean Varret, responsible for the cooperation mission from 1990 to 1993, who opposed his hierarchy during of tragedy.
Has the time for reconciliation between France and Rwanda arrived? Twenty-seven years after the Tutsi genocide, which killed nearly one million people between April and July 1994, people at the top of the French government want to believe so. Emmanuel Macron received his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame, on Monday 17 May in Paris, on the sidelines of a conference on Sudan and on the eve of a summit on the financing of African economies. The two men “have become accustomed to exchanging in English in a climate of trust, sincerity and respect,” said a member of the entourage of the head of state. During his visit, Paul Kagame is also expected to meet with former French army officers, including General Jean Varret, head of the cooperation mission from 1990 to 1993, who had opposed his superiors during the tragedy.
For me, it’s a tie on that one. Google Translate’s first sentence felt more natural while DeepL’s “Tutsi genocide” vs. GT’s “genocide of the Tutsi” sounded better. DeepL’s “climate of trust, sincerity and respect” was better than GT’s “atmosphere of trust, sincerity and respect” as well as “opposed his superiors during the tragedy” vs. “opposed his hierarchy during of tragedy.”
Ultimately, this both use machine learning based on data that’s already out there and as language continues to change and evolve, it’ll be almost impossible to get things exactly right. But, for me, DeepL offers more nuance and less literal translations for words which is what you want as a human being.
So booking.com, in collaboration with Superfly X is offering The FRIENDS™ Experience and a chance to stay overnight in Monica and Rachel’s apartment visit the place where Ross said “PIVOT!”, and relax on Joey and Chandler’s Barcaloungers.
As much as I loved the show and reference it frequently, I’m so over these Friends fan experiences. The show ended 17 years ago; it’s been off-air longer than it was on-air. And, yes, I know they’re doing a reunion series, and this is good for business but I’m tired. But I did realise one thing: the apartment decor was awful. Purple and yellow with a random assortment of furniture? What were they thinking? I guess that passed for decor in the 90s but looking at it now, it’s bad.
