December 30, 2018
Knife, Paper, Octopus
Paper cutting art requires tremendous patience and a steady hand, and Japanese artist Masayo Fukuda has mastered the craft. Known as Kirie in Japanese (translated as “cut picture”), the traditional art form involves cutting intricate forms from a single sheet of white paper and then contrasting it against a black background to reveal the design. Fukuda has been practicing Kirie for 25 years and has recently revealed what she believes to be her best work of 2018—an incredible life-sized paper octopus. [more inside]
The FBI of the NPS
The 33 special agents assigned to the Investigative Services Branch handle the most complex crimes committed on NPS land. When a day hike in Rocky Mountain National Park ended in a grisly death, ISB veteran Beth Shott hit the trail, where she began unraveling a harrowing case.
Recent reviews of reviews
Aaron Bady (Popula, 12/20/2018), "Milkman: I Have Not Finished This Very Good Novel (Though I Probably Will)": "Why would I get mad at [Dwight Garner] for the structural impossibility of the genre he's paid to write in?" Nicola Griffith (nicolagriffith.com, 4/2/2018), "How Ableism Affects a Book Review": "So Lucky's first review ... epitomises the bias faced by novels about disabled characters written by disabled authors and it's time this bias was called out." Mark Brown (The Guardian, 10/7/2018), "Kate Atkinson calls authors reviewing their peers a 'callous art'": "Atkinson called Dee's review bizarre. 'He was making a whole article out of me not being Rachel Cusk.'" [more inside]
Cold Genius
"What Power art thou, Who from below, Hast made me rise, Unwillingly and slow..." (playlist.) "The Frost Scene" from Act 3 of Henry Purcell's 1691 semi-opera King Arthur, or The British Worthy, performed here as a comedy by the French ensemble Le Concert Spirituel. Also called the "Cold Genius Scene", it's probably best known for the "Cold Song," which was reintroduced to modern audiences by Klaus Nomi's haunting rendition. [more inside]
"imagine Holes but without the holes"
“I grew up on the crime side, the New York Times side”
City Council Approves Street Co-Naming For Woody Guthrie, Notorious B.I.G. & Wu-Tang Clan [Gothamist] “In its final meeting of the year, the New York City Council voted 48-0 to honor three music icons in their home boroughs: famed hip hop artists Biggie Smalls/Notorious B.I.G. (a.k.a. Christopher Wallace) and the Wu-Tang Clan, as well as folk singer Woody Guthrie. Christopher Wallace Way would be located on St. James Place, between Fulton Street and Gates Avenue in Brooklyn, the same block where the late rapper Biggie Smalls grew up. [...] And in a nod to the city’s folk tradition, Woody Guthrie Way would be located on Mermaid Avenue between West 35th and West 36th streets in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, where the singer moved with his wife in 1943.”
Iconic Hong Kong director, producer, and screenwriter Ringo Lam has died
R.I.P. Veteran Hong Kong Director Ringo Lam (AV Club obituary) "A veteran of the Hong Kong film scene, Lam exploded into the world of action and crime films with his 1987 feature City On Fire—still held up as both a codifying film in the “bad men with guns and honor” sub-genre of crime pictures, and the unofficial inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. Although his later films—including multiple American movies with Jean-Claude Van Damme, many of them weirdly obsessed with duplicates and doubles—failed to capture that same initial burst of style or creative energy, Lam’s influence on the modern action picture is impossible to discount." [more inside]
"Tunisian techno, Xitsongan rap and Satanic doo-wop"
The Guardian suggests 50 new artists and bands you might want to check out in 2019. All the names there are new to me, so I made a Spotify playlist to help me (and you) investigate them further. I'm only about a dozen tracks into it myself so far, but already I love Saweetie, Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard and The Manor.
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