Harvard Library’s collection of Soviet and post-Soviet lapel pins. Sputnik, Aeroflot, the...
Harvard Library’s collection of Soviet and post-Soviet lapel pins. Sputnik, Aeroflot, the 1980 Olympics, Tolstoy…collect your favorites!
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Swift Justice: A Look Inside a Taliban Courtroom
Swift Justice is a short documentary that, perhaps for the first time, takes viewers inside a rural Afghan courtroom operated by the Taliban, whose arbiters decide cases using Sharia law. [Content warning: a man is visibly beaten in the courtroom to make him “speak the tru...
Life Is More Than an Engineering Problem, an interview with Ted Chiang...
Life Is More Than an Engineering Problem, an interview with Ted Chiang from earlier this year. “I don’t believe it’s meaningful to say that something is better art absent any context of how it was created. Art is all about context.”
The 25 Most Influential Magazine Covers of All Time, including, of course,...
The 25 Most Influential Magazine Covers of All Time, including, of course, Ali on the cover of Esquire as Saint Sebastian. See also all the nominated covers.
Instead of hiding rips and tears, the visible mending movement turns them...
Instead of hiding rips and tears, the visible mending movement turns them into art. “Born from the Japanese art of sashiko, visible mending enables crafters to eschew fast fashion and make mistakes beautiful.”
Old Masters, New Media
In a five part series called “emoji-nation”, Ukrainian Nastya Ptichek mixes the work of well-known painters with graphical elements of new media. In the second part of the series, the works of Edward Hopper are augmented with social media interface icons:
The first part finds emoji doppelgangers for works of fine art while the third part uses paintings as movie poster imagery for the likes of Kill Bill and Home Alone (paired with Munch’s The Scream). For part four, Ptichek places modal dialogs over art works:
And part five plays around with several Google interface elements:
Love this kind of thing. Feels like I’ve seen something like it before though. Anyone recall?
[This is a vintage post originally from Apr 2014.]
Tags: art · Nastya Ptichek · remix · timeless posts
When Kittens Came to My Prison, I Had Not Petted One in...
When Kittens Came to My Prison, I Had Not Petted One in 15 Years. “All those hard cases doing hard time melt like butter on a summer sidewalk when they visit the felines, feed them, watch them chase the birds and bees…”
A Chronology of All 113 Prints of Hokusai’s The Great Wave
A few years ago, a researcher looked at every surviving print of Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa that she could find (113 in all) and, using differences caused by “woodblock wear”, developed a system for determining if a particular print was made early in the life of...
Are you ok? In a recent video, Hank Green tells his brother...
Are you ok? In a recent video, Hank Green tells his brother John: I’ve Not Been Doing Well. Lots of what Green says here resonates with me.
Quentin Blake: How I Draw
Illustrator Quentin Blake, who is most widely known for his energetic drawings for Roald Dahl’s books, generously shares his drawing process on his website and also in a series of videos.
I do a freewheeling sort of drawing that looks as though it is done on the spur of the moment. However even a single drawing needs a certain amount of preparation and planning. Most of the time I need to do a rough in which I find out how people stand, what sort of expressions they have and how they fit on the page.
Here are some of the videos he’s done. Quentin Blake draws a Hornswoggler:
Ten Minutes of Illustration (in three parts for some reason):
The illustration above is from The Wild Washerwomen.
Tags: art · books · how to · illustration · Quentin Blake
The official number of exoplanets tracked by NASA has reached 6000. Astronomers...
The official number of exoplanets tracked by NASA has reached 6000. Astronomers have found “planets covered in lava; some with the density of Styrofoam; and others with clouds made of gemstones”.
Musician Plays the Last Stradivarius Guitar in the World, the “Sabionari” Made...
Musician Plays the Last Stradivarius Guitar in the World, the “Sabionari” Made in 1679. I had no idea Stradivari made guitars.
A company called Blackdot has built a tattooing robot. The company says...
A company called Blackdot has built a tattooing robot. The company says the machine is less painful and the tattoos look like they are laser-printed.
Have I Earned It?
Craig Mod is off on another of his long walks of Japan and is writing a pop-up newsletter (subscribe!) along the way. I am feeling this bit from his first missive recently:
To have a day like today feels a bit selfish, even more so after having met Vlad. He wonders, always wonders, if he has earned it. The time alone, the steps, the little interactions, the looking closely at the world. He takes it, he’ll take whatever he can get whenever, and try to be as grateful as possible. What else is there? Tiny men with big sticks upend sanity the world ‘round and all you can do is try to find your footing and push back.
Tags: Craig Mod
A new kind of bone glue that “mimics how oysters stick to...
A new kind of bone glue that “mimics how oysters stick to underwater surfaces” can bond bone fragments together in 2-3 minutes, “even in blood-rich areas where most adhesives fail”.
25 years ago today, Radiohead released Kid A. This morning, I’m celebrating...
25 years ago today, Radiohead released Kid A. This morning, I’m celebrating by, um, listening to Kid A.
“Scientists reflect on the life and work of [Jane Goodall], whose discoveries...
“Scientists reflect on the life and work of [Jane Goodall], whose discoveries made them rethink what it means to be human.”
Amateurs! How We Built Internet Culture and Why it Matters. “A bold,...
Amateurs! How We Built Internet Culture and Why it Matters. “A bold, thoughtful and beautifully lyrical exploration of how amateur creativity shaped the internet.”
Every Click
Korean artist group Shinseungback Kimyonghun made a video of every time they clicked their mouse. It’s mesmerizing.
[This is a vintage post originally from Jan 2014.]
Tags: mesmerizing · Shinseungback Kimyonghun · timeless posts · video
The driest desert on Earth (non-polar category) is blooming in a gorgeous...
From Haymarket Books, an Abolish the Border, Abolish the Police Reading List....
From Haymarket Books, an Abolish the Border, Abolish the Police Reading List. “In solidarity with all those standing up for our communities against the brutality of immigrant detention and police repression, we offer an extensive reading list…”
A Loophole to Survive the End of the Universe?
The latest video from Kurzgesagt imagines a scenario in which an advanced civilization called the Noxans can potentially survive the heat death of the universe.
With five hours of the full energy emitted by the Sun, we could power present day humanity for about 10 billion years.
So the Noxans harvest the last stars and build a gigantic complex of batteries around their home star. In principle, this energy could keep them alive for a few hundred trillion years, a long time but not even close to forever.
So now the hard part of the plan begins. The Noxans need to change the nature of life itself.
Tags: Kurzgesagt · physics · science · video
Anil Dash on Mariah Carey’s unreleased “Hole-inspired grunge album” called Someone’s Ugly...
Anil Dash on Mariah Carey’s unreleased “Hole-inspired grunge album” called Someone’s Ugly Daughter, recorded in the mid-90s with “an album cover featuring a dead cockroach on the front”.
Which one of these paintings of a guitar player is by Johannes...
Which one of these paintings of a guitar player is by Johannes Vermeer? Both? Neither? They’re hanging side-by-side in London for the next few months so you can decide for yourself.
The Age Of Innocence: Adaptation Done Right
In his latest video, Evan Puschak looks at the differences between Edith Wharton’s novel The Age of Innocence and Martin Scorsese’s 1993 film adaptation.
In every adaptation across artistic mediums, there is a loss. You lose something of the original, something vital. But...
Trump Has No Mandate to Destroy America. The manifestation of a Trump...
Trump Has No Mandate to Destroy America. The manifestation of a Trump mandate is understandable for the party trying to overthrow democracy, but for Democrats to go along with it is inexcusable & self-destructive.
Five More Things I Want to Tell My White Friends. “Please understand...
Five More Things I Want to Tell My White Friends. “Please understand the degree to which Black and brown people (and LGBTQ+ folks) in this country are particularly scared and feel abandoned at the moment…”
I really appreciated this thoughtful piece about Ta-Nehisi Coates & Ezra Klein....
I really appreciated this thoughtful piece about Ta-Nehisi Coates & Ezra Klein. Andrea Pitzer says “lost” folks like Klein “don’t have a clear idea how this moment fits into history and what it is exactly that they’re doing”.
12 Booker Prize 2025 nominees share their writing spots. “There are kitchen...
12 Booker Prize 2025 nominees share their writing spots. “There are kitchen tables, laptops open amongst the charming chaos of daily life, and desks appropriately equipped with the tools of the job, from laptop stands to ergonomic office chairs.”
Na Kim, in the Abstract
I love this self-portrait by Na Kim. It’s somehow bold and subtle? Wow.