August 2011
19 posts
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Jean-Pierre Léaud (right) as Antoine Doinel in Truffaut’s Les Quatre Cents Coups.
LES QUATRE CENTS COUPS (1959) In the mid 50′s it were the editors of the critical film magazine Cahiers du Cinema who would soon lay down the foundation for a revolution in cinema later named ‘The New Wave’. Amongst them was Francois Truffaut who had written the 1954 controversial essay “Une Certaine Tendance...
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“Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or...”
– Susan Sontag
July 2011
38 posts
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WHERE IS NOW? THE PARADOX OF THE PRESENT The night sky is a time machine. Look out and you look back in time. But this “time travel by eyesight” is not just the province of astronomy. It’s as close as the machine on which you are reading these words. Your present exists at the mercy of many overlapping pasts. So where, then, is “now”?
As almost everyone knows, when...
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Untitled, 1971. Kohei Yoshiyuki
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In the early 1970s Yoshiyuki used infrared film and a filtered flashbulb to capture nighttime images of clandestine sexual encounters in Tokyo’s Shinjuku, Yoyogi, and Aoyama Parks. At a time in Japan when premarital sex and homosexuality were frowned upon and most unmarried young people still lived with their parents, public parks at night offered a...
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SCAVENGER HUNT
Three young foxes spilling down the culvert. A red shirt in the closet. Stick jammed in the undercarriage. Steaming plates presented by a weeping waiter. Some days the sea is calm, others it would rip apart the world. You always wake in another room. It makes you want to be buried in the air but not yet. Some things separate themselves effortlessly from the abyss, the...
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“Maybe the first time you saw her you were ten. She was standing in the sun...”
– Nicole Krauss, The History of Love
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HOW TO DEAL WITH A MESS LIKE A 20-SOMETHING: KITCHEN MESSES EDITION By Kirin McCrory
Kitchen Messes (With Roommates) Walk into the kitchen. There are cabinet doors open. There’s a brown paper bag on the island from god knows how many days ago, and god knows whether it contained wine or bread (although it was probably one of those two things). Someone has finished his hummus but left the container...
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“When I’m 80 years old and sitting in my rocking chair, I’ll be reading Harry...”
– Alan Rickman
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Nude in Straw Hat, 1944. Martin Munkácsi
MARTIN MUNKACSI For most of his life, Martin Munkácsi was a madcap adventurer, Candide with a camera. In pursuit of great pictures during the 1930s and ’40s, the Hungarian-born photographer traveled from his home in Berlin and, later, New York to such far-flung places as London, Liberia, Rio de Janeiro, Hawaii, Turkey, Seville and San Francisco. To this...
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RAPHA-QUETTE By Simon Mills
• White socks only from May onwards. Black socks are for winter months.
• Yes, vintage jerseys - 20 years old or more - can look rather chic but, let’s face it, you do not ride for the US Postal/Quickstep/Liquigas team and you do not get paid big bucks to wear its garish livery, either… so who are you trying to kid?
• All road cycling kit should be road...
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“History should be honest. This bill revises existing laws that prohibit...”
– Gov. Jerry Brown on bill requiring inclusion of gay accomplishments in schools
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“What is my perfect crime? I break into Tiffany’s at midnight. Do I go for the...”
– Dwight K. Schrute, (The Office, “Frame Toby”)
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4 DRUNK CONVERSATIONS I NEED TO STOP INITIATING By Chelsea Fagan
I don’t know what it is. Really, I don’t. Apparently there’s this part of my brain, lodged uncomfortably somewhere between the temporal lobe and the cerebellum, that drives me against my will to start aimless conversations while drunk. No matter how unengaged the interlocutor, how uncomfortable the scenario, how forced the...
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Chop Suey, 1929. Edward Hopper
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These fashionable women are dining at a modest Chinese restaurant not unlike one the Hoppers frequented. Characteristically, Hopper depicts a moment before or after the main event—here, the meal—takes place. Also typical is the isolation and ambiguous relationship between the figures: it is not clear whether the dining companions are even looking at or...
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“The first thing we learn from studying our own circuitry is a simple lesson:...”
– David Eagleman, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain
“Dance a routine in a club with everyone inside.”
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US players celebrate their first goal during the FIFA Women’s World Cup Quarter Final match between Brazil and USA at Rudolf-Harbig stadium on July 10, 2011 in Dresden, Germany Dresden, Germany. (Photo by Alexandra Beier)
USA THROUGH AFTER THRILLER USA moved into the semi-finals after one of the most riveting games in the history of the women’s World Cup, beating Brazil 5-3 on...
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“Don’t think fat little blimp, think young sumo wrestler!”
– Art Historian Sister Wendy, speaking about baby Jesus in “Madonna and Child” by Raphael
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“A couple of hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin shared with the world the...”
– Meredith Grey (Grey’s Anatomy, “If Tomorrow Never Comes”)
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Watch
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Popsicles, from left to right (click for recipe): blueberry and lavender; orange, buttermilk and mint; dark chocolate, date and sesame; and spicy cantaloupe and ginger. Credit: Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times
PEACH AND ORANGE BLOSSOM HONEY POPS For an easy and refreshing summer treat, blend fresh fruit with tangy yogurt, milk, herbs, spices and honey and freeze.
Ingredients 1 1/2 cups...
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Artist: Beirut Title: Nantes Album: The Flying...