10: fancy vinegar, dalit cuisine, ant egg soup, genderfeels in central asia,
I don’t even know where to begin with the past week, which included more blue-lit drama with my landlord, some unwanted carceral feelings, and one of those breaking points of burnout where it feels like everything cracks, but refuses to resolve itself by actually shattering. I pulled out of some things and am trying to take on less, not work through weekends for the first time (last Saturday I went to Brighton Beach! Delightful!) and generally not feel like I’m rubbing my bones raw.
These particularly stunning images of “ferruginous variation” illustrate an 1868 paper, the perfect saffron and bark palette for these last hell weeks of summer. I feel like it might be nice to feature young/emerging artists instead here, and maybe I will do that at some point, but for the moment I’m enjoying diving into what’s available as public domain. No diary this week, due to a scheduling snafu but we’ll be back as usual on Tuesday.
spiky bois
The audacity to ask questions. When polaroid workers fought apartheid. Hearth of a nation. How did this dress get so popular in a pandemic? Reindeer at the end of the world. Covid-19 and the spectres of colonialism. Orthodox Jewish women are facing an impossible choice right now. Water scarcity, climate change, and Covid-19 in Yemen. Pandemic internationalism.The unequal future of consumption. The birth of rent control. People are struggling to cope with the physical manifestations of their COVID stress. Solar tracking. Notes from Chennai during Covid-19. Lifestyles of the rich and reckless: posh pandemic parties. Curating the wound: the public memory of Partition remains woefully caste-blind. Placing the pandemic in time: astrology and Covid-19. We need more indigenous doctors, stat. This physician has a plan. Nearly 1000 new hotels are opening during the pandemic. Why? The renegade priest helping undocumented people survive Covid-19. Belarus dispatch.
glouglou and snackchat
7-up with milk is a revelation. To love, honor, and share fridge space. Grounded travellers are ordering airline food to cope with pandemic. Urban Laotians pay handsomely for ant egg soup. In Canada, Gold Rush-era garbage reveals a history of Chinese immigrant cuisine. The mesmerising geometry of Malaysia’s most complex cakes. Whose food city? ─ The Northeastern Restaurants of Humayunpur, Delhi. The Japanese origins of modern fine dining. The faux fish coming to a restaurant near you. Indian mithai has a sweetness problem. Hazardous cravings. The soybean years. The politics of the dog meat ban in Nagaland. The poodle who hosts a Japanese cooking show from beyond the grave. Where did all these fancy vinegar brands come from? I walked 600 miles across Japan for pizza toast. 🔊Tracing the way of kueh. The other Kellogg: Ella Eaton. There is no Dalit cuisine.
painting and writing
For immediate release: “lower-middle class and loving it.” Writing Africa’s future in new characters. Iraq and the Arab world on the edge of an abyss. African literature is a country. Transnational African feminisms. Canasia Lubrin: 53 acts of living. Uighur poets on repression and exile. Who translated Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth into Persian? Talk it out. The long, bloody strike for ethnic studies. Hello? The art of the phonecall. The global Dalit, the Indian Black: Cornel West in conversation with Suraj Yengde. 🔊The Wubi effect. How a thriving Indo-Pak literary interface was spoilt by political stand-off. Zanele Muholi: art and activism. 🔊Writing home: American voices from the Carribbean. Activist curators are sharpening the debate on restitution. Saidiya Hartman.
tentacles and ink
Deep intellect. The first time. The world’s best breast reconstruction artists runs a tattoo parlor in Maryland. Stick-and-poke tattoos are giving people a sense of control. This is what happens to a shy octopus on ecstasy. Does an octopus have a soul? This author thinks so. The octopus from outer space. The curious tale of the Salish Sea feet. The tentacled topper. This shape-shifting material mimics octopus skin. Coastal job: exhibit designer and an octopus’ toymaker. How an octopus feels when it’s eaten alive. The squid hunter. Inking against invisibility.
☞\( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)☞yeehaw
The North American maximalism of Gigi Hadid and Drake’s home design. Body capital: how twerking shapes the sound of Southern rap. Apple design history: handles. Collective turn-off. Genderfeels in Nomad’s land. How I learned to small talk with white people. Settler fantasies, televised. How social justice slideshows took over Instagram. The return of Anonymous. Rethinking the science of skin. Ghost World. Shithole country clubs. Australians are growing magnificent mullets to raise money for mental health. An unusual meteorite, more valuable than gold, may hold the building blocks of life. Chinese people mean something very different when they send you a smiley emoji. The deep roots of an Italian song that sounds like English, but is just nonsense. How loops are changing the sound and business of rap production. The 3D printed gun isn’t coming, it’s already here. How cork is made. The woman on the bridge. The laughing gas wars of South London. Hogs wild.
featured creature: baluchistan pygmy jerboa
They’re basically fuzzy little M&Ms with tails! LOOK at them:
