L.A. photographer finds beauty in abandoned couches

It's a sixth sense, he says, the way he can see the couches.

"They tend to lurk and you kind of have to look carefully," Andrew Ward says as he drives through the streets of L.A.'s West Adams neighbourhood, scanning the curbs for abandoned furniture.

Somehow he spots one hidden behind two parked cars.

"We're south L.A., just south of the 10 freeway and La Brea. And there's our first candidate there. It's an armchair, but it's good," Ward says.

The candidate is a grey one-seater adorned, for a reason only known to its former owner, with a seatbelt. It looks a little like Captain Kirk's chair ... if Kirk were homeless.

-CBC News

27 Playful Diversions on the Streets of Paris

Charles Leval aka Levalet, is a French artist that uses the streets of Paris as his canvas. The artist likes to incorporate the surroundings into his site-specific wheatpaste artworks, and his figures often seem to interact with their environment. According to an interview with Underground Paris, the 27-year old’s work began appearing in Paris in 2012. An art teacher by day, the artist enjoys exploring the city and seeking out potential ‘canvases’. 

-Twisted Sifter

When Martin Popplewell was 15 years old he watched the film The Blue Lagoon starring Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins. From then on he was determined to live as a castaway on an uninhabited Pacific Island with a girl, Friday.

When he realised his dream in 1989 he was just 18 years old. The adventure became a media sensation with journalists flying halfway round the world to cover the story. Martin kept a video diary of his experience.

-YouTube

Mesmerizing Underwater Photos by WAYNE LEVIN

Wayne Levin has an ever-growing portfolio of stunning underwater photography.

-5 things I learned today

Exploring Cuba, Guided by Graham Greene

‘Our Man in Havana’ was published at the end of 1958, and much of the city it describes remains intact.

Ending up being detained in a rough, remote Cuban prison wasn’t really supposed to be part of the plan. My original idea was this: To explore Cuba,  a nation suddenly on the brink of reconciliation with the United States, using the English author Graham Greene’s iconic 1958 spy novel Our Man in Havana as a travel guide. I’d track down the same locations, hotels, and bars he visited for inspiration, and hopefully gain some insight into the extent of Cuba’s inevitable transformation. True, about two-thirds of the way through the book, Greene’s protagonist does find himself apprehended by the Cuban police, but the story I had in mind was less windowless, concrete interrogation rooms and more sipping daiquiris in the Floridita bar.

-Atlas Obscura

Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, roi de La Havane

«Jeune, j’ai commencé des études en littérature, mais les ai rapidement abandonnées. Je refusais d’être soumis à toutes ces influences. Je voulais garder ma voix intérieure intacte et créer mon propre style», raconte l’auteur cubain Pedro Juan Gutiérrez.

Il suffit de quelques jours passés à La Havane pour comprendre que la plus grande île des Caraïbes change radicalement de peau ; Fidel est mort, Trump a été élu, Raúl doit quitter le pouvoir en 2018. L’accès à Internet a élargi l’horizon de ses habitants, la fin de l’embargo américain a fait le reste. Dans ce présent bouleversé, plus rien ne tient du passé et le futur reste incertain, raconte l’auteur cubain Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, qu’on a retrouvé le mois dernier au coeur de Centro Habana.

-Le Devoir

Scholar, entertainer, poet, hoarder: the many faces of my father Johnny Cash

My father had many faces. There was much that made up the man. If you think you ‘know’ John R. Cash, think again. There are many layers, so much beneath the surface.

First, I knew him to be fun. Within the first six years of my life, if asked what Dad was to me I would have emphatically responded: ‘Dad is fun!’ This was my simple foundation for my enduring relationship with my father.

This is the man he was. He never lost this.

-The Spectator

Dans l’ombre de la peur, le big data et nous

Que pèse le respect de la vie privée au regard des stratégies technologiques et commerciales mises en place par ces géants de l’Internet ayant pour nom Google, Facebook et autre Apple ? Le journaliste américain Michael Keller, spécialiste des nouveaux médias, et l’auteur de bande dessinée Josh Neufeld ont enquêté dans les méandres du big data, ces données personnelles que recueillent en nombre phénoménal un petit nombre d’entreprises privées ayant pignon sur le Web. Ils ont interviewé des chercheurs, des universitaires, des hommes politiques pour les besoins d’une plongée documentée, non dénuée d’humour, au cœur de ces pratiques qui n’en finissent pas de poser question. Leur album sortira le 14 mars aux éditions Çà et Là. Nous vous proposons d’en lire en exclusivité les 30 premières pages.

-Le Monde

Inside the Sex Party That Lets Straight Women Be Gay for a Night

The invitation to Skirt Club, a women-only, bisexual and bi-curious sex party, tells you one thing, loud and clear: This may be a girls-only orgy, but it's not lesbianism as you know it. This is Katy Perry singing "I kissed a girl and I liked it." This is an Agent Provocateur window display. This is the kind of awkward, lighthearted, lesbianism many women either had – or wished they'd had – in college. It's "lesbianism" that lesbians will recognise, but have a hard time endorsing without some irony. It's lesbianism as a side piece. It's lesbianism: our little secret, for women whose bi-curiosity has become too overwhelming to ignore.

-Rolling Stone

Groovy Chicks Selling Motorbikes: 1960s Sexy Swingin’ Scooter & Motorcycle Adverts

“There’s nothing square about the new world of fun and adventure you’ll discover with your first ride.”

In the latter half of the 1960s, Yamaha, Suzuki and other motorcycle companies started targeting the young Baby Boomers, a massive generation with unprecedented levels of leisure money ready to be spent.  These mod young suburbanites were primarily being sold on the smaller, less than 150cc brand of motorbikes – they’re cheaper and less intimidating.   Perfect for the wannabe jet-setting playboys of the New Generation.

And, as you might expect, the primary consumers were males – and, thus, the primary means of marketing these motorbikes was the “sex sells” approach.  Just throw in some groovy chicks to the advertising and the easily duped male consumers will believe a “Yamaha Street Scrambler” was his sure ticket to getting the ladies.

So, let’s have a look at some 1960s advertising (and a few from the early 70s) which target the up-and-coming, horny white male, flush with cash.  Enjoy.

-Flashbak

What We've Learned from Giving Dolphins LSD

In 1961, a handful of the world's top scientists gathered at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia, home to one of the most powerful radio telescopes in the world and the birthplace of the modern search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The meeting was held to decide whether scanning the cosmos for signs of alien life was a worthwhile idea. The group named itself the Order of the Dolphin in honor of John C Lilly, a neuroscientist who would spend the peak of his career taking LSD and trying to talk to dolphins.

-Vice

Easter Island Shows Why Humanity Will Be Extinct Within 100 Years

Like any other system, capitalism has its positive and negative qualities. In-arguably, it has lifted nearly a billion across the globe out of extreme poverty, between 1990 and 2010. But as with other socioeconomic systems of the past, such as with feudalism, a time can come when revolutionary changes make such systems anachronistic. So too has capitalism’s time come, at least the kind which exploits the biosphere.

A more sophisticated system must replace it. One reason is because we are on the verge of a technological shift which will make almost all working and middle class jobs obsolete within the next 25 years or so. Currently, middle and working class families are already getting squeezed in developed countries. Their wages have remained stagnant for decades while costs have steadily risen.

-big think

Guy Takes Characters from Renaissance Paintings and Photoshops Them Into the Present

In an ongoing series entitled, “Art History in Contemporary Life”, artist Alexey Kondakov skillfully photoshops characters from Renaissance paintings into present day photos he has taken around Europe.
The juxtaposition between the two time periods in the digitally altered scenes creates for an interesting visual.

-Twisted Sifter