Ode to the Ice Man

From the late 19th century to mid-20th century, the ice man (and ice woman during wartime) was a common sight in cities and towns where he would make daily rounds delivering ice for iceboxes before the electric domestic refrigerator became commonplace. Today we need only reach into our refrigerator for our personal supply of homemade ice cubes, but depending on where you lived a century or so ago, your ice might have travelled across oceans and continents, surviving over a hundred days without melting, just to chill your drink on a hot summer’s day. 

- Messy Nessy Chic

 

I’m Obsessed With ‘Old.’ The Twist: I Won’t See It.

M. Night Shyamalan’s new movie has a trailer that eerily resonates with our strange times; and that’s enough for me.

Let me say up front that I do not expect to see M. Night Shyamalan’s latest movie, “Old,” which arrived in theaters last week, for no other reason than that I am traveling and haven’t set foot in a theater in almost two years. But in the past few weeks, I have watched its trailer over and over, enthralled by its combination of existential horror and unintended humor. The trailer introduces us to some people who become trapped on a remote beach, where they begin to age at an insanely accelerated pace. Naturally, they try to figure out what’s happening, floating theories and freaking out. 

- NY Times Magazine

 

How Does It Feel To Have A Partner Who Does Sex Work?

Chris Buck, a photographer and director based in New York and California, has always been drawn to the tension between strength and vulnerability. In his latest series — the book, Gentlemen’s Club — Buck explores that dichotomy within the world of strip clubs. Over six years, he interviewed 40 people — strippers and their partners.

Buck’s earliest questions were basic, revolving around some variation of: Are you sure you’re cool with your partner stripping? As he spoke to more couples, though, his project began to take shape, becoming more about, as he puts it, “these sort of complicated relationships and how we navigate a social world that is not linear.” 

- Refinery29

 

Artist Spent Over 60 Days Making A Graphic Novel Version Of The “Hotel California” Song

According to Swarnavo Datta: “I have been a fan of the song Hotel California by Eagles since I was a kid. As an adult, I fell in love with the idea of Graphic Novels. So I decided to join them together and visually imagine the song in my own way. This was a series that I ran on my Instagram page. Hope you enjoy it.”

- Design you Trust

 

Une petite histoire des vacances

En 1946, une nouvelle la loi du gouvernement québécois de Maurice Duplessis accorde une première semaine de vacances payées aux ouvriers. Pour y avoir droit, un employé doit au préalable avoir travaillé une année complète.

La mesure n’est pas avant-gardiste. Il s’agit d’un timide rattrapage à l’heure où, au sortir de la guerre, l’industrie a le vent dans les voiles.

- Le Devoir

 

The Tyranny Of Time

The clock is a useful social tool, but it is also deeply political. It benefits some, marginalizes others and blinds us from a true understanding of our own bodies and the world around us.

On a damp and cloudy afternoon on February 15, 1894, a man walked through Greenwich Park in East London. His name was Martial Bourdin — French, 26 years of age, with slicked-back dark hair and a mustache. He wandered up the zigzagged path that led to the Royal Observatory, which just 10 years earlier had been established as the symbolic and scientific center of globally standardized clock time — Greenwich Mean Time — as well as the British Empire. In his left hand, Bourdin carried a bomb: a brown paper bag containing a metal case full of explosives. As he got closer to his target, he primed it with a bottle of sulfuric acid. But then, as he stood facing the Observatory, it exploded in his hands.

- NOEMA

Coup de Blues / Soleil

Nude Sunbathing - My husband’s friend wasn’t expecting me

It was hot, and my clothing stuck to my skin. Even with the breeze that flowed over the boat, I felt like I was in a sauna.

"Babe, it's way too hot out here," I complained.

He passed me another drink and said, "Then take your clothes off. Go for a dip in the lake to cool off and then warm up in the sun."

- MyErotica

 

The Manchineel, or 'Death Apple,' Is the World's Most Dangerous Tree

Whether you climb them, hug them or admire them, trees are one part of nature that are so easy to love, cleansing the air we breathe, offering shade from the sun and providing sweet, nutritious fruit. But love isn't exactly what you'll feel if you get too close to the manchineel tree. Known as the most dangerous tree in the world, it's found along the sandy beaches and mangroves in tropical climates stretching from Florida to the Caribbean, and down into parts of Central and South America. And this tree can cause a world of hurt.

- Howstuffworks

 

Italian Summer Transports You To The Coast of Tuscany

Lorenzo Grifantini is co-founder of a successful architectural company, but as a youngster he always had a passion for the cinema, and by extension, photography. For the past two years he has focused on improving his technical knowledge of photography while always looking for new stories to tell through his images. One of his recent series, Italian Summer caught our attention.

- The Phoblographer

 

James Franco and Christina Voros on BDSM documentary ‘kink’

While filming 2012’s About Cherry, actor James Franco had the opportunity to explore the former San Francisco Armory. The massive, castle-like building now serves as headquarters for Peter Acworth’s Kink.com, the Internet’s largest producer of BDSM pornography. The facility is operated not unlike an old Hollywood studio lot, with multiple productions occurring simultaneously across the building’s many sets and soundstages, generating a steady stream of content for Kink.com’s various websites.

Franco tapped cinematographer Christina Voros – who worked on his recent directorial efforts, Child of God, As I Lay Dying, and Sal – to spearhead a documentary on Kink.com, its employees and models, and its production complex. The film, kink, offers a rare and surprising behind-the-scenes look at the world of professional BDSM pornography.

- Under the Radar

Why Russians do not smile

Cultural differences create a lot of misunderstanding in communications between Westerners, particularly Americans, and Russians. In this mini-ethnography I present the main differences in perception of the smile in Russia and in the United States.

- The Chicago Maroon

 

Rachel Kushner Remembers Her Hard-Rocking Friends, Many of Whom Are Gone

“I am the one who lived to tell,” Kushner writes in the title essay — a memoir about growing up in a San Francisco where girls became strippers or cocktail waitresses and boys became skateboarders or skinheads, or worked as bouncers “in between prison stints.” Kushner and her friends are “ratty delinquents” who cut school to hang out in gambling parlors and head shops or with a Hare Krishna who may or may not be a singer for the Cro-Mags.

- NY Times

 

La justice reconnaît « l’exception de parodie » d’un peintre fusionnant Tintin avec Hopper

Un tribunal français a débouté lundi la société Moulinsart qui poursuivait, pour contrefaçon et atteinte au droit moral d’Hergé, un peintre français dont les œuvres mêlent l’univers de Tintin et d’Edward Hopper.

- Le Devoir