March 2010
4 posts
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Bill Cunningham sniffs change in the wind... →
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Ai Weiwei does the Turbine Hall →
February 2010
13 posts
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Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall remembers Rose Gray →
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Aalto Survives Geopolitics
nybooks:
Martin Filler
Alvar Aalto’s Villa Mairea (Flickr/08 ROTCH simoneau)
Although Alvar Aalto first won worldwide attention in the early 1930s as a leading exponent of the International Style—a reductive form of modern architecture proposed as equally applicable anywhere on the planet—his more expressive, site-specific work from the mid-Thirties onward marked him as a regional designer in...
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How long it is since I've thought about washing... →
Kevin Barry nails the abject horror and unremitting absurdity of provincial Irish life in his story The Fjord of Killary, which appeared in a recent New Yorker.
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Jonathan Glancey farewells Lucienne Day →
Nice obituary of the wonderful English designer, who died a few days ago at the age of 93. I was particularly heartened to hear that her and Robin, her husband and design partner, were more than happy for their products to be mass market, that ‘nothing was too good for ordinary people’. I have a recent Virago reissue of Muriel Spark’s A Far Cry from Kensington covered in a...
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Haiti - can we at least get their history right...
During the early days of the Haitian earthquake’s aftermath, while being horrified at the ABC’s continual reporting of missing ‘Aussies’ that seemed to ignore the 170, 000 or so local dead, I also noticed a small factoid box in The Australian newspaper. It explained away the country’s important and unique history as ‘Haiti gained independence from the French in...
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January 2010
5 posts
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An impassioned post by the ever spot-on Tom... →
he concurs that it has become increasingly ‘venal, insular and dominated by marketing’. Full of quotable quotes, though this one really stuck out: ‘The person who comes to you with the biggest pitch is not necessarily the person you should be listening to’.
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December 2009
26 posts
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“The day will come when you will trust you more than you do now, and you will...”
– James Baldwin
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Remix: The Price of a Ticket →
Five glorious minutes of Jimmy.
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The bus always comes to those who wait (let's... →
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A few of my favourite things:
L’Eau del’Artisan for L’Artisan Parfumeur (1993) Premier Figuier for L’Artisan Parfumeur (1994) Thé Pour Un été for L’Artisan Parfumeur (1996) Drôle de Rose for L’Artisan Parfumeur (1996) Philosykos for Diptyque (1996) Ofresia for Diptyque (1996) L’Eau du Fleuriste for L’Artisan Parfumeur (1997) Navegar for L’Artisan Parfumeur (1998) Hiris for Hermès...
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Billed as 'neither reference nor criticism,... →
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Over yesterday’s alt-country indie shit...
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Wow, I could actually own the Ennis House... →
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Looking for a Manifesto for the New Nordic... →
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“We’re talking about building into the architecture a critical thread. A...”
– Peter Zumthor ponders the remaking of LACMA in the Architect’s Newspaper.
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“David Cameron risks reviving the distinction between the deserving and...”
– From a review of Personal Responsibility: Why It Matters by Alexander Brown in the LRB, which also describes the idea of free will as a ‘marshy notion’.
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I've joined a cult... →
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Smells like...a Romanian perfume obsessive →
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November 2009
10 posts
3 tags
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