I’ve started adding soy sauce to my morning omelette and cooking it in a Tamagoyaki pan and goodgod is it delicious. Nice to know that after thousands of morning omelettes, I can still find and be surprised by new tastes.
TOKYO VICE, s2 (2024)
If the narrative and temporal catch-up to Jake and Katagiri's meeting with Tozawa's right hand from the (MIchael Mann-directed) pilot in one of the last episodes of this season is any indication, I'll be more surprised if there's a third season than if there isn't – but what a fantastic ending to a great, underrated show and/or season: more amped up than the first, a steady, pulpier unfolding with great characters (this season belonged to Show Kasamatu's Sato and Rinko Kincuchi's – still one of my favorite actors, her role in Rian Johnson's THE BROTHERS BLOOM being a favorite – Emi and, to a slightly lesser extent, Rachel Keller's Samantha) whom I'll miss – yes, even Engelgort's Jake, whom, like nearly every other character at one point in the show, I wanted to punch (Engelgort's still the weak point of the show; I wish they had kept Daniel Radcliffe in the role from the unproduced film version) – dearly. Great show: if you didn't watch it, give it a binge. (**** / *****)
links/2024w07
I've been familiar with Vidocq's wild story for awhile, but this excellent longread is a perfect summation: Eugène-François Vidocq and the Birth of the Detective | The Public Domain Review
Artist Pandora Graessl’s Transportive “Amor Fati: When the Fire Bit Me” Exhibition | Cool Hunting
The five finished minutes included in this piece are incredible: The Russian Animators Who Have Spent 40 Years Animating Gogol's "The Overcoat" | Open Culture
Yours for $25k: Brian Eno's light-up turntable changes colour in "complex and unpredictable" patterns | Dezeen
Art Bites: Surrealist Painter René Magritte Was a Master Forger, Too | artnet
Autodidacts FTW: Noriko Sugiyama Transforms Old Kimono Into Luxurious Landscapes | Spoon & Tamago:
Excited for this one: Wagner + Jones + Dracula = instant sale: Dark Horse to bring DRACULA BOOK 1: THE IMPALER to eager blood fiends this October | ComicsBeat
Fourteen views of Himeji Castle | {feuilleton}
Favorite headline of the week: Yakuza member selling soda arrested for extorting money from ninja spreading flyers in Asakusa | SoraNews24
Seatbelts inform Steady walking aid for elderly dogs | Dezeen
‘Black Panther’ Costume Designer Launches Otherworldly 3D-Printed Handbags | Yanko Design
Dream home = found: A Pair of Backyard Cabins Are Worlds Removed From Their Main Residence—But Only Steps Away | Dwell
And finally, a wonderful look inside OSU's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. Need to make a return trip sooner rather than later… Inside the World’s Largest Comics and Cartoons Collection | Hyperallergic
links/2024w06
Experimenting with returning links to being their own weekly post (or perhaps twice-weekly, on Weds and Sat?), a hodgepodge of trailers and quotes and more. Plus it’s easier to update these at the last minute than it is trying to update the newsletter before it sends (and K said she enjoys clicking through them so there). Anyhow…
Fans Flock to Witness a Single Chord Change in John Cage’s 639-Year-Long Organ Performance | artnet
See Stunning Photos of Pompeii’s Wall Paintings and Mosaics, Now Compiled in a New Book | artnet
You may take my money now. Dan Trachtenberg To Direct New Standalone ‘Predator’ Movie ‘Badlands’ As 20th Century Expands On Universe | Deadline
Her work is amazing, modern art in quilt form: Mary Lee Bendolph, Gee’s Bend Quilter | American Age Fashion
HIGH AND LOW is my favorite Kurosawa film; I'm hopeful that this will be better than the last time Spike Lee remade the work of an Asian filmmaker: Denzel Washington & Spike Lee Reunite For High And Low Remake | Bleeding Cool
A Portfolio: Ji Zou | Juxtapoz Magazine
Just finished A RAGE IN HARLEM, and Himes has already become one of my favorite authors. Good timing, NYT: The Crime Novelist Who Was Also a Great American Novelist | NYT (paywall)
And finally, an intriguing read on the notion of embodiment and the potential for prostheses to become a mix of personal sculpture and human augmentation: Why prosthetic limbs need not look like real ones | The Economist (paywall):
“dive into the cheese magma”
(via SoraNews24): Simultaneously horrified and intrigued by Domino’s Japan’s Cheese Volcano Pizza. Pretty sure I need more insulin (and/or a stent) from looking at this picture:
To promote their concoction, Domino’s Japan hired opera baritone Teruhiko Komori to deliver this stirring number (translation, from SoraNews, below the vid):