SIX FOUR (I)

Nearing the 400 page mark of Hideo Yokoyama’s much-lauded crime novel and I'm a.) pretty sure that I like it and b.) not quite sure what I was expecting. It certainly wasn't an INSIDER-esque look at the relationship between the Japanese police and the media; perhaps something more along the lines of DRAGON TATTOO or even HIGH AND LOW (a favorite film; mem: still need to watch Spike Lee's HIGHEST 2 LOWEST). Expectations aside, I know like it well enough to have picked up Yokoyama’s other books in English translation (SEVENTEEN and THE NORTH LIGHT) – I'll just be sure to never read the back or anything about any of his work before diving in. Marketing copy expectations are a cruel temptress and, now that I'm over waiting for the kidnapping part to take over, I realize that I should've known better. Even though I did write my own copy for my own book all those years ago but hey, whatever works.

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…

• Japan’s Dwindling “Signboard” Buildings | Dwell

• 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):

And if a prosthetic need not mimic the limb it is replacing, then perhaps prosthetics could be more than just replacements? Ms Clode is an expert in the design of robotic prostheses controlled by artificial tendons. She is keen to explore the possibility of augmenting existing bodies with new capabilities, making prosthetics “a technology that could be of use to everybody, not just amputees”. To that end she has designed the “Third Thumb”, a small and robust prosthetic digit that does exactly what it says on the tin. Controlled, like Ms Knox’s vine-arm, by pressure sensors in a pair of shoes, the thumb can be used to replace a missing one. But it can also be added to an intact hand on the opposite side from its existing, biological thumb.

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2024/02/01/why-prosthetic-limbs-need-not-look-like-real-ones