Beijing 2022 NFT Collection The first NFT project from Chinese dissident artist Badiucao, the Beijing 2022 Collection includes five works of art depicting the Chinese government’s oppression of the Tibetan people, the Uyghur genocide, the dismantling of democracy in Hong Kong, the regime’s omnipresent surveillance systems, and lack of transparency surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.
50 years after they were posted, a family in Florida receive a couple of parcels.
2 packages with 1971 postmark delivered to Lake Worth Beach home – WPTV “We found two parcels on the outside of our door,” Stephanie Russo said Wednesday. “At first, I didn’t pay much attention because we’ve had plenty of packages delivered in the last month.” When the family opened the packages, they found two psychedelic posters inside.
After some searching she found the family that occupied the house at the time.
Feigert said he was 13 years old when he lived in the house. He said his father was known to randomly write companies and request stuff. … Russo received two posters. She has decided to give one to Feigert and keep one for herself.
She kept one? But they weren’t hers. Anyway, here’s a more heart-warming version on the same theme.
WWII soldier’s letter from Germany finally delivered 76 years after sending – Boston 25 News A letter penned by a young Army sergeant in Germany to his mother in Woburn was lost in the mail for 76 years until finally being delivered last month. On Dec. 6, 1945, 22-year-old Sgt. John Gonsalves wrote to his mother, sending his well wishes and hopes of returning home soon. … That letter wouldn’t make it to its destination, sitting unopened for more than three quarters of a century, until suddenly and inexplicably, late last month, it showed up in a United States Postal Service facility for processing and distribution in Pittsburgh.
World War II soldier’s long-lost letter delivered to his widow 76 years later – UPI.com Gonsalves said receiving the 76-year-old letter and reading her late husband’s words from a time before they had even met was emotional. “I love it. I love it. When I think it’s all his words, I can’t believe it. It’s wonderful. And I feel like I have him here with me, you know?”
Let’s stay in France with these articles about Wes Anderson’s new film, The French Dispatch, based loosely on The New Yorker’s writers and editors. Whilst it’s fascinating to read about the real life editors and reporters that inspired the film, I’m more interested in its aesthetics.
The New Yorker writers and editors who inspired “The French Dispatch” – The New Yorker According to David Brendel, who worked closely with Anderson on “An Editor’s Burial,” an anthology of New Yorker articles and other writing that inspired the film, the filmmaker discussed the significance of the movie’s vibrant visual language during post-production. “This is a world where all of the eccentricities are preserved, and it’s as if the magazine’s offices and culture back then were as colorful as its covers,” Brendel said.
When Wes Anderson comes to town, buildings get symmetrical – The New York Times The top floors of the building, which include a sign so wordy (The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun) that it continues across the upper-floor windows, were actually designed as a miniature. That miniature was digitally merged with the real building to give the top of it a more stylized look. The townscape of buildings in the background to the left is also a digitally added miniature. But on the ground level, the fronts were constructed for the film.
I noticed that this photo of the original building is credited to Accidentally Wes Anderson, the website that highlights similarly interesting and idiosyncratic places from across the globe. It was nice to see some local architecture featured there, amongst all the others.
Accidentally Wes Anderson: Instagram finds stylised symmetry in real cities – The Guardian He says his account, @AccidentallyWesAnderson, has found favour with “an engaged group of explorers with a keen eye”, who send him thousands of submissions every week. The community he has built around Anderson’s aesthetic was recognised last month, when Koval was able to exclusively share the artwork for Anderson’s upcoming film, Isle of Dogs: “not accidental, but very much intentional Wes Anderson”.
That’s all been gathered up in book form, now.
‘Accidentally Wes Anderson’, a book of real locations that look like they’re made specifically for his films – Laughing Squid Wally Koval, the man behind the popular Accidentally Wes Anderson Instagram account that features real-life locations that look like they’re made in the distinct style of Wes Anderson specifically for his films, has put their photographic collection into a hardcover book with a sewn binding. The book showcases 200 different locations over 368 pages and features a foreword by Anderson himself.
But back to the movie, or rather the music video of the movie (with Jarvis Cocker!).
Watch Wes Anderson’s animated music video for The French Dispatch’s ‘Aline’ – Dazed Wes Anderson has directed a new, animated music video for Jarvis Cocker’s rendition of the 1965 Christophe track “Aline”, performed as the fictional pop star Tip Top. The song is one of several French pop covers to feature on Cocker’s musical counterpart to Anderson’s The French Dispatch. Titled Chansons d’Ennui, the record will also include versions of tracks by Serge Gainsbourg, Brigitte Bardot, Marie LaFôret, Jacques Dutronc, and more.
I note its style is very similar to the design of the initial movie poster, though they seem to have gone in a very different direction for this new set of posters.
12 new posters for The French Dispatch feature each of its characters within the wonderful world of print journalism – It’s Nice That The New Yorker is known for its beautiful covers. Each month, the publication delivers a new painted or illustrated cover for its readers, so it was important for the creative team behind the posters to emulate the covers and making sure the fonts stand out on the poster design. The result is clean and punchy posters which facilitate design elements to shine through, thus allowing for a clear and consistent design identity to be born of the cinematic world.
Looks like we’re heading off to Spain for the next one.
Wes Anderson is shooting a new film in Spain this summer – Dazed Sets for Anderson’s as-yet-untitled project can be seen on the outskirts of the town in south east Madrid, says the Spanish newspaper, ready for shooting in July, August, and September. These sets reportedly include a mock train station and landscapes typical of a classic Western (though the film isn’t said to be of that genre).
Goo Choki Par designs official poster for the Paralympics demonstrating Para-athletic power – It’s Nice That The design studio aimed to convey the idea that “passion cannot be stopped,” claiming that “passion is the hope of humanity that has always been passed on through the ages.” Although GCP were commissioned to create the official poster, the team went on to create all the posters for each of the 22 sports in the games, including canoeing, equestrian, and judo.
The concept was “Unity in Diversity” and this is reflected in the fusion of materials used to create the posters. “Geometric shapes are used to simplify the appeal of the competition,” says Kent Iitaka, “and to more symbolically express the moment when the body is full of power.” Brushes, pencils, and airbrushes were used in order to express speedy movement of athletes and the powerful competition space with passion.
The studio honed in on the dynamism of wheelchairs and artificial limbs alongside the power of sound produced by the athletes’ movements. As Iitaka puts it, “The various charms of parasports, such as the sensibilities of athletes who have been sharpened in the dark, of competitions held in a world without vision, are firmly established in one graphic for each competition.” The posters on black backgrounds are used to demonstrate a competition that includes a blind class – “It expresses the presence of a player who emerges powerfully even in the darkness with his eyes closed.”
Seeming to lift a page from Kumi Yamashita’s sketchbook, the BBC have brought Dracula to life in this spooky 3D poster for their gripping new series.
BBC’s ‘Dracula’ gets push with clever marketing campaign – My Modern Met Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a well-known tale, which is why ad executives in the UK needed to get creative when coming up with a campaign for the BBC’s new series. Dracula premiered on New Year’s Day and in the lead-up to the event, BBC Creative dreamed up an eye-catching billboard that gets spookier as the sun goes down.
Just as vampires only appear at night, there’s no trace of Dracula as the sun shines. Instead, once night falls, his sinister shadow emerges across the billboard. Mouth open wide and fangs out, there’s no mistaking the silhouette of the show’s lead character.
The executives at BBC Creative were looking for a fresh take on the classic tale as a way to get viewers engaged in the new series. Located in Birmingham and London, the two billboards are an exciting, out-of-the-box vision that pairs well with the series’ dark humor.
A clever poster for a clever, gripping, rejuvenated series. With this and A Christmas Carol, the BBC really raised the bar this Christmas. (Via Colossal)
The spirit photographs of William Hope Known as “spirit photographs”, they were taken by a controversial medium called William Hope. Born in 1863 in Crewe, Hope started his working life as a carpenter, but in 1905 became interested in spirit photography after capturing the supposed image of a ghost while photographing a friend. He went on to found and lead a group of six spirit photographers known as the Crewe Circle. Following World War I, support for the group, and demand for its services, grew as the grieving relatives of those lost to the war sought a means of contacting their loved ones.
He was later exposed as a fraudster, but could count Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as one of his supporters, so there you go.
What can a linguist learn from a gravestone? The key running theme of gravestone inscriptions is that they are for the living, and even for a more specific task: they reaffirm and reiterate membership in a group, and the beliefs that are part of the culture of that group. This does not necessarily mean that they are particularly informative about the life of the specific deceased, but they are full of useful, sometimes subtle cues about the community the deceased belonged to, and what they valued.
And what movies they liked?
The Mummy: the story of the world’s most expensive movie poster Auction house Sotheby’s is currently accepting bids for one of three remaining original posters of 1932’s The Mummy. It is expected to sell for somewhere between $1-1.5m, making it the world’s most expensive movie poster. It’s a scary amount of money.
I’m sure audiences at the time would have been terrified by that film, but could we say the same about this one, from Méliès? I don’t think so.
The Infernal Cauldron (1903) Short film by Georges Méliès, released through his Star Film Company, featuring demons, flames, spectres, and a brilliant array of the film-maker’s usual arsenal of tricks. As Wikipedia sums up: “In a Renaissance chamber decorated with devilish faces and a warped coat of arms, a gleeful Satan throws three human victims into a cauldron, which spews out flames. The victims rise from the cauldron as nebulous ghosts, and then turn into fireballs. The fireballs multiply and pursue Satan around the chamber. Finally Satan himself leaps into the infernal cauldron, which gives off a final burst of flame.” Enjoy!
And I can’t imagine this scaring anyone either. Sounds good, though.
So let’s end with an exploration of that devil’s interval, and how it moved from the Classical and Romantic eras into the mainstream.
Spooky music During the 19th century, composers like Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner cracked the code of creepiness. The sonic dread they pioneered involved two key ingredients that horror movies and metal bands still use today: a forbidden sequence of notes known as “Satan in music,” and a spooky little ditty that Gregorian monks sang about the apocalypse.
“Our weapon is public opinion” – Posters of the women’s suffrage movement at the University Library “These posters are fantastic examples of the suffrage publicity machine of the early twentieth century,” says Chris Burgess, exhibitions officer at the Library. “They were created to be plastered on walls, torn down by weather or political opponents, so it is highly unusual for this material to be safely stored for over a hundred years.”
Miscellaneous Details 