Every Christmas, Peruvians Living in the Andes Settle Their Scores at Fist-Fighting Festivals

in Life, Travel | August 12th, 2021

As Chris Hedges dis­cov­ered as a bat­tle-hard­ened reporter, war is a force that gives us mean­ing. Whether we sub­li­mate vio­lence in enter­tain­ment, have paid pro­fes­sion­als and state agents do it for us, or car­ry it out our­selves, human beings can­not seem to give up their most ancient vice; “we demo­nize the ene­my,” Hedges wrote, “so that our oppo­nent is no longer human,” and “we view our­selves, our peo­ple, as the embod­i­ment of absolute good­ness…. Each side reduces the oth­er to objects — even­tu­al­ly in the form of corpses.” Each new gen­er­a­tion inher­its old hatreds, and so forth.…

Maybe one way to break cycles of vio­lence is with con­trolled vio­lence — using bare fists to set­tle scores, and walk­ing away with only bruis­es, a lit­tle hurt pride, but no last­ing wounds? That’s the idea behind Takanakuy, an Andean fes­ti­val that takes place each year at Christ­mas in the province of Chumbivil­cas, in the moun­tains of Peru. The region has a police force made up of around three offi­cers, the near­est cour­t­house is “a stom­ach-wreck­ing 10-hour dri­ve through the moun­tains,” notes Vice, who bring us the video above. Poten­tial­ly explo­sive dis­putes nat­u­ral­ly arise, and must be set­tled out­side the law.

Rather than rely on state inter­ven­tion, res­i­dents wait to slug it out on Takanakuy. The name of the fes­ti­val come from Quechua — the region’s indige­nous lan­guage — and means “to hit each oth­er” or, more idiomat­i­cal­ly, “when the blood is boil­ing.” But com­bat­ants have had upwards of twelve months to cool before they step into a ring of cheer­ing spec­ta­tors and go hand-to-hand with an oppo­nent. Fights are also offi­ci­at­ed by ref­er­ees, who do crowd con­trol with short rope whips and call a fight as soon as some­one goes down. Takanakuy is rit­u­al­ized com­bat, not blood­sport. Although tra­di­tion­al­ly dom­i­nat­ed by men, women, and chil­dren also par­tic­i­pate in fights, which usu­al­ly only last a cou­ple min­utes or so.

“Some tra­di­tion­al­ists dis­ap­prove of female par­tic­i­pa­tion in Takanakuy,” writes pho­to­jour­nal­ist Mike Kai Chen at The New York Times, but “an increas­ing num­ber of women in Chumbivil­cas are defy­ing con­ven­tion and step­ping up to fight in front of their com­mu­ni­ty.” Male fight­ers wear boots, flashy leather chaps, and elab­o­rate, hand-sewn masks with taxi­der­mied birds on top. Women wear ele­gant dress­es with fine embroi­dery, and wrap their wrists in col­or­ful embroi­dered cloth. “The ulti­mate aim is to begin the new year in peace. For this rea­son every fight… begins and ends with a hug”… or, at the very least, a hand­shake.

The fes­ti­val also involves much danc­ing, eat­ing, drink­ing, craft sales, and Christ­mas cel­e­bra­tions. Suemed­ha Sood at BBC Trav­el com­pares Takanakuy to Sein­feld’s “Fes­tivus,” the alt-win­ter hol­i­day for the air­ing of griev­ances and feats of strength. But it’s no joke. “The fes­ti­val seeks to resolve con­flict, strength­en com­mu­ni­ty bonds and hope­ful­ly, arrive at a greater peace.” Lib­er­tar­i­an econ­o­mists Edwar Escalante and Ray­mond March frame Takanakuy as “a cred­i­ble mech­a­nism of law enforce­ment in an order­ly fash­ion with social accep­tance.” For indige­nous teacher and author and par­tic­i­pant Vic­tor Laime Man­til­la, it’s some­thing more, part of “the fight to reclaim the rights of indige­nous peo­ple.”

“In the cities,” says Man­til­la, “the Chumbivil­cas are still seen as a sav­age cul­ture.” But they have kept the peace amongst them­selves with no need for Peru­vian author­i­ties, fus­ing an indige­nous music called Huaylia with oth­er tra­di­tions that date back even before the Incas. Takanakuy arose as a response to sys­tems of colo­nial oppres­sion. When “jus­tice in Chumbivil­cas was sole­ly admin­is­tered by pow­er­ful peo­ple,” Man­til­la says, “peo­ple from the com­mu­ni­ty always lost their case. What can I do with a jus­tice like that? I’d rather have my own jus­tice in pub­lic.”

See the cos­tumes of the tra­di­tion­al Takanakuy char­ac­ters over at Vice and see Chen’s stun­ning pho­tos of friend­ly fist­fights and Takanakuy fun at The New York Times.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Peru­vian Schol­ar Writes & Defends the First The­sis Writ­ten in Quechua, the Main Lan­guage of the Incan Empire

Peru­vian Singer & Rap­per, Rena­ta Flo­res, Helps Pre­serve Quechua with Viral Hits on YouTube

Speak­ing in Whis­tles: The Whis­tled Lan­guage of Oax­a­ca, Mex­i­co

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

The First Museum Dedicated to Mary Shelley & Her Literary Creation, Frankenstein, Opens in Bath, England

in Literature, Museums, Travel | August 6th, 2021

Hal­loween came ear­ly this year!

Last week, Mary Shelley’s House of Franken­stein opened its doors in Bath, Eng­land, mere steps from the infi­nite­ly more staid Jane Austen Cen­tre.

Both authors had a con­nec­tion to Bath, a pop­u­lar tourist des­ti­na­tion since 43 CE, as evi­denced by the ruins of the Roman ther­mal spa that give the city its name and UNESCO World Her­itage Site sta­tus.

Austen lived there between 1801 and 1806, and used it as a set­ting for both Per­sua­sion and Northang­er Abbey.

The teenaged Shel­ley’s res­i­dence was briefer, but event­ful, and cre­ative­ly fer­tile.

It was here that she wed poet Per­cy Bysshe Shel­ley, learned of the sui­cides of his preg­nant first wife and her own half-sis­ter, attend­ed the birth of her ille­git­i­mate step-niece (daugh­ter of Lord Byron), attend­ed lec­tures on gal­vanism, or rean­i­ma­tion via elec­tri­cal cur­rent… and wrote the major­i­ty of Franken­stein.

Bath has long mined its con­nec­tion to Austen, but in embrac­ing Shel­ley, it stands to diver­si­fy the sort of lit­er­ary pil­grims it appeals to.

Vis­i­tors to the Jane Austen Cen­tre can try on bon­nets, exchange wit­ty repar­tee with one of her char­ac­ters, nib­ble scones with Dorset clot­ted cream in the tea room, and par­tic­i­pate in an annu­al cos­tume prom­e­nade.

Mean­while, over at the House of Franken­stein, expect omi­nous, unset­tling sound­scapes, shock­ing spe­cial effects, ghoul­ish inter­preters in blood-spat­tered aprons, “bespoke scents,” a “dank, fore­bod­ing base­ment expe­ri­ence” and an 8‑foot automa­ton of you-know-who.

(No, not Mary Shel­ley!)

Com­ing soon — Vic­tor Frankenstein’s “mis­er­able attic quar­ters” repack­aged as an escape room “strewn with insane equa­tions, strange arte­facts, and mis­cel­la­neous body parts.”

Co-founder Chris Har­ris explains the cre­ators’ immer­sive phi­los­o­phy:

We are try­ing to play on people’s fears, but we’re not tak­ing our­selves mas­sive­ly seri­ous­ly. With Mary Shelley’s House of Franken­stein, we are cre­at­ing an expe­ri­ence that, hope­ful­ly, peo­ple will real­ly enjoy in a vis­cer­al way. We want them to come out feel­ing that the expe­ri­ence was unnerv­ing, but also feel­ing hap­py. That’s the ulti­mate aim.

The BBC reports that the attrac­tion also promis­es to explore Shel­ley’s “trag­ic per­son­al life, lit­er­ary career and the nov­el­’s con­tin­u­ing rel­e­vance today in regards to pop­u­lar cul­ture, pol­i­tics, and sci­ence.”

May not be suit­able for chil­dren (or tim­o­rous Austen fans) as it con­tains “omi­nous and fore­bod­ing audio and visu­al effects, dark­ened envi­ron­ments and some scenes and depic­tions of a dis­turb­ing nature.”

Lovers of Pride and Prej­u­dice and Zom­bies, how­ev­er, should be sure to exit through the gift shop.

Vis­it the House of Franken­stein on Insta­gram where the week­ly #Franken­ste­in­Fol­low­er­Fri­day should appeal to mon­ster movie buffs of all ages.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Read­ing Mary Shelley’s Franken­stein on Its 200th Anniver­sary: An Ani­mat­ed Primer to the Great Mon­ster Sto­ry & Tech­nol­o­gy Cau­tion­ary Tale

Watch the First Film Adap­ta­tion of Mary Shelley’s Franken­stein (1910): It’s New­ly Restored by the Library of Con­gress

Mary Shelley’s Hand­writ­ten Man­u­script of Franken­stein: This Is “Ground Zero of Sci­ence Fic­tion,” Says William Gib­son

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

The Conspiracy Behind the Iconic Statue, the Venus de Milo

in Art, History, Travel | July 2nd, 2021

The Venus de Milo is one of art’s most wide­ly rec­og­nized female forms.

The Mona Lisa may be the first stop on many Lou­vre vis­i­tors’ agen­das, but Venus, by virtue of being unclothed, sculp­tur­al, and promi­nent­ly dis­played, lends her­self beau­ti­ful­ly to all man­ner of sou­venirs, both respect­ful and pro­fane.

Delacroix, Magritte, Dali, and The Simp­sons have all paid trib­ute, ensur­ing her con­tin­ued renown.

Renoir is that rare bird who was imper­vi­ous to her 6’7” charms, describ­ing her as the “big gen­darme.” His own Venus, sculpt­ed with the help of an assis­tant near­ly 100 years after the Venus de Milo joined the Louvre’s col­lec­tion, appears much meati­er through­out the hip and thigh region. Her celebri­ty can­not hold a can­dle to that of her arm­less sis­ter.

In the Vox Almanac episode above, host Phil Edwards delves into the Venus de Milo’s appeal, tak­ing a less deliri­ous approach than sculp­tor Auguste Rodin, who rhap­sodized:

…thou, thou art alive, and thy thoughts are the thoughts of a woman, not of some strange, supe­ri­or being, arti­fi­cial and imag­i­nary. Thou art made of truth alone, out­side of which there is nei­ther strength nor beau­ty. It is thy sin­cer­i­ty to nature which makes thee all pow­er­ful, because nature appeals to all men. Thou art the famil­iar com­pan­ion, the woman that each believes he knows, but that no man has ever under­stood, the wis­est not more than the sim­ple. Who under­stands the trees? Who can com­pre­hend the light?

Edwards opts instead for a Sharpie and a tiny 3‑D print­ed mod­el, which he marks up like a plas­tic sur­geon, draw­ing view­ers’ atten­tion to the miss­ing bits.

The arms, we know.

Also her ear­lobes, most like­ly removed by loot­ers eager to make off with her jew­el­ry.

One of her mas­sive mar­ble feet (a man’s size 15) is miss­ing.

And so is a por­tion of the plinth on which she once stood.

Inter­est­ing­ly, the plinth was among the items dis­cov­ered by acci­dent on the Greek island of Milos in 1820, along with two pil­lars topped with busts of Her­cules and Her­mes, the bisect­ed Venus, and assort­ed mar­ble frag­ments, includ­ing — maybe — an upper arm and hand hold­ing a round object (a gold­en apple, may­haps?)

Edwards doesn’t delve into the con­flict­ing accounts sur­round­ing the wheres and whys of this dis­cov­ery. Nor does he go into the com­pli­ca­tions of the sculp­ture’s acqui­si­tion, and how it very near­ly wound up on a ship bound for Con­stan­tino­ple.

What he’s most inter­est­ed in is that plinth, which would have giv­en the lie to the long-stand­ing asser­tion that the Venus de Milo was cre­at­ed in the Clas­si­cal era.

This incor­rect des­ig­na­tion made the Lou­vre’s newest res­i­dent a most wel­come replace­ment for the loot France had been com­pelled to return to the Vat­i­can in the wake of Napoleon’s first abdi­ca­tion.

The plinth may have been “lost” under mys­te­ri­ous cir­cum­stances, but its inscrip­tion was pre­served in a sketch by A. Debay, whose father had been a stu­dent of Jacques-Louis David, Napoleon’s now-ban­ished First Painter, a Neo-Clas­si­cist.

(David’s final paint­ing, Mars Dis­armed by Venus and the Three Graces, com­plet­ed a cou­ple of years after Venus de Milo was installed in the Lou­vre, was con­sid­ered a bust.)

Debay’s faith­ful recre­ation of the plinth’s inscrip­tion as part of his study of the Venus de Milo offers clues as to her cre­ator — “ …andros son of …enides cit­i­zen of …ioch at Mean­der made.”

It also dates her cre­ation to 150–50 BCE, cor­rob­o­rat­ing notes French naval offi­cer Jules d’Urville had made in Greece weeks after the dis­cov­ery.

The birth of this Venus should have been attrib­uted to the Hel­lenis­tic, not Clas­si­cal peri­od.

This would have been prob­lem­at­ic for both France and the Lou­vre, as art his­to­ri­an Jane Ursu­la Har­ris writes in The Believ­er:

Had her true author been known, she like­ly would’ve been locked away in the museum’s archive, if not sold off. Hel­lenis­tic art had by then been den­i­grat­ed by Renais­sance schol­ars who re-con­ceived it in anti-clas­si­cal terms, find­ing in its expres­sive, exper­i­men­tal form and emo­tion­al con­tent a provoca­tive real­ism that defied every­thing their era stood for: mod­esty, intel­lect, and equanimity…It helped that the Venus de Milo pos­sessed sev­er­al clas­si­cal attrib­ut­es. Her strong pro­file, short upper lip, and smooth fea­tures, for exam­ple, were in keep­ing with Clas­si­cal  fig­ur­al con­ven­tions, as was the con­tin­u­ous line con­nect­ing her nose and fore­head. The par­tial­ly-draped fig­ure with its atten­u­at­ed sil­hou­ette – which the Regency fash­ion of the day imi­tat­ed with its empire bust-line – also recalled clas­si­cal sculp­tures of Aphrodite, and her Roman coun­ter­part, Venus. Yet despite all these clas­si­cal iden­ti­fiers, the Venus de Milo flaunt­ed a defin­i­tive Hel­lenis­tic influ­ence in her provoca­tive­ly low-slung drap­ery, high waist line, and curve-enhanc­ing contrapposto—far more sen­su­al and exag­ger­at­ed than clas­si­cal ideals allowed.

It took the Lou­vre over a hun­dred years to come clean as to its star sculpture’s true prove­nance.

What hap­pened to the plinth remains any­one’s guess.

The only mys­tery the museum’s web­site seems con­cerned with is one of iden­ti­ty — is she Aphrodite, god­dess of beau­ty, or Poseidon’s wife, Amphitrite, the sea god­dess wor­shipped on the island on which she was dis­cov­ered?

For a deep­er dive into the Venus de Milo’s com­pli­cat­ed jour­ney to the Lou­vre, we rec­om­mend Rachel Kousser’s arti­cle, “Cre­at­ing the Past: The Venus de Milo and the Hel­lenis­tic Recep­tion of Clas­si­cal Greece,” which can be down­loaded free here. Or do as Vox’s Edwards sug­gests and 3‑D print a tiny Venus de Milo in a decid­ed­ly non-Clas­si­cal col­or using MyMiniFactory’s free pat­tern.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Hun­dreds of Clas­si­cal Sculp­tures from the Uffizi Gallery Now Dig­i­tized & Put Online: Explore a Col­lec­tion of 3D Inter­ac­tive Scans

The Mak­ing of a Mar­ble Sculp­ture: See Every Stage of the Process, from the Quar­ry to the Stu­dio

3D Scans of 7,500 Famous Sculp­tures, Stat­ues & Art­works: Down­load & 3D Print Rodin’s Thinker, Michelangelo’s David & More

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

How Radical Gardeners Took Back New York City

in Environment, History, Nature, Travel | June 25th, 2021

New York­ers’ rela­tion­ship to New York City com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens is large­ly informed by how long we’ve lived here.

Do you remem­ber the 60s, when a fis­cal cri­sis and white flight result­ed in thou­sands of vacant lots and aban­doned build­ings in low income neigh­bor­hoods?

Activists like Hat­tie Carthan and Liz Christy sprung from such soil, cre­at­ing youth pro­grams, haul­ing away debris, and putting con­stant pres­sure on elect­ed offi­cials to trans­form those urban waste­lands into green oases.

Ver­dant sites like the Bow­ery Hous­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Farm and Gar­den (now known as the Liz Christy Gar­den) improved air qual­i­ty, low­ered tem­per­a­tures, and offered a pleas­ant gath­er­ing place for neigh­bors of all ages.

In the ‘80s, the city boast­ed 1000 com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens, most­ly in neigh­bor­hoods con­sid­ered blight­ed. School aged chil­dren learned how to plant, tend, and har­vest veg­eta­bles. Immi­grant mem­bers intro­duced seeds new to Amer­i­can-born gar­den­ers, to help com­bat both home­sick­ness and food inse­cu­ri­ty. On site arts pro­grams flour­ished. There were al fres­co birth­day par­ties, con­certs, movie screen­ings, hol­i­day cel­e­bra­tions, per­ma­cul­ture class­es, com­mu­ni­ty meet­ings…. Gar­dens became focal points for com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment. Par­tic­i­pants were under­stand­ably proud, and invest­ed in what they’d built.

As Yon­nette Flem­ing, founder of the com­mu­ni­ty-led mar­ket at the Hat­tie Carthan Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den and Farmer’s Mar­ket, says in the above episode of Vox’s Miss­ing Chap­ter: “Com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens grow com­mu­ni­ties, for the peo­ple, to be run by the peo­ple, for the ben­e­fit of the peo­ple.”

In the mid-90s, new­ly elect­ed May­or Rudy Giu­liani sided with devel­op­ers over cit­i­zens. More than half of the city’s gar­dens were bull­dozed to make way for lux­u­ry res­i­dences.

Tra­di­tion­al­ly low-rise neigh­bor­hoods like the East Vil­lage and Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuyvesant would become increas­ing­ly fash­ion­able dur­ing the ear­ly days of the new mil­len­ni­um. New arrivals with lit­tle inter­est in neigh­bor­hood his­to­ry might assume that the side­walks had always been lined with cute cafes and hip­ster bars, not to men­tion trees. (In real­i­ty, Carthan was 64 when she began her suc­cess­ful cam­paign to line Bed-Stuy with trees, and land­mark a ven­er­a­ble Mag­no­lia that was at risk of being torn down.)

Per­haps hop­ing to com­mand younger view­ers’ atten­tion, Vox’s Miss­ing Chap­ter opens not with the rich his­to­ry of New York City’s com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens, but rather the many recipes for seed bombs on Tik­Tok. The glass half full per­spec­tive on our 500-strong sur­viv­ing gar­dens can ring a bit emp­ty to those who lost the fight to pre­serve a num­ber of East Harlem gar­dens just a few short years ago.

Don’t for­get your roots! Christy’s type­writ­ten, hand illus­trat­ed Green Gueril­las recipe for seed bombs is below. (If you want to try it at home, please use seeds native to your area.)

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

A New Inter­ac­tive Map Shows All Four Mil­lion Build­ings That Exist­ed in New York City from 1939 to 1941

Behold the New York City Street Tree Map: An Inter­ac­tive Map That Cat­a­logues the 700,000 Trees Shad­ing the Streets of New York City

New York City: A Social His­to­ry (A Free Online Course from N.Y.U.) 

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Sci-Fi “Portal” Connects Citizens of Lublin & Vilnius, Allowing Passersby Separated by 376 Miles to Interact in Real Time

in Art, Technology, Travel | June 9th, 2021

Can we ever tran­scend our ten­den­cy to divide up the world into us and them? The his­to­ry of Europe, which polit­i­cal the­o­rist Ken­neth Minogue once called “plau­si­bly summed up as prepar­ing for war, wag­ing war, or recov­er­ing from war,” offers few con­sol­ing answers. But per­haps it isn’t for his­to­ry, much less for the­o­ry or pol­i­tics, to dic­tate the future prospects for the uni­ty of mankind. Art and tech­nol­o­gy offer anoth­er set of views on the mat­ter, and it’s art and tech­nol­o­gy that come togeth­er in Por­tal, a recent­ly launched project that has con­nect­ed Vil­nius, Lithua­nia and Lublin, Poland with twin instal­la­tions. More than just a sculp­tur­al state­ment, each city’s por­tal offers a real-time, round-the-clock view of the oth­er.

“In both Vil­nius and Lublin,” writes My Mod­ern Met’s Sara Barnes, “the por­tals are with­in the urban land­scape; they are next to a train sta­tion and in the city cen­tral square, respec­tive­ly. This allows for plen­ty of engage­ment, on either end, with the peo­ple of a city 376 miles apart. And, in a larg­er sense, the por­tals help to human­ize cit­i­zens from anoth­er place.”

Images released of the inter­ac­tion between passer­by and their local por­tal show, among oth­er actions, wav­ing, cam­era phone-shoot­ing, syn­chro­nized jump­ing, and just plain star­ing. Though more than one com­par­i­son has been made to the Star­gate, the image also comes to mind of the apes around the mono­lith in 2001: A Space Odyssey, react­ing as best they can to a pre­vi­ous­ly unimag­ined pres­ence in their every­day envi­ron­ment.

Iron­i­cal­ly, the basic tech­nol­o­gy employed by the Por­tal project is noth­ing new. At this point we’ve all looked into our phone and com­put­er screens and seen a view from per­haps much far­ther than 376 miles away, and been seen from that dis­tance as well. But the coro­n­avirus-induced world­wide expan­sion of tele­con­fer­enc­ing has, for many, made the under­ly­ing mechan­ics seem some­what less than mirac­u­lous. Con­ceived years before trav­el restric­tions ren­dered next to impos­si­ble the actu­al vis­it­ing of human beings else­where on the con­ti­nent, let alone on the oth­er side of the world, Por­tal has set up its first instal­la­tions at a time when they’ve come to feel like some­thing the world needs. “Res­i­dents in Reyk­javik, Ice­land, and Lon­don, Eng­land can expect a por­tal in their city in the future,” notes Barnes — and if those two can feel tru­ly con­nect­ed with Europe, there may be hope for the one­ness of the human race yet.

via Colos­sal/MyMod­ern­Met

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Street Artist Cre­ates an Opti­cal Illu­sion That Lets Peo­ple See the Art Inside a Shut­tered Muse­um in Flo­rence

This Huge Crash­ing Wave in a Seoul Aquar­i­um Is Actu­al­ly a Gigan­tic Opti­cal Illu­sion

See Web Cams of Sur­re­al­ly Emp­ty City Streets in Venice, New York, Lon­don & Beyond

Dis­cov­er Euro­peana Col­lec­tions, a Por­tal of 48 Mil­lion Free Art­works, Books, Videos, Arti­facts & Sounds from Across Europe

The His­to­ry of Europe from 400 BC to the Present, Ani­mat­ed in 12 Min­utes

Haru­ki Muraka­mi Nov­els Sold in Pol­ish Vend­ing Machines

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Discover the Ghost Towns of Japan–Where Scarecrows Replace People, and a Man Lives in an Abandoned Elementary School Gym

in Travel | June 8th, 2021

In recent years, the major cities of Japan have felt as big and bustling as ever. But more than a lit­tle of that urban ener­gy has come at a cost to the coun­try­side, whose ongo­ing depop­u­la­tion since the Sec­ond World War has become the stuff of count­less mourn­ful pho­to essays. Japan is, of course, well-known as the kind of soci­ety that keeps a rur­al train sta­tion in ser­vice just to take a sin­gle pupil to school. But in many of these areas, the day even­tu­al­ly comes when there’s no one left to teach. After not just the stu­dents but the fac­ul­ty and staff have cleared out, what to do with the schools them­selves? If you’re any­thing like Aoki Yohei (known to all as “Yo-chan”), you just move your­self on in.

In one of the school’s many rooms Aoki runs a café, roast­ing cof­fee on the premis­es, and in oth­ers he’s set up a hos­tel. In anoth­er space he’s cre­at­ed a record­ing stu­dio out­fit­ted with gui­tars, drums, key­boards, and much else besides. This sort of thing would hard­ly be pos­si­ble with­in the con­fines of a Tokyo apart­ment, and Aoki accom­plished it all after quit­ting his salary­man job with­out a plan.

Or rather he did it noupu­ran, to use one of the many Eng­lishisms he drops in the inter­view with Tokyo Lens vlog­ger Norm Naka­mu­ra in the video at the top of the post. The school is in Ehime, one of the four pre­fec­tures of Shikoku, the sec­ond-small­est of Japan’s main islands. Though pic­turesque, its loca­tion is also deep enough in the moun­tains to seem for­bid­ding­ly remote, but the Ehime-born Aoki seems to have had no com­punc­tion about it.

Ehime faces the Seto Inland Sea, the areas sur­round­ing which Japa­nol­o­gist Don­ald Richie described in the 1960s as pos­sess­ing “the last places on earth where men rise with the sun and where streets are dark and silent by nine at night.” But for Naka­mu­ra, nine is the hour to set out in search of unex­plained sounds and creepy vibes. Alas, even his best pro­duc­tion efforts can’t mask the obvi­ous seren­i­ty of the prop­er­ty. He encoun­ters much more eeri­ness else­where on Shikoku: Nagoro Vil­lage, the vast major­i­ty of whose inhab­i­tants aren’t human beings but ful­ly dressed, scare­crow-like dolls. Each and every one was craft­ed by Tsuki­mi Ayano, a native who returned from Osa­ka to find most every­one she’d known long gone. As for Nagoro’s own ele­men­tary school, aban­doned for some 20 years now, just wait until you see what “Ayano-san” has done with its gym.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Moun­tain Monks: A Vivid Short Doc­u­men­tary on the Monks Who Prac­tice an Ancient, Once-For­bid­den Reli­gion in Japan

Hōshi: A Short Doc­u­men­tary on the 1300-Year-Old Hotel Run by the Same Japan­ese Fam­i­ly for 46 Gen­er­a­tions

Dis­cov­er the Japan­ese Muse­um Ded­i­cat­ed to Col­lect­ing Rocks That Look Like Human Faces

When Our World Became a de Chiri­co Paint­ing: How the Avant-Garde Painter Fore­saw the Emp­ty City Streets of 2020

Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Revis­its Aban­doned Movie Sets for Star Wars and Oth­er Clas­sic Films in North Africa

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

The Airline Toilets Theatre Company: Watch One Man Stage Comical Shows in Airplane Bathrooms

in Comedy, Creativity, Theatre, Travel | June 1st, 2021

When COVID 19 struck, the­ater lovers were faced with a choice.

Let go entire­ly, or expand our def­i­n­i­tions of what con­sti­tutes “the­ater.”

We’ve had 14 months to get used to the idea of per­for­mances staged in clos­ets, in pod­cast form, or as phone calls hing­ing on audi­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion.

We’re sick of Zoom, but we no longer con­sid­er it manda­to­ry for the play­ers to inhab­it the same space as each oth­er or the audi­ence.

This is all old news to Peter Brooke Turn­er, a mem­ber of the Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain and the founder of the Air­line Toi­lets The­atre Com­pa­ny.

The ATTC’s reper­toire con­sists of great works of lit­er­a­ture, song and dance… per­formed exclu­sive­ly in air­craft lava­to­ries, a true feat when one con­sid­ers that Turn­er, impre­sario and sole com­pa­ny mem­ber, is 6’8”.

2015’s inau­gur­al pro­duc­tion, above, remains among the company’s most ambi­tious —  a 50th anniver­sary recre­ation of Bob Dylan’s 1965 pro­mo­tion­al film clip for Sub­ter­ranean Home­sick Blues, shot on var­i­ous flights through­out the Ukulele Orchestra’s US tour.

Before long, Turner’s car­ry-on was stuffed with props and cos­tumes — a toga, three self-adhe­sive Abra­ham Lin­coln beards, a fat suit, a plas­tic cig­ar, card­board face masks of Jimi Hen­drix and Queen’s Bri­an May, and a num­bers of inflat­a­bles, includ­ing a woman, a horse, and a not par­tic­u­lar­ly real­is­tic hand­gun.

Stag­ing solo, site spe­cif­ic mini pro­duc­tions struck Turn­er as a far more amus­ing prospect than remain­ing in his seat, watch­ing a movie:

I don’t like pas­sive con­sumerism — I’d rather make my own movie than watch some CGI block­buster on a plane. 90% of tour­ing is NOT per­form­ing but sit­ting around on a plane/train/bus star­ing into space — I’m just try­ing to do some­thing cre­ative to make the time pass. 

With advance plan­ning, the sim­pler pro­duc­tions can make it into the can on a sin­gle take.

The James Bond Trib­ute, below, which called for cos­tume changes, pup­pets and card­board masks of Sean Con­nery, Roger Moore, and Daniel Craig, was shot in seg­ments — Lon­don to Frank­furt, Sin­ga­pore to Auck­land, and Sin­ga­pore to Lon­don.

Rather than pro­ject­ing for the ben­e­fit of folks in the non-exis­tent back row, Turn­er prefers to lip synch pre­re­cord­ed lines, fed to him via ear­bud. This helps dial down the sus­pi­cions of flight atten­dants and fel­low pas­sen­gers. Once the “occu­pied” light comes on, he reck­ons he has between 7 to 10 min­utes to take care of busi­ness. Should any­one ques­tion the length of his stay, or his large bag of cos­tumes and props, his excuse is that “I suf­fer from haem­or­rhoids and need to change my pants. (Believe me, this is a con­ver­sa­tion no one wants to take fur­ther.)”

Watch a playlist of the Best of the Air­line Toi­lets The­ater Com­pa­ny here.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Drift: Pas­sen­ger Shoots Strik­ing Short Film Out of Air­plane Win­dow

Pre-Flight Safe­ty Demon­stra­tion Gets Per­formed as a Mod­ern Dance: A Cre­ative Video from a Tai­wanese Air­line

Artist Nina Katchadouri­an Cre­ates Flem­ish Style Self-Por­traits in Air­plane Lava­to­ry

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her June 7 for a Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain: The Peri­od­i­cal Cica­da, a free vir­tu­al vari­ety hon­or­ing the 17-Year Cicadas of Brood X. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

The Largest Free Kitchen in the World: Discover India’s Golden Temple Which Serves 100,000 Free Meals Per Day

in Food & Drink, Religion, Travel | May 19th, 2021

If you find your­self hun­gry in Amrit­sar, a major city in the Indi­an state of Pun­jab, you could do worse than stop­ping into the Gold­en Tem­ple, the largest Sikh house of wor­ship in the world. It thus also oper­ates the largest com­mu­ni­ty kitchen, or lan­gar, in the world, which serves more than 100,000 free meals a day, 24 hours a day. Any­one famil­iar with Sikhism knows that, for its believ­ers, serv­ing food to the hun­gry con­sti­tutes an essen­tial duty: not just to the poor, and cer­tain­ly not just to fel­low Sikhs, but to all com­ers. Wher­ev­er in the world you may live, if there’s a Sikh tem­ple or shrine in the vicin­i­ty, there’s quite pos­si­bly a lan­gar you can vis­it as well.

Of course, no oth­er lan­gar match­es the scale of the Gold­en Tem­ple’s. As explained in the Food Insid­er video above, it oper­ates with a per­ma­nent staff of 300 to 350 employ­ees as well as a large num­ber of vol­un­teers, all of whom work in con­cert with machines around the clock to pro­duce an unend­ing stream of veg­e­tar­i­an meals, which include daal lentil stew and cha­p­ati bread. There’s always been a mar­ket for free food, but recent years have seen increas­es in demand great enough to neces­si­tate the con­struc­tion of addi­tion­al din­ing halls, and total oper­at­ing expens­es come to the equiv­a­lent of some US$4 mil­lion per year. (Every day, $5,000 goes to ghee, or Indi­an clar­i­fied but­ter, alone.)

Apart from the peo­ple of Amrit­sar and pil­grim­age-mak­ing devo­tees, the Gold­en Tem­ple lan­gar has also drawn the atten­tion of culi­nar­i­ly mind­ed trav­el­ers. Take the Cana­di­an Youtu­ber Trevor James, bet­ter known as the Food Ranger, to whose taste for extreme scale and quan­ti­ty the oper­a­tion no doubt appeals. His vis­it also affords him the oppor­tu­ni­ty, before his meal, to be out­fit­ted in tra­di­tion­al dress, up to and includ­ing a Sikh tur­ban. (The Gold­en Tem­ple requires its din­ers to wear a head-cov­er­ing of some kind.) James’ stock of trav­el-vlog­ger superla­tives is near­ly exhaust­ed by the splen­dor of the tem­ple itself before he steps into the kitchen to observe (and even lend a hand in) the cook­ing process. “Look at this,” he exclaims upon tak­ing his seat on the floor of the hall with a tray of his own. “This is an almost spir­i­tu­al meal” — an aura exud­ed whether you believe in Wahe­gu­ru, the gods of street food, or any­thing else besides.

via Metafil­ter

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Learn the His­to­ry of Indi­an Phi­los­o­phy in a 62 Episode Series from The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy With­out Any Gaps: The Bud­dha, Bha­gavad-Gita, Non Vio­lence & More

Intro­duc­tion to Indi­an Phi­los­o­phy: A Free Online Course

Al Jazeera Trav­el Show Explores World Cities Through Their Street Food

When Al Capone Opened a Soup Kitchen Dur­ing the Great Depres­sion: Anoth­er Side of the Leg­endary Mobster’s Oper­a­tion

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 3 ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast