Elsewhat

Trees seen through torn metal. Taken in Montréal in Rosemont on May 16, 2023.

Reading through Robert MacFarlane’s Underland (a book I’ll write about more once I’ve finished it) I stumbled on ‘The Cavern of Lost Souls’. The cavern is an abandoned Welsh mine, which at one point became a popular way for the locals to dispose themselves of old cars.

The locals would reportedly take cars they no longer wanted to a certain point above the mine shaft, put them in neutral, and let them roll to their doom. The result was hundreds of broken cars creating this nightmarish, but eerily beautiful underground space.

See More →

The master of unnerving horror manga, Junji Ito, brings us the story of his own pet cats, told in an endearing personal style not unlike Chi’s Sweet Home. Ito’s drawing style is still very much in the horror genre, creating a nice juxtaposition with the banal, everyday love he obviously has for his pets.

This was a nice light read which any animal lover will relate to, with some slight goofy horror vibes.

Rating: B

Buy Here →

This message was tied to the fence around a beautiful park building that burned down, and which someone apparently thought the municipal government was being overly slow to fix.

Some great films from Mosflim, from filmmakers like Tarkovsky and Eisenstein are available completely for free on YouTube. Stalker, Solaris, and many more.

Via Kottke.

This audiobook, wonderfully produced by my friend Julia Scott, explores many facets of voice and vocal performance from the point of view of a voice actor and performer. Engaging, charming, and fun.

Inside Voice unpacks the writer-director-producer-actor’s obsession with voice and all its permutations. It takes us on a journey to discover how this vital piece of our identity serves as an x-ray of our personal histories. Bell explored the power of voice in her critically-acclaimed and award-winning film, In a World, which she wrote, directed, and starred in. With this audiobook, she dives back into the rabbit hole to deliver a fun, whip-smart exploration of the psychology, social science, cultural constructs, and mechanics of our voices.

What I love about this book, above all else, is that it can only exist in an audio format. The reading and performance would not translate to the written word. At all.

Rating: A

Learn More & Purchase →

Found while walking the back alleys of Montréal.

Once a year, the Bulgarian tradition of Kukeri unites a small village as residents wear intricate masks and costumes and dance at night. Killian Lassablière chronicles the practice in his short documentary.

Watch Here →

Taken May 24, 2023

As is my custom these past couple weeks, I went to see a design exhibit in the last few days of its run. The previous was W.E.B. Dubois at The Cooper Hewitt in New York City. This time it was a women in design exhibit at Montréal’s Musée des Beaux Arts—Parall(Elles).

Organized in collaboration with the Stewart Program for Modern Design, this major exhibition celebrates the instrumental role women have played in the world of design through a rich corpus of art works and objects dating from the mid-19th century onwards. In addition, it examines the reasons why women are underrepresented in the history of this discipline and encourages an expanded understanding of what constitutes design.

Chaise Sauvage by Jay Sae Jung Oh

Exploded Chair by Joyce Lin

On until May 28, 2023.