Previews: Country Life Magazine – Sept 27, 2023

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Country Life Magazine – September 27, 2023: The new issue features The Need For Tweed; A perfect pre-trained gundog; A new Jacobean drawing room is the crowning glory at Shilstone, Devon, and more…

The need for tweed

A true Hebridean hero weaves his magic to create an ‘estate’ Harris tweed for David Profumo

Here’s one I trained earlier

Has your over-excited pup left you red-faced on a shoot day? Katy Birchall has the answer: a perfect, pre-trained gundog

Loved to life

A new Jacobean drawing room is the crowning glory at Shilstone, Devon, discovers John Goodall

Architecture: A Concrete Home Tour In Melbourne

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The Local Project (September 26, 2023) – Narrow sites and smaller residences tend to provide architects with an opportunity – one that inspires creativity and innovation. This is true of Concrete Curtain, an architect’s own home in inner-city Melbourne, where FGR Architects evocatively draws on materiality and natural light, imbuing the architecture of the family home with a sense of elegance and spaciousness.

Video timeline: 00:00 – Introduction to the Architect’s Own Home 01:29 – Designed for a Growing Family 01:39 – A Walkthrough of the Home 03:13 – Playful Additions 03:49 – The Use of Stone Throughout the Home 05:27 – The Calming Materials 05:46 – Proud Moments

Upon entering the architect’s own home, one is met with a garage that is flanked by an ensuite, study and laundry. The house tour then leads into the central foyer area – a core part of the dwelling that allows light to enter from the east and west. The lower part of the residence contains the kitchen, living and dining area that then naturally flows out towards the al fresco dining area.

The spiral staircase leads to the second level, which is split into two segments. On the northern side is the master suite, and on the southern end is the childrens’ bedrooms. This floor also features a playful, blue carpet, which adds vibrancy to the upstairs level. Perhaps the most prominent feature of the architect’s own home is the concrete curtain, which reveals FGR Architects’s intention to illuminate areas with natural light.

Wanting to create a sense of space, the architect leveraged the idea of a sheer curtain to allow for both privacy and openness. As such, the concrete ‘cylinders’ are spaced out in a way that emulates the fold of a curtain. The result is a remarkable feature with a gentle, pleated style that softens the residence and lets light pass through seamlessly. The interior design and materiality of the architect’s own home is vital to its overall effect.

Autumn 2023: Five Top Places To Visit In America

A hillside of red, gold and orange trees reflecting in a glassy pond under a mostly blue sky with a few wispy clouds. There is a small white building on the shore of the pond.
The brilliant mountain maples, birches and beeches in the White Mountains of New Hampshire

NEW YORK TIMES TRAVEL (September 25, 2023) – Here are five beautiful places to catch the leaves — and while you’re there, you can peek out of covered bridges, gaze up at waterfalls, ride a tramway or a train, or even try to spot a legendary Bigfoot-like creature known as the Grassman.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Driving the White Mountains Trail, a 108-mile loop that winds through groves of gold birches, bronze beeches, and orange, yellow and red mountain maples, you may find yourself unable to resist stopping in the middle of a covered bridge to peek through the walls.

The Albany Covered Bridge, which crosses the rocky Swift River in the White Mountain National Forest near Conway, N.H., is one of 54 remaining covered bridges in the state. Built in 1858, it features a red roof and weathered brown walls with gaps that let the leaves peep at you.


MASSACHUSETTS

A wooden sign marks a trail leading into a forest of yellow and red trees, many with slender white trunks. The sign indicates the Appalachian Trail and the Old Summit Road Trail.

From the study at his farmhouse in Pittsfield, in western Massachusetts, Herman Melville gazed at 3,491-foot Mount Greylock, whose humped shape possibly inspired the white whale in “Moby-Dick.” When the trees on that hump start to change, it becomes more of a gloriously mottled whale.

The mountain’s colors typically peak in early to mid-October, with golds, bright oranges and vivid reds, mainly from tamarackstriped maple and yellow birch. The wet summer may lead to some spotting and discoloration on some leaves, said Nicole Keleher, the director of forest health for the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, but she predicted a wide variety of colors overall.

GEORGIA

A waterfall surrounded by a dense forest with many yellow and brown leaves. The cascade tumbles into a rocky, brown pool.

The Russell-Brasstown National Scenic Byway, a 40-mile loop through the nearly 867,000-acre Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest, winds through mountains drenched in the yellows of tulip poplars, the crimsons of dogwood, and the scarlets and purples of maples — with most expected to peak the week of Oct. 24, said Steven Bekkerus, a public affairs officer for the forest.

Deep in those woods, you’ll find two waterfalls to complement the autumn palette.

OHIO

A railroad track with grass on the sides running through sun-dappled red, yellow and brown trees.

From a vintage rail car on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad, the reds and golds of Cuyahoga Valley, Ohio’s only national park, roll by — and if you see a shadow darting among the trees, it could be the Ohio Grassman, also known as the eastern Bigfoot, a creature reputed to reside in the woods there.

The colors, which peak in mid- to late October, “range from brilliant reds of the sugar maples to the deep browns of the white oaks,” said Pamela Barnes, a public information officer at the park, which is just south of Cleveland.

Los Angeles Review Of Books – Autumn 2023

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LA Review of Books (Autumn 2023) – The latest issue features The Funny Thing About Misogyny; The New Scarcity Studies: On Two New Socioeconomic Histories and Endgame Emotions: The Melting of Time, the Mourning of the World…

The Funny Thing About Misogyny

By Katie Kadue

THE FUNNY THING about misogyny is it’s structured like a joke. Not a very good joke—a groaner, a dad joke. Why are they called “women”? Because they’re a woe to men. Get it? Woman is a container for man; language engenders gender subordination. As Mike Myers recites on stage in his role as a moody slam poet in the thrillingly zany 1993 Hitchcockian send-up So I Married an Axe Murderer, “Woman! Whoa, man. Whoaaaaaa. Man!”

The New Scarcity Studies: On Two New Socioeconomic Histories

By Scott R. MacKenzie

Scarcity: A History from the Origins of Capitalism to the Climate Crisis by CARL WENNERLIND

WATER FALLS FROM the sky, literally. It is the most abundant chemical compound on Earth, and yet many people buy it in plastic bottles. Nestlé and other corporations source water cheaply and add labels that depict something other than heavy-industry and fossil-fuel derivatives, as though you’re drinking straight from a pristine spring. By bottling this natural resource and selling it as a commodity, Nestlé creates a form of scarcity. 

News: Russian Black Sea Fleet Commander Killed, Pacific Leaders Visit U.S.

The Globalist Podcast (September 26, 2023) – Ukraine claims that Russia’s Black Sea fleet commander has been killed.

Plus: Joe Biden’s attempts to win over Pacific Islands leaders at the White House, a visa scandal in Poland and the latest aviation news.

The New York Times — Tuesday, Sept 26, 2023

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Money for Ukraine at Center of Senate Bid to Avert Shutdown

Senator Mitch McConnell, with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and Senator Chuck Schumer, has been one of the staunchest backers of Ukraine on Capitol Hill.

Senators of both parties are debating whether to include new military assistance for the fight against Russia in any stopgap spending bill to keep the government funded past the end of the month.

Finland Raced to Join NATO. What Happens Next Is Complicated.

Finnish soldiers participating in a military exercise in Rovajarvi, Finland, in May. Finland joined the NATO alliance in April of this year, ending decades of military nonalignment.

After decades of going it alone in security issues, Finns are finding that life in a large alliance is complex, expensive and deeply political.

 

In a Blow to Russia, Ukraine Says It Killed Chief of Black Sea Fleet

As they ramp up attacks on occupied Crimea, Ukrainian forces are repeatedly targeting the fleet based there, a key to Russia’s attacks deep into Ukraine and its blockade of Ukrainian ports.

Hollywood’s Focus Turns to Actors After Writers Agree to Deal

The studios and the actors’ union haven’t spoken for more than two months, but a deal is needed before the entertainment industry can fully return.