Category Archives: Reviews

New Photography Books: The Full-Day Panoramas Of “Day To Night” By Stephen Wilkes (Taschen)

From a Smithsonian Magazine online review:

Flatiron NYC Day to Night 2010 Stephen WilkesAt first glance, Stephen Wilkes’ photographs look like a single moment in time. It is only upon closer inspection that viewers discover that each of his works is actually the result of shooting thousands of photographs from a stationary position over the course of a day and stitching them together digitally to create one cohesive panorama. The painstaking task of editing all of this information and whittling it down into one image can take months to complete, but the results capture a sense of place that can’t be expressed by a single frame alone.

Wilkes expands on this concept in his new bookDay to Night, which features panoramas of iconic places like New York’s Coney Island, Moscow’s Red Square and Arizona’s Grand Canyon seen over the course of a day. Time-lapse photos these are not, as Wilkes carefully selects the exact frames he’ll compile into the final image. (The book release coincides with “A Witness to Change,” a photographic exhibition to be held at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery in New York City beginning September 12.)

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-photographer-stephen-wilkes-captures-full-day-single-image-180972935/#6RZ7EF0BklRrTGAP.99

Profiles: Mexico’s Great Artist, Francisco Toledo, Has Died (1940 – 2019)

From a Smithsonian Magazine online article:

Francisco Toledo - The Wanderer (1989)Though his paintings and sculptures sell all over the world for fabulous prices, he has not enriched himself. He lives simply, with his wife, Trine Ellitsgaard Lopez, an accomplished weaver, in a traditional house in the middle of Oaxaca, and has used his considerable profits to found art centers and museums, an ethnobotanical garden and at least three libraries.

jun2019_g03_franciscotoledoToledo, whose origins were obscure and inauspicious, was the son of a leatherworker—shoemaker and tanner. He was born in Mexico City, but the family soon after moved to their ancestral village near Juchitán de Zaragoza in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, nearer to Guatemala than to Mexico City—and being ethnically Zapotec, nearer culturally to the ancient pieties of the hinterland too.

His paintings became sought after for their singular beauty. His work resisted all classification and fashion. He was not attached to any movement, even when the art world was turbulent with abstraction and Minimalism and Color Field and Op Art. He elaborated his ancestral visions of masks and folk tales, haunted and highly colored landscapes, and eroticism that was both comic and gothic. “He intuits the timelessness of authenticity,” the Guatemalan art critic Luis Cardoza y Aragón wrote. In 1967, an enthusiastic Henry Miller—himself a watercolorist—wrote the text for a Toledo exhibition.

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/what-makes-francisco-toledo-180972172/#OPyozLi0YzWgWjf4.99

Best Travel Shows: British Series “Travel Man” Is Helpful And Hilarious

From a New Yorker online article:

Travel Man PhotoOn “Travel Man,” Ayoade is fun to look at (snappy suits, thick-framed glasses, expression of amused diffidence) and fun to listen to. (Of a monastery turned hotel in Naples, he says, “As well as modish guff, like a rooftop pool and a spa, it retains attractive old shiz, like staircases dug into the hillside.”) His persona is warmly amused, broadly skeptical, and gently astringent—i.e., British. He’s not a joiner. His intros conclude with him saying, in that episode’s particular city and with that episode’s particular guest, “We’re here, but should we have come?” 

 

Travel Man: 48 Hours in . . .” is a British series in which the comedian, writer, actor, and director Richard Ayoade spends forty-eight hours in a city, accompanied by various friends—“some of the most available and affordable names in light ent,” as he puts it—and tells us about what to do there. “Mini-breaks are a swirling nebula of nonsense!” he says at the top of “Copenhagen,” during a brisk montage of him in Venice, Copenhagen, Vienna, and Moscow. “How can anyone go somewhere new and be expected to enjoy themselves without a decade to decompress?” Exactly, I thought. This is the show for me.

To read more: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-television/travel-man-richard-ayoades-travel-show-for-people-who-hate-travel

Top Travel Destinations: Ortigia Island, Historical Center Of Syracuse, Sicily

From a New York Times online article:

In Syracuse, taking a passeggiata, or evening walk, around the perimeter of Ortigia island, is a popular activity.CreditCreditSusan Wright for The New York TimesA passeggiata, or evening walk, around the perimeter of Ortigia reveals many notable structures and stories. Start from the Parco Letterario Elio Vittorini, on the eastern side, and head clockwise. As waves crash against the rocks below the sea wall, you’ll pass crenelated lookout points and the chiseled facade of the 17th-century Chiesa dello Spirito Santo, before finding yourself in the palm-planted gardens of the 13th-century Castello Maniace. 

Founded by Greeks around 734 B.C.,ortigia sicily map Ithe southeastern Sicilian city that Cicero called “the greatest and most beautiful of all Grecian cities” achieved a size and status in the ancient world that made it a rival of major powers like Athens and Carthage. Takeovers and makeovers by Romans, Byzantines, North Africans, Normans and others left their marks as well, influencing everything from religious art to the region’s distinctive savory-sweet-sour cooking style. Much of the ancient city has crumbled since Cicero’s day, though the ruins can still be explored in Syracuse’s celebrated archaeological park and museum. But the main attraction today is the historical center of Syracuse: Ortigia island, a maze of narrow streets, ornate Baroque churches and centuries-old palazzi.

To read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/travel/what-to-do-36-hours-in-syracuse-sicily.html

Top Science Podcasts: Persistent Antibiotic Resistance And Modeling Hot Cities (Nature)

Nature PodcastResearchers have identified how Salmonella ‘persister’ cells can spread antibiotic resistance genes in mice intestines. 

Cities are generally hotter than their surroundings, but what are the causes of these ‘heat islands’?

In this episode:

00:46 Antibiotic resistance reservoirs

Researchers have identified how Salmonella ‘persister’ cells can spread antibiotic resistance genes in mice intestines. Research article: Bakkeren et al.

08:12 Research Highlights

Bright barn owls stun prey, and the evolution of dog brains. Research Highlight: Zip-lining owls reveal what really scares their preyResearch Highlight: A dog’s breed is a window onto its brain

10:13 Urban heating

Cities are generally hotter than their surroundings, but what are the causes of these ‘heat islands’? Research Article: Manoli et al.

16:54 News Chat

A cryptic Russian radiation spike, and India’s moon mission gets closer to touchdown. News: How nuclear scientists are decoding Russia’s mystery explosionNews: ‘The most terrifying moments’: India counts down to risky Moon landing

 

Books Worth Reading: “Quichotte” By Salman Rushdie Is “Fiction Telling Truths We Can’t Get At”

From a London Review of Books online review:

Salman Rushie Quichotte NovelQuichotte opens with a brilliant parody of Cervantes’s first sentence: ‘There once lived, at a series of temporary addresses across the United States of America, a travelling man of Indian origin, advancing years, and retreating mental powers.’ The temporary addresses are a fine revision of Cervantes’s pretending not to remember the name of the place where Quixote lived – literally, he says he doesn’t want to remember. But in spite of this and many other echoes, Quichotte is not all that close to the original Don Quixote in style or mood, and doesn’t seek to be. The leading character chooses his pseudonym because a recording of Massenet’s opera Don Quichotte was his father’s favourite LP, and echoes of the musical Man of La Mancha, with the obligatory ‘impossible dream’, are all over the place.

Cervantes tells us that Don Quixote lost his mind because he read too many romances of chivalry, not all nonsense, as many critics assume, but not models of realism either; yet there are indications, as the novel develops, that Quixote has learned to play at madness, like Hamlet, because it seems to work, because a functioning pretence of knighthood is better than staying at home. Quichotte largely follows the romantic reading of the knight as idealist, whose madness consists of his nobility of spirit and his refusal to believe that the pragmatically possible is an acceptable limit to human behaviour. Rushdie is both mocking and celebrating this posture, and his Quichotte is genuinely ridiculous as well as heroic. He has other sources too, he tells us in his acknowledgments, and both Pinocchio and The Conference of the Birds play a considerable role in the plot. It’s good to see Jiminy Cricket speaking Italian.

To read more: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n17/michael-wood/the-profusion-effect

Top European Cities: Cadiz, Spain Features “Delicious Andalusian Cuisine”, Ancient History

From a New York Times online article:

The neighborhood of La Viña is packed with open-air restaurants.CreditSebastian Modak The New York TimesOne of the reasons the province of Cádiz is on this year’s 52 Places list is food, as chefs in the area are innovating with pork and fish, the base ingredients here. I tried out a few of the white-tablecloth joints, but came away remembering the noisy, cheap tapas bars that have been around forever.

What makes Andalusian cuisine so delicious are the ingredients, and sometimes less is more. Why go crazy with reductions and infusions when freshly caught sardines sprinkled with olive oil are enough to elicit moans?

Cádiz, the province and city on Spain’s southwestern edge, is an underdog — and I’m among the many travelers who have spent years overlooking it. I know Andalusia, the southern region it is part of, well. For years, it’s been a meeting point for my family who has just as much wanderlust as I do and is spread across the world.

To read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/03/travel/cadiz-an-underrated-corner-of-spain.html

Trends In Food: 5th Annual “Blended Burger Project” Celebrates Five Winning Chefs On Oct. 23

From a JamesBeard.org release:

James Beard Foundation Blended Burger ProjectThis year, the Foundation is pleased to once again partner with the Mushroom Council to host the Blended Burger Project*, which encourages chefs to create a healthier, more sustainable, and tastier burger that can be enjoyed by consumers across the country, while also educating diners about the many benefits of The Blend and the future of food. 

Through our Impact Programs, the James Beard Foundation has become more involved in the conversations around health and sustainability in our food system. The Foundation is proud of its work on the Blended Burger Project™ along with our other programs including the James Beard Foundation Food Summit, the annual Leadership Awards, and the Chefs Boot Camp for Policy and Change.

The five fabulous winners of the 2019 contest are:

  • Meredith Manee, Ritz-Carlton’s Burger Shack, Kapalua, Kapalua, HI
  • Justin Medina, Playalinda Brewing Company – Brix Project, Titusville, FL
  • Robert Repp, Hops at 84 East, Holland, MI
  • Eric Rivera, Vintage Year, Montgomery, AL
  • Jacqueline Sampson, Pompano Grill, Cocoa Beach, FL

Blended Burger GraphicTo read more: https://www.jamesbeard.org/blendedburgerproject

 

Best New Home Design: “Granholmen” From Swedish Architects Bornstein Lyckefors

From a Curbed.com online article:

Granholmen www.bornsteinlyckefors.seDuring the summers, the northern Swedish island of Kallaxön is bright for nearly 24 hours a day, which means the windows that wrap the house are put to good use. Inside, the house is clad entirely in pale timber.

The main living spaces are downstairs, while a lofted bedroom is accessed by a ladder. Residents access the toilet and shower from the outside—a true testament to indoor-outdoor living.

Designed by Bornstein Lyckefors, the facade of the gabled cabin looks like it was painted with a pint of mint ice cream. The roof, made with an oxidized copper, blends right in, creating a monochromatic look.

https://www.bornsteinlyckefors.se/

To read more: https://www.curbed.com/2019/9/4/20848180/modern-cabin-mint-green-sweden

Culinary Destinations: Mexico City Food Markets, “Great Food Everywhere”

From a CityLab.com online article:

Juana Lomeli at Jamaica Market. Clemente Dadoo LomeliThe city’s great unifier and appeal is its cuisine, especially the street-food: corner quesadillas, fast food tents outside of subway stops, stews served over hand-made tortillas, deep fried chicken tacos, tacos topped with rice served from street stands or a make-shift diner in the back of a van. In Mexico City, one can find great food everywhere at any price-point and at any time of day.

Among the hundreds of markets in Mexico, every person finds the one best attuned to their needs and desires. In 52 years, I have visited my markets hundreds, perhaps thousands of times. In that time, my father passed away, as did the fisherman from the now defunct El Barco in San Juan, and, recently, the woman, who sold me lush, grainy yellow morel mushrooms. When I told my daughter about her passing, she too felt a pang in her heart. She can crystalize her image from memory; the tight, white braids, the rebozo she used to lay out the mushrooms and the fact that if those mushrooms made their way into our supper, she knew exactly where they came from. I courteously called her “La señora” for so many years that I now question if I knew her name to begin with.

To read more: https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/08/mexico-city-travel-food-market-cuisine-taco-best-cdmx/597034/?utm_source=newsletter&silverid=%25%25RECIPIENT_ID%25%25&utm_campaign=citylab-daily-newsletter&utm_medium=email