Link About It: This Week’s Picks
Joan Rivers’ inimitable humor, Max Lamb’s London home, a Sumatran rhino birth and more in our weekly look at the web
1. Joan Rivers’ 10 Best Jokes
The world of comedy has lost yet another pioneer with this week’s passing of the beloved (and often controversial) Joan Rivers. The Brooklyn-born stand-up artist’s storied career spans over six decades and includes almost every title in the industry, from TV presenter to writer to performer and producer. While arguably paving the way for female comedians of a similar ilk, Rivers remained unapologetic in her comedy—making light of disability, death and any celebrity within arm’s reach. Rolling Stone looks back at Rivers’ 10 Best Jokes.
2. The Sound of COS
H&M’s upscale sister brand COS only made its stateside debut a few months ago and its affordable, minimalist pieces have caused a fervor among the fashion crowd. For COS’ F/W ’14 collection, they tapped conceptual Dutch artists Lernert Engelberts and Sander Plug to create an unusual film, showcasing live sound design (known to filmmakers as the art of Foley) with the help of umbrellas, oven mitts, a basketball, toilet plungers and much more. Keep an eye out for the first COS stores to open in New York and Los Angeles later this year.
3. The iPhone Addiction
Whether we like to admit it or not, our obsession with technology
is slightly concerning—remember the panic you felt the last time you
left your phone at home? As a reminder of the smartphone’s slippery slope, a new illustration
depicting one as a parasite surfaced on
Cult of Mac, who claim Banksy as the artist. While that
attribution is slightly questionable, we can all agree the
clever work is chillingly accurate.
4. “The Sand Storm” Starring Ai Weiwei
While on a break from heading up the video division of TED Talks, filmmaker Jason Wishnow met with Chinese artist Ai Weiwei in Beijing. There, he asked Weiwei to take on the role of a water delivery man in an arid world for a short film Wishnow had been developing. After a battle over funding and subsequently a successful Kickstarter campaign, the short film “The Sand Storm” is now streaming in its entirety via T Magazine. The short is gritty yet beautiful, and Weiwei’s presence leaves a discernible impact.
5. In the Studio With Max Lamb
On the heels of his stupendous design for Opening Ceremony’s Shoreditch pop-up store, British designer Max Lamb invited the forward-thinking retailer into his live/work studio in North London. The old industrial building—which Lamb says he and his wife (artist Gemma Holt) are physically and intellectually invested in—is both homey
and ever in flux, and serves as a reflection of their mutual interest in using lesser-known raw materials to create functional objects with great value.
6. Every Sunday for Five Years
Photographer Rocky McCorkle’s “You & Me on a Sunny Day” is more a motion-picture than a series of images. This completely immersive experience charts every Sunday from 2007 to 2012, where McCorkle met with his elderly downstairs neighbor Gilda, as she portrayed a newly widowed woman having near hallucinatory flashbacks of life with her husband. While the story hails from McCorkle’s life with his own grandmother, the rest of the character is all Gilda—the details of the space and the emotion. McCorkle’s technique is also worth noting: he merges up to 22 angles and focal points to create one masterfully crisp, large-format image.
7. Time’s Arrow + Kate Foley Handbags
After many successful years as an Opening Ceremony NYC buyer and receiving much acclaim for her own personal style, fashion consultant and stylist Kate Foley has launched a collection with her name on it. Made in collaboration with emerging design label Time’s Arrow, the vibrant range of handbags feature five silhouettes that strike an elegant balance between classic and contemporary. The colors are inspired by the shores of Mexico’s Costa Careyes and the work of textile designer Josef Frank.
8. A Newborn (in Captivity) Sumatran Rhino
National Geographic announced a historic event in saving an endangered species this week via Instagram, when the Cincinnati Zoo successfully bred a Sumatran Rhino in captivity. With a worldwide population of fewer than 100, the controlled reproduction marks the first time in 112 years that researchers and conservationists have successfully bred the rare species. Habitat destruction and a growing demand for rhino horns used for perceived medicinal purposes are two of the leading factors to the species’ decline.
9. Playboy Bunnies of Yesteryear
At the recent Former Playboy Bunny Reunion in Las
Vegas, photographer Robyn Twomey captured the “complex character” of a
range of women years after their days in print. The images are framed
tightly, with no retouching, revealing the strength, fragility and
personality of each subject, offering another avenue to view the relationship between time and beauty.
10. Monster Children’s Photo Competition
This week marks the opening of Aussie mag Monster Children’s annual Photo Competition, in which the publication will award $25,000 (and well-chosen prizes for the student competition) across six categories. In addition to cash and prizes, winners will see their photos published in the annual photo issue, one of the magazine’s most anticipated editions each year. Previous winners include photographers like Laura Austin and some of the top emerging talent in the field. Enthusiasts should also keep an eye on the competition as new approved entries are added to the site.
11. Dimensions Festival 2014
Dimensions Festival, now in its third year of championing stellar customized soundsystems and unique electronic music artists, came to a literally thunderous close on Sunday (due to an ill-fated rainstorm, which unfortunately caused some expensive equipment damage). And since it’s no easy feat to fly all the way to Fort Punta Christo, Croatia, these photos from Dan Medhurst make you feel as if you were (almost) there, experiencing the sets from the likes of Moodymann, Theo Parrish, Caribou and more in the 19th century fort—and of course, boats.
12. Marvel-ous Hello Kitty
Hello Kitty—who was recently confirmed to be not a cat but a British third-grade girl named Kitty White (and in fact, has her own cat named Charmmy Kitty)—still continues to wield her bewitchery over Tumblr bloggers. Three of them have teamed up to show off their Photoshop prowess, giving the manliest of Marvel characters a head-to-toe pink makeover.
Link About It is our filtered look at the web, shared daily on Twitter and published weekly every Saturday morning.
