Slavenka & Obi: September 2021

Wednesday, September 29, 2021

All we hear is blah blah blah

Photograph: Marcus Ohlsson/Lundlund

Greta Thunberg has excoriated global leaders over their promises to address the climate emergency, dismissing them as “blah, blah, blah”.

“Build back better. Blah, blah, blah. Green economy. Blah blah blah. Net zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah,” she said in a speech to the Youth4Climate summit in Milan, Italy, on Tuesday.

“This is all we hear from our so-called leaders. Words that sound great but so far have not led to action. Our hopes and ambitions drown in their empty promises.”

"No Time To Die is startling, exotically self-aware, funny and confident, and perhaps most of all it is big: big action, big laughs, big stunts and however digitally it may have been contrived, and however wildly far-fetched, No Time To Die looks like it is taking place in the real world, a huge wide open space that we’re all longing for."

Peter Bradshaw

Toxic Gases in The Air

Lava from an erupting volcano in the Canary Islands has reached the ocean, volcanologists said, raising fear of toxic gases being released as the lava hits the sea water.

The regional government of the Spanish archipelago had already declared an exclusion zone of two nautical miles around where the lava was expected to enter the Atlantic and asked nearby residents to stay at home.

Tuesday, September 28, 2021

Dancing with Particles, Jean-Yves Lemoigne

Photo Factory, Andy Warhol

Some collages, Jim Jarmusch

Adam Hillman uses paper clips, tooth picks, and more everyday items to create famous works of art.

Why Were Medieval Knights Always Fighting Snails?

Brunetto Latini’s Li Livres dou Tresor, c 1315-1325

No one knows what, exactly, the scenes really mean. The British Library says that the scene could represent the Resurrection, or it could be a stand in for the Lombards, a group vilified in the early middle ages for treasonous behaviour, the sin of usury, and non-chivalrous comportment in general.

The valiant snails could be a commentary on social oppression, or it could just be medieval humor.