Australians have invented some great things: the Hills hoist, Victa mower, wifi etc. And as the winter cold sets in I’ve been thinking about the invention of the puffer jacket. Turns out it’s another great Aussie invention. I bought my first puffer last year after wearing the same leather jacket daily for about 20 years. The phrase that came to mind was “where have you been all my life?”. So warm, yet so uncool and unflattering. Yes, I’ve reached the age where practicality wins over any pretence to fashionability.
It’s scary how close we can come to full-blown war. With someone as loose as Trump leading the way, hopes aren’t high something stupid won’t happen. Rolling Stone may not be the cultural touchstone they once were, but they’ve always kept up excellent political reporting. This piece about how the key moments in a timeline are eerily (terrifyingly) repeating and playing out in the latest conflict with Iran.
Speaking of in-depth reporting, the New York Times published a huge report on a fire at Universal Studios that destroyed the master recordings of many of the giants of 20th century music. The story was begun not long after the 2008 fire and the bombshell only just published this week. It’s a great piece that gets into why masters are important, how poorly these recordings are archived and stored, and how the PR machine went into action double-time after the event. They successfully hushed up the damage until this report. Now the estates of artists like Tom Petty and Tupac are suing (which exposes what the company feared at the time). Here’s a shorter summary of what happened and what was lost.
Radiohead were the subject of a recent hack and ransom attempt. 18 minidiscs (remember minidiscs?) worth of demos and sound desk recordings were leaked. The band are notorious control freaks, so this wouldn’t have pleased them at all. Instead of giving into the hackers demands for 150,000GBP they popped the recordings on Bandcamp with proceeds to aid Extinction Rebellion. Everybody’s a winner. Except the band. Worth listening to for the brilliant version of fan favourite ‘Lift’. This was the song they buried because they thought it’d make them too popular with the wrong type of people. They released a version on the anniversary edition of OK Computer but it pales compared to the hook-laden version here, there are other treats in there too. If you download it it’s worth having this fan-made google doc of all the tracks.
Boredom is often a great stimulus for creation. Actor Heather Mitchell started creating portraits on toast of her co-stars. She’s got quite a gallery now of her tasty artworks.
