The art teacher

WE'RE SUPPORTING

New York photographer Jennifer Loeber’s series, Cruel Story of Youth, is based on the Rowe Camp for teenagers, where she spent some time and which is ‘grounded in the ideals of a counter-cultural past and freed from the forced constraints of a conventional camp experience. It’s a glimpse into what the world would be like if no ideas were too absurd, and eccentricity was the rule, not the exception’. Read more

WE'RE LISTENING TO

I caught Chicago’s Ga’an the other night at the Empty Bottle, and they blew me away. I’d never heard of these guys, but they make driving, gothic prog sounds like satanic Krautrock with guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, and the night I saw them, a female vocalist. There is no distinct frontman, but for me, drummer Seth Sher’s intense and precise playing was the highlight of the show.

WE'RE THINKING

Zaha Hadid has been announced as the winning architect for the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, Vilnius, Lithuania. As with the rest of the Guggenheim Museums, the architectural boundaries are pushed. Zaha lets loose with her fluid, energetic architecture and has subsequently deemed the building to be the manifestation of the city’s new cultural significance. One wonders which is the next city that requires a Guggenheim shot in the arm?

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

One of the largest contemporary construction projects in the world [it's the size of London's Hyde Park], the 220 suite Hydropolis, situated twenty metres below the surface of the Persian Gulf near Dubai, will be the first luxury underwater hotel. It’s expected to open to the public in late 2009. Read more

Improv Everywhere strikes again with a spontaneous musical in a Los Angeles mall. Wireless microphones hooked up to the mall’s PA system ensured the feeding masses didn’t slip into Cinnabon-induced comas until after the show was over. Note especially the angry dude in sunglasses at about 2:51 — apparently he thinks nothing can ever top Rent.

WE'RE WEARING

Omar Seluj [pronounced Oh-ma Sir-luge] is a boutique sunglasses operation created by two Sydney guys who wanted to craft original designs in limited numbers for the sunglasses aficionado. The result is the debut range consisting of two styles in three different colours. All Omar Seluj sunnies are hand-crafted acetate, have spring hinges and boast UV 400 lenses. There are only 100 pairs of each colour. Read more

WE'RE READING

I am really into Hong Kong action flicks from the 1980s and 90s. When I first moved to New York, there were a handful of curious friends who were also interested in watching movies such as City on Fire by Ringo Lam, which Reservoir Dogs was based on. How did they find videos like thus? At the legendary Kim’s Video in New York City. These days, City on Fire can be find online, and Kim’s is history. But all the videos that entertained the film geeks of this city for more than twenty years have found a new home in, wait for it, Salemi, Sicily. Yes, the southern island of Italy. Kim has recently relocated there, as this sad but heartwarming story about him in yesterday’s New York Times reveals.