Once again we will commence staring outside the sphere of videogames and into the world beyond. A world filled with ice palaces and internet shaming, with emotionally intelligent dogs and with people dressed up as tigers being fake-tranquilised... Think of me as your friendly milkman, except all the bottles are full of web links you can't use in your cereal and I only bother showing up on Sunday.
The furor over [Justine] Sacco’s tweet had become not just an ideological crusade against her perceived bigotry but also a form of idle entertainment. Her complete ignorance of her predicament for those 11 hours lent the episode both dramatic irony and a pleasing narrative arc. As Sacco’s flight traversed the length of Africa, a hashtag began to trend worldwide: #HasJustineLandedYet.
Ronson references Sam Biddle in his article – Biddle was the one who posted Justine Sacco's tweet on Valleywag and towards the end of last year he wrote about the experience from his point-of-view on Gawker. Ronson doesn't link to the piece so it's here if you're interested.
I'm in love with this Frozen Fortress video about ice palaces:
Gizmodo has a piece about how ice castles work and are made - which is where I saw the video - but there is also a short story called The Ice Palace by F Scott Fitzgerald. I love the language he uses. The story starts, "The sunlight dripped over the house like golden paint over an art jar..."
They cut the leaves into discs, which they bring back to their nest and chomp them up into tinier pieces so they can grow a fungus on the leaves, and they eat that fungus.
Here's Anthony Lane's review of 50 Shades of Grey for The New Yorker - it's utterly delicious, particularly this part, which cuts right to the core of the human condition:
Yet we should not begrudge E. L. James her triumph, for she has, in her lumbering fashion, tapped into a truth that often eludes more elegant writers—that eternal disappointment, deep in the human heart, at the failure of our loved ones to acquire their own helipad.
Fashion Week has just started with the New York leg of this tightly packed season of shows and spans the best part of an entire month. If you're curious about how fashion week works I wrote an FAQ about it years ago, but for the current latest shows Style posts the full collections as well as a review on its site. FW is a thing I miss in the abstract because I like seeing what designers are doing, but in reality it's a swamp of writing, photos, and desperately rushing (in heels) from one end of town to another. I miss being able to talk about it with people though so there are the links if you fancy prodding about and seeing what you like.
And finally, I really like that the Museo del Prado is continuing its work on access with this exhibition of famous paintings with visually impaired people in mind. Hyperallergic's Laura C Mallonee has more details and, if you're in Madrid, the exhibition is on until 28 June, 2015.
