2022 recommendations

June 2022

The debut album from Japanese artists Hatis Noit came out toward the end of June, after what seems like a very long wait. It’s (almost?) entirely made from vocal sounds, manipulated and duplicated. There are points where it reminds me a little of Lisa Gerard and Dead Can Dance (the beginning of “Angelus Novus”, for …

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2018 recommendations

March 31, 2018: Behind the Scenes

I’ve just finished teaching a new class about cities, and one of the things that the experience made me think about was how the built environment of urban spaces is the outcome of a long process (or series of processes) that is itself basically invisible. That is to say, you can see what the city …

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2015 recommendations

Recommendations for May 4, 2015

Video: “Terminal” by Jörg Wagner I’ve written here before about my interest in shipping containers and standardization. I’m partly just fascinated by the idea that the whole world can agree on anything, but also by what such agreement makes possible— the astonishingly fast movement of colossal amounts of goods of all kinds across the world, …

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2013 recommendations

Recommendations for December 15, 2013

Late yet again. It is the end of the semester, which means both that I had lots of grading to do and rapidly-declining will to do much of anything at all. But, still, I think this is a selection of things worth your time and attention.   Video: “Inside the Secret Shipping Industry” TED Talk …

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