Exited stages

This is a rad photobook. Sneaky "urban explorer" snaps of long-empty houses and mansions, schools and hotels, theme parks and power plants, fortresses and mental asylums, trains and shipwrecks, churches and theatres. With the housing crisis currently affecting so many countries, it's weird seeing these abandoned places - especially the larger ones. I'm not saying people should be living in them. They are dilapidated, overgrown. And there are valid reasons why their occupants left never to return... Flooding, earthquakes, radioactivity, shifting sands, severe economic depression, political upheaval, war... It's more that they illustrate how often through history humans have been forced to forsake grand and costly constructions we had imagined ourselves using "forever". On top of that, the photographs (like the cover shot) possess a cool spookiness. Horror LARP, anyone?

Does the world still need more lerts?

COMIC COVER OF THE WEEK

By Tonci Zonjic. Ultra-clean, mean shades of green and an unusual scene.

SONG OF THE WEEK

"Alive" by The Ssyndrome (Korea). Strong debut that made me an instant fan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dFSq6ki8gM

Kenny Hoopla's (US) "Birthday Card" is also great.

LIMP SEQUEL OF THE WEEK?

Disclaimer: am only halfway through. The original felt so fresh. This...doesn't.

Block, punch

In hindsight, I didn't intend my review of "'The New Yorker' At 100" (previous entry) to sound so negative. What was there, I scoffed with butter and salt. I just wish there'd been less fluff and more insights.

Am loving this boxing reality comp on Disney+. It's very "Physical: 100", which is about the best thing such a show can be >>>

Greetings from Akkad

Arrived home in a storm to find the delivery person had safely stowed these in a sheltered corner of the front porch. Three cheers for common sense. If only it applied to my buying habits! I must have a dozen of these retro systems now.

For those who care about the venerable periodical in question, this will be popcorn viewing. (Those who don't won't watch it.) Ironically, though, given the legendary long-form journalism and obsessive attention to detail of "T/N/Y", I thought it could have gone broader and deeper. The famous talking heads added little. I'd have rather heard from the printers, retailers, fanatical collectors, the legal department, the coffee boy... Perhaps the remarks of comedians, etc. were supposed to function like the single-panel cartoons dotted throughout the magazine itself. Didn't work for me.

Sciencing & dancing

Pod rec

Nihoo

This guy is kind of an unofficial ambassador for K-pop - singing, dancing, judging contests and even trying his hand at teaching as he travels everywhere from Mongolia to Gautemala. After I discovered his channel yesterday, my productivity went out for cigarettes and never came back. Along with bringing joy (often euphoria) to fans, he and his gorgeous producer-director, PD Noona*, visit interesting places, eat delicious food and overcome obstacles like still having to perform when the weather/equipment aren't co-operating or you're seriously ill. The lengths to which Nihoo goes to ensure everyone gets their money's worth is so admirable, as is how much he encourages and praises his fellow artists. Champion fella.

https://www.youtube.com/@%EB%8B%88%ED%9B%84Nihoo/videos

*Yes, I know this means older sister.

Finished that, started this

A tad familiar. Did I read it a decade ago? I'm sure I'll realise soon. Perhaps it doesn't matter, anyway. My late father used to joke, as his memory declined with age, that it was a positive development because he'd eventually only require one book. By the time he reached the end, he would have forgotten everything that had come before and could simply begin it again.

Publisher blurb:

Crosswords are not as old as you think. The first one appeared a century ago, with the little square keeping in remarkable shape. Cluetopia is here to toast the centenary, whizzing you through years of remarkable clues, across the world, seeking the inside stories.

Come travel to New Guinea, Venezuela and Metropolis: every destination arising from a clue. Encounter love, murder, hoaxes, propaganda. Visit a Maori funeral, a Bass Strait oil rig, a Russian game show - just some of the side trips locked in a crossword.

With almost 100 mini-chapters, each with a separate clue to crack, this is a book for word lovers and puzzle fans. You'll see how crosswords capture the life around them, from prison cells to outer space. 

A holiday for the head, Cluetopia is as fun, as wild and as wordy as David's previous bestseller, Puzzled.

Proper page-turner

Publisher blurb:

EVERYTHING IN THIS BOOK HAPPENED...

At 17, Anna Broinowski is precocious, naive and convinced she knows how the world works. But O-Week at Sydney University changes that. She's suddenly in a hyper-masculine caste system, where future captains of industry terrorise freshers and invade dorms in naked, screaming packs. 

Nothing is what she thought it'd be...until Anna finds her people. New dreams are made. Playing violin, auditioning for NIDA, losing her virginity. Then Peisley, a gentle giant, talks of a hitchhiking trip up north. And, after agreeing on three rules - never split up, remain platonic, accept every lift that gets them closer to Darwin - Anna decides to go.

Hitchhiking the highways leads her into a dystopian dustbowl, where outsiders must adapt or perish, and women teeter on an existential knife edge. In this flyblown asylum, love and danger collide with the toxic misogyny in the guts of the Australian soul. Anna will learn that the line between victim and survivor can be as cruel as luck and as random as a shiny blue Datsun on a red dirt road.