Meanwhile #204
Maybe they shouldn't have been there in the first place.
Welcome to Meanwhile, in which I bundle together the finest hyperlinks loitering in my tabs and drop them into your inbox – fuel for the week ahead. Check out previous editions for further inspiration, fascination and procrastination.
Woman with hands in hair by Dora Maar, 1935. A new exhibition of Maar's work at Amar Gallery in London brings the surrealist photographer (and original “weeping woman”) out from Picasso's shadow. This one piece in particular I think is stunning, and looks more like something far more modern. Very Farrow.
This rare indexed edition of Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar … doesn’t exist. But by golly it should. Look, we’ve been through this before: all books should have indexes. And endpaper maps. COME ON PUBLISHING KEEP UP.
Little bit excited to see TeuxDeux – a tool without which my daily routine would collapse into a black hole – has added a notes feature. Mmmm, lists within lists.
Fantastic and exceedingly timely Elizabeth Goodspeed piece, talking to creatives about on what happens when your style becomes a trend and is widely adopted, aped and AI-leeched. I particularly like the bit where Robert Beatty nails one brutal truth: “Style is your limitations showing through … The worst part of what you’re doing is what people latch on to”. Computers replicating our weaknesses. That can only end well, right?
And this week in jakelamottaheadbuttingwall.gif news, here’s OpenAI's Mira Murati saying that “some creative jobs maybe will go away, but maybe they shouldn't have been there in the first place”. Gaaaah. Still, quite funny if you imagine Pierce Brosnan saying it.
Further confusing headlines from the robot uprising front lines: Photographer Disqualified From AI Image Contest After Winning With Real Photo and Real Photo Disqualified From Photography Contest For Being AI. It’s just so exhausting.
Kiosk: The Last Modernist Booths Across Central and Eastern Europe – a starkly beautiful photobook by Zupagrafika chronicling the vanishing Soviet-era kiosk designs across the ex-Soviet world. Every picture looks like it was dragged out of
‘s dreams.Somebody just spent TEN GRAND on Stephen Sondheim’s unused Blackwing pencils. Probably Lydia Tár.
March 2003. Rohner’s Home Furnishings in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
With the release of The Bikeriders, based on Danny Lyon’s 1968 book of the same name, I’m wondering if there are any other films based on photobooks … ? Or that should be? Suggestions and recommendations in the comments! It’s a bit snake-eating-tale, but I’d love to see a film based on The Misfits: Story of a Shoot.
That is all.
Indexes & maps in as many books as possible. And maps in historical fiction especially please! Very interesting articles, Meanwhile.
Supposedly, Tony Scott got the "soft porn" look for TOP GUN from a book of Bruce Weber photographs. I haven't been able to pin which exact book, but it might've been LOOKING GOOD: http://mrpeacockstyle.blogspot.com/2009/04/looking-good-dressing-right.html