Meanwhile #223

Severance, steel and the shackles of time.

Links. Hyperlinks.

1. Did you know it’s almost 2025? TWENTY TWENTY FIVE. Ridiculous. Anyway, if you need some specific bookends for this particular quarter-century, the span of ubiquity and usefulness of the period’s defining technology seems as good as anything: 15 October 2002: First recorded use of “Google” as a transitive verb, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode Help. 14 May 2024: Google officially launches AI Overviews.¹

2. Lots of magic here: Print’s 100 best book covers of 2024.

3. Adrian Curry’s annual movie poster list for MUBI, always an excellent selection. I’ve compiled mine for Creative Review – should appear online any day now – and we only have an overlap of two posters. But which ones?

4. The sorcerers at Fourth Cone restoring a rare early Star Wars poster designed by Howard Chaykin. Can’t begin to fathom how nerve-wracking this must be, especially when there’s a risk of completely erasing the artist’s signature.

5. A particularly good 13 Things from Messy Nessy this week, including the most beautiful abandoned theatre in Portugal; Michelangelo Caetani’s maps of the Divina Commedia; an underground football pitch in a salt mine; and daaaaamn 1920s firefighters were chic.

6. Times New Dumbass.

7. You’ve seen the Dick Van Dyke Coldplay video already, but just in case you haven’t, here’s the Dick Van Dyke Coldplay video. It’s LOVELY.

8. Rob Stephenson is photographing every neighbourhood of New York “in an effort to create some sort of photographic document of modern-day New York, or at least a record of what I find interesting on any particular day”. Alongside the weekly newslettered pictures, he includes lots of interesting historical facts about each ‘hood and basically the whole thing is VERY up my street.

9. John Grindrod
   ‘s gift guide is full of good reads, including book with fantastic titles like Brutalist Plants and Municipal Gothic.²

10. Hammered stainless steel placemats from John Lewis, you say? Sounds innocuous enough. What could possibly go … oh my

That is all.

1. Freelancers, here’s a fun game! Google the typical fees expected for your particular trade, then see how quickly you can punch a wall after seeing the AI overview that invariably plucks the smallest number off the internet! Extra points if you get down to the bone!

2. Municipal Gothic is very much my A/W wardrobe.