Sunday, January 31, 2016

Bajan Star

























New York Times - "Review: Rihanna, Blissfully Adrift, Juggles Styles on ‘Anti’"

"There are vocal powerhouse pop stars, who dominate with the sheer magnitude of their gift; kaleidoscopically vivid pop stars, who dazzle with enthusiasm and energy; diligent pop stars, who chip away at success until they strike oil; cheeky pop stars, who understand the absurdity of the situation but manage to convincingly stay the course.

And there is Rihanna, who is not quite any of these things.

That deficit has not proved to be much of an obstacle. More than three years have passed since the release of her last album, and she is perhaps more famous than ever, a star of fashion, social media and tabloids who sometimes, y’know, makes music or whatever."

New York Times - "A Very RevealingConversationWith Rihanna"

"Her lips were bright red, her long nails were pale iridescent lavender, her mascara was both white and black in a way I didn’t really understand. A rhinestone necklace against her chest read ‘‘FENTY,’’ her last name. Oumarou wasn’t the only person I had grilled about what makes Rihanna great. A lesbian art history professor told me that she’s ‘‘the real deal.’’ Others used the words ‘‘magic’’ and ‘‘epic.’’ But when I tried to get anyone to pinpoint things she had said or done — particular interviews or incidents — everyone became lost in inarticulacy. Yet another friend, referencing an episode of ‘‘Style Wars’’ that Rihanna had appeared on, concluded, ‘‘You could just tell she’s a good person.’’ None of this was all that helpful.

Rihanna hugged me hello and we sat down in front of two glasses of white wine. ‘‘Your eyes are amazing,’’ she told me, pulling her chair closer. ‘‘I’m staring at you and I feel like my eyes are gonna blur because all I can see are those tiny dots.’’"

Odell Beckham Jr.'s Cleat Game
























Related,
Air Jordan Shoes as Cleats
Odell Beckham's Left Handed Skills

Monday, January 25, 2016

Minneapolis' Blue Rooster


























Star Tribune - "Minneapolis Sculpture Garden to grow with 16 works from Walker Art Center"
MPR News - "How the Walker's Sculpture Garden will grow"
Walker Art Center - "First Look: Announcing 16 New Artworks for the Expanded Minneapolis Sculpture Garden"

"An ultramarine blue rooster could be an even bigger crowd-pleaser than “LOVE.” With its concrete base, the sculpture by German artist Katharina Fritsch will be more than 20 feet tall and visible from nearby streets.

“I predict that it will become one of the iconic pieces in the garden,” Viso said, comparing the bird’s potential appeal to that of “Spoonbridge,” the site’s centerpiece by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.

“Hahn/Cock” recalls the weather vanes that once spun atop Midwestern barns, but it is done up in modern materials — Fiberglas reinforced with powdered steel — and repurposed for an urban audience. Originally designed for London’s Trafalgar Square, the rooster will welcome visitors arriving from Hennepin Av. and Dunwoody Boulevard."

Inception in Istanbul
















































This Is Colossal - "Istanbul Inception: Warped Turkish Cityscapes by Aydin Büyüktas"

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Snowzilla 2016


What will football look like in 2066?


















Sports Illustrated - "Crystal Ball" (January 25, 2016 issue)

"L. Jon Wertheim: The demographics are going to shift. Think of it like boxing. The sport still exists, but the athletes come from a much narrower band of the population than they did a half century ago."

"Michael Rosenberg: I don't think the public is quite as addicted to the violence as people think. The most popular players are quarterbacks—the guys who never hit anybody. But through some combination of safer equipment and rule changes, the game has to become safer, if not actually safe."

"Emily Kaplan: Just as the league eyes international expansion, scouts will broaden their scope. I think we are not far off from seeing the NFL tapping into South America, Asia, Africa—every continent—for talent."

"Ben Eagle: If you're a top athlete in 2066, why would you play football? Basketball and soccer are considerably safer and, at present, more lucrative."

Friday, January 22, 2016

Kobe Bryant's Mona Lisa





















ESPN - "Kobe's Masterpiece: Oral History"

""It's really a testament to the power of imagination, honestly," Bryant told ESPN.com earlier this month. "There's a lot of players who come up now who don't think 80 points is possible. You think 50, and if you're really hot -- 60. I never had that limit. Ever. I never, ever thought that way. I always thought 80 was possible. I thought 90 was possible. I thought 100 was possible. Always. I think that game is a testament to what happens when you put no ceiling to what you're capable of doing."

...

Kobe Bryant: The Hall of Fame requested my uniform and shoes, and I was going to send it to them because I said, "This is pretty cool that a player who is still playing has stuff in the Hall of Fame." But [wife] Vanessa was like: "No, listen, we're keeping the uniform. You can send the shoes if you really want, but the uniform is not going anywhere." So the uniform is framed and up in the gym in our house.

John Black: We sent the shoes to the Hall of Fame, and a lot of people were asking Kobe to sign the box scores after the game. Now that I think about it, we probably should have cut the nets down, and I don't think we did. We didn't even think of it."

Chuck Klosterman's Next Book

















Vulture - "Chuck Klosterman Is Writing a Book About the Possibility of Us Being Wrong About, Well, Everything"

"At various points in human history, Herman Melville was a middling novelist, Shakespeare was a pretty good romance writer, and the sun was a big bright thing that revolved around the Earth. Which ideas that we take for granted today will be disproven in the years ahead? That's the premise of Chuck Klosterman's new book, What If We're Wrong: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past, an attempt to imagine what the textbooks of 100, 300, or even 1,000 years from now will say about American culture at the start of the 21st century. "

Suicide Squad Trailer 2



August 5, 2016
Written & Directed by David Ayer
Starring Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez

Previously,
Suicide Squad Trailer 1

Neighbors 2 Trailer



May 20, 2016
Directed by Nicholas Stoller
Starring Seth Rogen, Zac Efron, Rose Byrne

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Tips from a Billionaire






















Business Insider - "Here's Mark Cuban's advice for whoever wins the $1.5 billion Powerball lottery" 


  • [The first thing you should do is] hire a tax attorney. 
  • Don't take the lump sum. You don't want to blow it all in one spot. 
  • If you weren't happy yesterday, you won't be happy tomorrow. It's money. It's not happiness. 
  • If you were happy yesterday, you are going to be a lot happier tomorrow. It's money. Life gets easier when you don't have to worry about the bills. 
  • Tell all your friends and relatives no. They will ask. Tell them no. If you are close to them, you already know who needs help and what they need. Feel free to help SOME, but talk to your accountant before you do anything and remember this, no one needs $1 million for anything. No one needs $100,000 for anything. Anyone who asks is not your friend. 
  • You don't become a smart investor when you win the lottery. Don't make investments. You can put it in the bank and live comfortably. Forever. You will sleep a lot better knowing you won't lose money.

Thursday, January 7, 2016

The Wild Animal

















Bleacher Report - "Bears Eat Beets: The Minnesota Wild Logo"

"When the Minnesota Wild unveiled their primary logo back in 1998, the context in which sport was perceived would, essentially, change forever. Whether we knew it or not, one man's artistic recreation of a "wild" would be enough to permanently alter the memetic landscape of professional athletics.

If the simplistic nature of the New York Yankees' interlocking letters set the bar for artistic achievement, the Minnesota Wild reinvented the sport of proverbial high jump altogether. It is for this reason that the cultural smorgasbord of Minnesota's organic Nature Bear deserves your respect.

Love it or hate it, the unparalleled appeal of the seemingly acid trip-induced creation is two-fold. The first and most defining characteristic of the infamous logo being it's optically-deceiving double image - representing both a wilderness landscape and an unidentified wild animal - and the second, of course, being the fact that bears are totally bad ass."

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Jail Time in Dubai

















The Fader - "The Terrifying True Story Of How Future’s DJ Got Stuck In A Dubai Jail For 56 Nights"

"They say, "Grab some extra clothes because you're gonna be here for a couple of days." So I was like, "A couple of days? I thought y'all was takin' me home right now!" Then they take me to the jail cell and I never came back out.

When you first get in there, you don't know what's going on. First of all, I'm the only American. It's Pakistanis, Saudis, Afghans, Kuwaitis, Iranians. And then you got some Africans, like Somalians, Nigerian, Egyptians. All these people was the people in jail. So when I come in, the first thing I'm seeing is like, How am I going to communicate with these people? I don't know what to do."