Just Another Manic Monday of Miscellany

The coolest doorway in Paris is at number 29 Avenue Rapp .

Mondrian’s mysticism: Evolution (1910–1911)

A NEW NATIONAL ANTHEM

Ada Limón

The truth is, I’ve never cared for the National

Anthem. If you think about it, it’s not a good

song. Too high for most of us with “the rockets

red glare” and then there are the bombs.

(Always, always, there is war and bombs.)

Once, I sang it at homecoming and threw

even the tenacious high school band off key.

But the song didn’t mean anything, just a call

to the field, something to get through before

the pummeling of youth. And what of the stanzas

we never sing, the third that mentions “no refuge

could save the hireling and the slave”? Perhaps,

the truth is, every song of this country

has an unsung third stanza, something brutal

snaking underneath us as we blindly sing

the high notes with a beer sloshing in the stands

hoping our team wins. Don’t get me wrong, I do

like the flag, how it undulates in the wind

like water, elemental, and best when it’s humbled,

brought to its knees, clung to by someone who

has lost everything, when it’s not a weapon,

when it flickers, when it folds up so perfectly

you can keep it until it’s needed, until you can

love it again, until the song in your mouth feels

like sustenance, a song where the notes are sung

by even the ageless woods, the short-grass plains,

the Red River Gorge, the fistful of land left

unpoisoned, that song that’s our birthright,

that’s sung in silence when it’s too hard to go on,

that sounds like someone’s rough fingers weaving

into another’s, that sounds like a match being lit

in an endless cave, the song that says my bones

are your bones, and your bones are my bones,

and isn’t that enough?

Inspired by the Japanese word tsundoku (積読), which refers to the books we buy that accumulate without being read, “neon signs of tsundoku city” are a series of seven miniature capsule toys that replicate the ubiquitous shop signs of Tokyo. They include a coffee shop, hotel, bar, hospital, and a multi-tenant sign that reads “tsundoku bldg,” each with their own battery so as to illuminate a dark room.

They were designed by Ekoda Works, known for their sometimes-ridiculous but always humorous product design, and distributed by Bushiroad Media, who operates capsule toy vending machines across Japan.

Don’t Hesitate

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case.
Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
– Mary Oliver

Photographer Kien Lam quit his job and over the next 343 days he visited 17 countries, taking 6237 photographs from which he created the wonderful timelapse below. NB: If the video does not launch in your email, please click on the link for TBTP homepage.

2 Responses to Just Another Manic Monday of Miscellany

Sherry Felix says:

May 16, 2022 at 6:34 am

Love the door.

knitina says:

May 17, 2022 at 6:38 pm

Yaaas, and all the pharmaceutical companies flogging every kind of medicine for the most rare conditions, never refer to said ailment except by first initials: erectile dysfunction disorder: EDD, female whosits syndrome: FWS, usw. More than two syllables, too much effort. So overworked they are. >