How an R&B song from 2024 became the song of the summer
Things I Saw This Week — Friday, July 25
Art
A Loyola University Museum of Art exhibition about American sculptor Richard Hunt opens.
Outside of Hunt’s own work, the exhibit includes portraits and a sculpture of Hunt himself, plus his tools and workbench and a selection of books and photos from his personal collection. All of these items are arranged chronologically to tell the story of an internationally recognized artist with more than 160 public art commissions, eclipsing any other American sculptor.
And, a new photo book called ‘Third Coast” celebrates the Great Lakes.
Released July 15 by Northwestern University Press, “The Third Coast” celebrates the Great Lakes’ 4,500-mile shoreline, which covers more distance than the country’s Atlantic and Pacific Coasts combined. Organized by season and lake, the collection highlights cherry blossoms along Lake Michigan in spring, golden foliage bordering Lake Huron in autumn, ice climbers and fishermen braving Lake Superior in winter, and even more merrymaking in the presence of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.
The book inspires readers to consider not just the beauty and diversity of the Great Lakes, but the industries it feeds, the challenges it faces and the people it influences.
The Populus Hotel, with locations in Seattle and Denver, is beefing up the art-hotel concept.
Populus’s manager, Juriana Spierenburg, adds that there’s another twist to the more than 300 pieces of art at Populus. “Hotels are actually the best galleries, because, of course, many people are coming through all the time.” But typically, she says, even if they’ve commissioned the works for, say, their lobby, “the hotels own these canvases for the rest of the life of the property.” At Populus, the artwork is for sale, and each year will be renewed. Nieri is creating an artist-in-residence program to foster that, so that there’s a constant flow of new work going into Populus as the extant pieces are purchased.
Food
Some formerly family-friendly breweries are now banning children from their premises.
Mr. Demagall is among dozens of brewery owners across the country who have been reconsidering their business’s relationship with children and, in some cases, banning them outright or instituting adults-only hours. These owners cited instances of children throwing rocks or running around unsupervised, staff being forced to act as babysitters, and even one occasion when a parent pulled out a travel potty for a toddler to use in front of other guests.
Breweries, often housed in large warehouses or alongside spacious outdoor areas, have earned a reputation as family-friendly destinations, places where parents can enjoy a beer while their children play. But now some owners say parents have gotten too comfortable.
Concert venues are embracing reusable cups.
About 200 music venues, stadiums, arenas, zoos and convention centers across the United States are using r.World’s “ugly cups.”
Whereas just a few years ago, environmentally conscious venue operators promoted recycling to steer waste away from landfills, there has been a growing movement in favor of reusable food and drink containers.
Venues are now seeking out full-service reuse companies, willing to pay higher costs to avoid the scourge of plastic waste. Last year, the world’s second-largest concert promoter, AEG, replaced all single-use cups at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles with r.World reusable drinkware. Businesses are popping up around the country to meet the demand, with names such as Re:Dish, Bold Reuse and Cup Zero.
Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream founder Jeni Britton is now looking to fiber.
Floura is a fiber company, one that luxuriates in flavor and roots itself in the senses. Its first product is a fiber bar with the same name. It features 13 grams of fiber and 12 whole plants, such as watermelon and apples, all sourced from food trimmings previously destined for waste. In the end, this fiber bar is meant to deliver on the same promise she made with ice cream: to make you feel good. We caught up with Jeni to hear all about it.
Lastly, Eater outlines the biggest food trends from the past 25 years.
Film/TV
GQ delves into “the decline and fall of the prestige-TV nude scene.”
And the BBC shares how “Psycho's terrifying music changed film forever.”
Music
On singer Ravyn Lenae’s hit “Love Me Not:”
“How a Throwback R&B Banger Unexpectedly Broke Through the Sloggy Charts”
“Ravyn Lenae's 'Love Me Not' enters the song of the summer sweepstakes”
The daughters of psychedelic soul artist Charles Stepney are helping to keep his legacy alive.
Stepney’s work has been extensively sampled over the years. That includes the Rotary Connection song “Memory Band,” which can be heard in “Bonita Applebum” by A Tribe Called Quest and The Fugees’ “Killing Me Softly With His Song.” “Les Fleurs” has been sampled by the hip-hop group Jurassic 5 and pop singer Nelly Furtado.
NPR’s Rodney Carmichael calls Tyler, the Creator’s surprise album “Don’t Tap the Glass” a “petition for freedom of movement.”
San Francisco’s Audium celebrates 50 years.
In 1970, Stan Shaff and Douglas McEachern bought a building in San Francisco with a vision to choreograph sound.
For five years, they tinkered with the former donut shop’s layout and design, testing different kinds of audio speakers and acoustic treatments. And in 1975, they formally opened their final version of Audium, a sound theater known today for its dark inner sanctum and 176 speakers dispersed over the walls, ceiling and floor.
To celebrate Audium’s 50th anniversary on Bush Street this summer, Dave Shaff, the director of Audium and son of founder Stan Shaff, is reviving Audium VI, the very first tape piece for the space, created by his father, that will run as an immersive, in-the-dark experience every weekend between mid-July and August.
The Audium experience goes much deeper than simply listening to prerecorded music. “There is a performance,” Shaff says, “and that’s the movement of the sound, literally like the choreography of taking the sound and moving it from one speaker to another.”
When the lights go out, “you’ve got nowhere else to go but inside yourself,” says Shaff. The sounds bouncing around the room tend to bring up memories, ideas and fantasies, he says, adding that “it kind of touches the subconscious.”
Songs I Listened to This Week
Two playlists for you this week.
A travel potty at a public place?? Just wow!