Things I Saw This Week - Friday, November 26

TISTW is a collection of reads, visuals, and music, curated by Elle Perry, a Memphis-based journalist, featuring art and culture, food, cities, and more. (Issue No. 128)

Nov 26, 2021

One to watch:

Passing (2021) Warrior @kingbealestreet

Saniyya Sidney is such a beast. She's been in Fences and Hidden Figures, starred in Fast Color and the tv show The Passage and is now playing Venus Williams in King Richard. And she just turned 15 years old! Up next? Reuniting with Viola Davis and playing Sasha Obama 🔥🔥

Art

Six Black Western flicks for you to check out, courtesy IndieWire:

IndieWire @IndieWire

‘The Harder They Fall’: 6 Other Films to Watch If You Liked @netflix’s Black Western bit.ly/30iYSkr

The TRiiBE interviewed King Kemo, the Chicago footwork choreographer who worked with Iman Shumpert on his “Dancing With The Stars” win.

And, at The Chicago Tribune, critic Nina Metz examines prestige TV and film’s fascination with the ultra-wealthy.

Nina Metz @Nina_Metz

You can’t swing a diamond-studded something or other without hitting a prestige project like “Succession” or the Princess Diana biopic “Spencer” or the money-and-glamor crime drama “House of Gucci” or the pursed-lipped royal family spectacle of “The Crown” chicagotribune.com/entertainment/…

In the art world, museums often have a “grab list” of things to take in case of a major emergency, say fire, flood, or terrorist attack. The Economist reports:

A single gallery or museum might contain hundreds of thousands, even millions of objects (the British Museum has “at least” 8m). Grab lists ideally include “ten, 20 items”, says Mr Knatchbull; more in a bigger gallery, perhaps, but not many more. Ten objects from millions, worth billions of pounds, to be rescued in minutes. Think of grab lists as a version of “Supermarket Sweep”, a game show in which contestants fill a shopping trolley in a hurry, but for high culture and far higher stakes.

Design

Everyone’s an (architecture) critic:

But unlike readers of literature, who can choose which authors to pay attention to and which to ignore, which books to buy and which to leave behind, users of architecture rarely get to decide whether or not they will interact with a particular building. For a reader, a piece of criticism is a useful tool. It can help them figure out how to intellectually approach a piece of writing; it can help them think about something after they’ve read it, or put it in conversation with something else; it can, simply, help them decide whether or not to buy a book.
Architecture is, with very few exceptions, not directly “consumed” in this way. Most people don’t approach architecture the way they do a book or a movie, with the explicit intention of consuming it directly. Most people spend time in a building because they’re there to do something else.

Food

Some of my favorite food headlines from the week:

AdAge: Cheetos dust ‘brought to life’ in art exhibit
Bloomberg: For Aging Japan, a Cooker That Makes Chicken Soft as Butter
Eater: The Rise of the Nonalcoholic Bottle Shop
NPR: Canada taps into strategic reserves to deal with massive shortage ... of maple syrup
NPR: Former inmates are cooking up some of Philly's best pizza
The New York Times: Hundreds Line Up as Britain’s First Popeyes Opens
The New York Times: Thanksgiving in a Town Built on Lederhosen and Limitless Meals
USA TODAY: The secret contested history of Buffalo wings — and the Black chef who got left out

Governance

Climate change is increasingly a campaign issue not just on the national level.

A New York bill would make landlords responsible for their tenants’ internet service.

“Ultimately those free-market apartments will see rent increases to cover the costs. It’s human nature — it’s not greed. You have to cover the costs somewhere,” said Jay Martin, the executive director of the Community Housing Improvement Program, which represents operators of more than 400,000 apartments in the city. Martin’s greatest concern, he says, is for owners of rent-stabilized apartments, who would be on the hook to retrofit decades-old buildings with broadband and unable to recoup those costs through rent because increases for those units are set annually by the Rent Guidelines Board. Kallos’s bill, though, would set up city-funded grants to help landlords who can show that installing the infrastructure out of pocket would be a financial strain.

Social Media

Instagram users with more than 10,000 users can now make money from going live.

Songs I Listened to This Week

TV/Films I Watched This Week

Love Life | HBO

Showcasing all the humor and heartbreak that comes with the search for love, this romantic comedy anthology series follows interconnected millennials as they chart unexpected paths towards finding their soulmates. While the first season sees Darby looking for love as her insecurities bubble to the surface, Season 2 finds her acquaintance, Marcus Watkins, forced to rebuild his life after his marriage implodes and hoping to find love that will last. Set against the backdrop of New York City and spanning the course of several years, each installment finds our protagonists learning that every relationship and fling brings them closer to their “person,” even if they don’t know it yet.

Things I Saw This Week