C'est intéressant w/c 22 Mar

Interesting, intriguing, exciting, amusing, enraging, fascinating things I recommend.

Video - Public Domain Review: Strange Contests in the Netherlands
Public Domain Review explores all the films, images, texts and more that are free of copyright. It's full of weird stuff. In this post, they look at videos of contests such as a 1933 ostrich race, and the use of typewriters to make art in 1937 (the precusor of those images created from signs like ( 3 ^ and the like on Twitter.

Article - New York Times: Debunking the Myth of the Job-Stealing Immigrant
I am an immigrant myself to the UK, after all. A simple point: "Logically, if immigrants were “stealing” jobs, so would every young person leaving school and entering the job market; countries should become poorer as they get larger. In reality, of course, the opposite happens."


Obituary - The Economist: Natalia Revuelta
A Blanche Dubois figure, a la cubana. Natalia Revuelta was a Havana socialite who fell in love with a young Fidel Castro, and helped him in his attempt at revolution in 1953, then bore his daughter in 1955, only to be ignored when he finally won power. She remained a Communist faithful throughout her life. This is written in quite a grand style, I love it.

Dance: The Show Must Go On (Jerome Bel/Candoco)
19 songs. For each song, one or two lines of lyrics are acted out. It starts with 'Tonight' from West Side Story (the stage is dark), then moves to 'Let the Sunshine In' (the lights slowly go up), then the Beatles' Come Together (the artists enter the stage), then Bowie's 'Let's Dance' (they dance around), then 'I Like to Move It' (they do one movement throughout, repeatedly), then 'Ballerina Girl' (the men leave the stage, the girls pretend to be ballet dancers) etc etc. There was also the Macarena, Into Your Arms, My Heart Will Go On and many more. We laughed, we were moved, we all sang along to The Sound of Silence and Yellow Submarine, and it was fucking beautiful. A colleague I went with said he didn't like it "my niece's pre-school class can do the same". Really? Can they? Do they? It's conceptual, it's simple (too simple, is that what he meant?), it's surprising, I didn't want it to end. It's going to Nottingham and Glasgow and you have to see it if you can!