Plastic Soul

Plastic Liberated And Entombed Us

Jeannette Cooperman | Common Reader | 29th December 2021

Considering the cultural trail that plastic, "the quintessential American material", blazed through the last century. "Plastic can be textured — by us. It has no texture of its own. No shape, either. No colour, no density. It is protean, ready to mould to our wishes." Amid today's environmental concerns, it is useful to be reminded just how cool plastic was, and how deeply this influenced society (5,741 words)

‘Hunky Dory’ Turns 50

Rick Quinn | PopMatters | 10th January 2022

Fifty years after its release, David Bowie's glam masterpiece "remains a spectacle of sound and vision". The album can be read as a response to the decade just concluded: the 1960s, with its insistence that all one needed was "three chords and the truth". Glam rock revels in inauthenticity. This piece is, for no clear reason, displayed over two pages, so be sure to click through to part two (3,675 words)

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How to Begin: Start Something That Matters is the tool to make 2022 better. Oliver Burkeman calls it “an intensely practical manual to figure out what to do with your ridiculously finite time on the planet.” Austin Kleon says it’s “a friendly voice and a guiding hand”

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Video: The Bialetti Moka Express | YouTube | James Hoffmann. Exploration of the iconic Italian espresso maker, from its inception to the best way to use it. When Renato Bialetti died, his ashes were interred in a giant coffee pot (12m 39s)

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