POPPING CULTURE
Todayʼs Special by the Brooklyn-based artist and chef Julia Ziegler-Haynes, illustrates the final meals or “special meals,” requested by 24 death row inmates on the eve of their execution. Her intention in creating this work is to examine the human condition through the contrast of capital punishment and the forgiving gesture of granting one last request.
1] Jackie Lee Willingham | July 24, 2003
Fettuccine Alfredo, a small deep-dish pepperoni pizza, breadsticks and two Peppermint Patties.
Info: Jackie Lee Willingham, 33, was executed by lethal injection on June 24, 2003 in McAlester, Oklahoma for the murder of a 62 year old woman. Willingham spent 8 years on death row.
Vanna Withers, a prostitute, has woken up in another man’s bed once again, after a long night of ‘work’. Wearing only his dress-shirt over her lingerie and mismatching socks, she creeps out of bed and frantically begins to search for her stash of cocaine.
Where is it…? Where is it…? (She fumbles around looking for this necessity, making a bit too much noise. Travelling around the room she ends up on the other side of the bed, looking under a chair). FOR FUCK’S SAKE, WHERE IS IT!?
Soccer (or football as it’s known to most) is the most popular sport in the world. Being exceedingly simple to organise- people, a field, a ball and random objects to create goalposts- and voila: a recipe for an international pastime. Love of soccer binds the world together, where social and class differences are neutralised, culminating in a quadrennial World Cup.
In Europe and South America, professional soccer is by far the most followed sport. Add the high number of clubs in Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Germany and Spain to tournaments that bring them all together – including the FIFA Club World Cup and Champions League – and the near fanatic following is hardly surprising.
Another holiday season has come and gone. New Year’s hangovers are slowly becoming a thing of distant memory. Even the resolutions to transform one’s body into a chiselled Adonis are back to the shelf, waiting to live another fortnight in 2014.
What remains, however, are our memories of 2012, our hopes for spring, and, undoubtedly, some depleted bank accounts. Enter the {money} issue and Theodor Seuss Geisel. Dr. Seuss was no stranger to controversy.
- The Lorax – banned by the California School District for criminalizing the forestation industry;
- The Butter Battle Book – banned (in one small Canadian library…we at the {w} of course wonder if Harper had anything to do with this) due to its references to the arms race;
- Yertle the Turtle – banned by BC’s Prince Rupert School District for being too political.
It's the Money Issue...so our resident contributor, Rodney Ramsey, is taking a look at the a-b-c's of, you guessed it, cash money.
Apple: This company has boldly changed the way we communicate and access information. Unfortunately, their Chinese factories are beset with such appalling conditions that workers attempt suicide on a frequent basis. But if that's the price so the world can have Angry Birds Star Wars edition, I can live with it!
Bhutan is the first country to adopt the 'Gross National Happiness' index. The GNH posits that a society should be measured not simply by its material indicators but by the health, education and overall contentment of its people. Imagine the USA replaced Wall Street with Joke Avenue, a centre where laughs, pranks and satire are traded. This is sure-fire recipe for a society with fewer invasions and more orgies (and where Trump might actually stand a chance of being elected).
Anne Leonard is the entrepreneur of the future. Curiously, she makes her living by reducing the amount of money people spend, and in the midst of a failing economy and a faltering way of life, it seems to be working.
In her fascinating and inspiring video short – The Story of Stuff – Leonard illustrates the ways in which our society is stuck in a ‘live-to-work’ mentality that is neither sustainable nor healthy.
In the immediate post-war era, little attention was given to where the highly successful consumer economy would end up in a few decades’ time. More than any industrial-era generation before, the baby boomers enjoyed a greater disposable income and a greater amount of leisure time to spend it in. To the politicians and corporations, mass public consumption necessarily compelled higher levels of production. The resultant cycle would ensure a high quality of life for everyone involved; life was good and the future bright.
