Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Martel’s documentary about the shooting of Javier Chocobar is a mannered and dignified work, laden with post-colonial tension and the weight of institutions

The great doyenne of Argentine cinema, writer-director Lucrecia Martel (La Ciénaga, The Holy Girl, The Headless Woman), ventures into documentary to cover a murder trial, the issues of which spill out into very Martelian areas of concern: land and terrain as an active force in people’s lives, the tension between Indigenous people and the descendants of colonists, the legacy of weighty institutions (the law, the church) on everyday people.

Like Martel’s fictional features, Landmarks unfolds in stately fashion, and features the sort of editing that lingers on the face of a speaker holding forth, or follows a cleaner polishing furniture and a clerk distributing dainty cups of coffee to the authorities as the arguments drag on. Martel explores the more poetic side of drone technology, giving the viewer a very clear understanding of the lay of the land while also creating oneiric, disorienting sequences in which we see goats and people ambling along mountain paths upside down, creating what looks like abstract landscapes in tonal shades of green. It’s really quite beautiful – if sometimes a touch soporific.

The polarising translator of the Odyssey and the Iliad sets out her philosophy in this fascinating collection

Emily Wilson’s translations of the Odyssey in 2017 and the Iliad in 2023 are now the standard English-language versions, acclaimed for their conciseness and fluency. Her infatuation with Homer began at the age of eight, when her primary school put on a production of the Odyssey, with her in the role of Athena, and the excitement hasn’t worn off. You can question some of the choices she makes in her translations (she questions them herself), but you can’t doubt the months and years she has spent finding the “least bad” compromises.

Her new book is a series of essays on the challenges of translation and the pleasures and insights to be gained from reading the classics. She is fascinated by how far the ancient world intersects with the modern. Aeschylus, Demosthenes, Catullus and Aristophanes are here but so are Spike Lee, Erica Jong, PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves (a last link to the clever servants in Roman comedy) and Boris Johnson (“an incompetent drunkard” who somehow passed as an intellectual “on the basis of his ability to parrot a few garbled lines of Homeric Greek”). Wealthy white men in Silicon Valley get a look-in, too, for embracing Stoicism (not to be confused with stoicism) in “a watered-down form”. Continuities between then and now pile up: war, cruelty and political turmoil. But there are also important contrasts and she scolds those who look back on antiquity as “a mirror in which we always find ourselves”, even when we’re not there.

Forget queuing at the Louvre or the Uffizi. You’ll find a fresh perspective on everything from medieval to modern art in places like Lille, Verona and Zurich

Zurich may be known as a financial centre, but it has a creative side, too. The Kunsthaus Zürich became the biggest art gallery in the country when its David Chipperfield-designed extension opened in 2021. Its collection spans 800 years of art, and includes old masters, Swiss artists such as Giacometti, works by Monet, Cézanne, Picasso, Van Gogh and Warhol, and contemporary artists.

The American photographer was ‘adept at turning any scrap of junk into a lavish puzzle’ as these beguiling images of chain link fences and roadside signs shows

Book containing early versions of the Merlin and Grail legends has remained in private hands for 700 years

In one illustration, painted on vellum and decorated with gold leaf, the sorcerer Merlin is depicted as a powerful shape-shifter who has transformed into a talking stag. In another, the Knights of the Round Table are shown returning, victorious, from battle.

The illustrations appear in one of the earliest manuscripts to tell the tale of King Arthur and the search for the holy grail – a richly illuminated medieval tome which, for more than 700 years, has been in private hands.

Seven years after Lisa Wiese went missing, a police raid on the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light has given her family a glimmer of hope

As he watched the footage of a convoy of police vehicles driving through the security gates of the headquarters of a religious sect, AbdelRahman Hashem felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe now his two children would get answers to what happened to their mother.

The last time the children heard from her was seven years ago. In an email sent from a budget hotel in India, she had written: “Mommy loves and misses them so much, so very much … they are both my best friends and my favorite people in the whole world.” Two days later, she disappeared.

Sanae Takaichi pledged to suspend an 8% levy on food sales, but retailers say their systems aren’t designed for a tax of zero per cent

The Japanese government has pledged to suspend an 8% sales tax on food but says it is being thwarted by an unexpected opponent – uncooperative cash registers.

According to the devices’ manufacturers, the systems at big retail chains that process everything from cash to cardless transactions were never designed to calculate a tax rate of zero and so they require a major overhaul that could take up to a year.

niggyl :) has added a photo to the pool:

Snow day on Pine Forest Moor. Overland Track, Cradle Mountain Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania.

Mount Oakley (1286m) to the left and the Forth River Valley between us.

The small bushes in the centre were burned when a fire (dry lighting) ripped through here in early February, 2025. Parts of the track and a private hut were destroyed along with thousands of hectares of wilderness. Remote fire crews did a fantastic job under the conditions.

Leica Q2 Monochrom, Summilux 28mm f/1.7, 1/1600th sec at f/5.6, ISO 200. Red filter.

Opmerkelijk, gebeurde gisteravond, maar nog steeds geen officiële post van CENTCOM. Wel gaf CENTCOM-woordvoerder Captain Tim Hawkins de volgende persverklaring: "Amerikaanse troepen hebben vandaag zelfverdedigingsaanvallen uitgevoerd in Zuid-Iran om onze troepen te beschermen tegen dreigingen van Iraanse strijdkrachten. Doelwitten waren onder meer raketlanceerinstallaties en Iraanse boten die probeerden mijnen te leggen. CENTCOM blijft onze troepen verdedigen en betracht daarbij terughoudendheid tijdens het geldende staakt-het-vuren." Hawkins sprak hier nog in meervoud over "raketlanceerinstallaties", maar in een nadere toelichting bleek later dat het om een enkelvoudige lanceerinstallatie ging, meer specifiek een luchtafweerinstallatie in Bandar Abbas die Amerikaanse jachtvliegtuigen bedreigde. Ook bleken uiteindelijk slechts twee Iraanse speedboten die zeemijnen legden aangevallen te zijn, en dus geen heel armada of zo.

Kortom, de toch al precaire wapenstilstand lijkt ondanks deze vijandigheden nog steeds intact. Maar waarom legt Iran nieuwe zeemijnen terwijl een deal zo dichtbij is waarin nadrukkelijk staat dat Iran die zeemijnen juist zou gaan ruimen? Afijn, wij gaan weer tankers turven en live.

Goed teken waarvan de betekenis onduidelijk is

Zelfde HIMARS als foto hierboven btw