Home Innovations: A 54th-Floor Micro Apartment

Kirsten Dirksen Films (April 30, 2023) – When we planned a visit to NYC, our friend Hasier Larrea, who makes “furniture with superpowers” offered us a tiny studio filled with his robotic furniture to see how it could expand to fit our family of 5.

On the 54th floor of a skyscraper overlooking downtown Manhattan, the space starts small, but the moving walls expand into an office pod and a walk-in closet and the bed drops from the ceiling to convert the living room into a bedroom. Setting up for the night in an apartment made for two was an experiment. We had single air mattresses and expanding rooms.

Hasier’s colleague at Ori suggested opening the Pocket Closet and Pocket Office to create bedrooms. The closet was a few inches too small, but the office was just the right size. Our 10-year-old claimed the window seat for his bed, with the best view in the house. Hasier told us to test the furniture. He said it wouldn’t break and would stop when it sensed an obstacle. Our 10-year-old spent a lot of time sitting on the bed while his sisters tried to raise it (it wouldn’t) and getting in and underneath moving parts that left him without a scratch.

All the transforming took a few extra minutes, but being able to tuck away the bed without having to make it was a bonus. The whole experience felt a bit nautical with adapt-as-you-need-it furniture and panoramic views.

Ori Studio Design in Brooklyn, NY: https://www.oriliving.com/

Nature: White-Tailed Deer, Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains Of Tennessee

CBS Sunday Morning (April 30, 2023) – This Sunday morning we visit Cades Cove in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee.

Cades Cove is an area in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that was formerly home to many settlers before the national park was established. It has a long, rich history that is still standing for exploration by visitors today.

The Cades Cove loop is open to visitors from sunrise to sunset daily, with a special vehicle-free Wednesday during the summer to allow for bikers and hikers to enjoy the loop safely. Read on to learn more about Cades Cove, including information on the area’s location, history and landmarks.

Videographer: Scot Miller

Museum Exhibition Tour: ‘Man Saves Comics’ In Ohio

CBS Sunday Morning (April 30, 2023) – Bill Blackbeard was something of a superhero. During his lifetime, he collected and preserved 2.5 million ephemeral artifacts of comic strip art, including newspapers and Sunday color sections dating as far back as 1893.

MAN SAVES COMICS! BILL BLACKBEARD’S TREASURE OF 20TH CENTURY NEWSPAPERS

Treasures from his collection are now featured in a new exhibit, “Man Saves Comics,” at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at Ohio State University. Correspondent Luke Burbank reports.

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – May 8, 2023

Barry Blitt's “Room at the Top” | The New Yorker
Art by Barry Blitt

The New Yorker – May 8, 2023 issue

Can Charles Keep Quiet as King?

Three angles of King Charles III within an illustration by Alma Haser.

As Prince of Wales, Charles was always ready with an opinion. Now, with his coronation at hand, his job is to have none.

“My great problem in life is that I do not really know what my role in life is,” Charles once said, adding, “I must find one.”Photo illustration by Alma Haser for The New Yorker; Source photographs from Getty

Barry Blitt’s “Room at the Top”

The artist discusses being young and adrift in London, and gives King Charles tips for painting with watercolors.

New Yorker covers don’t always reflect current events, but some staged proceedings, both anachronistic and immemorial, can be catnip for cartoonists and commentators alike. King Charles III automatically acceded to the throne when his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, died on September 8, 2022. Charles, the longest-serving heir apparent in Britain’s history, spent seven decades preparing for the role of monarch. He became the next in line to reign over the United Kingdom at three years old, when Elizabeth became queen, in 1952.

Front Page: The New York Times — April 30, 2023

Image

Life in Ukraine’s Trenches: Gearing Up for a Spring Offensive

CREDITDAVID GUTTENFELDER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

With fighting in the eastern Donbas region settling into a bloody stalemate, a patch of the Zaporizhzhia region of southeastern Ukraine could prove to be the war’s next big theater.

How Scalia Law School Became a Key Friend of the Court

CREDITILLUSTRATION BY MEL HAASCH

The school cultivated ties to justices, with generous pay and unusual perks. In turn, it gained prestige, donations and influence.

As Biden Runs Again, Black Voters’ Frustration Bubbles

In interviews, Black voters, organizers and elected officials pointed to what some saw as unkept promises — raising questions about the enthusiasm of Democrats’ most loyal voters.

If You Don’t Use Your Land, These Marxists May Take It

The Landless Workers Movement organizes Brazil’s poor to take land from the rich. It is perhaps the largest — and most polarizing — social movement in Latin America.

Art: ‘Ethel Schwabacher – Woman In Nature’ (NYC)

BERRY CAMPBELL GALLERY (April 30, 2023): An exhibition of Abstract Expressionist Ethel Schwabacher (1903-1984). Schwabacher joins the gallery’s stable of women artists whose ambitious, independent, and insightful art is essential to a complete historical understanding of the ‘downtown’ art scene in the 1950s.

Many of the thirteen works have not been on view since they were shown at one of her five solo exhibitions at Betty Parsons Gallery, including the large-scale center piece to the show entitled,  Prometheus  (1959).  Ethel Schwabacher: Woman in Nature(Paintings from the 1950s)  focuses on Schwabacher’s unique brand of abstraction, which is characterized by both automatic drawing and sweeping brushstrokes that swirl across the surface of the canvas and which explores themes of motherhood, landscape, and creativity.

As part of the resurgence of women artists, Ethel Schwabacher was one of the twelve women artists included in the landmark traveling exhibition Women of Abstract Expressionism organized by the Denver Art Museum in 2016.  Concurrently with the Berry Campbell exhibition, Action! Gesture! Paint! is on view at the Whitechapel Gallery in London featuring 91 international women artists, including a major Ethel Schwabacher painting from the 1950s.

Travel Tour: Primošten In Southern Croatia (4K)

Massimo Nalli (April 29, 2023) – Primošten is situated in southern Croatia, between the cities of Šibenik and Trogir. It is built on a hill and is dominated by the parish church of St. George which was built in 1485 and restored in 1760 close to the local graveyard from which a unique view spreads to the sea and the surroundings.

Antarctica Tour: South Pole & Emperor Penguins

Uploaded April 29, 2023: An epic journey in Antarctica to the South Pole and to view Emperor Penguins with Andrew Macdonald, an award-winning Scottish photographer who spends most of his time in Africa.

Filmed and edited by: Andrew Macdonald for the the Luxury Travel Expert Youtube channel.

Additionally Antarctica travel below:

World Economic Forum: Top Stories- April 29, 2023

World Economic Forum (April 29, 2023) – This week’s top stories of the week include:

0:15 Germany tackles skill gap with on-job training – Jakob Kasperidus joined wind power firm SL Naturenergie 2 years ago despite having no experience in the field. Previously, he managed an organic food shop. Now, he’s training to become a senior project developer as he works. “The first months were not that easy. It has to be said that we actually had quite a nice concept. That is, we had former or senior project developers who have been in the profession for some time now, who were always assigned a tandem junior project developer. That means I’ve had a mentor, if you will, for 2 or 2.5 years now, who then trained me bit by bit, so to speak.”

2:24 New documentary explores endometriosis – This director has endometriosis, along with millions of women. She made a movie about it. Endometriosis is a condition where cells similar to the uterus lining grow outside of the uterus. It causes severe, life-limiting pelvic pain and affects 190 million women of reproductive age globally. That’s 1 in 9 women. Yet many struggle to get their condition recognized and treated.

5:08 Scientists test honey for antibiotic potential – Honey is a traditional remedy for wound-healing due to its antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties. Now, scientists at Cardiff University are going back to this ancient cure to search for the next wave of bacteria-fighting medicine. The honey works as a ‘drug discovery tool’. Researchers test samples of honey for antibacterial compounds, then follow them back, using technology, to the plant species the bees visited. Many of these plants would otherwise be dismissed as weeds.

6: 32 Student designs plastic windows for Ukraine – The plastic windows can be built in just 15 minutes at a cost of €13.60 per square metre. The windows combine 4 layers of polythene sheeting with PVC piping and an ‘insulating noodle’ to create an immediate triple-glazed window which lets in enough light to live by. Millions of Ukrainians are living in bomb-damaged homes in a country where temperatures can drop to -20°C. The plastic windows were designed by Cambridge student Harry Blakiston Houston who took a break from his biotechnology PhD to start an NGO, Insulate Ukraine.

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The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. We believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to make positive change.

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