Links for 9/9/23

The Black Cloud + audio book

Die schwarze Wolke

‘They Will Never Change on Their Own’: Top Oil Giants Have No Serious Plans to Curb Emissions

‘Pulp Fiction’ music consultants open up about the friendship, mixtapes that helped start a soundtrack revolution

Is the Gulf Stream collapsing?

Australian authorities warn locals to stay away from the mysterious metal cylinder on the beach

Fungi stores a third of carbon from fossil fuel emissions and could be essential to reaching net zero, new study reveals

Reparations for climate change? Some think oil companies should pay

Meet the ‘gummy squirrel’ and thousands of other newly discovered deep-sea species – in pictures

Tiki Mugs at Mount Longboards (New Zealand)

Finding the First Americans

Links for 3/8/22

Indigenous Water Governance in the Anthropocene: Non-Conventional Hydrosocial Relations Among the Wayuu of the Guajira Peninsula in Northern Colombia

The internet is tricking our brains

The Voices Of Black Women Were Essential To Phil Spector’s Wall Of Sound

A Celebration of Opening Title Sequences (And Why They Need To Come Back)

Fiji Flashback: Unearthed footage shows Suva in the 1960s | RetroFocus

Teen Dance at Lloyd Goodfellowship Hall [Menominee, MI April 1965]

The Search for the Ultimate Mai Tai: LA Exotica: The Trader Vic’s Experience

What is the value of a wave?

A fascinating look at how climate change affects the lobster industry

Dale Davies Surf Movie surfing 50’s & 60’s VOL 1

Journeys Into The Outside with Jarvis Cocker (ep#1)

Big Tech’s Censors Come for Science

The Popular Sport of Surfboarding (1925)

This City Bench Absorbs More Air Pollution Than A Grove Of Trees

Links for 11/7/21

Kon-Tiki


 

A Brief History Of LA’s Indigenous Tongva People


 

Plastic pollution on course to double by 2030


 

These facts about dunes will blow you away


 

The Death of the Bering Strait Theory


 

The Facebook whistleblower says its algorithms are dangerous. Here’s why.


 

Supreme court, Facebook, Fed: three horsemen of democracy’s apocalypse


 

Halt destruction of nature or risk ‘dead planet’, leading businesses warn


 

Tiki Tatsu-ya Raises the Bar to Islander Heaven


 

‘Shark calling’: locals claim ancient custom threatened by seabed mining


 

WTF Happened In 1971?


 

Temperature change across the planet from 1880 to 2020. The acceleration of global warming in the 21st century is “impressive”


 

Finding, restoring and sharing Australia’s lost surf films


 

55 Bel Air in Honolulu 1967

Links for 5/16/21

Getting Shacked on a Surf Mat


 

4 Tips for Improving Your Noseriding


 

Discourses of Climate Delay


 

Racism 101 Asked And Answered: Mugs, Cocktails And Statues — Is Tiki A Form Of Cultural Appropriation?


 

The Pink Lady was a short-lived painting by Lynne Seemayer on a rock face near Malibu, California in 1966


 

Surfing In The Sixties – Mona Boys


 

Samurais Pop Group (1968)


 

Truckin’ with the crowd – Jeff Belzer at Malibu


 

The Morality of Manipulation


 

Tour Santa Monica’s once-vibrant Black neighborhoods, nearly erased by racism and ‘progress’


 

Video: This Wind-Powered Gigantic Cargo Ship Will Carry 7,000 Cars Across the Atlantic


 

The soundscape of the Anthropocene ocean


 

SOMA Bioworks – Biosporin


 

Cold Water Therapy Trailer


 

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood


 

These Sea Creatures Are Actually Made of Glass

Links for 3/21/21

John Muir in Native America


 

The Anti-Colonial Revolution


 

The Real-Life Gidget Looks Back From 80: “I Lived It All”


 

The History of Female Surfing: a Legacy of Hawaiian Medicine Women, Royalty, Goddesses and More


 

A Tale Of Two Ecosystems: On Bandcamp, Spotify And The Wide-Open Future


 

You Can Now Stay in a Floating Tiki House Off the Florida Keys


 

Sincron 8 Minute De Vis


 

Deluged by floods, America’s ‘oldest city’ struggles to save landmarks from climate crisis


 

This Man Has Spent Quarantine Making Ridiculously Meticulous Miniatures of L.A. Landmarks

Controversial Tiki

I read this stuff about the colonial aspects of polynesian pop with great interest and am on the fence, accepting points of both views. One thought that spontaneously comes to my mind is that Tiki as a religious symbol was replaced with the cross on the islands, decades before people chose it for the design of cocktail mugs. If I abandoned mock south pacific references tomorrow and should I by a twist in the time-room-continuum then end up in the Marquesas wouldn’t I still be an atheist trying to convince them to let go of all religions, which maybe made them easy prey in the first place? Of course I realize that religious symbols are cultural items at the same time, thus relevant to atheists as well.

But what else could be questioned? I would like to make a list of things in the realm of modern Tiki culture and Polynesian pop.

  1. rum based drinks – caribbean origin, colonial slave economies
  2. time of creation mid 20th century – time of imperial militarization of the pacific
  3. floral print fabrics – originated from Japanese print making, marketed to basically white audiences from the go.
  4. island and south east Asian staff – colonial as it gets in western locations
  5. room decorations including tapa cloth and carvings – pacific origins of the design with potential of religious and cultural hurt

In this list item 3 is clearly innocent in my book.

For 1 I think if the rum had to go, shop could be closed down right away. So, how much does the number of tides come and gone since the days of slavery on sugar plantations make a difference?

Item 2 is not valid to me, because as Europeans we don’t make a connection between the pacific islands and WWII until we are made aware of it, which does not happen in our Tiki bars. Meaning to say we explore on our own dime, not the defense budget. So what is a US bar to do? Maybe have no WWII references in favor of Jack London, whalers and .. traders? I mean the theme is not really time based per se, make the best of it!

3 – The aloha shirt is a symbol of labor migration from Asia to the Pacific, not of colonialism.

4 – it has been mentioned elsewhere that this is providing jobs for these people, and this is a horrible way of seeing it, since that argument is normally used for legitimizing atrocities like arms and fossil fuel engine manufacturing, or overseas low wage work.

The room decorations 5 – if done properly and not comically, will help with the escapism. Which, as I understand the discourse right now, is not being considered a bad thing. One could consult indigenous or anthropologist people to make sure the decor is fine for the use in a cocktail bar.

I leave out music. All good music is pulling from places near and far, combining and making new connections. This is why I didn’t realize a problem earlier because I only ever saw and heard the enriching aspects of cultural cross pollination.