The Best Albums of 2016
My favourite albums of the year.
The Best Books of 2016
Some of the best books I read this year including recently published books as well as classics, in a number of categories: best fiction, best science, best book about Claude Lévi-Strauss, best economics and more.
Further Reading
Why Javier Marias hates theatre. Slavoj Zizek doesn't like theatre performances either. How Google used AI to transform Google Translate. An interview with Jürgen Habermas. Freeman Dyson on working with the greatest physicists of the 20th century. Andrew Wiles on doing maths. And more.
Further Reading
Feynman diagrams. The woman who sued McDonald's because the coffee she spilled on herself was too hot. Advice from burglars. Interview with Tom Ford. Did Primo Levi really kill himself? Revenue is up, but audiences are down in New York City’s dance industry. The afterlife of a ballerina. And more.
Holy Motors
"Holy Motors" is one of the best films I’ve seen in recent years and one that demands to be seen again. It is a visual feast and a love letter to cinema.
Highlights from the Spring 2017 Ready-to-Wear Collections
A rather disappointing season as far as I'm concerned, but the spring 2017 RTW collection by Yohji Yamamoto was great.
Further Reading
Adam Curtis’ new film HyperNormalisation. Interview with Sir Andrew Wiles. Ten famous psychology findings that it’s been difficult to replicate. The work of Madeline Gins. Slavoj Žižek on why we shouldn’t pity or romanticize refugees. You probably don’t need dental X-rays every year. And more.
Further Reading
Hyperuniformity. A profile of Alphabet's X research lab. Two introductions to machine learning. An interview with Matthew Gentzkow on the future of media economics. The frontiers of physics appear not to have moved much in recent years. The Mashco Piro, an indigenous tribe from Peru. And more.
Further Reading
LIGO has detected another burst of gravitational waves from merging black holes. A surprising solution to a decades-old combinatorics problem. A new proof is helping connect the mathematics of infinity to the physical world. The world’s most spectacular climbing routes in 360 panoramas. And more.
Helen Scales: Spirals In Time
Read this book, even if you're not interested in seashells: you will be after you've read it.
Musée du Quai Branly Revisited
I didn't like the building when I first visited the museum, back in 2006, and I still don't like it now, but the collection is outstanding.
Musée Picasso
I finally had a chance to visit the Musée Picasso, which reopened in October 2014 after a five-year renovation. I was once again amazed by Picasso's prolific output.