In The Buzz Cut, we bring you a round-up of all the weird, controversial, and wonderful stories we’ve been reading all week.
After a third metal monolith was spotted in California (the past two in Utah and Romania already having befuddled people worldwide), theories abound about what it could be. Is it aliens? Is it a Daft Punk PR stunt? Whoever’s behind it, it’s really high time to speak up.
*
Kimchi has always squarely been a Korean delight. But when a state tabloid in China suggested China was setting an international standard for kimchi, it understandably set a lot of people off. Conquests, world power, and all aside, did they have to come for kimchi too?
*
The likes of Hugh Grant, Richard Gere, Vince Vaughn — once the lover boy kings of rom-coms — are increasingly embracing the dark side in their characters. Gone are the days of the fluffy pop culture of the ‘90s and ‘00s … it only makes sense they evolve with the darkening of the world.
*
The Covid19 lockdown upended the lives and professions of millions worldwide, especially informal workers who didn’t have any institutions to fall back on. In Pakistan, this included mainly women, called “home workers,” who were carrying out small businesses from their homes. Now, the Pakistani province of Sindh has become the first in South Asia to grant employment rights to these home workers, all because of grassroots organizing on the workers’ part.
*
Motherhood upends, interrupts the careers of many women, after which they find it difficult to get back into the workforce or be taken seriously for their careers. Here, 50 female artists reflect on what it means to be an artist and a mother — a feat somehow especially sinister in the art world.
*
How did a simple writ petition filed in 1995 in the Supreme Court turn into a reckoning of Indian environmental law and policy? Here’s how one man and his love of Nilgiris changed how we look at our forests.
*
An up-close-and-personal look at a family member’s involvement in a far-right militia group in the U.S. shows Trump might soon be out of office, but Trumpism is far from being out of the United States of America. How do you handle widespread, out-in-the-open hate that’s been brewing for four long years, especially glorified by young militias touting guns on the streets?
*
How did architect Balkrishna Doshi — the first Indian to win the revered Pritzker Prize — go from studying under the tutelage of Corbusier to setting a new standard for campuses in the country? Openness and flexibility in architectural design, he believed, could contribute to moldable, transitional spaces that allowed the people within them to adapt the institution to their needs and not the other way around. Enter his legacy: campuses with no doors.
