It’s imperative to begin this links roundup with some some photos of breathtaking bookstores, because this is the internet, on which people write about things that aren’t at all imperative — like looking at photos of breathtaking bookstores — as if they were. Apart from providing listicle opportunities, bookstores (which happen to be “hanging in there” despite the changing technologies behind the act of reading) also contain books, which contain information, likely spanning the history of the entire world. What they might not contain, however, is the otherworldly news of the just-revealed, very very silly name of Andy Serkis’ character in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Said very very silly name in question is: Supreme Leader Snoke.
Speaking of cinematic future-scapes, Tasha Robinson wrote a thorough piece for The Dissolve about how — despite Tomorrowland‘s claim that the future has only recently become the locus of anxiety and cynicism — it was always used to unsettle film audiences. Relatedly, another movie that may make you — only very superficially — think “science” is The Rock’s San Andreas; one very serious seismologist, however, gave its “science” much more than a surface analysis, getting down to the core of all its faults.
While movies can easily (albeit expensively) envision destruction, Naziha Mestaoui is attempting to help slow and fight the inevitably destructive issue of climate change: this year, while Paris hosts the United Nations Climate Change Conference, she’ll be projecting green, digitized forests onto the city’s landmarks. The projections will be linked, through an app, to the heartbeats of people who use it (with a suggested donation of 9 dollars to fund the planting of trees), which will feed the plants in the projection (it basically sounds like a massive, environmentalist Gigapet). Meanwhile, on a much smaller scale, a new exhibit at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, self-explanatorily called Tennessee Williams: The Playwright and the Painter, showcases just that. According to Hyperallergic, the playwright “expressed his loneliness, sexuality, and loathing for Truman Capote” through painting, and, indeed, the images are melancholic and exquisite.