The Weekender smashes into Friday with high wires, Korea and Barbara Streisand

Date
11 January 2013

Lean back and close your eyes, block out any extraneous noises and focus on being calm. I’m going to take you deep into your subconscious to help you reveal your inner Weekender. As the silence and calm envelops you I want you to imagine the most shameful event in your life, the soiled jeans or public nakedness that still haunts you while you sleep. Grab hold of that event with both hands, hold it aloft and tell it that it doesn’t define you, it can’t own you and it will never bring you down. SNAP! Now open your eyes and think about the stupid thing you’ve just done. What’s wrong with you? This is The Weekender and your wilful introspection isn’t welcome here. Now pick up your damp trousers and join me in the land of frivolity and joy. Shabba!

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Best of Best of the Web

In the last seven days we’ve been spoilt with this wonderful article on the magic of Austin, Texas from Design Observer, talked dancing hard and boozing harder with consummate showman and useless cockney Dick Van Dyke and enjoyed this exceptional review of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained from literary genius Irvine Welsh.

Best of the rest

Creative Review offered up and in-depth look at Bowie’s latest album and website, and then dealt with some tiresomely bitter comments in style, Dezeen showed off these sustainable rubbish sacks from Dutch designers Waarmakers and Dazed and Confused gave us non-stop coverage of Menswear AW13, for which we’re exceptionally grateful.

Tweet of the week

“People really need to get over the whole putting a bloody moustache on EVERYTHING……… "
@anthonyzinonos addresses one of the biggest problems facing illustrators today.

Worst music of the week

It’s a well-known fact that national anthems are amongst some of the worst songs ever written. Their nondescript dirge ruins all sorts of wonderful national pastimes like football matches, concerts and royal events and yet we insist on playing them whenever it seems appropriate to be publicly patriotic. But can you imagine how unimaginably awful it would be to hear every national anthem in the world simultaneously? It’s unthinkable isn’t it. Not any more.

Daredevil of the week

Dean Potter is a man without fear. While we sit at our desks doing our jobs, he’s out climbing impossibly high pieces of landscape and throwing lengths of rope over ravines in order to walk across them for fun. As if that wasn’t enough he’s filmed himself performing these impressive feats in front of the largest full moon you’ve ever seen. How cool is that!

Gross art of the week

Want to know what it would look like if you took out your eyeball and wrapped it in swathes of your own skin? NO! Neither did I, but then Jonathan Payne created these and answered a question that just didn’t need answering.

Unlikely friendship of the week

Kim Jong Un is one of the most feared and powerful men alive today, ruling a country notorious for its close military control and violent political censorship. Jimmy Dushku is a young investor from Austin, Texas and one of Coldplay’s most ardent fans. It’s unthinkable that these two wildly different souls could have anything in common. But love transcends all boundaries people.

Celebrity lookalikes of the week

If you love Barbara Streisand as much as I do, you probably wish there was an easy way to let everyone know just how much you admire this remarkable woman. Like, maybe if there was a lifelike miniature effigy of her that you could keep in a cabinet and stroke every time you felt lonely and needed to feel the soft touch of a celebrity. What’s that, there is? Creepy.

Let’s talk about your mother. You’re probably a disappointment to her….

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About the Author

James Cartwright

James started out as an intern in 2011 and came back in summer of 2012 to work online and latterly as Print Editor, before leaving in May 2015.

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