smart & curious
A short list of intriguing things
Unlock your cuisine: Restaurants are revamping their menus to cater to our Covid-inspired obsession with immunity. Say hello to dishes big on antioxidants, vitamins and Ayurvedic gyaan. For instance, blueberry chutney.
Virtual group selfies may soon be a thing. And you can take one even if you’re far away from your friends—at least on an iPhone. Apple has secured a patent for a technology that will allow you to invite your friends for a photo-op—and then will ‘stitch’ all of you together into one image.
A digital treasure house: The National Library of Israel (NLI) in Jerusalem is digitising its collection of 2,500 rare—and beautiful Islamic texts, dating from the 9-20th centuries. Below is a manuscript dating from 1484 of Nur al-Din Jami’s Tuhfat al-Ahrar.
Post-lockdown bartender: Who would you want behind the bar, handling your ice and mixing your drinks? Meet Cabo, the six foot tall mixmeister who is shaking up the bar scene in South Korea.
List of good reads
- How does it feel to be a freelancer—in publishing, no less!—during a pandemic? Here are four illuminating first-person accounts—from an illustrator, a publicist, a typesetter, and an editor—including one of our founding members, Rachna Kalra!
- The Guardian’s Jess Cartner-Morley has been to fashion shows for over 20 years as a critic. She takes a nostalgic look at its wild and creative history—only to conclude that the old-fashioned catwalk is dead.
- The New York Times pays a lovely homage to the langar—always at hand, be it a riot, protest or pandemic.
- In Voice of Fashion, Sanhati Banerjee dissects designer Ayush Kejriwal’s campaign that claims to honour the unpaid work of women—but in fact reiterates age old and tired tropes of gharwali/rakhwali.