Indice dei contenuti per Autumn 2018 in Smith Journal

Case in point: sometime last year I received an email from a reader – let’s call him Bob* – asking for advice. Bob was working a dead-end job, the letter explained, and wanted to do something more fulfilling with his time on this planet. Something like making a magazine. Did I have any words of wisdom I could offer about ‘making it’ as a writer? The letter needed a considered response. But with a deadline looming, consideration was in short supply. I closed Bob’s email, promising to return to it once I had my head screwed on properly. And so a week later, fewer bags under my eyes and the latest Smith Journal finally off to the printers, I returned to my inbox ready to write some thoughtful (and hopefully…

ARE YOU CHRONICALLY LOW ON CASH AND UNABLE TO HOLD DOWN A RELATIONSHIP? ACCORDING TO THE CHINESE TRADITION OF FENG SHUI, YOU NEED AN AQUARIUM. The belief that ornamental fish can be a magnet for wealth and companionship traces back to around 600 CE, when carp farmers noticed colourful scales on some of their stock. They encouraged the trait through selective breeding, and a variation of the common goldfish was born. Within a few hundred years, small indoor aquariums had become popular among China’s upper class. Today the sale of ornamental marine life remains a big business throughout China, as Dutch photographer Janus van den Eijnden discovered during a brief visit to Hong Kong in 2013. While exploring the city, he stumbled upon Tung Choi Street, a thoroughfare that has…

I WAS PUBLICLY OUTED AS AN ABBA FAN IN 1979. WE’D JUST HAD A HIT WITH OUR FIRST RECORD, AND WERE SEEN AS THE NEW PUNK ROCK KIDS ON THE BLOCK. THEN I WENT TO A RECORD STORE AND BOUGHT ABBA’S GREATEST HITS VOLUME 2. I was looking at the cover on the train home when someone must have spotted me and phoned NME. It made it into their gossip column. After that people would come up to me at gigs and say, “That wasn’t really you with the ABBA record, was it?” It absolutely was. Those people would be amazed by the number of punk rockers who, like me, took ABBA seriously. For example, the piano part of Elvis Costello’s ‘Oliver’s Army’ is taken from ‘Waterloo’, and the singing…

KEIRA KNIGHTLEY IS HIDING IN THE CLOSET. THROUGH A THIN CRACK IN THE DOOR, SHE CAN JUST MAKE OUT THE TWO ILL-TEMPERED BASTARDS SHE’S HIDING FROM. One looks like the human manifestation of a pile of faeces. The other looks a lot like Gareth from The Office. The Jamaican town of Port Royal has been besieged by pirates, and these two are here for Knightley’s character, Elizabeth Swann. The pirates are not as thick as they look. They yank the closet door open. “Ello poppet,” one snarls. But Swann isn’t thick either. “Parley!” she barks back. “According to the code of the brethren, set down by the pirates Morgan and Bartholomew, you have to take me to your captain.” The pirates, though a little confounded, swear to abide by the…

NONNA AND NONNO’S ‘OFF-LIMITS ROOM’ WAS CATNIP TO A SMALL CHILD. THE TEAL-COLOURED CHAISE LONGUE WAS PERFECT FOR CLIMBING ON; THE GLASSWARE CABINETS WERE LINED WITH PORCELAIN DOLLS; THE SUGAR-COATED ALMONDS IN THE BOMBONIERE BOX WERE A DELIGHT TO BE SHUCKED OF THEIR SHEER FABRIC WRAPPERS. AND THEN THERE WAS THE CHANDELIER. PIA INTERLANDI WAS OBSESSED WITH THE IDEA OF STEALING THE SPARKLY, CENTRAL GEM. On the occasions she was chaperoned in the room by her nonna, Interlandi would flick through the old family photo album of christenings, weddings and funerals. She was fascinated by one image in particular, of her great-grandmother in a coffin, surrounded by her sisters and sisters-in-law, dressed in elaborate southern Italian mourning regalia. That photo planted the seed in Interlandi that death should be a…

THE RISE OF THE ROBOT LAWYER DIDN’T BEGIN IN A COURTROOM. IT BEGAN TWO YEARS AGO, IN A ROOM AT THE FOUR SEASONS IN SEOUL, WHEN TWO MEN SAT ACROSS FROM ONE ANOTHER, STARING AT A BOARD. That was the day an algorithm known as AlphaGo defeated Lee Sedol at a game of Go. And then did it two more times. It’s hard to emphasise how big a deal this actually was. Sedol isn’t just the best Go player in the world – he’s the best player in the history of the world. Artistic, fearless, brutal, an 18-time world champion, he’s better than even the very best players by an order of magnitude. And Go isn’t just a complicated game. It’s a game with more possible board combinations than there…

WHEN TWO PEOPLE HAVE A CONVERSATION, THEY JOIN TOGETHER AS IF THEY WERE TWO PARTS OF A LARGER MECHANISM: WHAT I CALL THE CONVERSATION MACHINE. In this machine, we are not just individuals producing sentences; we’re engaging in a joint activity. You’re committing to pursuing a goal with that other person, so your goal is only a sub-part of our goal. Philosopher Margaret Gilbert offers a different analogy: if you’ve said to someone, “Let’s go for a walk,” and then you start walking a bit faster than the other person and drawing away into the distance, that’s a problem; you’re not living up to your commitment. This happens in conversation, too. If someone asks you a question, you should answer it or explain why you can’t. Obviously, you’re technically free…

WE ARE ALL MEMBERS OF THE CLUB When I came into this world 98 years ago, it was quite different. My family came to the U.S. from Transylvania as paupers and refugees. We lived in a cellar, and my father got a job as a janitor. Of course, there was no such thing as human rights being taught back then. But there was a growing awareness that there were people around the world who were suffering. Finally you had the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted at the United Nations, and there was the beginning of a recognition that we are all members of one small planet, and we should share its resources so that everyone can live in peace and human dignity. Of course the world is still very…

TO CELEBRATE 19 YEARS SINCE THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL, THE GERMAN MAGAZINE BILD FEATURED AN ILLUSTRATION OF TWO PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC LIGHTS ON ITS COVER. It showed the green and red figures with their arms around each other, champagne glasses in hand. The green ‘walk’ man was the emaciated figure found on traffic lights of the former West Germany; the stocky little red ‘don’t walk’ fellow, hat perched on his head, was the Ampelmann traffic light symbol of the German Democratic Republic. That something as mundane as a traffic signal could become a symbol of reunification is a curious sidebar in Cold War history. The story starts soon after the Wall went up in 1961, when an East German ‘traffic psychologist’ named Karl Peglau became concerned about the growing…

DAVID BENSCOTER KNOWS HOW TO FOLLOW A PAPER TRAIL. As an investigator for the FBI and the U.S. Treasury, he kept painstakingly detailed records that helped bring political corruption to light and put bank swindlers and drug dealers behind bars. Now, he employs those very same skills to hunt an altogether different fugitive: lost apple trees. “I basically just fell into it,” the 63-year-old says from his rural home near Spokane, in Washington state. Benscoter retired in 2006 after an illustrious 24-year career. Then, two years later, his elderly neighbour asked for a hand with her apple trees, planted decades before by her grandfather. “That winter, I got to thinking about how I didn’t know the names of any of her trees because they were planted so long ago,” he…

WALTER MURCH HAS ALWAYS BEEN CURIOUS. “I REMEMBER HAVING A DISCUSSION IN NURSERY SCHOOL,” HE SAYS, “AGE FOUR, ABOUT WHY WE CAN’T READ EACH OTHER’S THOUGHTS. MY CLASSMATE JUST LOOKED AT ME WITH THIS QUIZZICAL EXPRESSION AND WALKED AWAY. BUT I BECAME OBSESSED WITH THIS IDEA, WHICH, TO BE HONEST, I’M STILL PERPLEXED ABOUT.” Seventy-four years old and still working as a sound designer and film editor in Hollywood, Murch exudes an energy that comes out in a web of well-phrased asides that often feel like they must have been pre-scripted. From Lamarckian genetics to the architecture of the pyramids, his knowledge of the world is outmatched only by his desire to learn more about it. It’s a passion that has helped make him one of the most influential sound…

CABINET 1. A CUPBOARD WITH DRAWERS OR SHELVES FOR STORING OR DISPLAYING ARTICLES 2. THE COMMITTEE OF SENIOR MINISTERS RESPONSIBLE FOR CONTROLLING GOVERNMENT POLICY In a sweltering shed on Milingimbi Island, off the coast of Arnhem Land in Australia’s Top End, a small but committed group of craftspeople is slowly capturing the imagination of the country’s leading art and design houses. Manapan, an Indigenous-owned social enterprise producing luxury furniture, is bolstering the local island economy and transforming lives. The team is excited by a recent uptick in orders, but remains focused. Since the start of the enterprise in early 2016, they have had their eyes fixed on a bigger mission than simply making some of the best wooden furniture the country has produced. Their goal is a little loftier: to…

“AT A GLANCE THESE SHAPES SEEM SO FOREIGN TO ONE ANOTHER. BUT IN TRUTH THEY ARE SO CONNECTED.” THERE ARE CERTAIN PEOPLE YOU MIGHT EXPECT A WOODCARVER TO LIST AS AN INFLUENCE. An encouraging teacher, perhaps, or a furniture designer whose work they admire. Plato, the Greek philosopher who died over two millennia ago without so much as picking up a handsaw, wouldn’t be at the top of most woodcarvers’ lists. But then, Aleph Geddis isn’t most woodcarvers. Geddis grew up on Orcas Island, north-west of Seattle. From a young age he apprenticed with his stepfather, master woodworker Walter Henderson, doing the fine detailing on realistic plants and animals. But as he began to develop his own practice, it was the father of philosophy who gave him his point of…

 DECADES AFTER THE END OF THE COLD WAR, NORTH KOREA IS THE LAST UNREGENERATE COMMUNIST TYRANNY STILL STANDING. KIM JONG-UN’S CASH-STRAPPED GOVERNMENT IS ON BOARD WITH A BIT OF FREE-MARKETISM – SO LONG AS YOU DON’T CALL IT CAPITALISM. Today the rogue nation is, essentially, a nation-sized equivalent of Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese Army officer stationed on the Filipino island of Lubang, who famously waged World War II until 1974, sticking obdurately at his post, perplexing onlookers with his refusal to get with the program, and enraging his neighbours by taking the odd pot shot. It has become conventional to think of North Korea as belligerent, paranoid and insular. This is perfectly fair enough: North Korea is belligerent, paranoid and insular. But it is not altogether impermeable by the…

WHEN BARBARA ROBERTS MET KENNETH CARSON IN 1961, HE WAS HARDLY BOYFRIEND MATERIAL. HE WAS MADE OF VINYL. Two years earlier, Mattel toy entrepreneur Ruth Handler had successfully launched a doll named Barbie, after her daughter. Now, Barbie’s male companion was named after Handler’s son. “He’s a doll!” sighed the ads. Not quite, yet. Clean-cut and nerdy in red swimming trunks, Ken had stick legs, a skinny concave chest, and withered little T-rex arms that didn’t even bend at the elbow. Like many men, he was losing his hair… because it was made of flocked felt that fell off when wet. But Ken was also a master of reinvention, and followed shifting ideals of masculinity to appeal to each new generation. In 1962 he got a moulded plastic crew cut…

BORN: October 22, 1920, Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A. DIED: May 31, 1996, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. IN 1960, TWO PSYCHOLOGISTS AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY BEGAN AN UNUSUAL STUDY THAT WOULD, IN A ROUNDABOUT WAY, CHANGE THE COURSE OF WESTERN CULTURE. The two academics gave groups of students controlled amounts of LSD and psilocybin – a psychedelic drug found in certain types of mushroom – and carefully monitored their reactions on a host of different criteria. It was a strange program, and after a couple of years university administrators began to have serious doubts about the study. Their main concern? The psychologists were taking LSD too. No-one knew it at the time, but one of the most conservative institutions in America had just triggered the 1960s drug boom. And at the centre of…

“I’VE BEEN AROUND THE WORLD A COUPLE OF TIMES OR MAYBE MORE,” JOHN WILLIAMSON CROONS IN HIS CLASSIC 1974 DITTY. “I’VE SEEN THE SIGHTS, I’VE HAD DELIGHTS ON EVERY FOREIGN SHORE. BUT WHEN MY MATES ALL ASK ME THE PLACE THAT I ADORE, I TELL THEM RIGHT AWAY. GIVE ME A HOME AMONG THE GUM TREES…” Williamson must not have travelled all that widely. If he had, the singer would have found homes among gum trees all around the globe. Despite being as Australian as Vegemite, trees from the Eucalyptus genus grow on every permanently inhabited continent. In Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, gum trees line the streets and provide plentiful timber for the local construction industry. They prosper above the windswept beaches of Portugal’s Algarve coast in a warm…

Tell us about yourself. I’m an evolutionary biology professor by trade, but after family and work I’m pretty much all about bikes. I started collecting headbadges because my wife was definitely not interested in having dozens of old bikes cluttering up the house. Now I have just under 1,500. When did the hobby begin? My first headbadge was a Rocket, from England. I got it the year after I graduated from college, when I was working as a bike mechanic in Seattle. I became fascinated with the diversity of designs and the quality of the craftsmanship of the old badges. But then I started building a career and having a family. It wasn’t until 30 years later when I stumbled across headbadge collecting online that I realised this was something…

THE KING NEVER VISITED AUSTRALIA, BUT SOME OF HIS CARS DID. IN 1968, ELVIS PRESLEY’S 1960 CADILLAC SERIES 75 FLEETWOOD LIMOUSINE SPENT A YEAR ON TOUR IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND, DRAWING CROWDS RUNNING CUMULATIVELY INTO THE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS. The extraordinary number of people who took time out of their day to gawp at the vehicle was not entirely an illustration of the demented ardour of Elvis fans, and not exclusively a reflection of the shortage of entertainment options available to Australians of the period. Presley’s Cadillac was quite a draw, and indeed still is – it’s currently a star exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. The car, which was displayed in shopping centres, showgrounds, hotel receptions, schools and hospitals to raise money for charity,…