50 Words 4 Snow

      Sullarniq: Eskimo for snow blown in through a doorway.

↑ "Nocturne in Grey and Gold - Chelsea Snow" James McNeill Whistler (1876)

        Tuaq: Eskimo for lump of old ice frozen into new ice.

↑ "Hunters in the Snow" Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1565)

       Qanipalaat: Eskimo for feathery clumps of falling snow.

↑ "Moscow. Red Square" Boris Kustodiev

      Pukak: Eskimo for snow crust.

↑ "Ipatiev monastery in the winter light" Aleksey Savrasov (1870)

       Nittaalaq: Eskimo for air thick with snow.

↑ "February" Grant Wood (1940)

      Here's a little send-off from Kate Bush — it's my favorite song on 50 Words For Snow:

      For extra credit, check out the title track "50 Words For Snow". (SPOILER: Stephen Frye monotonously recites Inuit snow words for eight minutes. It makes me feel like I'm watching performance art that I reaaaaaaly shouldn't be giggling at but I juuuuust can't help it... You know. But, like, in a good way.)

      Inuit words via Azimuth.

Smoke Bomb

      I would love to experiment with colored smoke bombs but, when you live on an island, using flares and distress signals for art will warrant a visit from the coast guard. Even inland. So, you know. Excitinnnng!

↑ Vita Cagnone for D-Mode Magazine by Antonella Arismendi

↑ Untitled by ▲ Levitsky

↑ Silence/Shapes no. 2 by Filippo Minelli

↑ Silence/Shapes no. 11 by Filippo Minelli

      Roger Moore's James Bond gets desperately creative with a smoke flare in A View To A Kill (1985)

So, like, PRETTY MUCH: During a snowy downhill chase, an orange Commie helicopter blows up Bond's orange stolen Commie snowmobile and he uses the broken ski from the now defunct Commie snowmobile to shred down the glacial mountain doing 'gnar tricks 'n cliff jumps (Tom Sims) while dodging Commie machine gun fire (all while wearing a white parka trimmed with fur and makin' it look, like, so easy) and when he gets to the bottom of the mountain the orange Commie helicopter is still raining bullets down so he grabs for his pack and draws out a distress flare and with a practiced hand shoots is straight into the cabin of the 'copter and the Commie pilots are pissed and they start spinning out of control in a beautiful haze of smoke, blaze orange against the white snow and blue sky, and then they BLOW UP. James Bond then makes his way to a submarine disguised as an iceberg where a beautiful scantily clad babe is waiting for him to make out with her.

Jusko's Fantasy

      MOSTLY NAKED BABES WITH SWORDS! OILY SHIRTLESS BARBARIANS WITH ARROW-WOUNDS! MARTIAN MONSTERS WITH POINTY TEETH! LARA CROFT! These illustrations by artist Joe Jusko are a treat, you know, like a giant spoon full of sugar - or maybe an entire roast chicken that you can eat with your hands?

↑ Lady Death

Björk

      Here she is, the queen of Iceland! Björk Guðmundsdóttir! When the days are so dark and short up here on the island I start eating lots of gjetost and lighting candles all the time.
      Björk's 1992 MTV Cribs house-tour of her Icelandic nest is awesome. She has this enormous and beautifully modern chandelier with blue taper candles in her living-room. As she lights the candles for the camera she chirrps and trills:

"I think this big room definitely needs a center-point, you know? And a light in the middle... I think chandelier is a heart of every home and in the winter its, like, dark - It's dark almost twenty hours a day. It's quite amazing how these candles can - they actually [light] up the whole flat and in a nice kind of way."

       I love how her possessions have been curated.  Everything is special!