We’re adding a new regular feature to the PFC site, a mixed salad of items we’ve mined from various sources, namely our friends and likes and contacts who have pilfered them from their friends and likes and contacts. As if you weren’t sick of Facebook already… But at least here we won’t be showing off our vacation snaps and apparently making everyone else depressed and envious. Not that we care enough about other people’s vacation snaps to let it affect our emotional stability, but apparently this Facebook-posting phenomenon is part of a new syndrome known as “Selfie-Loathing” that Slate has identified as being a leading cause of depression. Or something like that. So that article is ostensibly our first item, except it’s so silly we advise you not to read it.

[heading]Next Stop, Dystopia[/heading]

More exciting than relentless first-world problems that make us want to smack most of America (yet again) is Bong Joon Ho’s new film, “Snowpiercer.” Tilda Swinton with a bad-teeth bridge unleashing a manifestly campy performance is reason enough to go, if we weren’t already so wowed by Bong’s “The Host” that we’d line up for anything he did next. Not to mention that Variety is falling over itself with early praise. There’s no firm release date yet on this sci-fi thriller that also stars Chris Evans, but we’ll keep you posted.

 

[heading]More Fun Than We’d Like to Admit[/heading]

We know, we know. There are better things to do with your day than take online Lumosity tests or check if your Meyers Briggs personality type has finally changed now that you’re training up to be more of an extrovert with karaoke and those tango lessons. However, we did stumble on one rather ingenious test created by Method in Action that measures your competence in kerning and spacing type. Yes, we’re just throwing it in there to be as esoteric as possible. Because we can.

Take the test HERE.

[heading]Hadid Does It Again[/heading]

We’re unabashed fans of Zaha Hadid as well as a few other rock-star architects shaking up the landscape from China to Russia to Italy — unlike rock stars, architects only get fiercer with age. Hadid is making news with two projects, both of them still in the concept stage from what we gather. First up is her design for a museum in the Dolomites of Northern Italy that will showcase… mountains. (Did someone say esoteric?) The sixth building in a series, it burrows right into a peak. Why, it looks like Zaha’s gone all Lord of the Rings. She almost has us speaking Dwarven.

But she’s really scaring us giddy with her amazing design for Naomi Campbell’s house in a forest in Russia. Why Campbell is living in a glass house in the World’s Worst Country is anyone’s guess, and we’re not inclined to speculate as to why because frankly whatever the excuse is it’s not as interesting as the house itself (okay, so we suspect a tax haven, the same reason Depardieu loves himself some vile Vladimir “Voldemort” Putin, too).

[heading]Rick Owens’ Brutal Glamor[/heading]

We’re pretty sure Owens doesn’t mind us calling him a brutalist. At some point we’ll run pictures of his home in Paris decorated with the furniture he’s been designing over the past few years. It’s brutal in the best way possible. In the meantime, check out the kicks he’s been designing for Adidas:

 

[heading]What Arthritis Pain?[/heading]

It was hard to miss this adorable video of grandma bangin’ out some beats on a drum kit in the back of a store, but we’re reposting it for you anyway just because:

 

[heading]Worthy Causes: Child Brides[/heading]

Until CocoRosie comes out with a searing song about the atrocities the vile Voldemort Putin and his cohorts in Russia are perpetuating against Gheys (read Harvey Fierstein’s excellent exhortation of the state of things HERE, comparing them to pre-Holocaust Germany in a relatively non-hysterical way that is unusual for that particular comparison), we’re going to have to settle with their searing song about child brides. It’s a beautiful video, if hard to watch given the subject matter:

 

[heading]Meanwhile, Back in Blighty…[/heading]

Actually, we hate the word “Blighty.” It’s a cheesy term evocative of a bad outbreak of facial acne that Variety loves to use when reporting box office numbers in the UK. The excessive media coverage of the royal baby has pissed off liberals and republicans (steady on… we mean the British type of republican, the kind that wants the monarchy abolished) on both sides of the Atlantic. Frankly, we’re not fussed either way — if you’re making a big deal about people making a big deal over a small deal, then it’s midsummer and you’ve got too much time on your hands and/or you should get a job.

The fact Britain enacted same-sex marriage legislation went with far less comment by the aforementioned group of complainers. However, we celebrate it by posting a final item, entitled ‘The Rainbow Queen’: