[URBAN NOTE] Ten city links: Laval, Calgary, Vancouver, Cleveland, Machu Picchu, London, Görlitz …

• The Québec city of Laval now has a cemetery where pets can be buried alongside their owners. CBC reports.
• Talk of Alberta separatism has already cost Calgary at least one high-profile non-oil investment, it seems. Global News reports.
• A new piece of public art in Vancouver, a spinning chandelier, has proven to be a lightning rod for controversy. CBC reports.
• Guardian Cities looks at the continuing fight against lead contamination in Cleveland.
• Machu Picchu was built in a high remote corner of the Andes for good reasons, it is being argued. The National Post reports.
• Wired looks at how rivals to Uber are currently fighting for dominance in London, here.
• Guardian Cities shares a cartoon history of the birth of Nairobi, here.
• The east German city of Gorlitz offered interested people one month’s free residence. The Guardian reports.
• JSTOR Daily notes that Hong Kong was born as a city from refugee migrations.
• Is Tokyo, despite tis size and wealth, too detached from Asia to take over from Hong Kong as a regional financial centre? Bloomberg View is not encouraging.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, New York City, London, Ljubljana, Tokyo

• CTV News reports that affordable rentals in Montréal are starting to disappear.
• New York City’s High Line Park has celebrated its 10th anniversary. Has this beautiful park driven gentrification? Global News reports.
• Guardian Cities reports on a recent London exhibition that profiles that city’s buried rivers and streams.
• Guardian Cities looks at how Ljubljana managed to radically reduce its waste.
• Guardian Cities wonders if this year will be the year that the metropolis of Tokyo opens up and internationalizes.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Kingston, Moncton, Detroit, Brussels, Tokyo

• The reopening of the main library in Kingston is the subject of this article over at Global News.
• Moncton will host a CFL game in August, part of the league’s efforts to build up a football-watching audience in the Maritimes generally. Global News reports.
• CityLab reports on the historic Hamtranck stadium in Detroit, a key element of black history.
• Politico Europe reports on the many British immigrants in Brussels, facing an uncertain fate come Brexit.
• Beth Elderkin writes at io9 about all of the cool nerd culture attractions she saw on a recent visit to Tokyo.

[URBAN NOTE] Six city links: Oshawa, Saint John, Manhattan, Surat, Tokyo, Austin

• After GM’s closure in Oshawa, the National Observer wonders if Oshawa can pivot over to perhaps take advantage of opportunities in the green economy.
• Will Saint John, New Brunswick, be able to break out of its long decline and find a new raison d’être? Global News reports.
• Guardian Cities takes a look at the new super-tall luxury towers, homes to the rich, dotting–disfiguring?–the Manhattan skyline.
• Guardian Cities looks at how the Indian city of Surat, endangered by flooding from sea and river, is trying to adapt to its environment.
• Even as the overall population of Japan continues to decline, the population of Tokyo continues to grow through net migration, Mainichi reports.
• The Texas capital of Austin, CityLab reports, is trying to create new institutions and structures to help connect older and younger generations.

[URBAN NOTE] Six city links: Detroit, Oslo, Cox’s Bazar, Ho Chi Minh City, Shenzhen, Tokyo

• CityLab notes a new black-owned food coop in Detroit.
• CityLab notes the cool new designs of a new Oslo subway station.
• Al Jazeera notes the vulnerability of Cox’s Bazar, the Bangladesh city that is the heart of the Rohingya refugee settlements, to climate change.
• Guardian Cities notes how rapid redevelopment is devastating the architectural heritage of Ho Chi Minh City.
• This Culture Trip article looks at how, among other things, copying foreign technology helped make Shenzhen a global tech hub.
• Tokyo is offering subway users free food if they opt to travel on the subway outside of peak times, CityLab notes.

[URBAN NOTE] Five cities links: Hamilton, Québec City, New York City, Edinburgh, Tokyo

• In Hamilton, ACORN is leading protests against housing laws that threaten to drive people onto the streets. CBC reports.
• Québec City is dealing with its labour shortages by recruiting skilled workers from France, for starters. CTV News reports.
• Atlas Obscura notes that there is a barge off of New York City covered in greenery, free for citizens to harvest.
• The Guardian shares news of the renovation of the Calton Hill observatory into a cultural centre.
• Quartz reports that the Japanese government is offering subsidies to people who move away from Tokyo, to try to promote secondary centres.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Windsor, Québec City, Calgary, Tokyo, Tijuana

• Low-lying Windsor, Ontario, faces the prospect of serious flooding that might be alleviated if old features of the natural landscape like trees and wetlands were restored. CBC reports.
• Robert Vandewinkel at Huffington Post Québec makes an argument for a subway system for Québec City.
• Jason Markusoff at MacLean’s, noting the referendum vote in Calgary against hosting the 2026 Olympics, suggests this vote can be best sign as a sign of this city’s maturity and confidence, that Calgary does not need the Olympics to be successful.
• The Diplomat notes how costs for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics have ballooned, despite promises of an affordable Olympics.
• VICE notes the plight of the Central American refugees gathering at Tijuana, unlikely to gain asylum in the United States.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Centauri Dreams writes about the ferocious storms of Titan.
• The Crux reports on the crisis of dark matter: What _is_ it, exactly?
• D-Brief reports on the particular strangeness around nearby neutron star RX J0806.4–4123, an unusually hot star.
• Bruce Dorminey reports on a new search for signs of extraterrestrial civilizations using optical telescopes directed towards the Andromeda Galaxy.
• Far Outliers describes the origins of the feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys.
• A Fistful of Euros considers the future of Angela Merkel in light of the election of Ralph Brinkhaus as joint parliamentary leader of the CDU and CSU in Germany.
• Language Hat reports on an unexpected connection, dynastically and culturally, between the last of Anglo-Saxon England and very early Kiev.
• Language Hat shares a sample of Vietnamese text written without diacritics.
• The NYR Daily shares a first-hand experience of a patient with the famed Mayo Clinic.
• Roads and Kingdoms reports on a meal of zaru soba in Tokyo.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers what the universe looks like when the second generation of stars began to form.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps shares a canonical map of the planet of Gethen, from the Ursula LK. Le Guin classic The Left Hand of Darkness, made by Le Guin herself.
• At Understanding Society, Daniel Little talks about the lessons that he has taken from his study of technological failures, tracing many back to theoretically chartable organizational deficiencies.
• Window on Eurasia notes some late Stalinist deportations of Russians in districts bordering the Baltics, suggesting this may have been connected to the plans of Beria to establish the Baltics as satellite states separate from the USSR.
• Arnold Zwicky links to a collection of papers examining imperfect rhymes.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, London, Moscow, Cape Town, Tokyo and Kawaguchi

• Ici Radio-Canada notes the stiff competition that the port of Montréal is facing from its American competitors.
• JSTOR Daily reports on the solidarities created among diverse groups in London by the effects of the Blitz.
• Window on Eurasia notes the paranoia of some commentators and power figures about the emergence of ethnic neighbourhoods in Moscow, Central Asians featuring particularly.
• Guardian Cities notes that Bo Kaap, a traditionally Muslim Coloured enclave in Cape Town, is facing severe pressure from gentrification.
• The South Chima Morning Post notes the fact of the emergence of a thriving Chinatown in the Tokyo suburb of Kawaguchi, and the controversy that this new neighbourhood has created.

[MUSIC] On the import of the Kirsten Dunst cover of “Turning Japanese”

Dangerous Minds’ Martin Schneider posted a remarkable music video, Kirsten Dunst’s cover of the Vapors’ “Turning Japanese”.

At the “Pop Life: Art in a Material World” exhibition that ran at London’s Tate Modern in 2009, there appeared an unusual video in which a major movie star vamped and pouted in the middle of a busy Tokyo thoroughfare while singing the Vapors’ surprise 1980 hit “Turning Japanese.” (You have probably heard the song on the radio countless times if you don’t also recall its use in comedy classics like Sixteen Candles and Romy & Michelle’s High School Reunion.)

The video showcased Kirsten Dunst, a multi-million-dollar Hollywood star best known for her appearances in the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man franchise. It was directed by McG (Charlie’s Angels, Terminator 4: Salvation) and produced by prolific Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami, whose signature “superflat” style involves heavy use of turbo-sexualized images of women dressed up as little girls and women with exaggerated cleavage. Basically, Murakami’s work is like an overdose on the saccharine and cartoonish side of Japanese sexuality.

True to form, in the video Dunst is wearing a neon blue wig, pink high heels, and revealing blue tights and is toting a parasol worthy of Penelope Pitstop herself. The video was shot in the hectic boulevards of Akihabara, a crowded and pulsating shopping neighborhood in Tokyo where electronics and video games are available.

I actually quite like this, video and song and Murakami’s effort all.