There’s plenty happening on this blue and green marble we call home – and we don’t want you to miss a thing.
We can’t be everywhere at once (despite our best efforts), so we’ve called on our cross-continental cousins to help bring you the funniest, coolest and most heart-swelling news from around the world.
Here are some of our favourite recent stories from the Time Out family.
New York
Downtown Manhattan is a little bit brighter these days. Two new light sculptures, dubbed “C/C” and “Talking Heads,” have been installed next to 85 Broad Street, bringing dynamic and colorful art to the area. “C/C,” designed by Singapore-based artist Angela Chong, is a practical piece of art (you can sit on it) and is made of contoured acrylic panels bound by steel. The futuristic artwork casts complex shadows by day and transforms into a colorful LED light show at night. “Talking Heads,” designed by Viktor Vicsek, is two 21-foot-tall sculptures that “communicate” through emotion. The heads emote (making facial expressions) with more than 4,000 LEDs.
Read Shaye Weaver’s story here.
London
While you’ve been sitting around in your pants having an existential crisis, London’s fine illustrators have been… drawing pictures of themselves sat around in their pants having an existential crisis. Yes, many of the talented artists Time Out works with have spent the past year capturing the intricacies of lockdown in bright technicolour and embarrassing detail – and, to be honest, we’re here for it. Nothing is more cathartic than seeing a pandemic habit you thought was weird, disgusting and unique to you, reflected back at you as a widespread trend. And for that we’re very grateful.
Read Bryan Mayes’ story here.
Chicago
In a big city like Chicago, animal shelters have a difficult time finding good homes for dogs who weigh more than 40 pounds. After all, a Bernese Mountain Dog needs more room to roam than a one-bedroom apartment in the South Loop provides. That’s why PAWS Chicago is hosting a weeklong event to shine a spotlight on its larger residents. The Big Love virtual adoption event runs through Sunday, February 14 and is designed to drum up interest in pooches like Jensen, a 48-pound American Blue Heeler, and Berto, a 74-pound hound mix. When you browse PAWS Chicago’s list of eligible adoptees, look out for the pink banner that reads “Big Love” to find the good boys and girls who need some extra help finding a home right now.
Read Morgan Olsen’s story here.
Tokyo
Proving that you really can find anything in Japan’s vending machines, you can now purchase PCR test kits at the press of a button in several locations in Tokyo and Yokohama. The machines sell at-home saliva-based test kits – so no need to worry about having a cotton swab going up your nose – for ¥4,500 (around Dhs158), which come with all the necessary equipment to take a saliva sample and send it off to the Takenoko ENT Clinic for analysis.
Read Youka Nagase’s story here.
Paris
As Paris gears up to host the 2024 Olympic Games, it also plans to give many of its major sights a green new look. The area around the Eiffel Tower, for example, is to be turned into an ‘extraordinary park’ just in time for the games. The Place de la Concorde, Paris’s biggest square and the site of Marie-Antoinette’s execution, will also be planted with new ‘park areas’. And the suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis will soon be home to a new ‘eco-friendly’ Olympic Village, Media City and Olympic aquatic centre. Riverside pools, built for the games and filled with cleaned water from the Seine, will subsequently be given over to public use.
Read Huw Oliver’s story here.
